Page 23 of Fall

Now I can see I was wrong. They aren’t normal, and they never were.

They’re monsters, with or without the masks.HarrowandRavagedon’t disappear just because their facades do, and it’s taken me too long to realize that.

“And we’ve decided we aren’t killing you,” Val tells me in a voice I think is supposed to reassure me, but most certainly doesn’t. “So unfortunately, that means you have to kill him?—”

“Icannot?—”

“Even if we have to hold your hand the whole time.” His low snarl in my ear is accompanied by his grip tightening on my wrist, and he pulls the knife from my fingers before dragging me toward the tree and the man bound to it.

“N-no, I can’t—” I try to twist away again, but Kieran is there behind me, a mask of cold indifference on his face when I look at him for help. He grabs my other hand when I move to grab Val’s wrist, his pace picking up until they’re both dragging me across the ground. I stumble, and I would’ve fallen if they weren’t holding me up. But they don’t stop until the man is rightin front of us, his eyes wide and defiant. He snarls something at Val from behind the duct tape that I’m sure isn’t friendly. Val kicks out at him, catching the man in the chest and knocking him down. Before he can move, Val lets go of me and walks forward, stomping down on the man’s chest and keeping him there.

“He’s not worth your tears, Noa!” Val calls over a sudden roll of thunder. He finds my gaze, his own burning with a terrifying intensity. “Or your guilt. He’s a monster who hurts people.” As he talks, Kieran yanks me to stand in front of him, then shoves me downward. But I lock my knees, head shaking back and forth as the rush of blood in my ears competes with the crash of thunder and the rain that’s now pouring down on us.

But my refusal doesn’t stop him. Instead, he shoves me to the ground beside the man, and I can’t stop the tears or my desperate sobs. “No!”I scream as Kieran kneels down beside me. “I’m not a killer!” Fighting him is futile. He’s impossibly strong, and committed, so when Val hands him the knife, he doesn’t hesitate to force it into my hand and close my fingers around the hilt.

“Do you want to go home?” Kieran yells over the storm. “Do you want to go home to your cats, to see your friends again, to move on with your life? Or do you want to be stuck here, trapped, with us unwilling to let you leave?!”

“I want to go home!” I wail desperately. “But I don’t want to do this! I don’t know him—he didn’t hurtme?—”

“Yeah, well, beggars can’t be choosers. Look at me.” When I don’t, Kieran grips my chin and jerks my face up so I’m forced to meet his gaze. “He is a bad man, Noa. I can’t give you any more absolution than that. You can look him up—Joe Addison—when you get home, but for now you need to take my word on this. You are doing the world a favor, and I will not let you back out of this.” He pulls me closer to him, his hand clenched tight around mine that’s forced into gripping the knife.

The man, still held down by Val’s weight, lets out every noise a human can make from behind the duct tape, plus a few more I didn’t know were possible. He lifts his hands, fingers splayed, but Val knocks them aside with his sneaker before pushing down on his chest again. “Don’t look to her for help!” he snarls when the man pins me with his gaze. “She doesn’t have a choice and you know you’ve had this coming. It’s called karma, Joe. And yours has been piling up.”

Pleas and whines fall from my lips as quickly as the rain, but the two men are deaf to them. All I can do is watch, my body feeling like it’s not quite my own, as Kieran pulls me up onto my knees beside the man on the ground.

My eyes meet the stranger’s, and I see something like a flash of regret, then overwhelming fear and desperation. He lets out another noise, something softer, and his eyes never leave mine.

That makes it worse.

“Don’t,” I whimper as Kieran lifts our joined hands above the man’s chest. “Please, I can’t—” The downward jolt takes me by surprise, as does the way it feels when the knife sinks deep into the man’s chest.

He cries out behind the duct tape, arching off the ground in pain. Blood wells around the wound, and when Kieran rips our hands free, it sprays up in an arc, hitting my face in a hot, stinging spray. But Kieran isn’t done. Not by a long shot. He forces me to stab him again, this time lower, and the man lets out a pained sound once more, as blood runs freely down his chest and stomach. When we rip the knife free again, blood pools on the man’s gut before flowing off the sides of his abdomen.

I want to vomit. My stomach rolls with nausea, but I’m no longer making any sound. Kieran forces me to stab him once more, but by now the man is mostly still, only shuddering, and the blood is slower to drip from his wounds.

But he never once looks away from me. His eyes remain fixed on mine, wide in the last wisps of light of the approaching night. And I find I can’t tear my gaze away, either. A soft whimper leaves me, and Kieran releases my hand, then pulls me back against him as Val scoops up the knife from where it fell to the ground.

“You’re all right,” Kieran murmurs in my ear. “See, Noa? You’re okay.”

I want to tell him I’m definitely not. That I might never be all right again. But all I can do is stare at the man’s now glazed over eyes and hope the rain conceals the tears streaming down my face as my hands shake and coldness seeps into my bones.

I wonder if I’ll ever be warm again, or if being cold and numb is just my new reality.

12

The rain continues,at least in my head. All I can hear is the pounding of it against my skull as the rest of me continues to stay numb and coldly detached. I barely notice when Kieran and Val guide me back to the cabin and help me change. Their hands are impossibly warm, and everything they say seems to bounce off of my ears instead of actually sinking in.

Before I know it, I’m in another pair of borrowed sweatpants and my hoodie they’d kidnapped me in. Even though it’s dirty and definitely needs to be washed, it’s comforting to curl my hands in the familiar fabric once they’ve settled me into the back of the SUV.

When I blink, they’re both in the car, and Val is turning up the temperature while he laments about heated seats or something. Blinking again seems to cause time to ripple and zip by, because suddenly we’re out of the woods and back in Nashville.

I realize Kieran is looking at me in the mirror, but I don’t have it in me to look away. I feel almost like a doll; a marionette with her strings cut. All I can do is sit here until someone notices and fixes my strings. Until then, I’m still and lifeless.

I’m barely even a person.

Again, I realize they’re talking, but I still can’t decipher what they’re saying. The sound of rain and my heart beating are too loud, too predominant in my ears for me to make out any of their words. And yet, my sense of time is still off, because all too soon we’re pulling into the parking lot of my apartment complex, which looks just as normal as it did when we left it.

I should get out. Iwantto get out and run to my door. To slam it between us and get rid of any connection I have to these men. Even though the blood was cleaned from my face and hands, I swear I can stillfeelit, and I want to scrub at my skin until I’m sure it’s gone.

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