Page 33 of Lethal
“Twenty... years ago?” She utters so softly that I almost miss the words. Her hands squeeze into tight fists in her lap, but I can tell it’s done subconsciously. She hasn’t even realized that we’ve freed her yet.Interesting, time to push a little harder.
I flip through more still images of the three of them together, sessions in her office, her in their rooms when it was improper, even a photograph of the three of them together having sex. Every image seems to stab Cecelia further, and her lips tremble, but she doesn’t dare look away. “You see, Cecelia, Bash fell deeply in love with Margaret, so much so that he feared Wren would hurt her, with his constant jealousy, and need to be the only one that Bash cared for.”
“Don’t listen to him, little toy, he’s lying,”Bash urges as he steps closer, but the light flickers, and his form doesn’t seem so opaque anymore. I don’t know what to think, as I tear my eyes away from a furious Bash and Wren, and stare down at the image of a beautiful, dark-haired woman with a stunning smile. Her wardrobe in the image aligns with what Halstead is telling me, and so do the items in the background of the photos. My eyes slide over the pictures of them together. They’re laughing, touching each other, obviously enthralled witheach other. Can any of this be true? Were the twins here twenty years ago, and I’ve made their presence up in my head, and if that’s the case, why can I still see them now, and where does that leave me?
“Broken dolly, you belong to me, I have to still cut you open and see you bleed. Bash, we need to kill him, he’s turning my dolly away from me!”Wren’s angry voice tries to call me back to them, but I can’t tear my eyes away from their faces in the photo, as they have sex with her. The passion in their eyes, the way they held her. The way they’ve held me, or did they?
“What happened to her? To Margaret?” I question, even though I can hear Bash growling in frustration. He never makes a move forward, and he doesn’t attempt to physically stop Halstead in any way, other than with his words, and somewhere deep inside of me, I know why.
“Their infatuation and obsession with her led to her death. Bash began to pull away from Wren, and it caused him to devolve deeper and deeper into his schizophrenia. One of Wren’s strongest voices, the clown, managed to convince him that Bash would get to leave the asylum with Margaret’s help. That she was attempting to steal Bash from him, and Wren would be left behind, to spend the remainder of his days alone in Wellard Asylum.” Halstead pauses, and I tear my eyes away from the photo, to stare at Bash and Wren. Tears slide down Wren’s face, as he frantically slaps his hands over his ears, as if he doesn’t wish to hear what Halstead is saying.
“Is it true, Bash? Did you pull away from Wren?” I question, and an expression filled with regret fills his features.
“It was the first time I had ever felt anything for anyone, other than my brother, but it was different. I... I didn’t want to hurt her, not like the others. I would have never left him behind. We were always two, the Carnevil twins, always a pair. I justneeded him to stop listening to his voices, who were telling him to hurt her.”
“The doctor knocks, the door is red, she’s come to speak to what’s long dead. Guess too slow and you will see, she’s not the one who’ll be set free,”Wren sings loudly behind Bash.
“What are they telling you, Cecelia? Are they denying the truth of my words?” Halstead steps back, and stares at where Wren and Bash are standing, their focus solely on me. I ignore his questions. I’m not interested in helping him with his research. I only want the truth now.
“Did Margaret die inside Wellard’s walls?” A part of me, deep down, knows the answer; it’s there, like a boulder in the pit of my stomach, large, heavy, and weighing me down.
“Please, broken dolly, don’t,”Wren begs, but I stare at Halstead with expectation.
“Wren Norwood managed to corner her in one of the therapy rooms, and lock both of them in. He stabbed her fifteen times, with a piece of sharp metal fashioned as a blade, screaming over and over that she would not take Bash from him. Bash was able to break through the door, but by then, the damage was done, and there was no saving Margaret. She bled out in Bash’s arms while Wren watched, still trapped inside of his mind, but now having reverted to one of his other personalities, that of the young boy.”
“I’m sorry, broken dolly! I never meant to hurt her! I was just so angry, she was going to take Bash from me, she wasn’t like you, she didn’t care about us both,”Wren pleads, as tears slide down his handsome face. Bash looks at him with pity, as if he wishes to console his brother, but can’t bring himself to do so.
“What did you do, Bash?” I scream, my tears coming so quickly that I’m almost blinded by them, and their images morph in and out.
“I grabbed the shiv and stabbed him in the throat, until he stopped asking me for forgiveness. His blood coated my hands, painting them red, and for once in my life, I no longer enjoyed the color. I had no desire to eat. I sat there surrounded by both their dead bodies, and the silence. The only two people I had ever cared about, and I couldn’t go on. Rage filled me at the unfairness of it all. We finally had what we had always wanted, someone who cared about us, and it was all taken away.”
“Did you take your own life, Bash? Did you end it, so that you could be with them forever?” I question, in a mixture of desperation and despair.
“Yes.”
The word is hissed between his clenched teeth, as he takes a step closer to me. I yank my eyes from him, and stare at the photograph Halstead is holding, and I bite down hard on my lip, to halt the wretched sobs that wish to tear out of my throat. There in the photograph is Bash, with Wren’s dead body pressed up against him, and Margaret held tenderly in his lap, like a broken doll. His sightless eyes stare out at nothing, and a piece of metal sticks out of his throat. His blood drips down his upper body and onto Margaret, until all you can see is a river of red between the three of them.
“Theirs was a tragic love story of obsession, desperation, and madness, Cecelia, much like I believe yours with them to be. Your fractured mind has known all along that they are not real, that they could not be here with you, but to cope with your actions of killing Thomas, and then Caterina, you searched for love somewhere, and it would not be denied. You searched for them, and created this world where they cared for you like they had once her. Their love story became yours in your mind, and you became Caterina, so that you wouldn’t have to face the reality of her being dead at your hands.”
Fragments of images rapidly race through my mind. I see all the times Caterina sat with me here in Wellard, as she tried to get me to speak to her, but I was too filled with anger, and the desire to end my life. My images morph backward until I’m seeing my childhood, and all the abuse I suffered at Thomas’ hands. How he raped me over and over as a child, and I felt hopeless, like I could never be free. My mind brings me back to the moment of Caterina catching him hurting me, and her losing her mind, and attacking him. She tried to save me, to protect me from him, but no one took her seriously, not my parents, not law enforcement, and I was trapped in that house, until I started to take matters into my own hands.
“Please, CeCe, I’m so sorry! Please, I’ll never touch you again. I’ll leave, I’ll disappear. Please!” Thomas’s drugged screams fill my ears, as I stab his cock over and over, until it’s nothing but a mess of flesh and blood. I bring the sharp knife up to his ear and cut his earlobe off.
“You should have stopped when I begged. You should have listened when I screamed.” I bring the blade to his nostril and slice, first one, then the other open. “You should have smelled my fear, and known not to hurt me.” The bloody blade slices down his whiskered cheek until it meets his lips, and I start carving them off his face, as he continues his drugged screams, his saliva mixing with his blood, and making the blade slippery in my teenage hands. “You shouldn’t have denied what you did to me. You told everyone lies, until they thought it was all in my head.” I lean my skull against his, and press the blade into his eye. At first there’s resistance, so I push harder, and his screams are finally silent. “You should never have looked at me the way you did, Thomas. It was wrong, I was your baby sister. You were supposed to protect me.”
I watch as a less frail version of myself ties a noose around his dead neck, takes the end of the rope, and climbs a tallladder, humming to herself. I throw it over the garage rafter and climb down, tying the rope to one of Thomas’ heavy gym weights, and then I pull it taut, until it lifts his body on a pulley system. I stack another heavy weight, and then another, until Thomas’ body swings off the ground, and his crimson blood pools underneath him. I sit there for hours just watching his body, until Caterina rushes through the door, and a scream tears from her lips. “OH MY GOD, CECE! What have you done?! Ohmygod, what have you done?!”
My eyes turn toward her, and I stare at her shocked face. I’m sorry for hurting her. I know she’s tried her best to protect me from Thomas. I don’t feel any remorse for what I’ve done, however. I’m finally free; he can’t hurt me anymore.
“Little toy, come back to us, don’t linger there in the dark all alone. Violence is a dance, little toy. A beautiful, elegant ballet, one that’s been performed for centuries. It’s what helps the world continue to turn. Without violence, there can be no peace. Come and dance with us for eternity, Cecelia. We will never abandon you.”
“I can stop the pain you’re feeling in this moment, Cecelia,” Halstead utters, his fingers stroking my cheek. “I can provide you with a final kindness that no one else sought to give you. All you have to do is agree.”
“Ican stop the pain you’re feeling in this moment, Cecelia.” Halstead’s words run through my mind, causing a shiver to race down my spine. Nothing that man does is ever with kindness; he’s an opportunist, with malevolent intentions. I shouldn’t even be tempted to consider his offer. It’s akin to a snake promising not to bite you, if you just put out your hand in front of its mouth, but you know full well that it will. It’s in its nature after all.
“Please, broken dolly, listen to him, just this once,”Wren’s heartbreaking voice calls out to me, and my chest tightens with pain. How can I possibly feel this way about men who never truly existed for me? I know that all of this is sick, that I’m mentally ill, and should just let them go, but I can’t. In them, I found a kindred spirit, and whether they were real, or not, no longer matters.
“How?” I question, preparing myself for the devastation of when Halstead tells me the only way is with my death, so that I can meet the twins in the afterlife. Bash’s form shifts again, coming even closer, until I swear I can reach out and touch him. “I... I can’t live without you, I don’t want to exist if you don’t,” I whisper, my hand shaking as I reach for him, but touch nothing solid.
