Page 33 of Antihero
The room is dark, the hour late when I come back around. It all comes back to me in a rush, jolting me awake and up. The waveof dizziness that inflicts nearly sends me back down again. My head throbs.
I stumble, bumping into my desk on my way to the door. As I stagger barefoot to the stairs, I can hear the sirens, all two of the police cars belonging to White Rock, blazing out of the station up here.
Somehow, I make it down the stairs with just a few grazes on my toes. The police vehicles blaze past, followed shortly by the ambulance—probably the same one that took me to the hospital after my stint clinging to the side of a cliff. That was the last time Paige successfully murdered someone.
I look in the direction the vehicles are going. Not Kidswal. They seem to be headed to Feston. It’s freezing, tiny snowflakes drifting in the air, biting at my bare skin.
Has she been successful again tonight?
I’m alone on the street but for an old codger headed for the building I just came out of. I recognise him, not least because he’s drunk. One of the asylum residents who’s evidently given up on bettering himself and has now been here so long, he’s basically another local. I think his name is Wilf.
“Where are they going?” I ask him, prompting his bloodshot eyes to look up and find me. He doesn’t so much as blink at my lack of shirt.
"Dunno. ‘parrently some event up in fancy town. A break-in, maybe.”
But I know better. Not just a break-in. A murder.
Chapter nine
Wraith
You’d think the asylum would be in more of an uproar, what with their CEO of over twenty years having been just murdered. That schedules would be out of whack, meals forgotten, staff wandering, lost and guideless.
But lo-and-behold, it turns out the old fart had very little to do with the actual running of this place. He just profited. Like he did back then. Well, fifteen years is long enough for him to enjoy the fruits of our pain. He’s worm food now.
No, the only untoward thing that happens as I show up like usual for work, donning my bleached cleaning uniform in the lockers and feigning shock and horror at the news of NickPastryachi’s death, is the ten-minute vigil we need to hold off on our chores for.
We solemnly stand in the dining hall, looking at the floor. My hands grow humid in my blue rubber gloves as they talk about what an entrepreneur the always-rich man, who found his way through nepotism to the leading position of this grand estate, was. Under his reign, the asylum turned itself and its reputation around. True enough, never mind that the man has never stepped foot in this place, conducting his business instead from the comfort of a room in his holiday-home in Feston when he deigned to steer his yacht to the island. Or that ‘turning the place around’ led to being able to sell rooms to rich addicts and certainly turn theprofitsaround. But sure, let’s all believe it came from the heart. Truly a great guy.
This ‘great’ old guy was also almost embarrassingly easy to kill.
Harry might be delayed for now, but Nick was frequenting the island less and less, staying for tiny periods of time only. Maybe he feared the Wraith. As he should have, considering how things turned out for him.
We’re released from the silent respect, and workers and residents alike amble off to continue their days. I turn around, coming up short.
His gaze pins me, even from several metres and a few bodies away. I pick up my bucket and aim for the door via him. “John,” I say in greeting. “Sleep well?”
To say I’m just slightly nervous about what his reaction will be to me essentially roofying him would be a lie.
“Soundly,” he answers flatly.
I suppress the urge to gulp. There can be no doubt in his mind now that I’m targeting people connected to the old asylum. Probably plenty of people are working that much out about Wraith. But it doesn’t matter. Just Harry and the two others to go now, and I’m done.
“I’ll see you around, John.”
***
The baths are usually only open on weekends, when housewives bring their screaming children to splash around in the pool-sized bath, central to the complex. Certainly not after dark on a Tuesday, when the aged glass walls and roof give an amber-tinted view up to the stars, and out to the rockpools that the back of the building drops off to. The thick iron framing has kept this place standing through the violent storms and furious winds of White Rock for almost as long as the asylum itself has stood. But the baths are mostly disused now, though the waters are as warm as ever, fed from a hot spring underneath, the excess running off under the back wall.
It's possibly my favourite spot on the island. One of the few places I feel my bones thaw from the constant chill that hangs over White Rock, even if they’re frozen again by the time I make the hour-long walk back home in the cold night air. Still, breaking in for a private bath in the dark is worth it. No one is any the wiser.
Tonight, feeling that the dark will hold too many shadows and ghosts, I’ve risked switching on the two iron lights that dangle on long cables from the high atrium ceiling. Normally, the place would be lit up, visible from afar. But the weather rages outside, spitting and thrashing at the glass, so I trust no one is curious enough to come closer. I’m wearing a one-piece bathing suit, though I’m considering taking even that off as I lean forward on the edge of the wide pool, cheek pressed into my crossed arms, listening to the muted sounds of the weather.
Only three more to go. The last one went smoothly, without interference or setback. Thanks to drugging Tristan, that is. Since I doubt he’ll fall for that again, I’ll have to work out how toget around him for the last ones. For now, I open my eyes, idly watching the spray of waves crashing upwards from the rocks out the back bay window, my whole body comfortably warm in the water that smells mildly of sulfur.
That’s when the lights cut out.
For a moment, I don’t move, waiting to see if it’s a mere short-circuit, and they’ll come back on themselves.
