Page 3 of Antihero
I let myself see her once before I left Tregam. I waited, unseen on the edges of a memorial, one I knew she'd come to on this particular day of the year. Not for Caleb anymore, but for the women of the force who became his victims.
Eleanor had looked happy; hand in hand with her husband, resting her head on his shoulder throughout the long ceremony. I have only goodwill towards her, and even Dirk. I'd not lied to her about that. I blame them for nothing. Cassandra's fate may as well have been written in stone. She was going to meet it,one way or another. Someone had to stop her. And maybe that someone was always going to be me. Much as I tried, and failed, to avoid it.
My arms are starting to rise with goosebumps.
The misty rain is turning to sleet, the wet combined with cold quickly sapping any warmth the run had built up. I grab a newspaper from the stand—there are none delivered to the asylum—roll it up and shove it into my waistband. It'll be damp by the time I get back, but I don't care. I might not even read it anyway.
I consider continuing on to the far eastern end of the island, where the black ruin of what used to be an orphanage—long since burned down—lingers. But the rain sweeps down heavier in that moment, warning me off.
I jog back up the difficult way, taking the rocky stairs. By the time I reach the gatehouse to the asylum, I'm panting, feeling more awake than when I left an hour ago. This pervading dullness that’s been with me since I pulled that trigger stays with me always, but at least I'm not feeling the lack of sleep right at this moment.
Taking the long way back to the ward—through the bailey courtyard, and over the open battlements—I tug the newspaper out of my waistband, and let it unfurl.
The front page is a picture of the new mayor Tregam, and therefore of White Rock. He's a young man I recognise. The sight of the dark-skinned man with curly hair almost makes me chuckle. Apparently, even raiding the police precinct doesn't bar one from being elected in Tregam. It might even help. I flick through the crumpled pages as I walk until one article stops me.
Why wasn'tthison the front page instead of Tregam's new mayor swearing to clean the streets? They all swear that.
Another Dead,the headline declares.
Has the Wraith of White Rock struck again?
The picture is of a woman. Old, in that neat way of professional grandmothers, if the small thumbnail of her face is anything to go by. She was found strangled—garrotted—behind a shop in Feston; the small rich neighbourhood up on the northern, higher side of the island. Feston is only two perpendicular streets of clustered boutiques and three overpriced cafes, since few rich types choose White Rock.
The article goes into the murdered woman's achievements; her children, who are now in politics, how she herself was freshly retired after a career as a matron, and her thirty years on the island council.
Then, the interesting part.
The other deaths attributed to thisWraith.
Three so far. The other two were men—both around sixty—found in their homes. Authorities conjecture the killer might be someone who had been a resident at the asylum in the past. Escaped, maybe, and maddened, hunting anyone vulnerable.
I've stopped walking, the wind tugging at the paper and making me shiver. I realise I've read the entire article—like some kind of addict stumbling upon a hit. I crumple the paper into my fists.
No
Tossing it in the bin, I hug my arms across my now cold body, and make for the sanctuary of inside.
***
I try not to spend much time in my room. I prefer to be out on the moors, or walking one of the island’s many rocky paths. You can cross all the way to the east edge in a matter of hours, or traipse off the thin tarmac road that circles the island and take most of a day to cut over the mountains and ridges instead.
But today, the rain has set in heavily enough to deter even me from leaving. My quarters are simple; a single bed against the far wall, a grey jute rug underneath it, and a small desk beside the door. A potted plant on the other side of the doorframe gets its only light from the small, locked window beside my bed. This room is identical to the other thirty on this side of the castle. The ceiling is low. Low enough for me to have stood on the bed when I first arrived, and fixed a bar between two metal supports that cross the ceiling.
The building closed up against the sleet, and the old heating system retrofitted to this building runs sometimes too cold, and sometimes—like today—too hot. In the resulting mugginess, I've taken my shirt off to do chin-ups with my back half-turned to the entrance. I don't hear the door.
"Oh!"
I drop to my feet on the cement floor and turn to face the now-open door, and the woman who made that noise.
“Sorry!” She gasps out, caught between staring fixedly at the floor, and backing out of the room completely. I look at her for a beat before I recall that I'm still shirtless. I grab a singlet off the bed and pull it on.
I haven’t thought about sex in a long time. Thinking about it would lead to wanting it. The desire to have a woman beneath me, all heavy breaths and gasps. Which is impossible, because I don't like to fuck strangers, so they'd need to know me, and they can't know me.
But here, now, it could be the noise this woman made, or it could be the slight blush that pinks her cheeks as she decides whether to leave immediately. It’s certainlynotwhat she’s wearing- the over-bleached shapeless shirt, the canvas pants, and the cream rubber gumboots of the cleaning crew. She's got a bucket in her blue-gloved hands. “I didn’t realise anyone was in," she’s stammering. "I’ll come back later…”
“No.” I shrug to let my shirt fall more comfortably and grab my worn paperback as I walk towards the door. “I should go have lunch in the dining hall anyway.”
Maybe it’s the scent of her while I briefly look down on the top of her head as I pass, like citrus soap. I like shorter women, too. Whatever the reason is, suddenly I feel a familiar tugging low in my belly, something like excitement, and my gaze lingers too long.
