Page 33 of Fall From Grace
“No,” Sloane tells her what I cannot, “you’re not stupid. Your ex is. It’s going to be okay. Maybe you just need a little more time.”
“Thanks,” she tells her roommate. “I think I’m just going to bed. Night.”
“Night.”
With that, Wren shuts her bedroom door, flicks off the lights, and walks around the bed. The box spring sways as she crawls onto it, but it doesn’t sink down on me, thankfully. The darkness of her room lights up thanks to what I assume is her phone as she probably doomscrolls social media.
But, no. She’s not doomscrolling, because after a while, I hear it: a video. The volume is low, but it’s enough for me to listen.
Singing. Singing an old song, maybe from the nineties: “I thought I saw a man—” A girl’s voice, not the original singer’s, along with an acoustic guitar, and it snaps into place for me, just like that: the voice is Wren’s. Soft, haunting, but beautiful.
I want her to turn the volume up so I could hear it better, but I know she’s keeping it quiet enough that the others in the room next to hers wouldn’t be able to hear. Faint as it is from where I am, it’s a voice I want to hear more of, a siren’s voice, and I am suddenly nothing but a sailor unable to steer my ship away from the jagged rocks she calls home.
Wren doesn’t let the song finish. She must shut off the screen to her phone, because it goes silent the same time the room becomes dark once again. I assume she rolls onto her side and sets her phone on the small nightstand nearby. She sniffs, and I wonder if she’s crying.
It’s not a pleasant thought, strange as it is. I don’t like the idea of Wren laying alone in bed, crying. I want to crawl out from where I am and comfort her, but I’m not stupid. If I reveal myself she’ll freak out—as any sane person would.
This ex of hers… he really fucked up, but where he fucked up, I wouldn’t.
Time crawls by, and I lay there with my eyes open, waiting, patient. When you’re a hunter, you must be patient. Only strike when the time is right. I wait until I think she’s fallen asleep, and then I wait more just for good measure, and I wait even more after that. By the time I crawl out from underneath her bed, I have no idea how long I was under there, but it doesn’t matter.
Wren is asleep, her head turned in toward the wall, away from me. She lays on her back, the sheets a mess around her as her chest rises and falls with slow, even breaths. Fast asleep, the sorrow of being awake no longer haunts her, and she is the epitome of peace.
Only a few feet away. So close, I could touch her. My hands think about it, but I resist the urge. I don’t know how heavy of a sleeper she is, if I would wake her—and I unfortunately don’t know her well enough yet to know how she’d react to a stranger in her room at night. If she’s like most everyone else, she’d scream.
And that’s understandable. Most people’s thoughts would go to either murder or rape, or a combination of the two.
I’m no stranger to the illegal side of things, obviously, but I’m not an animal in the sense of a common murderer. No. There is a difference between the cooks at a fast food joint and the chefsat a five-star Michelin restaurant. They are simply not the same. One might know how to adequately cook a burger and fries, but the latter truly understands the chemistry of creating a meal that will tantalize every taste bud. The latter knows how to switch out ingredients, play around, and make something truly unique and special.
No, killers are every day. Killers are average, so common most don’t even make the news anymore. I am so much more than that, my family is so much more than that.
I don’t know exactly what I want to do with this girl just yet, whether she’ll become my first true hunt in over two years, or if I want something more from her. Craving the touch of another, a relationship, sex—I’m not a stranger to it, but I’ve never really been fully immersed when I did have them. I’ve dated in the past to try it out, to look normal, to play the part society wants me to play. I think my longest relationship was a whopping four months. Not long, in the grand scheme of things.
So, because there’s nothing else I can do here tonight, I turn away from Wren. I head toward her door and slip into the hall without making a sound. I wait a moment to be sure there is no movement in the house, and when I hear not a single thing, I turn toward the stairs. Soon enough I’m exiting the house through the back door—had to avoid the front entirely thanks to the doorbell camera, and thankfully the neighbors didn’t have anything pointed in this direction.
Tonight did not go as planned, but still, I accomplished my goals. I’ll be able to listen, to watch, to get to know Wren better, much more than I would if I simply relied on our class time together.
Some men might not look twice at a girl who’s as broken and depressed as Wren, but those men would miss out. I’ve found that you can only really get to know someone’s inner workings when they think they’ve lost it all, when they believe they havenothing to lose. When nothing is perfect in their life, their true self comes out.
I wonder… does Wren’s true self have a penchant for the darkness, or will she refuse to play my game once I lay the board before her? Time will tell.
Chapter Sixteen – Wren
A week goes by. Logan thankfully isn’t super annoying in psych class, and things start to get to a new normal. I’m still not used to the way things are, but I’m getting there. I don’t cry as much. It was hard after the party, after seeing Mike. I don’t know why I watched part of one of our videos; it only made my heart ache in that familiar way, and I couldn’t finish it.
Honestly? I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to watch those videos again. Or sing. It’s a shame, and it makes everything feel surreal. For me, not singing is like not breathing; it’s impossible to go without and continue to survive.
I miss it. I miss that feeling I used to get, like I was someone else, someone better, cooler. I wasn’t just dorky Wren. When I sang, I was more. It’s a weird thing to try to explain. I tried once, to my parents, and they never understood, but they supported me and Mike’s hobby, provided I went to college and tried to get a real job afterward.
Because, you know, singing isn’t a real job.
It totally is for some people, for the ones who manage to make it big, but they have luck on their side, or connections. I’ll never be one of them, and I know it, so even though things like that hurt to hear from my parents, I never argued with them.
Singing is a useless skill to have in the real world, unfortunately. A good voice can’t carry you far at all.
Friday rolls around, and just like that it’s time for another psych class, which means more Logan. Ugh. This past week, I’ve tried really hard not to talk to him too much, not to pay too much attention to him; I started to watch Professor Scott even harder. The guy was attractive, so it was easy to do—plus sitting in the front row, there really isn’t anything else to focus on during class besides the professor.
Still, when Logan sits next to me, Professor Scott isn’t around yet, so as much as it sucks and I want to avoid him, I’m forced to listen to him talk.
