Page 68 of Lana

Wake up, she told herself. She’d had nightmares before where she’d been conscious enough to know she was dreaming and she could wake herself up.

But this was different—she felt awake, but she couldn’t be. This couldn’t be real.

A door opened and a soft glow lit up the room.

Zoe realized her eyes were open—they’d been open the entire time. Why did her body feel so weird?

“The nausea will pass,” said a voice coming from beside her. She tried to turn her head to look at him, but it wouldn’t move.

He saved her the hassle when he came to stand beside her, and she immediately wished she couldn’t see.

Jonathan.

It came back to her: the needle in her neck. Her trepidation to enter the house.

Lana.

Jonathan looked down at her. “You look exactly like her,” he said, running one hand through her hair. “I knew you looked familiar the second you walked into my salon. It was like seeing a ghost.”

He swept her hair to one side and clipped it. “Peter likes it like this,” Jonathan said, and she felt a scream roar inside her, but it never left her lips.

“It’s the drug,” Jonathan said, his voice unnaturally calm. “It keeps the girls quiet and still, but you can see and hear everything around you. I’m sorry it had to be you, but he has to finish. He has to finish everything he starts—he can’t stop midway. He promised me when he’s finished, this will stop. That’s why I asked you if people can change.”

Zoe wanted to scream at him, to beg him to let her go, to tell him Peter wouldn’t stop once this was done, that there was nothing to finish. But she couldn’t say a word. When she needed her body most, it was locked in a pharmaceutical prison.

“But you understand, right? You told me you would do anything for family. Well, this is my family,” Jonathan said. He reached out a hand and Zoe wanted to recoil, but she couldn’t move. He turned her head to the side and she internally screamed. She wasn’t alone. Another woman was on the table beside her and Zoe didn’t need to be a doctor to know she was dead. The color of her skin wasn’t right—it was too gray. Too lifeless. She was clothed in a white dress and the images of the crime scene flashed in her mind.

Was this round two?

What hadn’t he finished?

Jonathon looked up and stepped back. Zoe felt his presence before she heard footsteps approaching her. Her head was turned the other way, and although she couldn’t see who it was, she knew it must be Peter.

A cold hand cupped her cheek, turning her head to the other side.

A chill swept up from her toes to her head and she was screaming like a madwoman, but nothing came out. She felt like she was going to have a panic attack, or hyperventilate at the very least, but she had no idea if it was all in her mind or if her body was reacting too.

“Hello, Zoe,” he said in a chilling voice that would haunt her forever. It sounded robotic, inhumane. “You’re going to be part of a masterpiece, just like your sister was. But that cop—he ruined everything. I was so close to finishing, I didn’t even have my eyes set on you.” He leaned in so his lips were inches from her forehead. “He ruined my life’s work, my greatest piece of art. Now I have to start again.”

Zoe couldn’t use her voice, but her eyes begged him to stop. If she’d been able to talk, she might’ve been able to use some de-escalation techniques to buy more time. But she couldn’t say a word.

“I loved her... Lana. I really did. But she tried to abandon me and I couldn’t let that happen. She was just like my mother—she abandoned us too. My mother was my first piece of art. I had no idea how beautiful it would feel... how powerful... to end someone else’s life, to feel them take their last breath. I fantasized about it for so long—too long. I wasted time fantasizing about how it would feel, rather than just feeling it.”

She wanted to scream at him. He was a pediatric oncologist and a serial murderer?

As if he could read her mind, or perhaps she had spoken the words aloud—she had no idea—he replied, and what he said next chilled her to her core. “You wonder, don’t you, why I work all day in hospitals healing sick children? I like the challenge, the science of it. I want to know why some make it and some don’t. I want to understand how God works.”

Zoe’s pulse was whooshing through her ears.

She tried to fight against the restraints again, but she couldn’t tell if her body was moving or not. When Peter’s expression didn’t change, she assumed she was not moving at all.

“It won’t hurt,” Peter said. “That’s why I gave you the cocktail of drugs... and to make sure I don’t have any more escapees. You won’t feel a thing, but I will feel everything,” he said, his lips curling up.

Zoe squeezed her eyes shut, or at least tried to. She didn’t want to look at him; she didn’t want to be his source of power.

God,

I feel like you abandoned me before, but if you’re there, I need you now.

---