Page 13 of Heart of a Killer

“So, what brings you up here, fuck boy, if not for you to jump and end it all?” She turns to me.

Putting a thin white cigarette to her lips, she inhales, making the tip burn a bright orange.

“You have a fucking morbid sense of humor, you know.”

She blows out the smoke right into my face. It makes me cough, but the smell is enticing.

She scoffs, “What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

I sit on the ledge beside her. The rush of adrenaline spikes as I look out over the city lights. We’re up pretty high; I can see city bridge from here. The sounds of the city wash over me with horns blaring and the random gunshots ringing in the air. There’s nothing like this city. I may not have my memories, but some things are burned into my brain, like riding a bike. The basics never left. Sitting there swinging my feet over the ledge, I try to imagine my life before and if I might fit into this life below. Regardless, being out here feels good. It feels free, clearing my mind from the suffocating blankness that fills it. Adding in new memories, and I’m as close to free as I can get.

“Feels good, doesn’t it? Being free of our cages.”

Brie is changing the subject again, and I know why. Inhaling the cool, polluted air, I can’t deny that she is right, though. Our cages are our rooms, and they feel claustrophobic at times.

“Yeah, it does. I’m glad to not be the only one who feels trapped here.”

The ledge is big enough to lean back on but not enough to lie down completely, so I take the opportunity to rest on my elbows and look up into the night sky. The city’s lights illuminate it, and only the fat yellow moon shows above.

“Nope. I’m sure there are more who feel the same but haven’t found a way to escape. Wanna smoke?” She holds out the pack.

“Yeah, sure. How come I never knew you smoked, and how did you get these in here anyways?”

“The therapist,” she says with a wicked smile. “I convinced him I needed them to curb my other addictions. We can’t call out, so Dr. Benjamin sends letters to my nanny to get them for me. We are allowed to smoke during garden hours, but I need them more at nighttime.”

It seems plausible. She passes them over, and I take one out. She holds out the lighter and lights it as I put it between my lips. We are close. So close, I can see the golden brown rimming her pupils that bleeds into a darker brown. Sweet, smoky lavender fills my nostrils, and then I smell burning. The flame is still burning, the tip turning black. Gripping her wrist, holding the lighter, I remove the cigarette from my lips and blow out the flame. Brie blinks, as if being released from a trance. The cigarette is over lit. When I raise my lips and pull in more smoke, it has a burnt taste.

“Sorry about that. I’m not sure what came over me.”

“It’s ok. It often happens when people stare at my scar and fucked-up eye.”

“It wasn’t that. Sorry, it’s hard to explain. I’m being weird.”

I nod. A sense of déjà vu takes over, as if tiny fingers rake my brain, and a heavy sensation comes over my limbs.

The computer lights up,and I enter the IP address of the residence of my birth father. I’ve searched for him for weeks since I learned how to hack into computer cameras. New Apple computers are harder to hack with all their complex firewalls, but the older computers are a piece of cake.

Taking a drag of my clove cigarette, I put in the address and wait for the loading bar to fill, showing that I’ve made a connection. The smell of incense from my cigarette fills the air. Sitting on the edge of my chair with my elbows resting on the desk, I dig my teeth into my knuckles. I’m anxious to see him again. I don’t have words for what I’m feeling. Excitement, despair, a mixture of both, I’m not sure. There’s a storm swirling inside me, and nausea is crawling up my esophagus. A smell of something burning fills the room, and I look down at the cigarette I had in my hand and notice I’ve burnt a hole in the papers on my desk. The ding of the computer letting me know that the loading screen is complete makes me forget about the burned pages.

The access window pops up, and I have a fishbowl view of his living room. But what I see isn’t what I expected. A little girl with mousy brown shoulder-length hair is sitting at a coffee table with papers and books scattered around her. She is heavily invested in whatever she is working on, and her hand writes furiously over the pages. My confusion makes it hard to look away.

I’m in the wrong living room, and the address I found is incorrect. It has to be. But I’m at a dead-end in my search for my father, so I watch her. Some time passes, and I’m left wondering what is going on in her head. What has her writing as if this is the last time she will ever write again? But it’s getting late, and I’ve lost track of time. The clock on the corner of the screen reads six P.M. It’s about time for me to go feed my mother. I move to power down the computer when there’s a loud bang from the computer speakers, and I immediately look back at the screen. A man is yelling at the little girl, and my chest tightens for her. The sudden urge to jump into that living room and save her is overwhelming, but then the man turns around.

My mouth falls open at the sight before me. The man is ... is my father, and he has a daughter? Does this mean he has a whole other family?

“Ha, you weren’t good enough for him, it seems. He had to replace you with a whole new family.”

Josh laughs as he leans over my shoulder to look at the screen. His gloating has fire boiling in my veins and ready to erupt like a volcano from my eyes. The feeling of throwing things is overpowering, and I knock everything off the desk to the floor. I leave the computer monitor last as I push it off with both hands, hoping it will shatter to pieces and relieve the burning fury in my chest.

“That’s it. Get angry. It feels good, doesn’t it?”

Josh is egging my outburst on, and I yell with all the pent-up aggression I’ve kept bottled deep inside. Screaming. The anguish is eating me up inside, and a furious blaze courses through my veins. Despair weighs heavy in my soul, and I continue until screams catch in my throat. Balling my hands into fists, I beat into the floor as I taste the salt on my lips. Tears wet my cheeks as I chant in a hoarse whisper for it all to, “Stop, Stop, Stop.”

“Stop, Stop, Stop! Please.”

Blinking, I clear my vision of the memory. I’m in a daze, but screaming draws me back to reality. Looking down, I see my hand around the back of Brie’s neck. She’s folded over and I’m pushing her head between her knees. She grips the ledge while the muscles in her arms strain to hold on. The color has drained from her fingertips. She’s holding on for her life as I force her gaze down to the city streets. She hasn’t started to cry, but her expression is crumpled in panic.

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