Chapter 22: Mr. X: Chapter 21

“Forget the past. Only the future can be altered.” – Notes of X

Jay

Saturday, September 14, 2013. 10:32 a.m.th

Losing your soul comes at a price. A hefty price. Sanity.

Two shovels, one hole. A body on the bottom.

The clouds have gathered, raindrops falling down by the bucket. We’re soaked and cold, but we keep going. Shoveling up the dirt, I try not to look her in the eyes as I throw it on her. X is on the left while I’m on the right, working our asses off to bury this body. My heels sink into the dirt and my dress is smudged. I feel like a criminal. No, I know I am. This is so fucking wrong, I can’t even begin to describe it, but what else am I supposed to do? X handed me the shovel and told me to help him. I can’t say no anymore. I lost that word long ago, when I tried fighting him. It’s no use. He wants me, and X always gets what he wants. No matter what I do, he wins. He’s spinning me around his finger now, winding me up like a doll that speaks, talks and walks as he commands. The worst part is that I don’t care anymore. I’ve stopped caring. It’s not going to get any better if I care. There’s nobody that needs me around, or searches for me, or wonders where I’ve gone. Only him. He is the only one who truly needs me … who cares about me in his own wicked way.

Sometimes I think I’m starting to need him as much as he needs me.

But it’s strange. Being around him has made me realize the world is much more complicated than I thought. That I’m more complicated than I thought. I’m doing things I never imagined I would. I’m helping him hide a dead body, for fuck’s sake. It can’t get any more fucked up than that.

I wonder why he goes through all this trouble just to catch the one behind everything. If it’s really all about me having a target on my head. He wants them to feel misery and pain. Humiliating him is his goal, especially now with that hooker. There has to be more to it. He wouldn’t just do that for me.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask in between shoveling up the dirt.

Frowning, he briefly looks up from under his brows, a grizzly look in his eye. Then he sighs loudly and continues.

“Whose life do you want to ruin?” I ask again.

He slams the shovel into the ground and wipes his hands. “Someone who destroyed not only your life, but mine too.” He picks up the shovel again and slams down the sand on top of the grave. “And now I’m going to do the same to them.”

Destroyed his life? Is he talking about after he found me? Or does he mean before that?

One look at him is all it takes to know what this is about. He’s hiding his face from me again.

“Is this about your scar?” I ask with a soft voice, trying not to enrage him.

He throws the shovel away and stands there, panting. “That too.”

I lick my lips, mulling over the words I’m going to say next. “What did they do to you?”

His eye drifts toward the ground as he stamps the grave with his feet. “You don’t want to know.”

“I do,” I say, standing my ground.

He looks at me, a brief moment of silence passing between us. “You? You want to know about me?” he scoffs.

“Is that so odd, that I want to know who my captor really is? What he’s been through? The least it will give me is the knowledge that I’m not the only one hurting here.”

“Yeah, I reckon you want to use it against me. Because knowledge is power.”

I swallow away the nerves building in my throat and stomach. God, why is he always one step ahead of me? I purse my lips. “Fine. If you don’t want to tell me, then don’t.” I pat down the grave with my shovel while X throws on leaves.

It’s quiet for a while until he opens his mouth again. “All right. I’ve decided I will tell you. After all, a pet like you should feel the need to please me. It might come easier to you when you know.”

“Know what?”

“That I sacrificed everything for you.”

***

X

Tuesday, December 9, 2008th

Sweat drops roll down my face as I face what no man should ever have to face.

“You know why we have to do this,” my mother says.

I twist and turn in the wooden chair, trying to free myself. The ropes are cutting into my flesh, but I don’t care. Just the sight of that thing makes me want to stand up and run, no matter that I’m tied down. “Please, Mother, isn’t there another way?” I ask. I never use the word please. Now I’ll gladly use it.

“No,” my father growls. “We told you what would happen if you defied our orders.”

Darkness surrounds me, nestling in my heart. The room is lit only by the crackling fire right in front of me. My eyes dart back to my mother and what she’s doing. A chill runs down my spine as I watch her play with the fire like it’s all fun and games to her. The fun ended a long time ago.

I swallow. “I don’t deserve that. Not for what I did.”

“That is exactly why you deserve it!” my father yells. “Don’t you see?” He grabs my chin and forces me to look at him. The shame and humiliation I feel are reflected in his eyes. I realize this is really going to happen.

The urge to flee takes over.

I get up, chair and all, and try to make a run for it, but my father captures me and puts me down again.

“No! You can’t do this!” I scream.

He holds me down, grasping my arms and keeping my feet together with his shoes. The stern look on his face is unlike any other I’ve ever seen.

“You knew the risks. I told you what would happen if you continued.”

“It wasn’t me!” I yell. “I’m not the one who started it all.”

My father goes to his knees in front of me, his eyes narrowing. I see my mother poking the fire, the sight making me sick to my stomach.

“You couldn’t stop using those eyes of yours for all the wrong reasons.”

“Who cares? You’re a monster! You’re all monsters!” I scream. “How can you do this? Are you crazy?”

I ask the question, but I already know the answer. I knew it since I was born into this fucked-up world. My family never was, and never will be, normal. Vermin. Scum of the earth. Shadowy protectors of the vile and killers of the innocent. We are everywhere and nowhere. We are nobodies. Our lives don’t matter.

My life doesn’t matter. Not even to them.

“Stop. This is what’s happening. End of story. You had a choice and you wasted it,” my father says.

“Choice? My ass! There is no choice between dying and that!” I grind my teeth.

My father smiles. It’s disgusting. “There is always a choice.”

He gets up again and takes a few steps back. My mother turns her head and raises the fire iron. The red glow sets a full panic attack into motion.

I wriggle and struggle to get free, but it’s no use. Snapping his fingers, my father summons a few men to keep me down.

My father turns his back to me, clearing his throat. “You ruined us. Because of you we lost the same client yet again. It cannot be undone. This is your punishment. Accept it with dignity and grace.”

My mother inspects the fire iron and then smiles at me. It horrifies me. When she starts walking toward me, I push back as hard as I can. It’s no use. Within seconds she’s in front of me.

“I love you, my dear boy, but this has to be done. You know the rules.”

“Screw the rules!” I scream, fighting the ones that are holding me back.

“Even in our profession there are rules. You should have realized that before you attempted to break them.” She lifts her hand, and I lean back, but it’s not enough. She can still touch me. Her hand gently cups my face and caresses my cheek, like she’s suddenly the loving mother she could never be to me.

I gnash my teeth, trying to bite her. She withdraws and chuckles.

“It was this or killing you. You know why we can’t let this go.” She raises the fire iron. “An eye for an eye.”

And with those last words she sears my right eye. My lungs can’t handle the screams that come from my body, the air that expands my chest so fast it feels like I’m bursting apart. My skin is on fire. Being stabbed doesn’t compare to this. I can feel my warm blood flowing down my face. Closing my eye is no use. Red turns to black and soon everything is gone. My screams are ignored as she continues to carve me. It stings so badly that I want to cry with the eye I no longer have.

I’m in between fading in and out of consciousness, and at that moment I’m suddenly aware of the silence surrounding me, filling my head. It prepares me for the burden I have to carry, the hatred that has been scorched into my skin. I will make them pay.

When she’s done with her savage attack, she steps back and takes a look. She’s admiring her work. I gaze up at her with my one working eye, a small slit I can barely keep open, but I refuse to give up. I reject weakness. I will survive this, even if it costs me everything.

Frowning and clenching my teeth, I look up at her, seething. Pain runs through my veins, but I ignore it completely. Fury has taken over my soul. “What have you done to me?” I hiss.

“What you did to us. You scarred us for life. I returned the gift to you.”

My father signals the men. He doesn’t even look at me. “Take him away.”

“I’ll kill you for this!” I scream. I jerk around, but my strength is waning. I can’t fight the ropes anymore. The blood and pain have taken their toll on me.

“You’ll never see us again, never hear from us again, you’ll never be welcome here again,” my father says.

“Goodbye,” my mother says as she wipes the poker on a white cloth.

I keep my eye solely on them as I’m dragged out of the mansion. When the doors close I lose my will to fight. The pain has taken its toll on me. For a moment everything fades and turns to black. As I slip in and out of consciousness I feel like minutes have passed. I’m still being hauled, although I have no idea where. They take me to a forest, far, far away from anywhere, where they throw me into the snow, chair and all.

Their footsteps are the last thing I hear before there is only nothingness. Flakes of snow fall on my face, and I welcome the cool it brings to my withered skin. This place, in all its serenity, is a perfect resting place for a screwed-up person like me.

However, I won’t surrender to this cold, to this pain, to impending death. I will survive. I will conquer and slay them. The promise I make to myself fuels the spark of life left inside me. One day I will come for their lives. I will be the devil that guides them to hell.

***

Jay

Saturday, September 14, 2013. 10:40 a.m.th

Frozen, I stand there, shivering in the rain. Goose bumps scatter on my body as my lips part and my mouth is left hanging. The shovel drops from my hand; the sound of metal falling to the ground is loud in the silence of the night. I’m speechless.

Rain drips down his face, running through the grooves in his skin, the lines of his scars even more visible than before. The light of the moon casts an eerie darkness on one side of his face as well as light on the other.

Two conflicting emotions weave their way into my heart: disgust and pity. X’s fingers curl up into a fist as he slams his mouth shut. We’re both at a loss for words. The silence is killing me. I can’t believe what I just heard. I don’t even know what to say.

“Your parents?” I mutter.

He nods and frowns, cracking his knuckles.

“Holy shit …”

“You could say that again,” he scoffs.

“But … why? What did you do?”

He purses his lips and then marches toward me. Panicking, I back up into a tree, but fail to move past it. He’s right in front of me, seething, his nostrils flaring. His stare feels like it penetrates my skull.

“You.”

I suck in a short breath. “What do you mean?”

Smashing his lips together, he looks down at the ground and sighs, closing his eyes. “You don’t fucking remember.” As he looks back at me, I’m shaken to my core. The way he gazes at me, like I’m his weakness, is unsettling. Not because I’m scared, but because I’ve never seen this before.

Or maybe I have.

Without thinking, my hand lifts to meet his face. He tentatively moves his head away, but still not enough to prevent my hand from touching him. As I place my hand on his face, he winces; his chest suddenly stops heaving from anger. I feel his scars, the ridges and dents on his eye. My fingers move to touch every crevice, every painful memory, all the pain and agony seared into his skin. This is what they did to him. They made him the monster he is today.

His hands reach up and grab my head. He leans in, placing his forehead against mine as he looks deep into my eyes.

“Remember,” he says, his voice thick with lingering emotions. “Remember, little bird, remember!”

His voice. This touch. It rips everything apart, leaving pieces of the puzzle on the play board. And now I assemble them one by one. Memories of the past and present mix together until I can no longer form a coherent thought. Pictures and images of a past me spin through my head. A past with him.

I know him. I always knew him.