Illusions (The Missing #1) (9 page)

“My life would be so much better if you were gone.”

I didn’t want to think about my mother putting her arm around Rosie’s shoulders and walking out with her to the car as I hobbled behind them, barely able to move. And of course neither commented on the red spots that had bled through my shirt.

“Nora.”

I startled at the intrusion, having been consumed by pain and horrible thoughts. I sat up in bed, the covers falling to my waist. I fumbled around on my bedside table until I found my glasses. I put them on and quickly switched on the lamp.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, quickly covering my exposed skin with the covers.

Bradley stood beside my bed, new cuts on his face and fire in his eyes. He’d been fighting again. I didn’t mention the dried blood or the split lip. I ignored it just as he ignored my deficiencies.

“It’s Thursday,” he said and I nodded. He always came. It was something I could expect.

I didn’t say anything else. I moved over, making room for him in my bed. Bradley kicked off his shoes and quietly, so quietly, laid down on top of the blankets.

He felt too large for my bed. For my room. For my space. He took in all the air, and I found it hard to breathe.

He dominated.

He possessed.

He held me prisoner in his unyielding attention.

Without saying another word, he lifted my shirt, and I could feel him lightly touch the wounds on my back. The fresh ones and those that had healed long ago. I heard his sharp intake of breath.

“It looks worse than it is,” I lied, already trying to placate his fury.

I hated seeing how much Bradley was affected by my mother’s actions.

Bradley balled his hands into fists, and I flinched slightly. I tugged my shirt back down and moved away. Away from him and his all-encompassing anger.

“You need to leave this house. You need to get out!”

I shook my head. It was a familiar argument.

I wasn’t rebellious. I wasn’t impulsive.

Even though I was an adult and technically could make my own decisions, I felt chained to this house. To this life. No matter how much I hated it.

I was bound to a mother who would never love me for reasons that she never shared.

I was, and always would be, trapped.

I would never, ever leave.

Bradley knew that.

It infuriated him.

He didn’t understand.

Bradley grabbed ahold of my wrist and squeezed. I could feel his fingers pressing through skin, pushing against bone. More bruises to match the ones on my back.

He could never see how much his love hurt me. How much he took from me simply by being my friend.

“Why won’t you come with me? I could take you away from your mother. I could take you away from this place. Forever.” Bradley loosened his fingers and began to slowly, lazily trace circles on the soft skin along the underside of my arm. Looping.

Endless.

Infinity.

“I can’t leave. You know that,” I said softly, my eyes fluttering closed as his fingers circled my skin. Continuous. Forever.

“Then I’ll kill her.” Bradley’s suggestion was made with bland nonchalance. But with a conviction I would never doubt. It was so natural. Talking of death and murder.

I laughed. It seemed the appropriate response to such an inappropriate comment.

“But what would you do with the body?” I asked him. It was a funny conversation. One that we had had many times before.

Bradley rolled onto his side and propped his head up with his hand. He pinched my chin between his thumb and forefinger. He pulled my face so that I was looking at him. He always wanted to see my face.

It made me uncomfortable. But it also made me feel, for just a minute,
almost
beautiful.

“I’d chop her up into bits and put her in trash bags. Then I’d drive out Lantz Mill Road, to the old poultry plant. No one goes out there. Not since the Ramsay twins drowned in the old swimming hole two years ago.” His voice rose slightly in his excitement. His green eyes shimmered in the gloom.

I bit down on my bottom lip to stop myself from smiling. “Then what?” I asked breathlessly.

“Then I’d weight the bags with the old cinder blocks that are piled up under that giant maple tree.” He grinned and it was infectious. Full of joy and despair. “Then I’d throw the bitch into the river. She’d sink. She’d stay there. Far away from you.”

Without thinking, I tried to roll onto my back and winced. Pain radiated through my skin and muscles, all the way down my legs.

Carefully Bradley pulled me onto my side so that I faced him and then wrapped his hand around me wrist again. His grip was firm. He wouldn’t let me go anywhere.

Never.

I was trapped in his grasp.

“I’d do that for you, Nora. I’d do anything for you.”

He meant it. I never doubted his intentions.

She turned the lock. The click was loud. Louder than my tears.

I wasn’t surprised to be locked away. It had become usual to expect it. But I could never control the sadness. I wished I could accept my fate with casual indifference.

But I loved Mother. I loved her more than anything. Even if she would never love me. I hated to be away from her. I had taken to drawing pictures of her face so I had them to keep me company on nights like this. On nights when she couldn’t stand to look at me.

During times when Dad was away and we were all alone.

But I had her face drawn in my juvenile hand. And that had to be enough. I didn’t know how long I’d be here, but I knew that I was expected to remain silent until she came to get me.

It could be hours.

Or sometimes days.

I’m glad I ate a sandwich.

I sat down on my bed and hugged my stuffed purple cat to my chest. Its soft fur absorbed my grief. My pain.

There was a light tapping at my window. I looked up and met the green eyes on the other side of the glass.

My savior.

My rescuer.

He was the only witness to my heartbreak. He always knew when the dark was too much.

Even if sometimes,
he
was
the dark.

“We shouldn’t talk like this, Bradley. It’s wrong,” I reminded him.

My Bradley frowned, and I saw the anger again. He sat up and swung his legs around, his feet connecting with the wooden floor. Loud. Too loud. Mother could hear him. I shuddered at the thought.

I put my finger up over my lips. “Shh!”

Bradley began to pace around my room. Restless energy radiated off him, making me dizzy. “Let her find me here! We’re not doing anything wrong!”

I pressed my finger over my lips. Harder this time. “Shh!”

Bradley picked up a framed picture on my desk and stared at my ghosts. “You only have me, Nora. You know that!” He was right of course.

I nodded, though he didn’t see me.

Bradley grasped the picture in his hands, knuckles white. “We have each other. That’s all that matters.”

I didn’t say the words he wanted quickly enough. He threw the faded photograph across the room. Glass shattered. Ruined.

“Why did you do that?” I demanded. It was my turn to be angry. And scared. The two emotions melded together into a nauseating lump in my belly. I was sure Mother would have heard him.

“Because he didn’t protect you. He didn’t love you. Not the way you deserve. Don’t you get that, Nora?”

“He loved me,” I argued, still listening for footsteps I knew would come.

“He did!” I whispered. I fought him. When it came to my father, I wouldn’t allow anyone to disparage him.

He had died when I was only nine. That year had been the worst of my life. I couldn’t think about that time. I couldn’t remember much, as though my mind were protecting me from things it couldn’t handle.

Bradley picked up a piece of glass and slowly, with his eyes never leaving mine, slit the skin of his palm. Cutting deep. Blood welled to the surface. He stood with his hand open, blood dripping through fingers and onto the rug. I wondered if it would stain.

He let go of the glass, the shard clattering to the floor.

“You’re so blind, Nora! You never see the monsters right in front of you.”

I saw the monsters. More clearly than Bradley ever gave me credit for. I saw the snarly, hateful parts inside of people. They scared me. They intrigued me. But I saw
everything.

There was something very wrong with Bradley Somers. He thought in puzzle pieces and manipulations.

He dreamed in darkness and blood dripping onto the carpet.

He was only happy in the deepest misery. He found joy in the terrible. He was hard to be around. But I couldn’t imagine him any other way.

The green eyes shed tears. Mine dripped onto my dress.

He pressed a hand to the window, but he never came in. He sat, perched on the tree branch, until the night grew cold and the stars died.

He stayed and no one ever looked for him.

It wouldn’t have mattered.

Because he was here, with me, in my prison. My fellow captive. Always together.

I didn’t get out of bed. I was frightened by the look in his eyes. He was uncontrollable.

A wild, unpredictable storm. There was no taming Bradley and his twisted, convoluted feelings.

I finally heard footsteps in the hallway and knew that Mother had heard the commotion.

“You need to leave,” I warned.

“Come with me,” he urged, not with tenderness, but with wrath. He held his bloody hand out for me to take.

I was tempted. So tempted. But I couldn’t tell him that. Then he would become relentless.

“You need to leave,” I repeated.

Bradley grunted in frustration, his lips curling into a sneer. Then purposefully he wiped his bloody hand on the sweater on the back of my chair. I knew what he was doing. He was leaving a part of himself behind.

“You’re such an idiot, Nora. You never know when to run.”

He left the way he had come.

Silently.

Day 3

The Present

At twenty I tried to die

I
could smell the fire. The remnants of smoke filled my nostrils. It tickled the back of my dry throat and made me cough.

“Get out, Nora!”

I covered my mouth and nose, trying not to breathe in the acrid smoke. I couldn’t see. I had lost my glasses at some point.

I could hear the crackling of flames as they licked up the wooden slates. Devouring. Consuming. It was coming for me next.

“Get out now!”

And then I ran so fast and so far I couldn’t stop. But I still saw her. Blue eyes wide in shock and filled with guilt.

Hers?

Mine?

“Run!” I screamed, but she didn’t listen. She stood there watching the fire, matches scattered across the ground.

Reality faded in and out, and there were times that I wasn’t sure if I was still in the room that had become my prison. I’d close my eyes, and I could smell fresh air and sunshine. I could hear running water and laughter. I felt soft caresses on my skin, the light touch of lips against my cheek.

Strong hands held me and wouldn’t let me go.

Maybe I wasn’t in the small confining room at all. Perhaps I was somewhere else . . .

The burning smell became more pronounced, and I tried to clear my throat.

“Why are you here?” I screamed, but she didn’t answer me. I swore I saw tears on her face. And that scared me more than anything.

I stretched out my legs and knocked over one of the bottles of water, and I was pulled back into my very real present.

I had grown accustomed to my diminished sight and was finding it easier to rely on my other senses for information. For example, I knew that it was midday by the heat level in the room. I also could see enough light coming through the window to determine where the sun was in the sky.