Out of the Shadows (18 page)

“My father was a violent man, and he thought it was fun to beat up on people smaller than him, especially after a few beers,” Jessica began, staring out the window, her warm breath creating fog on the freezing window.

Christine felt a lump grow in her throat as her mouth dried out, making it impossible to swallow. She was all-too-familiar with this poor woman’s story, and she already knew how it would play out.

“One day, he came into my room. He got violent, and I was prepared to take it, like I always did. But this time, he went too far. He shattered one of the only things I loved dearly, and it pissed me off. Next thing I knew, he was frozen, and I was being carried off to an orphanage.” She took a calming breath, as if this were the first time she had recounted the events of that night since they had happened. She spun to look at her prisoner, a chilling despair swimming behind the whites of her eyes. “I was eight.”

Christine looked on in emotional agony, wanting to embrace the poor damaged woman, but she held her tongue, knowing that if she interrupted now, the rest of the story would never be told.

“Ten years I was at that orphanage,” she continued, looking back out the window now, a looking glass into her past. “Never once did my Uncle Peter come to get me out. They said he didn’t want me, but by that point in my life, he would have been adopting more than just Jessica.”

Christine knew that she was referencing her other personality that she had gotten to know today, the alter ego she knew as Rita.

“Since then, I’ve been waiting.” Her tone grew darker, more sinister. “Planning. Looking for the right moment to show him—.”

“—that you’re special.” Christine understood the rationale. Standing in front of her was the body of a full-grown woman, but inside her was a little girl that grew up wondering why her own family didn’t want her. “I understand, Jessica.”

She pounded her fist against the window, an explosion of frigid rage emanating from her. “Don’t give me that shit!”

“I do!”

“How could you possibly understand?!”

“Because I killed my father too!”
she cried out, feeling that if she didn’t play her hand now, the game would be over.

Jessica’s sudden fury subsided as her angry visage became inquisitive and hesitant, waiting to hear what the cop had to say. “You did?”

“My father enjoyed his liquor. And he would often take out his depression on my mother and me.” Christine’s heart began racing, distraught at being forced to relive her painful past in hopes that she might save her own life. “One night, he came at me, and I decided to defend myself.”

Jessica looked on, bewilderment sparkling in her eyes.

“I stabbed him in the throat with a shiv of broken glass.” Christine’s eyes welled with emotion, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. She hadn’t realized how freeing it would be to say it out loud, feeling like a small weight had been removed from her shoulders. She nodded, her resolve breaking as she struggled to hold herself together. “I stabbed him in the throat.”

Jessica covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes filling with tears. A smile of relief crossed her face as she said, “I was right.”

“What?”

“I was right,” she said again, growing excited, moving in toward the cop, kneeling in front of her. “You’re the one.”

“The one?”

“I’ve been searching for someone for so long, and now I’ve finally found you!” Her happiness was making Christine grow concerned.

“Someone for what?” she asked hesitantly.

“I can’t live like this anymore,” Jessica began to explain, an energized urgency to her voice. “I can’t continue to live in a world that won’t appreciate me for what I can do.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

With a gleam in her eye, Jessica held out her palms as sparkles of icy glitter leapt from her hands and danced through the air, fluttering around her head like wisps of joy. “Tonight, I’m using my power to finally create a world of my own. A precious place where I can be myself, and everything will be beautiful.”

If Christine’s limbs weren’t bound to the chair, she would have been shaking with fear. “Where will this be?”

Jessica considered the captive woman, wondering why she hadn’t figured out the obvious. “Here, of course!” The blonde woman smiled, standing to look out the window once more. “Oh, it will be so breathtaking! Once everyone else is gone, my wonderland will be so peaceful, and I’m so glad I’ve found someone to share it with!” Jessica began humming her music box lullaby once more, feeling such joy at the new development.

Christine looked on, horrified by the sickening realization that Jessica intended to freeze every last person in Rockport, making the entire town her own personal snow globe. And she expected Christine to share it with her, to be that second tiny person kneeling with her in front of the miniature bedazzled house with reindeer on the roof.

She stared dumbfounded at Jessica, seeing an eight-year-old-girl that felt alone and just wanted to be understood, and her solution once she found the understanding person was to destroy everyone else.

But what if she played along? Allowed the human population in Rockport to be obliterated, leaving room for no one except Jessica and Christine… Would that really be so bad? Christine had often wished she were alone in the world, because she knew there were so few people with whom she could relate. She grew tired of the sympathetic looks once they found out about her past. Jessica would never look at her that way.

But then she thought about her partner. And Leslie. And the chief. And all of the people of Rockport that she swore to protect. “Jessica, I’m sorry.”

The blonde woman’s joy began to fade. “What?”

Christine shook her head slowly. “I can’t be your other person. What you want to do is wrong, and I can’t let you do it.”

Jessica’s face held a shocked expression for only a brief moment before her features hardened and her nostrils flared. “That’s too bad, Officer Brody,” she threatened deeply. “I was hoping this was the beginning of a beautiful partnership, but now I see that I’m alone, like I’ve always been.”

As Jessica advanced toward her, terrifying anger in her eyes, Christine tried to back up, forgetting that she was tied to a chair.

“I’m sorry you won’t be around to see my beautiful creation,” she offered somewhat sincerely. Both of her hands rose in front of her, palms facing each other. In the space between, the air grew frigid, tendrils of whiteness swirling into a little ball. The skin on her hands became icy and blue, and she advanced toward the captive cop.

Eyes wide with terror that the end was near, Christine cried out, “No, Jessica! Please don’t!”

A smirk spread across the young woman’s face.

“Stop!” But Christine knew she wouldn’t. She faced every day of work ready to die, but there was something different about things ending like this. She was far less ready than she thought. “Please!”

As Jessica’s hands neared Christine’s head, the cop slammed her eyes closed and felt the sting of frosty death begin to bite the edges of her skin. She thought about whether or not it would hurt when, suddenly, a gunshot rang out.

As her eyes snapped open in surprise, she saw Jessica stumble backward, crashing into the window, shattering the glass, and falling out. Christine heard the scream of fright escape from Jessica as she fell from the second story window, but the sound was cut short with a
thud
.

Christine turned her head to find her partner in the doorway, his weapon trained on the shattered window opening. He swiftly moved into the room, holstered his weapon, and knelt down to release her from her bonds. “Colt,” she gasped, trying to catch her breath and hoping she didn’t cry with relief.

He looked up at her and nodded. “Brody.”

“You were right,” she admitted to him.

His eyes flicked up toward hers for a split second before continuing to loosen the knots holding her shackles in place.

“It was Rita. All along. She’s sick, Colt.”

“I know.”

“How?”

He stopped and knelt beside her. “Her cell phone.”

“She doesn’t have one.”

“That’s right. But this mornin’ when she was explainin’ what happened to the old frozen man outside, she said she was distracted while talkin’ on her cell phone.”

Christine’s eyes widened, angry with herself for not remembering such a crucial detail that would have prevented so much of today from happening.

“She lied to us, so I looked up her number in the system, and I called her. Turns out the
real
Rita Mayes used to be the Sheffield housekeeper, but she quit a week ago because his ‘crazy niece’ had been pokin’ around and threatenin’ her. That’s when I knew you were in trouble.” Jonathan went back to loosening the cloth that held his partner in place, growing frustrated with the difficulty he was having.

Christine looked up at the red and blue pulsating lights reflecting through the window. “Where’s the team?”

“In the front yard,” he answered, not looking up at her.

“But why didn’t they—?”

“They’re all dead, Brody.”

Her mouth hung open, but no more words could express the emotions that flooded through her.

“They’re frozen,” he clarified. “The whole team.”

“I…” she tried to talk, but she was still rendered speechless.

“These knots are too tight.” Jonathan stood, quickly looking around the room. “I need somethin’ sharp.” His eyes came to rest on the broken glass under the window, and he went to retrieve a large shard. As he bent down to grab a decent specimen, he looked out the window and stopped.

Jessica’s body was gone, and a trail of blood led out of the yard and east across a field.

“Shit!” he cursed. “Brody, she’s gone!”

“What?!”

Jonathan grabbed the glass shard and feverishly tried to cut through Christine’s bonds, making progress at a glacial pace.

“Colt!”

He pressed harder with the makeshift blade.

“Colt, stop!”

He looked up at her, a wildfire of intensity filling his eyes.

“You have to go after her,” she reasoned.

“I gotta get you free.”

“There’s no time for that! She’s going to get away!”

He paused, considering her words and his options. “Shit!” he cursed at the situation.

“Colt, go!”

He placed the shard of glass in her hands behind her back and headed out.

“Hey!” she called out to him.

Turning in the threshold, he waited for her words.

“Be careful with her,” she pleaded.

“You know I can’t.” And he ran down the hallway, leaving his partner bound to the wooden chair.

*     *     *

Jessica Sheffield ran as fast as her body would allow, the cold weather having little affect on her. She clutched tightly to her arm, feeling the warm blood ooze down her torso from the gunshot wound in her shoulder. She began to panic now, knowing that the cops would soon be on her trail. She couldn’t allow them to disrupt her plans for which she had spent so long preparing.

A gunshot rang out through the night, and she knew she was being pursued. The pond would slow them down in a way that it had not done to her, but she needed to get to her intended location as soon as possible.

Scrambling through the snow, she made her way up onto the road, desperate for an abandoned vehicle. What she found was even better.

A pair of headlights came slowly toward her as the automobile maneuvered the treacherous roadway. She waved her arms wildly, and the driver pulled over, rolling down the window to assist her.

Before he could even ask what was wrong, he was dead.

*     *     *

Jonathan followed the blood trail, far slower than he wished he could, tromping through the many inches of snow. As he continued east, he spotted her at the edge of a large, flat field. Knowing it would be folly, he felt such a great deal of anger toward this duplicitous woman that he fired a shot at her anyway, doing nothing but alerting her to the pursuit.

He came closer and closer to the flat field, hoping to catch a break from the thick snow. Sure enough, as he stepped foot onto the edge of the countryside, his foot only sank an inch. This area had only received a light dusting, miraculously, and he proceeded to run after Jessica. As he pursued, he wondered where he was, having never before noticed the strange flat area of land on which he now ran. But the realization hit him just as his feet slipped out from under him, and he landed on his back with a
crack
.

As he fought to catch the breath that had been knocked from him, he attempted to sit up but felt the ground beneath him shift as the sounds of splintering ice rang out through the night.

Lilly Pond
, he gasped.

He was in the middle of a massive body of water covered in a thin layer of ice that could break at any moment.

He couldn’t help but think that his partner would have stopped him from foolishly dashing out into the middle of a freezing death trap. He slowly moved his body, trying to roll over onto his stomach so he could rise to his feet while keeping his weight even, but with every inch his limbs moved, the ice splintered and cracked twice that much. His breathing was short and ragged, and he fought to subdue his pounding heart for fear that its force would be enough to send him into the chilling waters, trapping him under the ice until the spring thaw. Even if he didn’t become trapped, he was certain that there would be no way to sufficiently warm his body after falling in, and he would die from exposure anyway.