Successors (32 page)

Ethan shrugged. He did think she was attractive, but for some reason he didn’t want to admit that to his other self. He didn’t want to look weak in front of him. “I guess not.”

The reflection smiled at Ethan. “I’m not even sure she really has a purpose here. She’s kind of a waste of space, don’t you think?”

Ethan nodded. He often wondered who would clean the cages if she weren’t around. Had she inherited some nameless worker’s job? Whoever it was, he was probably rejoicing at the acquisition of a new lackey to take over the arduous duties.

Ethan continued to nod at his reflection’s thoughts on the subject of Cori and anything else that displeased him.

66

Cori saw Belus slip out of the gym door and head toward her. She had been putting in a rather drastic weight lifting rotation. Unfortunately, the dragon beverage that Ethan used to increase his muscle mass had too many side effects for her to take, so it was good old-fashioned muscle recovery for her.

“Are you working out now?” Belus asked as he passed her.

“Just my abs, everything else is still sore.”

Belus looked back at the door to the gym as if he had forgotten something inside. “Okay. Just make it fast. Ethan’s in there and he’s in a piss-poor mood already.”

“Yeah, okay.” She nodded before moving on. She hated that everyone was suddenly tip-toeing around Ethan like he was the queen bee. His anger had flared more easily the last few weeks, but she had just attributed that to her recent change of focus. She had no intention of skipping a workout just because Ethan wasn’t done with his. Given the amount of time he had been spending there, she was surprised they hadn’t overlapped until now.

She stopped at the door to peek through the window before she entered. Ethan was inside, fixated by his reflection, doing hammer curls. Despite her resistance to tip-toeing around him, she found herself light on her feet as she slipped in. She positioned her back on a floor mat behind him to do some sit-ups.

She gave his reflection a nod. His lips tipped up into a smile while his eyes remained static, concentrating on the movement in his biceps. The length in his arms contracted, bulging into taut softball-sized masses. She had missed his slow transformation from a lean boy to a sinewy man.

She had always thought of him as a boy, since he was still in the latter years of his teens when they first met, but it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to maintain that image of him. His floppy, blond, curtained hair had been chopped off, leaving him with a dark blond crew cut. Without the hair, he looked older and sterner. The length of his face was more evident and the square lines of his jaw seemed to match his build better.

Not only had his appearance transformed, but his attitude as well. He was strong-willed and commanding. She admired those traits. Given her relationship with Vince, she must even be attracted to those traits.

He’s dead.

She had observed an attraction to Ethan, one that under normal circumstance might have warranted exploratory flirtation. Unfortunately, their history of ruined expectations and blockaded high grounds left her with complex emotions.

She tried to think of him like a brother, but he had always looked at her in a way that left no room for sibling love. Now that she found herself looking on him with a similar appreciation, she tried to consider him as a coworker: a coworker that she ate breakfast and dinner with, and slept across the hall from. The only relationship she seemed to be able to rely on with Ethan was one that guaranteed disappointment, but also guaranteed a tethered devotion that all those disappointments could not break.

And there she had it. She would now have to think of Ethan as her parole officer.

Cori started in on her sit-ups. The movement wasn’t as easy as she had hoped. Her flexibility and strength seemed to be working against each other.

Ethan looked back at her, apparently seeing her for the first time. “Hello.”

Cori paused and looked at him. “Hi.” She continued her workout.

“Abs today?” He put down his dumbbells and moved closer to her.

“Yup,” she said, straining through her upward motion.

“May I assist you?” he asked like an automated recording.

She stopped and tightened her ponytail. “No, it’s just sit-ups.”

“Tsk tsk. I can get you a better workout than those. Let me show you.” Without confirmation, he stepped across her, straddling her midsection, facing her feet. He towered above her. “Okay, lift your legs. Keep them straight; bring them up together like you want to kick me in the stomach… or somewhere else.” He glanced back and winked at her.

His smile seemed warm and flirtatious. She tried to give him a smile back, but she was already too uncomfortable with his attention to fake any emotion. She lifted her legs. Right as she got through the hardest part of the exercise, he pushed her feet back to the floor. She repeated it feeling the tension never fully release as he pushed her back down to go again.

“Do you feel that?” he asked.

“Yes,” she hissed with another upward movement.

After she completed a set of fifteen, he let her rest. He stepped off her and moved to the water cooler for some water. After drinking a paper cup full, he brought her back one. She drank the water though she had hardly done anything to warrant a thirst.

After a minute or two, he straddled her again, this time facing her. “I have another for you.” Before she could object, he knelt down, putting his body weight on her upper thighs.

“What are you doing?” she said, instinctively trying to get out from under him.

“Same thing, just the upper body.” He squeezed his legs tighter around her. “Come up, support your head, like you’re going to head-butt me.”

She put her hands behind her neck. She watched him watching her, becoming acutely aware of his body weighing down on her. She contracted her muscles and lifted. She pulled herself toward him. He pushed her down to the mat hard.

“Did you feel that?” he said with the slightest of sparkles in his eyes.

She stared at him, mouth agape. “I think you enjoyed that.” She glared.

“Oh, yes, but not in the way you think.” His expression of amusement didn’t change. Her eyes widened and she could feel her heart race. “Come on, again.”

She reminded herself that this was Ethan. He was just messing with her, trying to get a rise from her. Rather than bait the argument she pulled herself up. He pushed her down again just as hard. She stared at him. She waited for something more to be said, but he simply motioned for her to come up again.

She licked her lips and propped herself on her elbows. “I appreciate your help, but I would like to stop now.” She sat up to pull herself from under him. He pushed her down again. Without protection for her head she smacked the mat painfully. “Easy, Ethan!”

“What’s the matter? I thought you wanted to get in shape. I thought you wanted to be strong.”

She sat up to push him off. He pushed her back and pinned her arms. He leaned in and whispered in her ear. “You seem pretty weak to me. Better get to work.”

He released her and she pulled herself up for another attempt to get out from under him. He backhanded her, sending her flat against the mat again. She tasted blood. She wiped her lip to verify.

“Ethan?” Her voice trembled in fear of what was happening.

He beamed at her grimly. He was enjoying either her pain or her fear, or perhaps both.

She punched him full-on in the cheek. She had hoped the impact would have sent him flying off her so she could escape, but he absorbed the punch with nothing more than a head turn. His lip started to bleed. He leered at her as he licked it away.

She felt her body start to shake, and her breathing turned to panting. She couldn’t understand what had driven him to be this angry. It wasn’t like him to lose control.

He punched her back. His fist hit her jaw, sending her head back into the mat for a secondary blow. She tried to roll over, to squirm away. He pushed her back, keeping her flat on the mat.

She stared up at him, unable to contain a whimper of cowardice. He loomed above her, practically salivating at her misery. “You were always against us. You never gave a damn about us. Just ran off with ‘Fang.’ Left us behind…”

“Who is
us
, Ethan?” She crumpled her brow trying to make sense of his rant.

“…returned like the prodigal child, and now you want more. More, more, more!” he screamed in her face. “Selfish bitch!”

She turned her head and clenched her eyes, not wanting to see his rage up close.

He moved his hands along her shirt. She felt a familiar fear make her eyes water. She shook her head. “Ethan, please!” She wrapped her hands around his wrists trying to stop his movement, but she couldn’t.

“Get your own prison. This one is ours.” He neglected her chest and went straight on to her neck. She opened her eyes and looked back at him.

“Ethan!” she cried one last time before his hands tightened. She felt the pressure build up in her head. She struggled, prying on his fingers and ripping at his skin, but he was so much stronger.

Her hands grappled out away from her body. She fanned the ground in search of something—anything. There was nothing within reach. Her legs kicked, but his weight incapacitated her. Her hands switched from his wrists to his face, only achieving minor scratches. Without a weapon or vulnerable body part she was helpless.

She sucked in the last bit of air that could slip through his grip. She felt dizzy. Her hands slipped from his wrists. Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes. Her face felt tight, like her head would soon pop like a balloon. Ethan’s face started to blur and she prepared for the blackness that would follow.

67

As soon as Cori felt the black arrive, she felt the light return. She opened her eyes and found herself in the gym with Ethan. She was standing next to him in front of the mirror. He was smiling malevolently at her.

“Ethan, what the hell?” She touched her neck where moments earlier he had been strangling her. “You son of a bitch, you could have killed me!”

“Not yet, but he’s working on it,” he said, perking a brow.

She backed away from him to get to the door, but when she turned to leave, she realized that it was missing. Most of the gym was missing. The room stopped like it was inside of a box. The vacancies were replaced by white walls, like paper that didn’t have the remaining images drawn in.

“Ethan? What’s going on?”

“I’m not Ethan. I’m just his reflection.”

Cori looked around again. She at least understood the room now. “I’m in the mirror?”

“Yes. Welcome.”

“Why? How?” Cori didn’t really know what her question should be. She just wanted an answer. Ethan, or Ethan’s reflection, proffered the view of the mirror to her with an open hand. She came back to the mirror, which from this side was nothing more than a window into the real world.

Cori saw the scene with her and Ethan playing out again right in front of her. Him on top of her in the gym, strangling her as she fought uselessly against him. Somehow seeing it from this perspective was even scarier than having it actually done to her. She couldn’t blackout here. “Ethan, no!” She banged on the glass of her mirror window, and the vision replayed from the beginning. “Don’t do this! Please!”

“He can’t hear you. He can’t hear anyone now. All he can hear is that little voice in the back of his mind. Me.” Ethan's reflection pointed to himself proudly. “I'm telling him how much he hates you.”

“He doesn’t hate me!” Cori yelled at the reflection. She wasn’t saying it to defend herself; she was defending Ethan. She knew Ethan cared for her, and for this entity to say otherwise was an insult to him. “You don’t know anything about him.”

“I got in his head, didn’t I?”

“Oh, oh, this is my favorite part.” The reflection clapped with glee and pushed her closer to the glass. She watched herself give up the fight. Her hands fell away as she blacked out. “Goddamn!” He shook her shoulders with jarring enthusiasm. “That just makes life worth living, doesn't it?” She glared at him. “Oh, sorry, probably not for you.”

“Wait what was that?” Cori asked just as the image went back to the beginning.

“Oh, don't ruin the moment, Cori.” The reflection hugged her tight. “I just really think this experience is going to bring us closer.”

“How to you fast forward this thing?” Cori banged on the glass and it jumped forward to the end. “There!” She pointed to Belus's head bob into the window of the gym door. “Show me that.”

“Oh, Cori, you aren't getting this. You are on the precipice of death. All I need is for your heart to stop beating, and for your pissed little spirit to let go and you will be mine. Forever.”

“Show me what happened after I passed out, you jerk.” The reflection fast forwarded the image and she watched the scene play out in super speed.  

Belus returned from his break. He saw Ethan strangling her and he pulled the alarm by the door. He ran at Ethan and dove at him. His intention was certainly to bulldoze him off her, but he went right through him.