Empathy (6 page)

TWO WEEKS. THAT’S ALL IT’S been but it feels like a lifetime. Police interviews make me re-tell my nightmare over and over. Being unable to bury my parents is weighing heavy on me. Apparently the police hold the bodies while they do post mortems, and sometimes they’re retaken if new evidence comes to light. I have the image in my mind of my mom and dad’s rotting corpses laying on a slab, waiting to be cut into and prodded. You can’t control the thoughts that cloud your brain; mine are morbid, filled with flashes of the night. Hades came to taint my life, to show me true evil.

“They’re letting me in the house today, Mel, so you might as well come home. No point paying out for a hotel,” Markus, my half-brother, tells me. They called him when I went into shock and he’s been here annoying the shit out of me ever since. He cried when they told him our father is dead. It was weird seeing a man cry, especially Markus. He’s an asshole and used to argue with Dad all the time. He hated my mother and me, so to see him grieve was a surprise.

“I want to call Dad’s lawyer, get things rolling,” he tells me, meaning he wants his inheritance.

“I’m not ready for that, Markus. I want to bury them first.”

He grabs my upper arms, squeezing the soft flesh and making me wince. “Two weeks, Mel. I’ll give you two weeks then I want what’s mine.” His eyes are now devoid of sorrow, back to the cold blue irises that hold disfavour. Didn’t take him long to be back to the heartless shit I know he is. He doesn’t care that my family was murdered and I have no one left. All he cares about is money.

“You’re hurting me.”

He releases me with a shove and I fall back and land on the bed. Self-defence lessons will be the first thing I look up when I get back to college. I hate how feeble I am under the strength of a man’s hand.

I stare up at him and shift at the uncomfortable feeling I get from the way his eyes roam over my bare legs. He had barged into my hotel room at the crack of dawn. I’m still in my nightshirt and panties, my legs exposed. He might be my brother but we have never had affection as siblings, or even friends.

“Get your shit. I need you back at the house to help sort stuff there.”

A tremor rocks my body from the thought of going back. “I d… don’t think I c… can go there.”

“Mel, I need your help. I don’t live there so I need you to show me where they kept the documents and bills. I need you to call the house cleaner and the gardener and pack their stuff up.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Markus, it’s been two weeks. I’m not ready to pack their things up.”

He rolls his eyes and kneels before me, his sweaty palms resting on my exposed thighs. He begins kneading them as he speaks. “I know this is hard, Mel. But you have to face facts. They’re gone and keeping their things won’t change that. We have to decide what to do with the house, and selling it with dead people’s things still hanging in the wardrobe will be impossible.”

Every word from his mouth is a verbal lash, whipping at my soul, ripping another layer from the frayed, dull life force keeping me tethered to this world.

I push his hands from my thighs and race past him to the bathroom. I heave into the toilet, bringing up nothing but bile that burns my throat. I feel him behind me and he sighs.

“What if I stay in the house until we decide what you want to do?”

I fold my arms over my stomach and nod. “Yeah, okay.”

The thought of selling my childhood home is unbearable, even though it’s now a tomb.

There’s yellow tape hanging from the front door as Markus opens it and walks in but I can’t move. My blood has turned to cement.

Markus turns to face me. “Come on,” he says, but I’m immobile.

Tears threaten but I force them back. “I’m going back to college. I can’t be here. Call me when the police release their bodies.”

I turn and rush down the front steps and he follows me, gripping my wrist. “I need you here, Mel.”

I shake my head. “I can’t. Please let me go. I’ll come back, I just need some time.”

He narrows his eyes and lets go of my wrist with a shove. “Fine. Go.”

I exhale and dig through my bag for my car keys. Markus had it fixed and brought back here which I’m grateful for, but I can’t stay. I need distance.

MY CAR EATS UP THE miles back to my dorm. It takes me less time to get back because I speed most of the way. It’s just getting dark; the campus is abuzz with people coming and going, getting on with their lives like every other day. It’s so crazy how one moment in time can change all future moments. What would have been? What would I be doing right now if that man hadn’t taken my family?

My father’s lifeless eyes flash to the forefront of my memory and acid eats my insides as the burn from the bile rising alights my throat. I can’t escape the memories; they constantly replay, assaulting me with pain.

People are living their lives, never to experience death coming to steal people so important, too young, not meant to go yet. I would never wish this on any of them. Pain, anger, love, loss, confusion, grief so strong it blankets me in an icy atmosphere. How do I make it stop, make myself numb to the raging turbulence tearing my mind to shreds?

Tap, tap, tap
.

I jump as knuckles hit my car window. My hand goes to my heart. I want to cry from the simple fright that would have made me laugh before. I take a deep breath and release it, opening the window. Clive’s toothy grin greets me.

“Hey, sweetness. Where have you been?”

I swallow a hateful retort and shrug my shoulders. His friend is beside him, holding a bag full of booze. “So, we’re heading to a party. You want to come?”

I almost laugh. Why would I go anywhere with him? But my eyes go back to the bag of ‘forget fluid’. A drink, that’s what I need. I’ve been drunk only once before, at a bonfire after senior prom. Zane held me while we slept under the stars. I’d got drunk to drown out the knowledge we would be parting, an era ending in my life.

I nod and he opens my car door. “Cool, do you want to change?”

I look down at my jean shorts and tank top. “Do I need to?”

His greedy eyes trail the length of my body, stopping on my breasts. “Not at all, but I know some girls like to wear dresses and heels to parties.” I eye the bag again and he smirks. “I have plenty for you too.”

I’VE FOLLOWED THIS LITTLE SHI
T
for a week, waiting for him to fuck up. I decided to go against my nature and not kill him. Instead, I’ll use the law to teach him a lesson. I’m an asshole but I don’t go around killing everyone I have a grievance with, even if I want to.

After Ryan’s run-in with this bully, things haven’t calmed down. , instead they escalated, the fucker tripped Ryan down some stairs, breaking his arm. To say the need for his blood on my hands is strong would be an understatement. My brother’s not perfect but he’s my brother and I’ll protect him no matter what.

I follow him as he leaves his dorm with his best friend. He’s carrying a bag filled with bottles of alcohol. They walk across the parking lot and stop next to a sporty BMW. He raps his knuckles on the window and talks to whoever is inside. When he opens the door, the grin on his face tells me he either just won the lottery or the person in the car is someone he’s interested in. Tanned, toned legs, little jean shorts fitted over a sexy as sin ass, small waist, perfect tits, full lips.

Melody Masters.

She’s Ryan’s age, turned twenty last month. Only sibling is a half-brother who hired me for the job. She has an aunt on her mother’s side, no living grandparents. She’s completely alone now. I’ve obsessed over the details of the job since that night, getting all the information on the girl who has the power to stop me from being me. I should have known it was her from the number on her license plate. I’ve memorised every detail I can get about her. It’s been two weeks since I watched her break, and two weeks of dreaming about her green eyes as a single tear leaked free. Two weeks of going over and over that night, and how I should have done things differently.

I follow them as they walk across the campus and end up at a frat house. She’s not dressed in the skimpy outfits like most of the girls going in there but she still gains attention; a beacon in a dark ocean. She’s unique. The fact she’s even here two weeks after her parents were brutally slain is unbelievable, unless she’s changed. Unless she let the winter ice freeze over the warmth and is now like me… indifferent.