Fade to Black (19 page)

~^~

Hayden tried to keep her emotions under
control. She’d spent far too much time over the years doing what had to be done
to lose it all now. The thought of Devlin’s baby grew in her mind as it was
growing in Lily’s belly. Turning, she raced from the room and jumped on the bed,
straddling Devlin.

“Oh, my darling, how did you know?” She
kissed him all over his face. “You’ve made me so happy. Why didn’t you tell me
what your plan was?” She gently slapped him across the face. “I know
,
you couldn’t let the whore know what your plan was.” She
hugged him and started grinding against him and whispered in his ear, “You’ve
made me so happy. You remembered I couldn’t have children but always wanted
them, and you found a way to make it happen.” She rose up and looked at him.
“Next time you have to fill me in, though. I’d like to be in on choosing which
woman will carry our child. Nothing is more important than our child. Oh, my
darling Devlin, I love you so much.” She squeezed him, feeling the happiest
she’d been in years. Grinding away against him, lost in ecstasy, she didn’t
notice Lily creeping along the side of the bed.

~^~

Lily knew she’d only have one shot to get
Hayden out of the way and save Devlin. It was her goal to get both of them out
of there, and she hated the fact that she might end up being the only one to
escape. She had to try and save him if she could.

The only thing she could find with weight
to it was the lamp. Clutching it in one hand while she kept a close eye on
Hayden, she slowly sank down and moved her hand under the covers next to
Devlin. It wasn’t much, but she wanted more than the lamp as a weapon.

She briefly closed her eyes when she felt
Devlin under the covers, wondering if it would be the last time she’d touch
him. Wrapping her fingers around the fork, she slowly pulled it out. Making
sure she had a good grip on both, and saying a quick prayer she’d be able to do
what needed to be done, she stood up fully. “Hey!” she yelled.

When Hayden turned toward her, Lily stabbed
the fork into Hayden’s eye with all her strength. The scream that came out of
Hayden was inhuman, and for a moment, Lily faltered.

“You stupid whore!”
Hayden grabbed the fork and pulled it out of her eye. “What have you done?”

Lily knew she couldn’t wait any longer. Throwing
her body behind the swing of the lamp, she made sure it came down hard on the
side of Hayden’s head and watched as she crumpled on top of Devlin.

“Lily, Lily, honey,
are
you okay? Lily!” Devlin’s muffled voice came from under Hayden.

Lily stood there for a moment, staring at
the blood seeping from Hayden’s eye, watching it fall onto Devlin’s shoulder.
Shaking her head, she tried to clear it knowing they didn’t have much time.
Rolling Hayden off, she started searching for a key to free him. “I can’t find
the key.”

“
It’s
okay, Lily,
leave. Go get help and come back. I’ll be okay.”

“No! I can’t leave you. Oh, my God, she’ll
kill you! I’m shaking so bad.”

“Shhh… Lily, leave now. Please, you have to
save yourself.”

“Got it!”
Lily held up the key in her hand. Lily knew they weren’t out of the woods yet,
but it was looking good for them. Trying to keep one eye on Hayden and the
other on what she was doing, she missed the lock and the key fell behind the
bed. She dropped to her knees, and as she pulled up the bed skirt, she
screamed. There under the bed was a dead man.

Hearing Hayden start to moan, and knowing
Devlin was helpless, she swallowed the bile which rose in her throat and moved the
mummified man out of the way. Patting the ground, she searched in desperation
for the key. Finally finding it, she rose quickly and unlocked one of Devlin’s
hands. She couldn’t say anything; she knew if she opened her mouth she’d start
screaming and never stop. As soon as he had a hand free, he reached around and
grabbed the knife Hayden had dropped on the bed. She felt a little better
knowing Devlin had a weapon.

She raced around the bed and freed his
other hand. Devlin rolled Hayden off the bed and she heard her land with a thud
on the other side of the bed, next to the dead body. At this point, Lily almost
couldn’t control her shaking; she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to walk, but knew
she had to try.

Devlin took the lead. When they got to the
front door, they saw steel bars locked in place, making it impossible to open. “There
has to be another way out of here.”

“Haven’t you been here before?” Lily asked.

“Only once or twice, and she always met me
outside. Come on, maybe we can get out through the garage.” They ran through
the house, hand in hand, screeching to a stop at the door. There were steel
bars on it also.

“Were there any windows
facing the street?
I don’t remember. Why can’t I remember? I
sat out there for over fifteen minutes with nothing else to do but look at her
house. I should remember.”

“It’s okay, maybe we can go out the back
and around. We can do this.”

Lily started to breathe when they came out
to the living room at the back of the house, which had floor to ceiling windows
overlooking Los Angeles. They both froze when they thought they heard something
come from the other side of the house. Listening carefully, Lily’s eyes became
huge as she couldn’t be sure she heard what she thought she did. She thought
she heard Hayden say, “Oh, Jimmy, what you are doing out from under the bed?
Looks like you’re being a bad boy again. Don’t make me lock you up in your room
again. You’ve been so good, and now you’re a bad, bad boy. No more special time
for you… Now don’t beg, Jimmy, it isn’t attractive. Show me you can be good,
and I’ll let you fuck me again.”

Chapter
Twenty-two

Devlin
had no idea what Hayden’s words meant, all he knew was she was awake and they
had to get moving. Looking out the windows, he saw the lights of L.A. start to
blink on. Night was coming, and while it would help to hide them, they needed
light in order to see where they were going. Quickly, he pulled Lily to the
door and let out the breath he was holding when it opened easily. However, they
weren’t ready for the loud alarm that sounded.

Instinctively, they ran around furniture
and to the corner of the balcony, hoping there were stairs that would lead
down, but as they rounded the corner of the fireplace, all they saw was a small,
walled-off corner. There was nowhere for them to go. When the alarm went silent
they looked at each other. They knew she’d be coming for them. He peeked over
the edge and saw a hundred foot drop; there would be no escape this way.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,”
Hayden sang from the doorway. “There’s no way down from here.”

“Stay here and hide. I’ll try and distract
her,” Devlin whispered to her. “Maybe I can still get you out of here.”

“No.” Her furious whisper faded as he
hugged the shadows, moving along the wall in hopes to get further away from
Lily so Hayden wouldn’t know exactly where she was.

Once he felt he was as far as he could go,
he stepped out. “Here I am, Hayden.” He raised a hand against the bright
spotlight trying to see where she was.

“Ah, there you are, darling. Where’s our
little gestating whore? We don’t want to lose her and our baby.” She casually
waved a gun around.

Devlin tried to get a good look at her, she
sounded as if she was fine, but how could she? He focused in on her as she
swayed a bit and had blood running down her mangled eye, but otherwise seemed
fine. “We don’t need her. It’s clear she isn’t someone you’d pick. Why don’t we
look for someone together?”

“Now darling, you don’t know what I’ve done
to get this far. I’m sorry, but I think with what I’ve done, we have to keep
the whore’s baby. Once we know the child is strong enough, I have no problem
ripping it from her body and letting her bleed out. But that baby is mine.”

Devlin knew he had to keep her talking, at
least they might learn something else, or some kind of window of opportunity
would open up and they’d be able to make an escape, or at least Lily would be
able to escape. “Are you sure? Maybe I was too hasty choosing Lily; maybe I should
have picked someone who looked more like you.”

“Actually, I think you’re right, darling,
picking someone like her, and now no one is going to miss her. Well, that
little brat, but really, too bad, poor little boy.
A daddy
who doesn’t want him and a mommy who disappeared.
Suck it up, things
like that happen all the time.”

“Well, sure, but he also just lost his
aunt. This might be too much for him.”

Hayden threw back her head and laughed
manically, “Oh yes,
his
aunt. Poor Dory, such a weak
little heart she had. Really, it was way too easy to kill her, much easier than
I thought it would be.”

Devlin’s heart sank; he knew Lily wouldn’t
be able to keep quiet now, knowing her best friend was killed by this psycho.
“What did you do?”

“Well, I tried to poison her son to death,
but when that didn’t
work,
I knew I’d have to try
something else. All I had to do was make sure that poor little heart got a
workout,
then
when she started having chest pains, I
sat down and waited for the bitch to die. All she talked about was that whore,
how much they meant to her, and she had to let them know what was going on, the
brat, blah, blah, blah, it was really sickening. Grow some balls already. There
is only one person that’s important, yourself; you are the only one who is going
to look out for what is best for you.”

“You watched her die and didn’t do
anything.”

“Of course, darling, I did it for us. I had
to push the whore away from you, and what better way than killing her best
friend? Even if she never found out who did it, she’d never see her again. And
if she did find out I did it, well, she’d never be able to look at you the same
way again, because darling, if it wasn’t for you, her best friend would still
be alive.”

“Hayden, you can’t know that, and you can’t
go around killing people.” He felt like he was talking to a toddler.

She stuck her bottom lip out, making her
look like a spoiled brat. “But darling, I did it for us. We were meant to be
together, ever since I saw you in that movie ‘Here
Without
You’ I knew you were the one for me. I had a high school sweetheart, Jimmy. We
had our whole future planned out, but then this redheaded whore came to town
and she stole him away from me. I left, I had to. I saw how protective you were
in that movie, and I knew you’d be like that in real life. I knew if we met
you’d fall in love with me, you’d make all of my demons go away.”

Devlin watched in wonder as she paced back
and forth and told her story, sick to his stomach at where the story had
already taken them and scared of where it was going to end.

“I plotted and planned, did what I had to
do, slept with who I needed to sleep with, knowing with each fuck it was
getting me one step closer to you. Then Jimmy came to visit, told me he’d seen
the error of his ways. But see Jimmy always held a special place in my heart.”
She sighed, “I still remember all those schoolgirl dreams, and he will always
be a part of me. I couldn’t let him leave me again. And he didn’t, he’s still
here with me. Oh, hold on, the two of you are going to want to meet, don’t go
anywhere.” She giggled and quickly ran back into the house.

Devlin looked back to where he’d left Lily.
She was crouched down with her fist in her mouth. He didn’t have to be close to
her to know she was crying. He was impressed she hadn’t come out swinging and
screaming when she heard what Hayden had done to Dory. He had to fight
everything in him not to go to her; all he wanted to do was protect her. Hayden
was right in that observation, his character of the sheriff was close to his
own personality traits.

He turned back to the door when he heard
something being wheeled closer. He gasped when it finally came into view. There
was, what he assumed, was Jimmy,
propped
up on a dolly
like Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. But Jimmy wasn’t alive; in fact,
he’d been dead for a long time. “What the fuck?”

“Isn’t it great? I told you he never left
me. No one ever really leaves me, and neither will you.”

~^~

Lily didn’t know how she was able to stay
where she was and not attack Hayden. The only thing she could think was she
might actually be in shock and everything wasn’t truly registering. She knew
when Devlin looked over at her, but she still couldn’t move. She felt like she
should be doing something, but couldn’t move. Hayden killed Dory.
Had sat there while her friend asked for help, and didn’t do
anything.
Now it sounded like Hayden killed an ex-boyfriend. She
wondered if that was the dead man under the bed. It had to be. She couldn’t
have more than one, could she? A laugh almost escaped her lips.
Really, anything more than
one dead man in your house is just greedy.
This bitch had tried to poison her son.