Syrena

I stumble toward the sound of his voice, but the unevenness and countless twigs on the ground make it hard to navigate.

Footsteps approach me, and I call out his name again, “Chase? Is that you?”

“What are you doing here?” he shouts. It’s definitely him.

A hand pushes my shoulder, causing me to fall.

“Stay down!” he growls.

I don’t know what’s going on. I wish I could see. But all I hear is footsteps … first two … then four … rushing through the leaves. Clashing. Metal on metal. Lots of groaning and screaming.

They’re fighting. Fighting to kill.

A loud shriek emanates from the man.

Something spatters onto me.

I shiver and bring my hands to my face, smelling the liquid.

Blood.

Shock ripples through me when I hear the cries of the man as his body audibly hits the ground.

“What’s happening?” I ask, my voice brittle. Unsteady.

The sound of a knife being pulled from flesh echoes in my ears.

My whole body begins to shake.

“Chase?” I mutter, hoping it’s him.

Oh God, please let him survive.

In all the noise and chaos, he is the only constant. The only one who might let me live.

“Syrena.” His voice alone calms my rapidly beating heart.

Still, I shudder when he approaches me. What if he intends to kill me next? I don’t know what happened, or why this is even happening. All I know is that I was in the car, and the next thing I knew, someone was violently banging on the doors. So I escaped by unlocking it and ran. I ran and ran … I couldn’t stop.

“Why didn’t you stay in the car?” he asks.

“They were at the car,” I reply. “They smashed the windows. I don’t know who. But I just ran for my life. Toward the only voice I recognized … Brandon’s. But then there was this man. Oh, God.” I slap my hand in front of my mouth. “I didn’t know he was there, lying on the ground. I stumbled over his body.”

I shake my head as the tears run down my cheeks.

Chase’s thumb brushing it away makes me lean back. I don’t know if I can trust him. Something bad just happened—someone died—and he and Brandon are the only ones left standing. That says something.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

It’s the only sensible question I can ask after being taken to this place.

To a forest in the middle of God knows where … with a bunch of people fighting.

Is this some kind of gang? Is that what this is?

Or is it something way, way worse?

“Stay there,” he suddenly says, and he walks away again.

I don’t respond. I don’t even know what to say to all this. This … murder game.

What is going on? Why are they doing this?

And is Chase really a man I can trust, or is he the one I should fear?

If he killed that man, there’s no telling what he’ll do to me.

In the distance, the same gunshots I heard from the car echo through the forest again, and I jolt every time my ears catch them. It’s scary. Not because of the sound, but because I can’t tell where they’re coming from.

Because I don’t know who’s fighting who … and who the actual bad guys are.

So I huddle away against the nearest tree and cover myself with leaves, praying no one will see me.

More screams and metal clashing against metal follow. I try not to pay attention because it only makes my heart palpitate and my throat clamp up. I don’t want to be here. But I have no other choice but to listen to Chase.

If I try to flee now, someone will follow me. I just know it.

And then I die.

I refuse to die.

Another deafening gunshot rings in my ears. I place my hands over them and talk to myself.

“You’re safe. Nothing will happen. You’re alive. No one’s coming for you. Chase will find you.”

Chase will find you.

I hear it again and again in my head until there’s nothing else.

Nothing but me and my empty void.

Until his voice brings me back from the brink of insanity.

“Syrena.” I lower my hands, hoping it’s really him. Hoping he’ll have mercy.

What if this is it? What if he just needed to kill the men coming for me and then kill me himself? What if, by being here, I just signed my own death certificate?

No, he wouldn’t. He likes me, he said so himself. He’s been trying to woo me all this time. It wouldn’t make sense. Right?

He kneels in front of me, and then everything goes silent. The only things I hear are his rapid breaths and the wind rustling up the leaves.

My hand rises to find his face. I caress him softly even though my hand shakes when I touch the wetness on his skin. The blood.

I swallow away the lump in my throat.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

I nod. I don’t feel any pain. I’m just … shocked.

He grabs my hand and pulls me up from the ground, but I’m so unsteady that I collapse in his arms. “Whoa, easy there,” he says.

Instead of letting me walk on my own, he picks up me and carries me. I don’t know where we’re going, but I feel weak from terror. Weak from what I just witnessed even though I still can’t fully grasp what just went down.

“Where to now?” Brandon suddenly asks. I didn’t even hear him approach. That’s how out of sync I am with the world right now.

“Home,” Chase says resolutely.

“What about the bodies?”

“Leave them.”

“What?” Brandon’s voice is sharp. “And then what? Let the cops find them?”

“I don’t care. Let them rot,” Chase snaps back.

“They could lead back to us.”

“Did you use gloves?” he asks, stopping in his tracks.

“Yeah.”

“Then we have nothing to worry about.”

“What about the tire tracks? Traces of blood?” Brandon adds.

“Blood can’t be traced back if we’re not in the system. And we don’t have cars with tires that rare. Everyone’s got this brand. That’s why we bought them,” Chase says. “We’ll each go our separate ways. That good enough?”

Brandon doesn’t respond any further, so I’m guessing they agreed with nods or exchanged a gaze. Chase begins to walk again and brings us back to his car, where he sets me down in the passenger’s seat and buckles up.

He sits down behind the wheel and starts the engine. Even though I hear the car moving, I don’t feel like I’m going anywhere. It’s as if I’m simply existing. Still processing the thoughts, sounds, and smells that bombarded me back there.

“I’m sorry,” he suddenly says. “I didn’t think they’d go to the car and try to get to you.”

I nod, but I don’t know what to say to that or what he wants me to do. So I just sit here and wait without saying a word the entire way back to his home.

The man sitting next to me feels distant. Like I don’t really know him … even when I am just starting to like him.

But now? I don’t know anything anymore. The whole world shifted on its axis the moment we came to the forest we’re now leaving behind. For a long time, I’d known he was hiding something … but this? I didn’t expect this.

This … killing spree.

Another shiver runs up and down my spine.

But the car’s already stopped, and within minutes, he’s taking me back up to his apartment. Back into that hole where he kept me hidden from the world. Was this the reason? These people who were just murdered?

I struggle to breathe. He shuts the door behind me, and as I stand in the middle of the living room and smell that familiar smell hovering close to me, my throat clamps up.

A hand is placed on my shoulder.

Soft and warm.

The hand of a killer.

“Are you afraid of me now?”

Just those simple words are enough to make sparks scatter all over my skin where he touches me.

I inch away and take a few steps backs, then turn around to face him, unsure of him. Unsure of me.

When I hear his feet shuffle closer, I take another step back. “Don’t.”

“Take my hand,” he says.

I shake my head. I don’t know where his hand will lead me. I only know it can’t be anywhere but straight to hell.

“You’re covered in blood,” he says. “I just want to get you cleaned up.”

“No,” I say resolutely. My body grows rigid as he approaches once more.

He breathes heavily. “So you are afraid of me,” he says. There’s a certain tone to his voice that I can’t place. It’s dark and … melancholic.

After a moment of complete silence, he adds, “Ask me anything.”

My lips part, but all I can do is suck in a breath. Is this it? Is this the moment when he’ll finally come clean? When I’ll finally know the truth?

The longer I think about it, the more I shut down. So many questions … but do I really want to know the answer?

“Think hard … there’s no going back once you know,” he says, his voice heavy.

My lips quiver as the realization kicks in that we can never go back to the way it used to be. That I can never be that innocent girl from Roy’s club anymore, or that victim stuck in a cell … That I’m only his now and no one else’s. That there’s no changing him or us. And that what I learn might make or break me.

I step back farther as he approaches. I can’t let him get close. Can’t let him touch me. Because I already know what happens if he does.

But there’s a wall in the way, and I can’t move any farther.

I swallow away the lump in my throat as I attempt to form my very first question, but I can’t get the words off my tongue. Can’t let them go because of what it means when we both know the truth.

What it means when he admits that he’s a cold-blooded killer.

I’ve known it all along, but I chose to deny it. Chose to forget about the night he came home to wash dirty clothes because it was too insane to be true.

But it is.

I knew deep down that it’s always been his single truth.

He doesn’t just hurt people. Doesn’t just make them bleed.

He kills them. Mercilessly.

Chase closes in on me, trapping me between his body and the wall. “What am I?” he says through gritted teeth.

He’s so close I can feel his breath on my chin.

“Say it … out loud.”

“A monster.” The air is knocked from my lungs as the words pour out. “A killer.”

His finger slowly traces a line down my cheek, down the very same path the blood traveled. Whose blood, I don’t know. Mine, his, the men he killed. It should shock me, but right now nothing does.

Only him.

“Then you know,” he whispers, “I’m not the hero who saved you. I’m the bad guy … a serial killer.”