Aras

I had left Lake, but wanted to go back.

Refused to.

I could have painted a much different picture, fed her a rosy fairy tale about how all she had to do was be good and she would make it out of this fine.

But I hadn’t been able to tell her that.

Because it wasn’t true, and I refused to sully things between us with lies.

And what was between us?

Something I had never experienced and didn’t understand.

All of my interactions with other people were transactional.

Work.

Whores to take the edge off when it got to be too much to ignore, but all of it designed to further my ends.

But with Lake…

I thought back on what I had planned for her originally.

I hadn’t thought of it in days, could barely make myself do so now.

But before, my ideas had been much different.

After my parents had died, I had gone to the streets, worked my way up, had become ruthless and fearsome.

All in service of revenge.

Every pocket that I had picked, every life I had taken, every arms deal, everything, all of it had been designed to put me in a position where I could destroy him.

It had been my singular focus, the only thing I’d thought about for years.

And even when I had stumbled across Lake, the discovery made after a night of tailing Vlad, I’d viewed her as a furtherance of my ends.

At first, I hadn’t paid much attention. Figured it was just Vlad blowing off some steam.

But I’d noticed that he kept coming back, kept coming back, and had been intrigued, and more importantly, wondered if this would give me more information I could use against him.

It had been difficult, given that the mysterious occupant of the townhouse had not left during the two weeks I had watched it.

But one day, she had emerged.

I had looked her over quickly, seen the average height, plump figure, cute, youngish face. Thought nothing else of it.

I had just been eager for her to leave, hoping that she would stay gone for a long while, excited about the opportunity to explore the townhouse.

Found it pristine, almost like a model home.

But as I had moved through and noted that it was devoid of personality, I’d thought for a while that maybe it was just for the purpose of meetings with Vlad, but then found that it was clear she lived there.

Curious, but definitely not something to catch my attention.

I had installed cameras throughout the place, wanting to have even more information about Vlad.

And when she had come back, I had looked in, mostly because I wanted to make sure the cameras were functioning properly.

So I’d watched Lake making dinner, reading a book on the couch, falling asleep. Waking up the next morning to drink coffee on the rooftop patio.

I watched her the entire time, her activities mundane but leaving me completely incapable of looking away.

Even now, as I thought back on that first time I had watched her, I didn’t understand, didn’t know if there was a reasonable explanation for my fascination with her.

I had managed to turn the camera off, but then found myself back the next night, then the next, drawn in by this person.

I hadn’t understood her, but I’d wanted to.

Desperately.

I tried to figure out why.

She’d seemed so…innocent, sweet.

But that didn’t fit with where she was, who she was with.

I told myself it was just a distraction, a nice diversion to keep me occupied while I worked on the bigger plan.

But watching her had become the only thing I looked forward to.

It was intrusive, more than a little creepy, but I didn’t care.

For so long my life had been nothing but work and planning.

Watching her had been like a window into another life, a window I should have closed but couldn’t bring myself to.

I’d watched her for ten days before he had come back.

The change in her had been instant.

She’d always seemed a little melancholy, something that I’d noticed more and more as the days went by.

When he’d arrived, her melancholy had become full-blown fear.

Fear that I learned was more than warranted.

His beatings, his insults, the way he disregarded and degraded her.

I hated him as much as anyone could hate anything, but somehow, watching the way he was with Lake had made me hate him that much more.

His fate had been sealed the day he had come into my parents’ home, but now I was even more determined to make him suffer.

And even though he treated her poorly, I could sense that she meant something to him, so losing her would be a part of his suffering.

So I had planned how he would find Lake dead, her corpse barely recognizable, how tortured he’d be by not knowing what had happened.

I had thought myself cold enough to pull it off, but as the days had gone by, I’d come to accept there was no way.

Hurting her would be worse than hurting myself, worse than hurting anyone else I could think of.

So I had come up with an alternative plan.

One that I was complicating every day I spent with her.

I couldn’t hurt her, but I also couldn’t guarantee that she wouldn’t be hurt.

I hated being in that position, would do my best to protect her.

Didn’t know that I could.

Knew that that didn’t matter.

Because there was no way I would let her go.