Elizabeth
I LIKE BEING WATCHED.
It’s a sickness. A perversion. A love for attention.
This affliction isn’t something that started at birth or some silly psychological problem passed on by my twisted father. The problem I suffer is solely due to the fact that I’m the lesser everything when it comes to my twin sister, Elise, and me.
She excels in her studies. I fail.
She draws guys like bees to honey. They tend not to notice me.
She’s funny, clever, and charismatic. I’m withdrawn and somber.
I spend so much of my time watching and wishing I could be like her, but it’s all wasted effort. We’re not the same. Two girls who shared the same womb for nine months, but we couldn’t be more different if we tried.
Physically, we’re the same.
Same long dark brown hair. Same slightly upturned nose with a smattering of freckles. The same hazel eyes. Our mouths even smile the same exact way.
But despite that, the guys like her better. She dresses trendy, wears lots of makeup, and has a bubbly personality that makes her laugh a lot.
As for me?
I’m seen as her quiet, strange sister.
I came out of our mother first, yet they treat me as though I’m much younger than her.
She’s the light, and I’m the shadow she casts.
So when I do get attention, I bask in it. Like the warm rays of the sun, I want to curl up under it and sleep with it bathing me. The most attentive people in my life are Dillon, Jade, and little MJ. I feel like I belong to their family more than my own. After Dad was found guilty of raping and killing many women, our family was torn apart.
Mom refused to discuss his crimes with us, but it was all over the news, newspapers, internet. She couldn’t escape it, and neither could we. She closed her clinic when patients stopped coming to appointments and started working at the hospital. Her hours became long and brutal as she tried to prove herself—to hold everything together financially since she’s now putting two kids through college on only her salary. And my sister is busy being Miss Popular College Girl. Our father’s black smudge on our lives didn’t even leave a mark on her, but people look at me with raised brows and whisper when I pass them.
Hateful comments about my father were slung at me, and questions about a brother I never knew existed. One thing I did learn: pure darkness has its cracks and that’s where the light seeps in. It’s one of the reasons I’m taking a semester off. I can’t stand their judgmental eyes always on me. At least, at home, I’m free from it all.
Being disconnected from your mother and sister makes you question if you’re more like the other side of the DNA that created you, and that is a scary prospect.
So, when Dillon and Jade invite me to dinner, I always go. When they need me to watch MJ, I always do. When they simply want to catch up and ask about me, I always chat with them.
The attention I’m feeling right now isn’t at all like their warm, sunshiny rays of love. This is different. Like a cool breeze skittering across your damp-with-sweat neck. It sends a chill rippling down your spine.
Dark and sinister.
Frightening.
But still…someone’s focus.
I always feel eyes on me—unseen and never pinpointed. But they’re there all right. And because I like them, even though they feel wrong, I tend to make myself available to those eyes. There are more people like him than I’d ever thought possible.
My bedroom window is open.
The curtains flutter with small gusts of warm wind every so often.
It’s dark out there and bright in my room.
I’m in the spotlight. The star of the one-person show.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go out tonight?” Elise questions, her brows furrowed together as she studies my appearance.
“Positive.” I smile tightly, not missing the way her shoulders relax slightly at my answer. She invites me out of obligation, but revels in the way I always say no.
“Jason’s been asking about you,” she says as she walks into the room and stands behind me at my vanity. Jason? Gross.
Our eyes meet as she toys with a strand of my hair. Her eyes are rimmed in a smoky black liner and her lashes are painted dark. Elise seems older lately. More exotic. A woman.
My gaze falls to my pale, natural flesh and pouty lips.
I’m just a child.
“Jason isn’t my type,” I tell her, my voice strained with irritation. The last time I gave in and went out with her and her friends, Jason tried to feel me up at the movie theater. His breath reeked of salty butter and he gave me the creeps. Sure, I like attention, but not from an arrogant nerd who thinks he’ll nail the shy, desperate girl.
I have standards.
And tastes.
Movie flavored man-boy isn’t it.
I prefer something darker, mature, decadent—everything Jason is not.
“Fine,” Elise says with a huff. “Mom wants to meet up Saturday for pedicures. She’s been working sixteen hour days and crashing at the hospital. That’s really the only time we’ll get to see her for a while. Don’t let her down, okay?”
I’m not the one with a bulging-with-activities calendar.
Although, tonight, I have a couple things on the agenda…
I hate how she tells me Mom’s been staying at the hospital, like I wouldn’t know. I’m the only occupant of our house and see Mom more than she does. Elise stays on campus. It’s just another jab at me. Always jabbing, that perfect twin of mine.
The doorbell rings and Elise jolts away from me, a grin spreading up to her high cheekbones.
“That might be my friend coming to pick me up.”
Kami, Elise’s newish best friend, is quirky and appears to be more like me than Elise, but with Elise so caught up in herself, I doubt she’s even noticed the alternative music Kami likes, or the scattering of thin scars up her forearms from cutting. Elise doesn’t see details; not like I do. I like to study people and figure out what keeps their coils moving.
She bounds away, and once again, the stage is all mine. My eyes dart over to the open window and I strain to see outside. No moving figures. Nothing. But I feel those eyes on me. Always. I was sure I was being followed the other day while walking back from a quick shop run. Heavy footfalls sounded behind me, but whenever I would look, the empty stretch of road greeted me.
“Is there anyone out there?” I whisper, scanning the street.
A smile plays at my lips until I hear Elise laughing downstairs. Dillon’s deep voice carries up the stairs, and my heart swells in my chest. I wonder if Jade and MJ are with him.
“She never leaves the house,” Elise groans, her voice soft as though I can’t hear her big mouth anyway.
“Safer that way,” Dillon grunts back.
I beam at my reflection in the mirror. I can always count on Dillon to have my back.
“There’s nothing to worry about. Maybe she’d have a social life if she ever came with me. But…” she murmurs, her voice is so low I can barely make out what she’s saying, “can you please check this out? I know things with our father and the thing he spawned had an effect on her, but this is getting out of hand, and people at my school mentioned this to me, so it’s not like she’s even hiding it…” her voice trails off into a inaudible whisper, and I’m agitated I can’t hear anymore.
My sister huffs when the doorbell rings again, and I can’t help but be thankful for the interruption. “Bye, D. My ride is here. Kiss MJ for me.”
The front door slams and boots pound up the stairs. Soon, Dillon’s giant frame fills my doorway. Paper crumples in his fist and he shoves it into his shirt pocket. He must have come right after work. He’s wearing a crisp white button-down shirt that clings to his muscles in a way that makes my heart race. His slacks hug his toned thighs, and I can see the outline of his badge in his pocket.
Are you a cop, or are you just happy to see me?
“What are you smirking about?” he says on a laugh, his shoulder leaning against the frame.
“The very idea that Elise thinks I would go anywhere with Jason Jackoff Bronson,” I lie.
His eyebrow arches, but he doesn’t call me out on my fib. One of the downsides of having a detective as a friend: he and his wife are way too intuitive. “Is that the fuckwit who got handsy in the theater last time?”
Dillon sees everything about me. He remembers everything about me. This makes him one of my favorite people.
“That’s the one. How’s Jade? I felt the baby move last time she was here,” I tell him, spinning in my desk chair, a small smile tugging at my lips.
He grins and walks through my room to the window. My heart rate quickens. What if he scares those eyes away? I nearly sigh aloud when he closes the window and turns the lock. Drawing the curtains together, he turns to me.
“She’s fine.” His brows furrow, and I can tell something is bothering him. I notice things too.
“What’s wrong?”
“You shouldn’t leave windows open, especially when you’re alone in the house.”
I quirk a brow. “I’m not alone. You’re here,” I tease. “What’s really wrong?”
His jaw clenches and hands ball into fists. “I saw some pretty gruesome shit yesterday. It worries the fuck out of me that something will happen to you or Elise. Your mom is never home and you guys are out here all alone.” He scrubs at his scruffy cheek with his palm. “Especially you.”
We’ve grown real close since Dad’s incarceration, and it makes you realize family isn’t always who you share your blood with. It’s the ones who take care of you, love you, and stay around.
“I’m nineteen,” I remind him, picking up a pen and doodling on the pad that holds so many secrets.
He gives me a clipped nod, but a storm brews in his eyes. It makes me uncomfortable the way he surveys everything in my bedroom. When his gaze falls to my closet, I cringe.
“You’d tell me if something was wrong, right, nugget?” His eyebrow lifts in question as he saunters over to the closet. “Like if you were doing the marijuana.”
I snort with a laugh and roll my eyes. Sometimes he reminds me of my father, but I would never burden him with that non-compliment. “You’re a dork. I’m not doing the marijuana. And yes, I’d tell you if something were wrong.”
But right now, most everything is right.
By the way his eyes keep darting over to the closet, curiosity shining in them and his gaze lingering, I can tell he really wants to peek inside, but I don’t give him the permission he desperately wants. “Want to stay for dinner? I could reheat the pork chops and mashed potatoes I made earlier.”
His stomach grumbles, and I laugh.
“As much as I’d love to take you up on that offer, I promised Jade I’d swing by to check on you and get my big ass home. Apparently, MJ has been giving her fits if I’m not there to read her a bedtime story.” Abandoning his curiosity of my closet, he walks over to me, and I stand to hug him. His fingers brush down to the scribbles on the pad cover, and my body hums and trembles as if the ground quakes beneath me. Swallowing, I will myself to relax.
“Maybe Sunday, if you guys are free, come over and you can teach me how to use the grill again. Last time, I almost burned down the house, but I’m dying for home-cooked burgers on the grill.”
He regards me with affection. In his eyes, I’m like a little sister to him. And unlike being in Elise’s shadow, being in Dillon’s shadow is different. He craves to protect me, teach me, and mold me since I don’t have many people in my life who can do that for me, and I crave his affection, approval, comfort.
“Of course, nugget.”
I follow him downstairs, hugging him once more, and inhale his mix of sweat and aftershave. As he saunters off to his vehicle, I wave to him. The feeling of being watched seems to intensify, the hairs on the back of my neck raising in awareness. Dillon drives away, and my gaze sweeps across the darkness, searching for those eyes.
Finding nothing, I deflate a little, and close the door, twisting the lock into place. I make sure to do the same in my bedroom. Not that I’m afraid of anyone. Now that I’m alone, I’m free to be me.
My hand hovers over the notebook left so carelessly for anyone to snoop within. I flick my fingers through the pad, opening to the page with big scribbled letters.
BENNY
The picture the media used while trying to hunt him down and one with our dad when he was small are the only ones they had. The artist’s rendering of him is spooky. Something about the dark, vacant eyes. Sometimes, I stare at the picture, willing it to come to life just so I can ask my brother some questions. News clippings are also stuck to the pages, and my heart slows as I turn the page and stare down at flames I’d hand drawn around a tombstone, remembering the day I learned of Benjamin when Elise educated me on his demise.
Nearly three years ago…
Elise still goes to classes and acts like life is normal when in the cold reality, life—ours, at least—is anything but. Eyes follow me as I cross the courtyard and drop my bag under the giant tree offering shelter from the overbearing heat. My skin protests the sun—literally. It gets red and angry when exposed. My pale complexion has always been something I’ve liked about myself…until I started junior high and boys made fun of me.
Vampire.
Milk bottle.
And the more cultured students went with Geisha girl, like that was an insult. Skin paling is a billion-dollar industry in Asia.
I’m brought from my musing when a girl I know as Fakebitch One sits down next to me. Her friends, Fakebitch Two and Three, stand beside her like her personal bodyguards.
I hold my hand over my eyes to block the sun and look over her perfect features. Blue eyes, blonde hair curling around her pretty oval shaped face, a plump bottom lip with a thin top lip. She smirks, then speaks, handing me an iPad I hadn’t realized she was carrying.
“So, do you know where your brother is? Like, did he sneak you messages to let you know he’s okay?”
Oh God, she thinks I’m someone else. My mouth parts, but words don’t form.
Lifting her hand, she waves it in front of my face. “Hello, earth to…” she looks up at her friend, who scrunches her shoulders and mouths, “Beck?”
“…Beck,” she mimics, turning back to face me.
My glower goes unnoticed as she stares back at me. “It’s Beth. Elizabeth,” I retort.
“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes and taps at the screen now in my lap.
My eyes drop to the page she’s brought up.
Killer Chief of Police, Steve Stanton, covers up heinous crimes of son who is still at large. Now labeled THE DOLL KILLER by the press, Benjamin Stanton is being hunted by police for the murders of numerous women and abduction and imprisonment of a female detective.
Here is what we know…
Benjamin is the only son of the shamed rapist and murderer, Steve Stanton, conceived by his first wife, Patricia Stanton. She is believed to be one of the victims whose remains were amongst those recovered from a property belonging to Steve Stanton. A doll maker by trade, Patricia molded her son’s fascination and ultimate obsession with porcelain dolls.
Before I can read more, the IPad is snatched from my grasp and Fakebitch One is grinning at me. “So…does he reach out?”
Is she serious?
“Why?”
She shrugs her shoulders, and her friends giggle. “It’s just kind of hot.”
“This isn’t true.” I shake my head. “I don’t have a brother.”
“This is a legit source, Becka. She blogs online, but her source is someone on the inside.”
“It’s Beth, and I don’t care who her source is.”
“She says he dressed up his victims and fucked them, and if they weren’t good, he killed them.”
More giggles sound from her friends.
“I think I could be a great doll,” she coos.
She’s insane.
“So, you want to be raped and murdered?”
If what she’s saying is true, that’s what she wants to happen to her?
“He wouldn’t kill me, silly. I’d be the perfect doll for him.”
“He might be gross looking,” one of her friends pipes in.
Tossing her hair over her shoulder, Fakebitch One glowers up at her outspoken friend and humphs. “I told you, Kate. I saw the leaked sketch before it was taken down and he’s super hot.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” her friend backpedals.
“None of this is relevant,” I grit out. “I don’t have a brother. One killer in the family is enough. Thank you, though. If I ever do run across him, I’ll be sure to send him to your address.”
I stand, grabbing my backpack, and get roughly ten feet before she calls out, “Do you know my address?”
Idiot.
My palms sweat and my heart paces. I need to find Elise. I need to call Jade or Dillon—or both.
I locate Elise in the girl’s bathroom smacking her newly applied lipstick and brushing through her hair.
“Wendy Hudson just spoke to me,” I spit out.
Lowering her brush, Elise’s eyes clash with mine in the mirror.
“Did she think you were me?” she asks, her eyes raking over my attire.
“No. She wanted information on our brother.”
Elise’s face pales and she spins to face me.
Oh my God. It’s true.
“What did she say?”
“What does that matter? How come you don’t look surprised at the mention of a freaking brother?”
She covers my mouth with her hand and looks around the empty bathroom.
“Mom mentioned it by accident, and I called her on it. She confessed our father had a family before us.”
“A family, or a son?” My stomach twists and stirs.
“Just a son, I think.” She shrugs her shoulders like she’s talking about the weather or something of less importance.
“And he is a murderer too?” I whisper, wrapping my arms around my waist.
“Mom said he was messed up by two deranged parents, that his mental state would have been fragmented from a young age. He’s a product of his environment.”
Oh my God.
Confusion within my emotions battles for space inside my head.
I have a brother?
No, you have another killer.
A damaged brother?
No, a deranged murderer.
Was he left alone all this time?
Or did he want to be left alone to kill?
Did our father abandon him?
To raise us?
What was his mother like?
What if she was our mother too, would we be like him?
Why did he become this…this killer?
“And he’s out there?” I question.
Her hands come down on my shoulders, a stoic look on her face.
“No, don’t be frightened. This can’t go any further, Beth,”
Instead of responding, I wait for her to continue.
“Dillon told Mom to stop her worrying about him being out there. He’s dead. Died in a fire, but it wasn’t reported, so only a few people know.”
My feet begin moving despite her calling out my name.
“Beth…Beth?”
I pass Wendy in the corridor and turn back to grab her arm. Her mouth pops open and she whines as I drag her over to the lockers.
Scanning the halls, she hush whispers, “Just because I spoke to you outside, it doesn’t mean you can approach me in the halls.”
Seriously?
“I want to know the name of the person who runs that blog.”
Her arms fold over her perfectly formed breasts, pushing them farther out from the V-neck of her cashmere sweater. Smirking, she tosses her hair over her shoulder and jerks her chin.
“So, it is true?”
“Wendy,” I hiss.
“It’s an anonymous blog so she can’t be targeted or chastised for what she writes.”
“Name?”
“What makes you think I know it?”
“Wendy.”
“You can have her email, but she may not reply.”
Digging into my backpack, I hand her a pad and pen. Smacking her lips together with a tutting sound, she scribbles the address down and saunters off without a glance back.
“Beth,” Elise whisper-yells at me from a doorway leading to English.
“What?”
“What are you doing? We have class.”
“I don’t.” I push through the doors to the yard and make my way home to email this blogger.
My hand grasps the email I received back from the anonymous blogger almost three years ago. A case file from a profiler created on Benjamin before they knew who he was.
A loner, possibly from a one-parent family with anger toward both.
Abandonment issues. A longing to be accepted and loved. Knows what he does is wrong, but the impulsion is rooted too deep, possibly due to an abusive parent.
They weren’t far off. I think about how troubled he was. His actions of taking lives was unacceptable, but that’s all he knew growing up. His parents did the same thing and didn’t hide it. Instead, they shared the insanity like it was normalcy. Would any of us turn out this way? Or was the sickness something he was born with from bad DNA? Nature versus nurture…we’ll never know.
My life changed that day. I changed and found myself.
Pulling my curtains open, I slide my window back up. The temperature has cooled some, eliciting a shiver. I always feel eyes on me. Always. I hug my robe tighter around me as I make my way to my closet. Once I open it, I stare at my tall armoire inside. It keeps my secrets locked in it—secrets that might cause friction if Dillon or Elise were to find out.
With a gasp of excitement, I retrieve my key from my robe pocket, unlock the armoire, and pull open the two mahogany doors. Around my family and friends, I may dress simple and boring, but when I’m alone, I enjoy wearing pretty dresses. I love frills and lace. I love how easy it is to become someone else.
I choose the white dress that reminds me of when Elise and I were five and Mom dressed us up to sit on the Easter Bunny’s lap. Elise screamed in horror, but I loved the big, animated bunny. I snuggled against his faux fur, adoring the way he hugged me to him.
Untying the sash on my robe, I let it fall to my feet in a heap. My bra is simple and white. The panties I’m wearing I made myself, stitching lacy ruffles on the bottom. They’re quite adorable. I want everyone to see them, especially the imaginary eyes outside. Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved to create my own style, which led to making my own clothes.
My heart hammers in my chest as I pull the white dress from the hanger and tug it on over my head. It falls into place. Modest in the chest area, not showing too much, but short enough to feel girly and slightly sexy in an innocent way. I pull open one of the drawers and hunt for some white knee-highs. Once I slip those on over my long legs, I admire how the material hugs my flesh. My skin is pale, but the knee-highs are paler. Locating my shiny black Mary Janes, I slip them on, then twist my long, dark locks into a bun and pin it into place. My favorite wig hangs alongside my handmade dresses, and I finger the silky red piece before slipping it on over my hair. Once I tug it into place, I’m ready for some makeup.
My gaze is drawn to the window once more. Someone is out there. I can practically feel their eyes licking over the soft planes of my body. The heat from it prickles my skin in a way that doesn’t quite burn, but teases instead. Sometimes, I wish whoever was out there would show their face, creep through the window, and show me I’m not as alone as I feel.
The ghost of a man I never knew haunts me.
I spend a good half hour applying my makeup, highlighting my youth while focusing on my pouty lips. The false lashes are always the trickiest, but eventually, I get them glued into place. Batting them like the wings of a butterfly, they fan over the rose apples of my cheeks. When I glance at my reflection, a shy smile tugs at my lips.
Almost ready.
Pulling out my laptop, I set it on my vanity once I’ve cleared away the makeup. It takes a few minutes to log in, but I finally get where I want to be. Where I’m the star of my show. Where thousands of people wait for this moment—a moment with me.
I attempt to still my racing heart, but I can’t. The anticipation thrumming through me is what keeps me alive. This life is too hollow and dull and sad without these moments. They fulfil a part of me that’s needed filling since the moment our father was sent to jail. Everyone tried their best to keep us out of the spotlight, and they succeeded. But what they couldn’t do was keep me from watching it all over the news. What my father did. What my half-brother did. All the horrors. The strange fetishes. The captives. The murders. My father went to prison, and my half-brother was burned alive, according to Dillon. He died, and all the bad things were supposed to die with him.
But some things were born after his death.
Some things were carried on.
I push the button that thrusts me into my world. Tonight is going to be different. I won’t sit in silence or just take pictures for my observers to view.
“Hello,” I squeak, my voice soft and childlike. “Who wants to sing me a bedtime song?” I pout my lips as I watch hundreds of user names comment, so fast, I can’t read them. “Nobody,” I lie, chewing on my bottom lip. “I suppose I’ll have to sing one to myself then.”
My private message box lights up and I watch the number quadruple within seconds. Sometimes, when I feel like no one sees me, I go in and read all the adoring messages. Some are dirty and perverted. Others are sweet and fatherly. Each and every one promises to take care of me.
“Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick,
So she phoned for the doctor to be quick, quick, quick.
The doctor came with his bag and his hat,
And he knocked at the door with a rat-a-tat-tat.
He looked at the dolly and he shook his head,
And he said, “Miss Polly, put her straight to bed!”
He wrote on a paper for a pill, pill, pill,
“I’ll be back in the morning, yes I will, will, will.”