Lovely Darkness (Creeping Beautiful)

Then Wendy’s scream.

Bloodcurdling. Shivers up the spine. The absolute realization that things would never be the same.

“She had blood all over her,” I continue. “She kept looking at her hands. She was still holding the knife. But she wasn’t completely back yet. I did what I had to do to save her, Merc. She wasn’t going to come back from that moment. She wasn’t.”

“She killed him.”

I nod. “She did it. Something, or someone, triggered her when we were in that estate and she killed him. She slit his throat, Merc. He bled out on the floor. But that wasn’t enough. She snapped his neck and just kept stabbing him. Over and over. And I couldn’t—”

“OK.” Merc puts up a hand. “I don’t need the details. I just need to know what you did that night. You went into her mind and what, made her forget?”

I nod.

“How?”

“It’s called replacement. Ever heard of it?”

“Sure, I’ve heard of it. Used it plenty of times. But is that all you did?”

“No. It wasn’t working. Not well enough. She was snapping in and out of it as I tried to get her out of the mansion and through the woods to the place where I stashed a dirt bike.”

“Dirt bike, huh? Sounds familiar.”

“Does it?”

He shoots me a look, but I’m stuck in that night and don’t care what he’s thinking. “She kept screaming. She kept remembering. So I stopped in the woods and took control of her head.”

“Drugs?”

I shake my head. “No. Just words.”

“Wow.” He seems impressed.

“I have a set of words that I use. They are nice words. Beautiful words. I came up with this litany just before Lauren was born. I used these words on all the little Zero girls just before I killed them. It made them calm. It made them smile. It—”

“Made it easy?”

I nod. “They didn’t fight me. They just looked me in the eyes and agreed with everything I said.”

“So you put Wendy into this state of mind, and then what?”

“I made her believe those words. ‘You are sweet, beautiful, perfect, and whole. You are everlasting, transcendent, exceptional, and extraordinary. You are remarkable, exquisite, priceless, and sublime. You are flawless, marvelous, divine, and sensational. You are heavenly, powerful, glorious, and delightful. You are lovely. You are gorgeous.’ And then I made her say it with me. She memorized the words and after a few years, I think she started saying them to herself. I mean, when I wasn’t there to direct her. That’s how this whole fucking mess started.”

Merc is quiet for a few moments. Finally, he says, “So what’s the problem?”

“The problem,” I say, stalling a little—because I’ve never said this out loud, not even to myself—“the problem is, Merc, that she still has no idea she killed Chek. She has no idea I took control of her mind seven years ago. And it’s breaking down. Fast. I’ve had to fix her three times in the past year alone.”

“How many times have you done this, total?”

“Seventeen. But that’s just me. Get it? How many times has she done it to herself?”

“What?”

“Yeah. I told her the words. Made her repeat them after me. But I didn’t realize she had memorized them. She was mindfucking herself, Merc.”

“Shit.” He stands up, turns his back to me. Runs his hand through his hair. Doesn’t face me when he says, in a very soft voice, “Seventeen. That’s way too many.”

“I know,” I whisper back. “But you—”

He quickly turns back to me, shaking his head. “No.”

“And Carter,” I add before he can protest further. “Between the three of us, we can fix her, Merc. We can. We can be her cure.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN - INDIE

“I love the gardens at night. Aren’t they pretty?” Wendy and I are walking the pea-pebbled paths under the last bits of a setting sun. Maggie wanted to put up solar lanterns a few weeks ago, so we did that. They don’t give off much light, but they do make the whole place feel just a little bit more magical. Wendy and I follow them through the gardens like they’re markers on a map and they’re leadin’ us somewhere.

Wendy looks around as I watch her. She’s a pretty girl, but we’re all pretty on the outside. She’s too quiet, though. That part of her always bugged me when we were younger. She was always so serious. So focused. So… professional. She never got up to the kind of shenanigans I did. Wasn’t even interested in pushing the limits of Chek’s authority over her.

I blame Nathan.

He’s the one who made me want to be rebellious. He always wanted me to question Adam’s authority. In a good way, though, because he was my voice of reason too.

I think that’s why I was missing for those years.

No Nathan.

No restraint.

Just pure rebellion.

Wendy and I might look alike, but we’re almost nothing alike.