Disclaimer: standard
Warnings: incest, violence, language
Summary: She'd felt another pair of eyes on her, even if she couldn't see them. He's there. He's been there all along...
A/N: Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for the awesome feedback (and your patience)! You are truly wonderful people.
I should warn you that this chapter is quite dark (as you might imagine, given how the last one ended). Honestly, I struggled a bit with this. I love the Baudelaires and it's not easy to put them in such terrible situations.
I want to be clear that all scenes written from a villainous POV are meant to reveal the character's mindset/motives and to build suspense, as is the epigraph below. I do not condone or sympathize with murderers and baddies, nor do I seek to show them in a positive light. (On the contrary, IMO comprehending their POVs can help us to stop them, or at least, avoid falling prey to them).
I'm so sorry for the wait.
Thanks for reading!
~ Pretani
Chapter 24
Behind the Mirror
"I am not sick. I am insane. But that will not stop the game." – The Zodiac Killer
Sunny paused at door to the old sewing room, before she remembered to leave it alone. Klaus wouldn't be in there anyway. We set a trap…She ran to Ethie's room, and then to the kitchen. Where is he?
The front door was ajar. She pushed it open, clattered down the porch steps, calling for her brother. And she looked out, across the yard. He's not here either.
Before she could move, she was grabbed from behind, lifted, and a hand clamped over her mouth. She tried to scream, but the sound came out as a muffled squeak. Her eyes darted about frantically, but she didn't see Klaus…
He'd disappeared, and there was no one to help her now.
Violet drew a deep breath, her one hand clutching the edge of the sink, and she lifted her chin. It was sheer force of will that kept her standing. She gave no thought to her battered reflection, the dark circles that lined her eyes. She'd felt another pair of eyes on her, even if she couldn't see them. He's there. He's been there all along, watching us.
Her nerves were stretched taut, almost beyond their breaking point, but she didn't falter. She almost felt lucky, that she'd discovered it in time, before he could catch Sunny too.
She didn't have to guess at what he'd do, with both of them at his mercy. He'd use her as a hostage, so that I wouldn't fight him…so that he could force me to...She cringed inwardly, felt the bile rising in her throat. I'd do anything to keep her safe…anything he wanted. He was counting on it. Just like…
She slid her one hand along the counter, surreptitiously. And she reached for the knife, dropped her hand to hide it in the folds of her nightgown.
"You missed your chance," she said to the mirror. "You're too late."
The glass panel clicked back, away from the frame. It was surreal, almost like the funhouse she'd seen once, at a carnival. A sliver of an opening appeared then, a gap between the mirror and the wall frame. Musty air wafted over her like fetid breath.
"Not for long." His voice was slick. "Call her back."
She stared into the darkness, unblinking. "You'll have to kill me first."
"You won't get out of this so easy." The passage opened further, to reveal his smirking face, a bandana wrapped around his head, where she'd cut him.
In a sudden flash, she knew that he'd done this before, many times. And no one had stopped him. No one has seen him for what he was…
Her mind still clung to one small hope, that Klaus would burst in with the gun, that he'd find her before…
She blocked out the image. Her only thought now was to divert the monster away from Sunny, to stall him, until her brother would come.
He doesn't like to talk about Emma…
"You watched your sister in here, didn't you? No better than a peeping Tom."He wasn't listening, only looking at her with dark, hooded eyes…toying with her… imagining the things he wanted to do…
Revulsion formed a hard knot in her stomach. At least I have his attention. "She should've been safe with her family, in her own house."
"Her house?" He sneered. "This house is mine! Everything here is mine!"
"Your mother would have something to say about that," she pressed him. "What'll she say, when she finds out what you really are?"
He gave a hard, sneering laugh, as if he knew something she didn't. As if he'd already won. "She won't say anything. She won't be coming back."
She won't be coming back. He'd said that before, about his sister...with the same callous indifference, the same certainty.
Cold fear gripped her. He made sure of that.
She felt a wave of grief for the poor woman, regret for ever suspecting her… She was too good. She couldn't see the truth about him. Her leg throbbed, her body numb fatigue. She didn't want to see the truth.
He cracked a grin at her, and her mind shifted to her own plight.
"Call her back." His voice was a snarl. "Call her back now."
She held fast to the knife handle, fingers digging into her palm.
"You're going to leave her out there by herself? You never know what might happen. A pretty little girl like her…"
She felt as if she were on fire, her muscles screaming as she stood up straight. If he turned his horrid, twisted cravings on her baby sister…
"I'll never let you hurt her." The voice rang out, sharp and severe. She barely recognized it as her own.
He was on her in an instant, knocking her to the floor. And she felt his hand snag in her hair. "I'll do more than that," he hissed, the stench of his breath nearly chocking her. "Unless you give me what I want."
He forced a rough kiss on her, holding her down, and she kicked at him, scratching at his face…
Gerard cried out in pain, throwing her away. He looked disbelievingly at his right arm, dripping with blood from a long gash. Violet clutched the knife, ready to slash at him again.
His incredulity turned to rage in an instant. "You bitch!" He wrestled the knife away from her, trapping her with his weight. "You'll pay for that. I'm gonna carve you up, one piece at a time."
He pressed the cold steel of the blade to her throat, his blood smearing her skin. She could feel his arousal, his heavy panting, and she wanted to retch
"Where's your brother? You think he can save you now?"
Comprehension swept over her then. By herself…leave her out there by herself…
Her spine snapped taut, fear tearing through her in shockwaves. "What have you done with him?"
"He left." His grin was pure evil. "He ran off and left you for me."
"You're lying." Her voice didn't waver. He'll come back. He'll come for me, unless…The thought hit her like a death blow.
With a cry, she threw herself at him. But she was weak, worn down by fighting. And he was too strong.
He punched her in the face, slammed her head into the floor. She was stunned, barely conscious, but she heard his voice again as he dragged her toward the opening in the wall. "He won't be back either."
Pictures swam in her head...Klaus lying somewhere, hurt and broken. Dying…
She stifled a sob, her body burning with an agony too terrible to bear.
If he were gone, Sunny would be left alone and... She didn't want to think on what her own life would be. It was too awful to contemplate-surviving without him. If I survive at all.
Harsh laughter ripped through her, a mocking voice. He won't be back... But she forced it all away.
Klaus is alive. She'd feel it in her blood, in her every breath, if he were not. And she would be as dead as Gerard.
Sunny bit down on the hand covering her mouth, kicked out violently as she was pulled under the porch.
"Sunny, it's okay. It's me." He caught her swinging fist in his hand. "It's me."
The familiar voice reached her then. "Why'd you do that?" She stared up at her brother angrily. "You scared me."
"I'm sorry." He spoke in a whisper, rubbing his hand where she'd broken the skin. "You were shouting, Sunny. If there's anyone around, they'll hear you. Somebody's out there." His eyes glanced over the yard before they set on her again. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be with Violet."
"She said to get you." Sunny pulled on his arm. "Come on."
Her words made him go pale. Violet wouldn't call off their plan, wouldn't send their little sister running out of the washroom. Not without a good reason… And he could think of one…
Rage swept through him in a rush, a surge of adrenaline. He's been a step ahead of us the whole time...
"Let's go, Sunny."
She looked to him, wide-eyed when she saw the gun in his hand, the expression he wore…hard and cold and deadly. He wasn't Klaus anymore, the brother who let her win at snowball fights, who tucked her in and read to her at night. If only for a moment, he'd become someone else, someone dangerous. It almost frightened her.
Her vision blurred, sounds indistinct in her ears but Violet fought to stay conscious as he hauled her into the tunnel. She was thrown down, a long drop, and she landed hard on her left side. Faintly, she thought she might've broken something, but she couldn' t be sure. Her senses were dulled and deadened, her mind drifting away…
The air was stale and still, but for the slight, trickling sound of water. And it was so dark. He hauled her up, slinging her over his shoulder, and she blinked as they moved from pitch darkness into a dimly lit passage. Yellow light poured from an alcove a few yards from them… A single lantern… the source of the light…
She glanced about quickly, taking in an old brass bed, a mattress that looked as if it had never been clean, and clothes strewn about on the ground…. There must be something I can use…
He slung her backward onto the mattress, beating her again as she tried to struggle.
The violence only inflamed him more.
His mouth crashed down on hers, blood dripping onto her from his arm and shoulder.
NoNoNoNo! She fought him fiercely, thrashing, striving to free herself.
His weight pinned her to the mattress as he pulled a set of handcuffs from his pocket, looping them through a bar on the headboard and snapping them around her wrists. She shook her head, trying to push him off, and she could hear him laughing in cruel amusement.
Then he was on her again, gnawing at her lips, ripping her nightdress, accosting her in a brutal imitation of her brother.
He shoved his tongue down her throat, and she bit him. With a howl, he lurched back, moving to smash his fist into her face, shifting his weight off of her legs.
It was the opportunity she'd been waiting for, and she kicked him as hard as she could. Her knee connected swiftly with his chin as he fell over, gasping , the sharp blow sending him to the ground.
And he lay there, groaning in pain.
She had only a mere, few seconds... Violet examined the handcuffs. Nothing to pick them with. She looked to the brass bar on the headboard then, her mind racing. If I could get this off...
The bar was held to the bedposts with bolts. There should be two on each side, she observed. But one was missing on the right-hand post, fallen out somewhere...And two of them were loose. She shifted to the right edge of the bed, the cuffs digging into her wrists as she stretched.
Her fingers searched deftly for the small metal peg. Got it. Her strength nearly gave out as she disengaged it, turning until it gave way…
She couldn't help feeling a hint of satisfaction when it dropped to the floor.
But the brief moment of victory died as Gerard's shadow loomed over her again. She let her arms go slack, hoping to hide what she'd done. Maybe he didn't see.
He'd returned with the knife in his hand, and now she was very afraid.
He held it to the bare skin of her leg, her thigh. It was all so horribly similar…so like that other time, when Olaf had threatened to...
With a jolt of desperate panic, she wondered if he knew.
He made a fist in her hair, hacking off the long strands with vicious slashes. "You're mine now." The knife's edge pressed against her neck, against her pulse, and she went completely still."Say you love me, sweetheart," he hissed. "Or I'll slit your pretty throat."
Her stricken eyes gave him a heady rush of power. He wanted to hear her beg, to taste her fear, to torture her until she broke at last.
This one thought she could hold out on him, but she was no different...no different from the others. She would crack eventually, as they all did. She would plead for him to stop, and he would deny her that, because he could.
In the meantime he would have his fun. Her lips tasted of blood-an addiction he'd developed long ago. And he wanted more.