Magic Before Dusk
Chapter 2






"Noo! I need to make a phone call! You can't do this to me," Brady screamed to the guards as they dragged him off.

"Please! I beg of you let me go! Just one more day!" he said as he tried ferociously to loosen the grip the three guards had on him. Even in handcuffs was he still overpowering the three men. He had something over them that willed his determination to break free. He had to get to a phone and tell someone.

As the guards struggled to force him to walk in their direction, Brady continued to be facing the opposite direction so that he could just sprint for some means of communication. To someone who would listen and know the vitality of this situation.

The two guards made a silent agreement when they made eye contact to the third guard when he reached in to his pocket to obtain a sedative shot to slow down Brady's actions.

Something was wrong, Brady realized when the guards stopped and that's when he knew this would be the perfect opportunity. He felt the presence of someone reaching for his wrist. The heat burned onto it as he felt his wrist being taken in by the third guard with the other two holding a side each of his arm. With the final contact made he quickly moved his arms up to snatch away the needle filled with the serum to stop him. And shooting forward in any direction he felt the needle pierce someone else's skin. Feeling the grasp of the guards almost let go he sprinted.

"Stop him!," One shouted as he watch Brady pound against the door when he made it to the end of the hall. Having ran so quickly and healthy hurdles since they forgot to chain up his ankles as well.

Brady shoved his shoulders into the door and felt the painful stings with each new shove. He looked into the glass window on the door and noticed it to was barred as he was tempted to bust the door open with his head. Then that's when he saw her.

'What was she doing here?' was the first thing that ran through his head when he saw the face on the other side of the window. Then a car spurred away in his as the wheels spun a whirl of suspicion.

"You were here last night…" Brady said so low, almost to himself.

Slowly they nodded their head.

"You know that I know…"

She smiled a dimpled grin, devious to his words he uttered, "You'll never know…" in a taunting manner she said. With each knew breath repeating the horrid words with the same amount of emphasis to 'never'.

Backing away the figure began to laugh and laugh as the window began to become cloudy till everything was to clouded to see past. The reverberation of the laugh still had the power to twilight his ears. It rang in his head. And kept ringing. As Brady slowly backed into something. Shots began ringing in his ear. One and two shots… three shots… the fourth shot. He turned around and saw himself in his loft again and staring at Chloe's deadly body. Him standing over her body with a gun in his hand this time. The police coming in soon after and finding him like that.

Brady spun away from the scene and by this time the guards were back. They apprehend him quickly and placed him into a room. Feeling the loss of his legs he noticed the needle this time but it pierced his skin and now because of it he couldn't walk. All feeling from his was leg was gone, he went limp in a matter of minutes and his head began to hang as did his hair. His hair was tossed and ragged. His once sunshine golden locks were a tussled dirty blond in clumps intertwined to one another. His facial appearance was beginning to looked dumped upon as well.

Trying to move his arms was of no use any more, they'd brought his body to the chamber and now they'd safely sealed his legs and arms. His necked was even bounded down just in case he tried anything. But it wouldn't matter, he'd given up. Brady looked to the glass windows that surrounded the cleanly cut room. It was the room were he'd meet his death and breathe his last breaths and think his last thoughts…

They were watching, even the actual perpetrator was on the other side of the room. The room were the family would watch from as he would be pumped the shot to his final blow. Her family was seating alongside them and not knowing that they were the actual cause. That family would know not the reality of the truth of the situation. That somewhere there was a possibility of their daughter still being alive but they had settled for the other option, the option in which was fed to him but he even knew now of the truth. The truth of the matter now being he was going to die…

"You'll never know," Brady sad aloud to the guard as he injected him slowly. Pressing deeper into his swollen veins. And at that moment he had admitted to himself he had failed Chloe and because of it he did kill her that day. He remained silent when his voice could have been heard. He trusted when he should have been cautious. He gave up too soon when in present time it was too late…

As Brady closed his eyes once more he spoke once more, "You'll never know…"
**********

"Did you get it to him?" Belle questioned when her partner in crime returned back. They were both working for a common good and she'd silently thanked her father for knowing with something did smell right. Ever since Chloe's death she knew something was wrong. She'd had her first thoughts all the way back to the way Phillip died. He had been on his way to see Chloe and Brady. There was something urgent in his voice when he spoke to her that night. But he did never get the chance to tell them and she'd never questioned him on what it was, but whatever it was it died with him. Or so she thought.

"Yeah, but are you sure he'll be able to understand the last page of her entry? And what was the note that you attached to it?" he spoke into the chilling winds. The night air was so deathly cold to the warm blood that pumped his body. He placed his hand inside his other hand and brought it to his mouth as he rubbed it. Hot air blowing down onto his palms. "Belle" he spoke softly.

"Yeah," she said coming to reality. The mention of her last entry made her think as well. She'd studied it and analyzed it the minute she got over the initial shock of Chloe being dead and her brother hands being on the weapon that supposedly did it. When Nancy first gave her Chloe's belonging she decided against it but something told her to take it. Sure enough it helped, the prosecutor was wrong but Belle couldn't say how wrong until she had more proof. And she needed all the helps she could get. Most importantly she needed to know from Brady what happened that night. He held the truth to what he couldn't speak and it needed to be said.

"What's wrong Belle…" he asked wrapping his arms around her. "You worried?"

"I'm terrified, I just know that any day will be his last day and… I can't handle knowing I'll lose him too.," a low whimper but something had burned her ever since he'd began helping her. She never did think to ask but she had to know. "Why are you doing this?"

"Belle, there's something I need to tell you," he said holding his head low.

"What is it? Does have anything to do with what you know?," she questioned staring up to him.

Shaking his head slowly, "Belle, I don't think Phillip is dead…" he said and she stared into his eyes to see the truth and once she did so, she passed out in his arms.
***************

Brady awakened from his second nightmare that night. And it still was night outside. He couldn't remember dozing off this time, all he did remember was skimming the pages of Chloe's diary the minute he got the package. But at some point during the reading he fell asleep. This dream was unlike the first one but still a key to what he was able to forget and unable to remember.

Did he really believe Chloe was still alive? Was she alive? Did Mimi begin loosing it after Phillip's death? Was he there when Chloe was shot? How was Chloe's print and his prints found on the weapon that killed her? Why couldn't he remember? What happened that night? What was the meaning of his dreams/nightmares? From Chloe's deathly body to his being injected…

"You'll never know," Brady said aloud. The person who said it and the manor they did it in. His repeating it just before he died. The more Brady thought of it the more it began to come back to him, he flipped Chloe's diary back to an entry and the last line that went unfinished.

"But he'll never know, Brady might never know…" Kept penetrating and causing a line to form on his brain for each new thought that crossed his mind. What was it that Brady couldn't know that Chloe did? Her journal would have been handy at this point. Maybe knowing what she did do everyday when they weren't together. Thinking back to his dream he remembered the figure on the other side of the window. The face belonged to Chloe, but the features weren't as exact as hers. She'd favored Chloe a bit but it wasn't her. And that's when he thought further. Brady flipped back some pages in her diary. If his dreams were right, then the entry he read would have been real and not fake.

The entry he read from the dream before…

*Flashback*

Brady reached for her diary and picked it up. The first thing he noted was the first line that read, "Mimi's been acting strange lately."

Brady continued on as it entrapped his eyes, " So strange and I worry about her. She keeps putting on this face that everything is alright but inside she's terrified of something, I don't know. I have a hint as to what it might be but it's been so long since she's uttered those words. For a minute I even thought he might still be alive. Day in and day out for months Mimi had these feelings, feelings as if Phillip really wasn't dead…"

Everything else was drenched in blood he noted. That was the only part meant to be seen. As Brady was about to continue further something in the book caught his eye, something he'd never knew of and then came a blood curdling scream...

*End of Flashback*

There was something in the diary. From the dream and sure enough Brady found the entry that began with Mimi. He went on further to find what caught his eye. And it shocked Brady again…

"Once a liar, always a liar. How could I know until the day I saw her at the store with golden hair and a pair of intriguing blue eyes. Her hair so long and extended past the length of mine. She seemed beautiful but her words shown through a darker light that appalled me when I greeted her. I don't know what made me walk to her but if I hadn't, I never would have known that I had a sister…"

Brady read to his horror it was true. His eyes hadn't been fooled and for some reason this discovery would be the key to everything. Why hadn't Chloe told him about this? Was this what he wasn't suppose to know? He continued to read on as the questions poured onto him for each new thought as an explanation but it would all provide for one big outlet of a question, Why?

"…I didn't know off hand. But soon after Phillip's accident me and her came across each other once again. For days after I remember feeling bad about his death so I'd frequently visit his grave where his father had made it know here on this great land resided a Kiriakis. I never saw his body, a closed casket memorial and I don't think I could have handled it nor did I want to allow Brady to see just how sad I was. I really need to tell him about her. She knew Phillip… that's what it was. When I went to his grave one afternoon she was there. She was indirect with how she knew him but the fact was that she knew him and she knew of Brady and the baby…"

"What baby?" Brady questioned aloud. He never knew of any baby. Glancing back down to the diary he read the line again and it still stood as written. It made sense now, the dream and the doctor visit. He never asked about a doctor visit the actual day she moved in but in the dream she did and he never questioned it. Was it possible he knew something then he hadn't wanted to come to terms with?

"…the more I racked my mind with questions as to how she knew the more I realized something. Mimi's suspicions scared me but could it have been true? Was Phillip alive but alive in someone else? Was this the girl Phillip found happiness with and why Mimi was never the one he could really go to? This girl favored me so strongly and maybe this was the outlet for Phillip accepting me and Brady. He'd had her, my sister, almost identical but she wasn't. He had Victoria…"

Then a memory came to Brady in a flash, one evening when Chloe came in late. "So how was your day?" he had questioned.

And the answer she gave with the mention of a name that wasn't Mimi's. "Well, I went out to meet Tory"

"Who is Tory?"

Chloe ran up on Brady and she did one of her smiles, massaged his back and answered, "You'll never know…"

Brady slammed the diary. And that's when he noticed a slip of paper fly out at the impact. He eyed it quickly and recognized the handwriting, it was Belle. But it could not have been Belle who snuck in, she had to have someone help her. Brady began to read the note when a rattle came from another cell down the hallway. Then an inmate begin uttering something.

"It doesn't look good for you Black…" he started and smiled from his cell before continuing, "Sound familiar eh Black? Boy, you've had a number pulled on you. And what's so funny, they did it right under your nose. Because you know what it was… they knew, you'd never know. You couldn't even notice the change when it came to you," he cackled as he laughed an echo as sinister as his intentions. Another inmate shouted for him to shut his crazy trap but Brady ran to his bars and spoke out them.

"What are you talking about? How do you know me?" he yelled, "Whoever the hell you are answer me!"

"Never mind the fact of who I am, the question you need to be asking is who was the girl you'd been seeing for months?"

And then it finally occurred, Brady's suspicions were proven by an incisive inmate whom he'd never know. But it was there and it was true and now he'd knew a little bit more. Brady studied the diary again. The journal had a different slant to the handwriting he'd noted from his dream and Chloe's was more upright and curved. But there still was something wrong with this… And that's when Brady found it. More pages, more pages written by someone else. The pages were sticking together and it took Brady a moment to realize what it was that banded them together so tightly. Dried blood was on the ends of each page, soaking through to the book's cover. Brady ignored the diary for a second to read what Belle wrote.

"Brady,

I know this must be scary for you right now but me and Dad are working on this, don't you worry. We know your innocent and Chloe's actual killer is out there. I've recruited outside help since I can't ask Shawn for reasons of not wanting to mess up our renewed relationship. This must be so sad for you, you two finally getting over the obstacle of her illness and now this. To be accused of a crime you didn't commit and to not have seen the excitement on her face. I must admit that I knew Chloe was pregnant, she told me when she found out. She wanted to surprise you, we'd been setting it up together then some weeks into the planning she began changing and I knew something wasn't right. I couldn't be sure and I guess I'll never really know but when I read some entries of the diary I knew you'd know what to do with it. The changing in handwriting and most importantly the fact she has a sister that her mother couldn't disclaim when I confronted her… Do what you can with this, me and Dad are on your side and you have angels Brady. Someone is out here on your side and someone in there is too. Dad met him the day of your trial, he had been sitting next to Mimi. Who for reasons of her own seemed a bit occupied by the fellow. He's here undercover to help you since he claims to have information so listen to him and Brady, we love you, we support you and we will get you out.
Love Tink"


Tears soaked the letter, he adored his little sister for trying to help. But nothing would truly help until the truth was out and the truth is what was being sought.

"Hey Brady," came the voice from the bar further, "I know you know…"

The guy for obvious reasons was creeping Brady but he listened on and thought it was for the better that he found out as much as he could, "I know what?…"

"I know you had a feeling the girl who died wasn't Chloe. You stared at her so long, that's why, the way she appeared. She was smaller at that, you had a thought Chloe might be with child, didn't you? You did. And you know something else… you knew the one girl was buried alive and now you know that about Phillip now don't you… Don't you!," he shouted angered.

Crooking an eye, Brady began to shout what, but the guy spoke…

"You KNEW I was buried alive! You knew! And now that slut has Chloe, that's why your scared for her! That's why you speak in your sleep! And that's why you needed to use the phone, so you could warn someone. But it's too late Brady… it is too late"