Chapter Eighteen

II

'I never got to love you,' he thought. It had to be the millionth time he thought it, and yet it still hurt as much as the first time. Pain was eternal, like a shadow to time, falling over all. Everything was darkened by its presence.

It wasn't fair. She had just been about to come into his life, change everything, make it all good and be a real family with him. Instead, he was left with a darker shadow in his mind than ever before.

The shadow wanted to pretend, to make Anna alive again and he listened and complied, and it did ease the pain, but only for a little while. A little moment of winter in the burning, burning summer. And he was nothing but ashes already. Nothing left to burn, yet it still did.

It wasn't fair.

And everything was falling apart, a house of cards caught in a gale. He hadn't meant to take the CSIs, not at first. But the shadow in his mind had whispered of justice and he had listened, as he always did, as he always wanted. Maybe if he could kill the killer, justice would ease his pain, he had thought and from there it had all spiralled out of control. First the blonde, then the interfering black guy. He'd taken them to the ranch, knowing it to be deserted and silent. There they would tell him who they suspected of killing Anna, even if he had to bleed it out of them. And if they didn't know, he could use them as leverage to push someone who did know. And the blonde... Maybe she could be Anna for him, for a little while. He'd seen it so clearly it almost felt like a memory rather than a plan for the future. But he'd gone to get supplies and found his prisoners gone and the memory had crumbled.

Now they were hunting him, free and armed with knowledge. Trying to make him the prisoner.

A part of him that was still human was almost relieved. Now he needn't battle the urge to kill them. Another part was angry, calling out for blood, blood, blood, to silence the roar of his own.

He would have to find her again today.

The thought chilled him and he felt almost calm and cold, like the winter ice on a frozen lake, with all hidden beneath. Almost. But the ice could never tame the Atlantic and the calm could never tame him. Not anymore. Anna, Anna, she could have tamed him. His beautiful daughter, unafraid of the roaring Atlantic. She must have been. Cecilie had not feared the sea and she would have taught her daughter not to be either, he just knew.

Treacherous, beautiful Cecilie, warm and burning in the Norwegian winter. Why had she never told him she was pregnant? Why had she only told their daughter of his existence on her deathbed? Had she not loved him after all? Had she not known he would leave Las Vegas for her, leave his dominating father and live in her quiet country forever if she had only spoken the words? Together, Anna and Cecilie could have defeated the call of his father in his mind. He believed it, willed it to be true. All she had needed to do was speak the words.

But she never had. And all he could have had, had been torn from him. That wasn't fair, could never be fair.

The pain came back and he stood still, letting it fill him until he was a knife of steel and ice, ready to cut. Ready to bleed. Not his blood, no. He didn't have enough blood for what his mind demanded. But out there, in the wide world, there was endless blood.

He had learned that even as a child. A world of blood, its waves never fading and his shore a hard, rocky ground.

He gathered his things quietly and stepped out into the relentless sunshine that knew no mercy. Life knew no mercy. And he was alive. Anna was not.

But for a little while, with Georgina, with Rita, he had pretended. And then he had killed, as the knife he was. Bleeding their blood to cover Anna's. Easing his pain by giving it back to the world. It was the only way he knew to live anymore.

After he had lived a little, he could think of another way to find who had torn Anna from him, find another way to make it all better again.

He had to believe it.

No one gave him a second glance as he walked around the streets of Las Vegas. No one knew his pain, knew his blood. Maybe the CSIs didn't know all yet and were still searching in the dark. It was hard to make out shadows in the darkness, after all. Maybe he still had time to find someone Anna could live in forever.

He went to a coffee shop he knew of, smiling to the patrons there as he accepted his coffee, watching the parking lot and the people there, waiting for her. She would come. She always came, sooner or later.

The CSIs hadn't come. When he had first heard of Anna's death, he had expected them, waited for them, but no one had come. No one had known, he had realised. Anna hadn't told anyone who her father was or they would have contacted him, if only to offer empty words.

No one knew.

And so he had made Georgina Anna, and sung her the lullabies he should have when she was young, told her all the things a father should tell a daughter, watched her sleep like Cinderella. And then he had killed the body of Georgina and Anna had lived on. For a little while.

It never lasted. It wouldn't this time either, but he could pretend. For a little while.

For a little while, Anna was there. Beautiful Anna, her voice softer than spring, laughing with him on the phone. He couldn't believe she had called him, unafraid, speaking of what an adventure it would be to come see him. No, not adventure. Fairytale. That was the word she had used. A fairytale. Father and daughter, coming together at last.

It would have been a fairytale. He could almost taste it, sweet as spring rain, kissed off Cecilie's lips. Maybe that had been the night they had made Anna, the first warm day of spring in a greening Norway.

He breathed, imagining being there from the start, being there when she was born, kissing her forehead and being a father.

It would have made him happy. It would have been enough. He would not felt this shadow in his mind if he had been allowed to be a father. He knew it, he believed it. He had to. The alternative was a dark abyss and he wouldn't fall there. Not when he could pretend.

Illusions were real if you made them, if only for a little while.

It wasn't fair. He shouldn't have to. He had been a good son, coming back when his father had demanded it, being the shadow of his brother, working, earning money, courting women who didn't know him and he cared nothing for. And all the while knowing something was missing.

He just hadn't know just how much until Anna's letters and Anna's phone calls and Anna's promise of a fairytale.

It should have been he who offered fairytales to her. He should have rebelled, shouldn't have left Cecilie and gone home as his father had demanded. He could have been there then, loving them both and it would have been all he would ever need.

Gentler summers, cold winters, a family and no shadows at all. No Nevada sun and ghosts of his father in the brightness of the day. Peace. He could have had peace.

It wasn't fair.

And for all the blood, he could never make it fair again. Yet he had to keep trying, because he had nothing else.

He wasn't sure how long he had waited when he saw her, for time was a slow crawl over broken glass and he had long since given up on looking ahead.

She was bright in the sun, her hair like a crown of gold, bright and fair and as Anna should have been. She was the one, stepping out of her car with a smile that seemed innocent and knowing all at once. Beautiful as Cecilie had been, young as Anna had been.

'Oh, Anna,' he thought, his heart pounding.

He made a note of her car plates and draining the last of his coffee, he went out into the sun and the burning abyss. Later, he would call one of his friends and find out who the plates belonged to, and know what name he would create Anna in this time.

What should he give her this time? Another cake? Perhaps he would deliver a wine to her, with roses. White roses if he could find them, white as Norwegian snow and Cecilie's smile.

Yes. Roses and wine and lullabies.

Maybe even a fairytale.