CXIX
"Can I offer you a drink?" asks Angela with a smile that aims to be seductive.
Henry returns the gesture with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.
"No, thank you, I'm fine." The less evidence of his presence, the better. "So your parents aren't home?"
"No, they went on a trip," she confirms, pouring herself a glass of wine that supports her point. "Nobody knows you're here."
Well, at least she can follow instructions: for some time now Henry has made it clear to her that he prefers to keep their 'relationship' a secret.
"I see," he comments, pretending to look at the paintings on the walls. "Although I have seen it before, I must say that your house is really nice."
The girl smiles and takes a sip from the glass. Although she wants to look refined, from Henry's point of view she does nothing more than give the impression of a little girl playing by wearing her mother's shoes.
"Would you like me to show you the floor upstairs?" The expression on her face does little to nothing to hide her true intentions.
The invitation serves his plans well, and that is why he responds: "I'd love to."
The girl doesn't delay the matter: she abandons the glass of wine and guides him directly to her room, even closing the door behind her. The walls are ridiculously pink, but he supposes this is to be expected from an ordinary teenage girl.
Or a narcissist disguised as such, at least.
"You can sit on the bed if you want," she invites him.
Henry does so. Angela goes to sit next to him.
"So, Henry, what's new?" She lets out a silly giggle as she approaches him without any pretenses.
"Nothing new, to be honest. Always the same: taking care of Jane, making sure she wants for nothing."
The mention of that name has an immediate effect on the young woman, whose shoulders tense.
"Ah, yeah? She's lucky to have you in her life…" Henry lets out a soft "hm" to let her know he agrees with her. "It must be difficult to take care of such a… troubled person."
"I don't see it that way," Henry replies, raising an eyebrow and crossing one leg over the other. "For me, taking care of her is a pleasure. Even when it comes to dealing with that which troubles her."
"Isn't that… too much?" she asks with a grimace. "I mean, I know you care, but Jane should be able to take care of herse—"
Henry places a hand on her chin; this is more than enough to silence her.
"Oh, no," he answers then, leaning slightly toward her. "Like I've said, to me, taking care of her and that which troubles her is a pleasure."
Angela doesn't say a word, her gaze fixed on his mouth. Henry moves even closer, and she closes her eyes, painted lips parted, waiting for a kiss that will never come.
Instead, Henry moves his head slightly to the side, neatly averting the Venus flytrap that is her mouth, and whispers in her ear: "That's why I'll make sure to enjoy this immensely."
Despite her traditionally feminine appearance and interests, one of Angela's hobbies has always been watching horror movies. Somehow, she has always found it exhilarating to watch the poor protagonists trapped in an inescapable nightmare, their lives at stake. She is aware that this clashes with the 'good girl' image she wants to project, and that is why she has never mentioned it to her parents.
…
She never thought, in her fifteen years of life, that she would come face-to-face with a monster much worse than those in the movies.
"You know?" Henry mentions casually, still sitting on her bed, looking at his nails as if they were the most interesting thing in the world. "At first, I was planning to kill you."
She sees herself in the mirror, tears in her eyes. The reflection shatters when her father's golf club hits the glass.
Her hands shake, but they don't let go of the instrument.
"P… Please…" she splutters uselessly, because her body, alien to her, has found its next target: her desktop computer. "Hen… ry…"
"Ah, you're still able to talk?" He snaps his fingers and Angela's tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth. "An oversight on my part, do pardon me."
The screen breaks in the shape of a spider web; the speakers and the CPU are dented with no hope of repair. The keys are scattered across the carpeted floor.
"Hm, I think that's enough," Henry says suddenly, standing up. "Shall we move on to remodeling your parents' bedroom next?"
Terrified, she watches him out of the corner of her eye, but he just walks towards the door with his hands in his pockets. Like a puppet, she follows him silently.
Once in her parents' bedroom, Henry stands behind her and places a hand on her shoulder with an almost cheerful expression:
"Don't take too long: we still have to redecorate several more rooms."
Nothing is left standing: not her parents' bed, not the mirrors in the bathroom, not the vases in the living room, not the glass case in the kitchen, not the curtains in the hallway.
She destroys everything like a weapon of mass destruction in the wrong hands.
Henry, however, doesn't seem happy about this.
"Hm, we still have got to do something about the lights," he points out with a gesture of his hand. "Let me help you."
Angela doesn't understand what's happening: first, all the lamps and fluorescent lights start to flicker, the hum of electricity like a cry for help from another dimension.
And then, with a terrifying crash, all the light sources shatter, pieces of broken glass crashing down the floor.
"There we are: much better," Henry says with a grin. "Ah, what a pleasant feeling it is, that of a job well done, don't you agree?"
Suddenly, the man raises his arm towards her and Angela feels like she can't breathe. The next thing she notices is that her feet are no longer touching the ground. The sound of the golf club hitting the floor echoes through the room.
"As I was saying before you interrupted me, at first I thought about killing you." Although she tries with all her might to put her hands around her neck and shake herself free, her body does not move one bit. "As you can see, it wouldn't have even been hard." She doesn't think the curve of his lips qualify as a smile, his canines on display reminding her of a predator toying with its prey. "But then I thought: 'That wouldn't make her happy'."
She doesn't need to ask who he's referring to—even if she could have, she doesn't think she would have dared to provoke him that way.
"So, I decided on this. Don't you think me benevolent?" he asks with a beatific expression on his face. "I mean to say, I could have broken your legs and arms; I could have left you as an unrecognizable pulp of viscera in the middle of a forest, a delicacy for wild animals, but no, here we are, redecorating. Am I not kind?" As soon as he says it, Henry seems to reconsider his words, as he adds with a disgruntled expression: "No, I guess I'm not, am I right? Neither benevolence nor kindness suit me."
Not even the spell or whatever he's doing to her can stop her chronic tremors. He raises an eyebrow.
"Really, Angela?" With a gesture of his free hand and an expression of obvious disgust, he points to the wet spot on her crotch, the one that she can't see, but she sure can feel. "You're a big girl. You're supposed to be able to take responsibility of your actions, aren't you?" He sighs and looks at the clock hanging over the door frame that leads to the hall, probably the only artifact still working. "It's getting late, so I guess we should wrap this up, don't you agree?"
Her knees crash to the ground and her wrists can barely withstand the impact of the fall: breathless as she is, the blow still makes her sob.
Henry lowers himself to a crouch and grabs her chin to force her to look at him.
"After tonight, you won't remember me," he promises. "But there is something that you will understand on an instinctive level."
The clock crashes cleanly onto the floor without her or him lifting a finger.
And then, a whisper against her ear like a caress: "If you're still alive, it's only thanks to Jane. It is to her you owe your life."
Angela doesn't understand what's happening. She is barely protected from the cold of the night with her nightgown, her knees sunk into the grass in the front garden of her house.
In front of her, a smoldering pile of clothing—her clothing—burns, the smoke like a black tower that seems to rise to infinity.
When she looks up, in the distance, she sees Mrs. Sheppard, her neighbor, running towards her, a horrified expression on her face and a blanket in her hands.
"Angela, honey," she calls worriedly as she places the blanket around her shoulders. "I've called your parents: they are on their way back. What happened here? I saw you burning… Burning your… Why?"
She doesn't respond, her eyes fixed on the flame consuming her clothes.
She doesn't understand how this happened, but the memories are fresh in her mind: with her father's golf club and a lighter, she has destroyed everything in her path.
"Who made you do this, my darling?" Mrs. Sheppard has never known how to keep silent. "Hmm? Who forced you? You wouldn't have done this without good reason…"
Angela knows that she is talking about the clothes, since the woman is unaware of the deplorable state in which she has left her home.
However, something—something like an urgency buried deep inside in her brain—compels her to tell the truth: "Nobody forced me: this was all me."