“S o I joined Black Chess to win his trust and later find his weakness and kill him?” I mumble.
“See? It’s all cheap comic book revenge crap – or a lousy excuse for you to go on a killing spree, if that’s even a true story.” Edith says.
“Did I ever find his weakness?”
“I doubt it.”
“Why so sure?”
She laughs. “Because look at you. The Pillar must have driven you insane.”
“But you’re sure she said it was the Pillar, right?”
“Of course. Mother always told us the story of when you first came, you feared him so much you could not taste his name on your tongue.”
“How so?”
“You always referred to the Pillar as ‘He’ or ‘Him’. But one day you finally confessed. Mother says that’s when you forgot everything, even telling her that little story.”
“And that’s why you warned me about him?”
“Can you imagine spending our childhood warned of ‘He’ or ‘Him’ as if he were the Boogeyman, then seeing him walk into the house?” She steps forward as if to tell me a secret. “What’s wrong with you, Alice? I mean, really? Didn’t you see he was about to kill us in here?”
I don’t argue with her. She and Lorina tried to kill me as well. Every killer in this world argues they are right, that they’d killed for a reason.
“Anything else?” Edith taps the doorframe, impatiently.
“No, thanks.” I nod and turn to walk away.
“I would call Lorina and ask her,” Edith says behind me. I can imagine the wide, ugly smirk on her face right now. “But she’s cuddling with Jack upstairs. You want me to call her?”
I continue walking, pretending I didn’t hear her. Then, when I hear the door slam behind me, I detour into the nearest alley, hold my breath so I don’t vomit, lean against a wall and wait to make sure no one is watching.
Then cry my heart out.
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It’s hard to say how long I keep sobbing. As long as no one, especially Edith or Lorina, sees my tears, I will be alright.
I can’t believe I gave Jack to Lorina. I am so regretting saving his life right now. I’d have preferred him dead but mine, however selfish it now sounds.
Standing against the wall proves futile, as the weight of my sadness pulls me down to the ground. And there, in my darkest hours, a flicker of light shines through. It’s not a divine beam of twilight or lightning in the sky, not even an alien space ship promising to take me to a better place. It’s my phone. A message from the Pillar:
It’s happening. Everything I feared. We have no time. Meet me at the Radcliffe Asylum. Now!