Dressed In Black

Good, Kill her

Zak had been the one to go over and get most of my stuff. I didn't want a chance encounter with my now-ex (weird to say), and I was handling putting it all where I needed to it be while I figured out somewhere to live in the long run. I appreciated that Zak was letting me live with him, but it couldn't stay that way forever. Eventually I would find someone, or I wouldn't, but I would have to move. I couldn't intrude on his life in such a major way, we already spent a lot of time together. We had since we'd met.

Zak and I met about eight years ago at a bar. I wasn't a drinker as it had become a big problem for me, but I liked meeting new people. I had just moved to Vegas after I lost my job as a writer and camerawoman for a paranormal journal in DC-- I wanted a fresh start. After that first night, we'd hung out fairly often, sharing our paranormal experiences, and it turned into a best friendship. Eventually, Zak invited me to guest on the show, people seemed to like me alright, and I got added to the team. The channel liked having a woman to add a different side of things. I started out doing camera work, but soon ended up doing what Zak did.

Since I'd met him, my life had changed so much for the better. When I was younger, I didn't really have a lot of people. My brother had raised me since my parents passed away in an accident when I was around 4. I had been a surprise child and my parents had my other siblings when they were teenagers, so he was about 16 years older than I was, and my sister was 20. However, where my relationship with my brother was very strong, my sister and I never got along. I struggled with depression as a teenager and acted out pretty terribly. I would get drunk probably more often than I was sober, I would run out for days without telling Liam where I'd gone, and I put him through a lot with my mental health. But luckily, he was always there for me and as I got older, I'd gotten better and wasn't as bothered with stuff as I used to be. We still talked all the time. I hadn't seen or spoken to my sister in 12 years, so I had no idea what was happening in her life. I still had my demons, and it would act up, but I always had someone there for me. Now that person was Zak. He could be a dick sometimes, you just had to know how to deal with it. It was never to be intentionally mean, he could get overwhelmed and that's how he'd let it out.

I heard the door shut and Zak come up the stairs to the guest room that I had all of my things in.

"I think that's everything. He was there this time, but he didn't talk to me. Just watched me pack things up. It was weird."

"Thank you for going then, I don't know if I would be able to handle that."

"No problem, but we have a lot of work to do. I'm gonna need you to wrap this up pretty soon, okay?"

"That's fine." I finished folding up a few things and then followed him downstairs to work on the episode. We had to turn it in fairly soon, so we really had to work our asses off. All the stuff I'd been through put us off a few days. Aaron, Bill, and Jay were coming over later to help us get through things a lot quicker, thank god.

I walked down to find Zak in his chair, headphones on and watching playback footage. He was so in the zone. I smiled at the sight-- I loved seeing him do what he enjoyed. Of course, I loved it too, but I don't think I, or anyone else for that matter, could ever love it as much as he did. That man was born to do this job, it was a part of him. He looked over and smiled.

"Well, come on. Don't just stand there and stare at me you weirdo." I laughed and went to sit next to him, grabbing my laptop and running through my own footage.

"Okay, this is Allison on the night vision camera. Right now I'm walking down a really long hallway, trying to get down to the hanging room. So let's go." I watched myself walk for a few minutes, panning around the hallway. Suddenly, I heard people talking-- None of them were me. At first, it was mumbling that I couldn't really distinguish so I ran it a few more times, turning it up and trying to filter out any noise. Finally I got something clear enough for me to understand, and hit play.

She's alone.

Good. Kill her.

I jumped back and threw my headphones off my head, covering my mouth. The second voice was gravelly, ugly, and evil. Not to mention what it'd said.

Zak whipped his head to look at me. "Alli, what's wrong?" he grabbed my hand.

"I'm... fine. Listen to this, now. Please." I handed him my headphones for him to listen and replayed it, biting my thumb. When it got to the bad part his face shifted and he looked at me.

"Fuck, Alli." He again took my hand in his and was lightly running his thumb over it.

"Yeah. Scary, right?"

"Fucking right. I'm glad you're okay, I don't know what I would've done if something worse happened to you." I looked up at him and smiled sadly. "Are you alright?"

"Just shaken up. I'm glad you found me." we were just sitting there, looking at each other. I felt safe with him, I couldn't imagine my life without him in it. He broke the silence and sighed.

"Alli, I have to tell you so-" He was cut off by the front door slamming shut and a boisterous Aaron yelling to us.

"HEY PARTY PEOPLE, WHERE YA AT?" Zak dragged his hand down his face and pulled back from me, yelling to answer.

"Editing, come on." He directed his attention back to his computer screen, leaving me confused.

"What were you gonna say?"

"Nothing, don't worry about it." His tone had changed to annoyance. Great, back to this. I rolled my eyes and went back to what I was doing. If he was gonna be an ass, so was I.

Just another thing he was keeping from me these days.