Fiona Anderson
I have been walking around this forest for about half an hour now and till now, I haven't found a single thing that would indicate that someone was living around here. The moment I stopped in front of the school, the first thing I thought of was that she couldn't be inside the school, because if she had been, then we would have gotten some news of her by now, and the only other place Dixon could have been, would be the forest, but I am almost about to lose hope and turn around to leave when something catches my eye.
Just then, I see smoke rising out of the top of the trees, and my eyes widen as something really important that I had been forgetting about comes up in my mind. Back when I had been in school, attending Maple Ridge, I had come across a hut, a cottage of sorts, right at the far edge of the forest.
I had heard multiple stories about it, stories that I was sure weren't true, just due to the fact that there were about ten versions of it that I had heard. Some said that the house was haunted, some said that a school worker used to live there, and one day he disappeared, and had never been found again, while some just didn't believe that there even was a cottage in the woods at all. But that day, the day that I saw the cottage, I had known that none of the stories were true, because the cottage looked as normal as it possibly could have. Just like an old hut in the middle of the woods that had been deserted for years.
My feet began pounding on the ground as I sped off towards the direction where the smoke was coming from. It took me two minutes, before I found myself exiting out of the trees and into the big clearing that I had been to before just once. But this time, this time it looked plenty different from how it had back then. Because this time, the cottage didn't look like a deserted hut. Smoke was coming out of the chimney and I could see a blue lace curtain covering the small window from the inside.
The moment that I looked at the cottage, I knew, I knew that I had come to the right place. That this was exactly where I was going to find her.
I slowed down to a walk, as my hand went to my gun, taking it out of the holster and holding it up on eye level, I slowly made my way across the clearing. As soon as I reached, without giving it a second thought, I banged into the wooden door, pushing all my weight in as I felt the door give away in front of me, letting me into the small house.
My eyes widened, as I saw Mrs. Dixon's back to me. She was standing in front of the stove, an apron around her neck as she cooked something, slowly humming a song. But it didn't even take her a full second, before she turned around to see what was happening and realised that it was me standing in front of her. I saw as her expression slowly changed from shock, to confusion, and then slowly a look of alarm as she realized why I was here.
"Fi- Fiona?" she asked, her hand flying to her mouth in shock.
"Fiona? What are you do-" she started to say, but I interrupted her, also feeling a mix of emotions going through me as I looked at her standing in front of me.
So she had been living here. Living her life as if everything was perfectly normal. As if she hadn't murdered her best friend years ago. As if she hadn't taken everything that I had ever known from me without giving it a second thought.
I could feel my hands shake as anger burned through me like fire. How dare she go on with her life so, so normally?
"You don't need to put up an act in front of me anymore. I know everything. I know what you did to her. I know that it was you," I tell her, my voice coming out sounding almost devoid of emotion, making her widen her eyes even more.
"What are you talking abou-"
"You know exactly what I am talking about." I reply, giving her a disgusted look.
A defeated look suddenly came onto her face as she realized that there was no other way now. That I finally knew the truth.
"I am sorry. I am so sorry. I didn't mean to do it, I really didn't." She says, tears slowly forming in her eyes, as her hands fidgeted with the hem of her apron.
"You didn't mean to? Well, guess what, my mom is still dead. She is dead. And it's all because of you." I spit at her, not believing that she had the audacity to tell me that she didn't mean to do it. After taking a deep breath, I ask, "Just tell me why. Just tell me why you did it." Wanting to know what made her kill her closest friend. What made her ruin my life in a matter of seconds.
She takes a deep breath, and I see her start to collect herself together as she leaned back against the counter.
"We were in the agency together, just about a few years older than you, and we were the best partners during a mission that you could have asked for. We were always together, were always chosen to do complete missions together, but then, as the years passed, she slowly started becoming better, climbing higher in the agency. She started being chosen more, she started to climb the ranks, and soon, she had surpassed me, and not just in our career. She had a family, and she had you, a daughter. She had everything that I had ever wanted. I was so jealous of her, that it blinded me. It made me resent her to the point that when Adrian and Jacob came to me, proposing a way that could get Evelyn out of the way, I agreed." She said, looking up at me, and I could almost see a hint of shame in her eyes, before I turned away from her.
When I don't say anything, she continues, "We tried to get her out of the way for good, three times. The first time, Adrian started a fire in her room, trapping her inside. But that time, she managed to get out. That actually ended up doing her well, as she then came closer to the head, Nicolas Clyde. Then, the second time was her accident. But when, even after that, she managed to survive, it angered us even more." I look up at her in a little shock. They tried three times? I knew about the accident, but even before that? They hated her that much?
"Her surviving, made us scared. Because if she ever recovered, if she ever got even a little better, then that would mean the end for us. It would mean that we would be caught and put into jail by the agency. And we couldn't have had that. So, we started keeping a watch on you both. You and your mom. And after months, we finally found a chance, an opportunity to finally end her. And we were so blinded by our hatred for her that we didn't realize that we were taking the life of our own best friend. We decided that we had to finish what we had started. And so, we snuck into your house, the day that you were gone, and we killed her, setting everything up to make it look like an accident." Dixon said, her voice now quavering as tears formed in her eyes, but I wasn't going to fall for her act any longer. She had already deceived me for eight years.
Instead, I felt anger building up inside me, making me want to pounce on her and make her feel everything that she had made me feel. To take as much from her as much as she had taken from me. But that would make me just like her, so I told myself to hold back, that I would get my revenge soon.
"I regret it. I regret it so much that I hate myself for it," she says in a quavering voice, rubbing her arms, shaking slightly.
"Well that won't change the fact that she is gone, would it? It won't change the fact that you took her from me when I needed her the most. You took her from me." I say, my own voice shaking, but with anger.
But, ignoring my words, Mrs. Dixon continues, "I knew from the moment that it happened, that I had done something really wrong. Something I would regret for the rest of my life." After pausing for a moment to collect herself, she takes a deep breath before she speaks again while I just remain silent, not knowing how to react to all that she was telling me.
"I knew then, that I had to leave the agency. I had to leave this all behind before it made me do something even worse. Being in the agency had turned me into someone I hated. And so, when Maple Ridge decided to offer me the job of Head Mistress, I took it, deciding to come to the place I had spent my teenage years in. It was a few weeks later that I saw you at Lynn's funeral. You had looked so broken then, so alone, that I felt that looking after you, and taking care of you, was a way that I could repent for my sins. I felt that it could be my form of redemption. But I couldn't have been more wrong. And I realized that soon after you joined. What I hadn't known while getting you into Maple Ridge, was that, being with you, and looking at you every day and seeing so much of Lynn in you, it would just make me hate myself a hundred times more. It just made my life a thousand times worse." She ends, her voice breaking as now tears streamed down her slightly wrinkled cheeks.
I felt something flutter in my chest, and I had to remind myself once again, that she was just acting again, that she was nothing more than a murderer.
"None of this matters anymore. What matters is the fact that you were there that night. That you pretended to be my friend, and my guide right after you had taken everything from me." I told her.
"I am sorry Fi-"
"Your sorry doesn't matter anymore!" I shout at her, feeling my composure break for the first time, before I quickly collect myself.
I could very easily take her life right now, right here, exactly like what she had done. But that was the difference between me and her. I wasn't a killer.
I walk forward, watching her widen her eyes as I take out a pair of handcuffs from my pockets, but just when I am about to put them on her, the door bangs open, making me turn around in alarm.
Who was here right now? Did someone else know Dixon was hiding here?
I see two people standing in the doorway.
I feel my heartbeat fasten and sweat run down the back of my neck as I see Jacob and the person I had never expected to see, standing in the doorway. Their guns aimed right at my head.
My voice comes out in a croak as I manage to get one word out, "Nora?"
***
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