I keep forgetting I should let you go, but when you look at me, the only memory is us kissing in the moonlight.
First lesson we learn about them is how charismatic and likable they are. Whether it is about their extremely misleading attractiveness or the sense of well spoken words that they use to meet their victims, serial killers are masters at manipulation.
Landon is a master at manipulation.
Or so they all used to claim it. It makes you wonder how?
How could a master at manipulation allow himself to be tricked.
How could a master at manipulation fall into our trap?
How could a master at manipulation be manipulated?
"It was love." Meredith told me after the courtroom on the last day of trial when their sentences were shared across the room. "He actually loved you."
She laughed at that, but it wasn't her usual irony and dismissiveness of my existence. It sounded more like disbelief.
I felt nothing then.
Then maybe something as she said. "But don't take it too close to the heart, because it's temporary. As soon as his stupid brain forgets you, he will treat you the same way as his other enemies."
His other enemies.
Other enemies.
It implies I am his enemy.
There was a time that I couldn't wake up in the morning without a headache of self hatred for feeling gentle comfort in his arms. I don't even know if anyone could explain the transition between that and feeling emptiness of the word enemy.
Not any enemy. A killer. A criminal. Leader of a gangster family. Landon Thorne.
A man who is deciding the life of my daughter.
A life which I put in danger now.
He agreed to the terms, he promised he wouldn't touch her if I could and I gave him another broken promise. I know if I were in his shoes, it would get really tiring.
When I wake up, the comfort of the room is gone and only darkness which doesn't belong to my closed eyelids is there.
No matter how much I try to blink the nothingless away, the lack of light is not allowing me to get used to dark space. I could not even see the finger right over my eye, just felt the torso and hands being bound behind the wooden chair along with ropes around my legs.
I knew it was wooden from the second time I clattered its legs on the floor and heard the sound. I also remember training lessons and the clear words 'chairs are weaker than rope.'
Just dropping back will not work, not even jumping somewhat through the air. Sighing out, closing my eyes and the chair began pushing back and forth.
First time the tip of my shoes was enough so that I could flip myself with the chair, it flew to the side shen floor hit both of us. My head thankfully met the now broken wood other than very obvious concrete.
Groaning out from scratching already almost healed wounds on my arm, along with wherever other bruises were found.
The back rest was broken when I wiggled my way out of higher rope, while moving out from the mess. I leaned back on some sort of pillar when I pushed my legs out bondage.
"Fucking hell." I mutter, standing up with extended hands to find my own path.
I don't reach any distance when I hear hands clasping one over another, making my whole insides freeze. The mocking applause is heard somewhere on the left side behind me, but it sounds distant as if the room is a thousand square feet.
"Who is there?" I ask first then kneel down to touch the surface until I find a sharp piece of wood.
A voice doesn't answer but my ear is following their loud steps. Spinning in a circle like a fly without a head was manageable while I could still hear something, but as if they were taunting me, the sound slowly died out.
A wood was lightly resting on my hand when I tried to close my eyes and let my mind focus more on hearing than of the fact that I cannot see. It strains my senses less, and it would work.
It did work.
But too late.
When a step was too close to react , a stranger's hand was faster than me when the wood got ripped out of my grasp. Shocking revelation and the fast pace of the situation never allowed me to even move before my hand was curved and placed on my back when someone pulled me back.
Harsh force was holding me in place and all the resistance died when I felt one arm around the top of my chest and the other at the bottom of my abdomen. Strong grip around my hand while the other was still secured behind my back, now with an escape plane shorten with his chest.
When I open my mouth, they are dry. "Landon."
He hums into quiet air and my relaxed body.
It's not that shocking to feel like that next to a man that can take everything away from you in less than a word.
I know all he has to do is call his people and say 'kill' and Leah is done. My child's fate is in his hands.
Yet his presence is only terrifying as it used to be the first time he was this close. Enough to feel welcome in bloody arms, far gone to be disgusted with yourself.
"You guessed?" he asks, his lips right over my ear when I shut my eyes down, nodding.
"Yes."
Another, longer and deeper hum. "You sure it wasn't this?" I feel his hands clenching around mine, head moving further down the side of my face. "My hands on you, just like the old times."
Even my breath shudders, eyes refusing to open and meet the situation. "It wasn't."
The warmth is around me, especially when I feel his head drop down on my shoulder when his nose moves the farmic to the side.
"Then this doesn't feel familiar?" he says and kisses my shoulder.
His lips are so light, tentative and scared, or maybe I misread the situation and that is the description of my mind currently.
Landon was a gentle lover, kind arms that even now don't feel as threatening as my frame drowns in it when he places another kiss. More follow, and my lips are sealed away from reality.
Prepping poison on my skin is as burning as you would think. Then the danger turns into horror, because I am quiet and he isn't stopping.
Mouth is traveling over, now starting to nib over my skin and I want earth to swallow us both down so that I could enjoy this without the shame.
But if this life has taught me anything, it's that I cannot escape the truth.
I will never escape the fact that I have loved Landon Thorne.
"Stop."
When I mutter the words, he is listening so fast that I just wished he would deny me, give me more reason to hate him, but he doesn't.
If describing being kissed on the neck is impossible, then the lack of it is even harder. Despite wanting him to continue, I will not let the man who is putting my daughter's life at risk do this.
"Is she alright?"
Like a pull from a magnet, he is moving quickly away from me. Scoff in his throat when I feel void without him there, but swallow it down with confusion and fear.
"Landon, please tell me-"
"Tell you what?" I flinch, he is already further in the darkness, neither of us aware of each other's positions, when he raises his voice. "Tell you your daughter is fine? What if she is not? What if I decided she pays with her life for your mistakes? What then?"
The breath is caught in my throat, invisible hands squeezing it when I open my eyes, but it's pointless, because the darkness is there either way.
I can barely think of anything, but I know the answer to this question. Because what is a life without a purpose in life?
Nothing but an empty shell.
Leah is the one and only purpose in mine.
"I would take that piece of wood and drive it through my chest, hopefully meeting the heart at first try."
I wish I could see, so that reading his face could be easier, but all I can think of is the silence that surrenders us.
It might be morbid, to even say things like that but Landon wanted an answer I could give him the truth for once. He would maybe try to stop me, but it wouldn't matter because even if my body left this dark room, my soul never would.
"All of that," he finally says. "For a stupid child?"
"No. All of that for my child."
"Why?" I can't understand anything, not why he hisses out his words at me, or the meaning behind a question.
It sounds very clear to me.
"Because I love her and cannot live knowing I killed her."
"I would be the one killing her." He says as if it's the lightest humorous joke ever.
"You would kill her because you hate me."
He laughs, the fact that I can only hear it is more frightening when he begins backing off into further darkness.
"No, Winter." He is so far away, but I can't move to follow. "I hate her."
My brows are furrowed above barrow eyes when I mull over the senseless words. Landon couldn't hate Leah for her, not without my influence on the situation, but I have done nothing about it.
He shouldn't have even known about her existence.
"Why?" I could be the one without sense now, but I can't understand it.
"Because she is your child."
I don't know how or why, but he is gone after that, leaving me in a silent void, left without answers and an urge for more questions.
Some of them I might never get, but if my calculations of everything are done right, Landon would not touch Leah then say nothing and dad should go and get her in less than three days.
I might never see her again, but the look on Landon's face when I see him will tell me at least she is safe.
I couldn't bear it if she wasn't.
Days pass while I think.
Was it really everything if he was able to give it up?
It doesn't make sense.
A lot of it doesn't.
I don't.
I wonder if he was as confused as I was.
Wonder. Wonder. Wonder. Wonder. I wonder too much lately. It could be bad for me, on top of everything else of course.
I had the feeling it was raining. I don't know why, no sound ever came through these walls for the days I have been here. I couldn't exactly count, but I reckon at least three days have gone by.
Maybe the one meal every once in a while and bathroom break was sign enough that a day has passed.
Landon wouldn't be here, but some of his minions were sent regularly. Not that my eye could tell apart anything in this darkness.
The fourth meal came to the light, in the same moment when its brightness showed me his face. Landon was dressed in a cashmere long black coat, covering up the same dark clothing below. He looks ready for a funeral, I just hope it's not my family's.
"Evening Winter." I rub my eyes, getting used to the lighting when he speaks.
Evening. Which most likely means I was only living on late lunch or early dinner, neither bad I suppose.
My throat feels sore to speak, so I only blink a few more times then start taking in my surroundings. It's a long, steel wrapped wall of hallways, three men in front of me looking ready to rip me apart but only waiting for Landon's approval.
"When you are spoken to, you answer." says a rough voice from one of them who is clenching his fits when I glance at that, then back at Landon, searching for his words in all of this.
"I don't remember you loving dogs this much."
The attempt for most likely my jaw or skull to be broken are stopped with a thin hand just being lifted in the air in front of the rothweiler bodyguard. Landon is having disteubly calm smirk on his face when he watches me.
"That will be all gentlemen, you can leave now."
Words to refuse were so ready on the tongue, but none dared to get them to pass that. When the sight was clear of them, he finally broke the intimidating look and tilted his head.
"I don't remember you having such an unbearable attitude." grabbing the words from my lips was overly pathetic, but he couldn't seem to care when he hummed, looking back for a moment. "I suppose we both changed."
"Change is meant to be for the better."
One humorless laugh. "A better world doesn't exist in this world. Only the illusion of it Winter."
"That is so dumb." I answer, rolling my eyes like an senseful child.
"Is it?" he asks. "Didn't you think that your life was going better? A promotion at your dream job, perfect family, lovely daughter? All of it, just to lose it again?"
My arms could be shaking with rage from him being right, or from fear of him being right again. I didn't even want to know.
"I haven't lost anything yet."
"But you will."
"I don't believe that." I do.
"Believing isn't important here." he speaks, in such a low and menacing voice. "I believed once. I believed that I had everything I could ask for," he laughs. "Even more."
I swallow, glancing away from the accusation as it would help me forget it. Make it non existent.
He steps closer and the urge for me to follow the opposite direction is ripped away from my legs. He is close enough to strangle the life out of me, but when he lifts his hand it's only to place it on my jaw.
"Then you showed me that belief, trust...love, means nothing if it's not for yourself." the tone harsher than the barrel of the gun that rested on my head. "So now, I'm here to show you the same thing."
I wanted to scream my lungs out, but he would only laugh.
"And how will you do that?"
I tend to keep my voice clean and calm when I do investigations, but currently the room for it is missing and I am the one being held in, but improvisation can't be that hard.
Landon's words and expression tells me he is overly confident in his plan, or possibly just too excited to see me fail, whichever it was I can use to throw it over his head.
Too much self confidence is bad for you and all that.
He is becoming too unpredictable. When I expect a wave of anger, the coast of peace meets me. When the surprise left for him, it turns out for me I am empty of solutions.
When I think I am in the right, he proves me wrong.
Now, his answer lacks words and only grabs my forearm, surprising me when he hooks our arms and starts leading us somewhere.
I don't speak when we walk, he doesn't either, only the steps echoing the, at first glance, endless hallway.
Silence usually speaks volumes, this one has the higher range, even above it. When we finally approach the steps, along with hard doors being opened from the ceiling, I could hear the rain.
I was right for once.
When we walk out of the door, my whole face drops even further into this pit when I spot Meredith. Landon is still holding onto me when she speaks.
"Good evening, Miles." The sly tone in her voice makes me want to throw up when I notice her bandages.
"You look like shit." I tell her, referring to a whole wrapped fabric around her hand and the face which looks like it skipped five days of rest.
Her teeth are gritted when she hisses out. "I could say the same thing about you."
"You really couldn't." It's a lie, she probably could be taking in that our current situation is probably close on the rank, but I would love to think I look more human than her.
"Keep your dog in the line, Thorne."
"He should keep his bitch below the line."
Meredith, Meredith. When I first arrived I couldn't point out why she was the way she is, but each day it got more and more obvious.
Living in the fantasy of having someone all to yourself, especially when you are an obsessive serial killer, that someone taking them from you must be difficult.
I still remember the screams and yells I overheard the morning she bursted into Landon's bedroom as if she owned it and found his hands around me with deep sleep around us.
Let's add the full on clinically insane behavior she was showing from the first moment I met her, when she cut the throat of a golden retriever and suffocated his owner with its blood.
Even Landon was horrified and sent her away for two months.
I wish I knew better to inform the Bureau sooner to catch her while she was away. It would save everyone a lot of trouble.
"Meredith." Landon warns when she takes out a switchblade and tries to step closer.
She is stopping her in her tracks, annoyed expression on her face but nothing is done to defy him.
They all do that. Would rather be dying than disobeying their boss' orders.
I wouldn't know, considering not even two weeks ago I threatened to take down the whole Bureau in the face of my boss.
I never held back to Landon either, maybe it was more politely said, lack of the anger I have now, but it was still there.
He can paint a picture of not knowing me however long he pleases, but deep down even he knows that I gave away more than I was allowed.
"The ride is waiting." She tells him with crossed arms.
"Thank you." he only replies, pulling me in as me and her try to melt the other one with glares.
I keep quiet, he sits next to me as the unfamiliar face drives us.
For a moment it feels like my whole nerve system is doing laps, jumping repeatedly and reading the whole poetry about Shakespeare without stopping. Anything to drain me from life.
Clatter of rain drops are on the metal and glass, irritatedly as if it was dropping right on my head from one leak.
Landon doesn't seem to enjoy it either, just tapping his knuckles down at the plastic of the door, looking into the distance.
"We are here, Sir." the man speaks, after parking the car below the covered space.
Landon is exiting the car, as I follow him the tall building enwrapped with glass is above us. When he walks over the door, two men push the double door open and we walk through the main hall. Clear porcelain floors, glass almost shining over the chandeliers hanging above everyone's heads.
When we reach the elevator, as soon as it starts going up I catch a glance of satisfaction on his face. We should fear the unknown, it's what my mother always told me, but I would know it even without her wise words.
I fear not knowing what he thinks.
"Tell me Winter," he says when the doors open and I freeze in my tracks. "How smart do you think you are?"
Same door, same carpet, same desk and tables, clear from the floor to ceiling windows showing off the spacious space of the living room with a side kitchen. No difference in the gray shade of the walls from the apartment.
The same apartment he would say me and him would live in.
I inhale, crossing my arms in an attempt to hug myself from reality.
"Cat got your tongue?" he asks when he leads me in, showing me around when I feel sick to my core.
"You are cruel."
He laughed, coming closer to whisper in my ear. "Have you forgotten that?"
"No." I rip myself away from him, shooting him a harsh glare. "I just foolishly thought maybe you had some good in you. I suppose it's my mistake."
"Yes." he steps closer, my bones chill from sudden rage in him. "It was a mistake. You shouldn't think that again, it could cost you a lot."
"Your threats only scare your guard dogs, I have decency to think of myself as a free person without a leash around their neck."
He cackles at that. "Free? You think you, the FBI agent, working for every demand from the government and its rats who sip tea and write rules all day, are free?"
"Better than whatever you hold against them."
"They are free." he shots back, arms extended in the air. "They follow me because they want to, they listen to rules because they want to. Anything and everything they do is because they want to, you my darling enemy do not have that freedom."
"Good." I stay calm. "I would rather take dictatorship than chaos, because even then you can predict something. But with animals such as you, anything can happen and then your freedom means nothing."
"Freedom means everything."
I raise my eyebrow. "Real one does, but you don't have that."
I know I should stop talking, even how much this all would cost me but his voice is just stopping over my head, almost screaming at me to take the bait.
Speak. Fight. Argue. Something. Anything.
Then it all costs and everything.
"Neither does she." he points out behind me and I wish I hadn't turned around.
"Dad!"