THIRD PERSON
~One Year Later~
"We've been searching for The Devil's Bride for one year now, without much information on her whereabouts. The police department has been running off little clues to who she is, and why exactly she has been continuing her spree of murders. As we approach winter and we continue to live through fall, we are on the constant lookout for the return of Persephone, the cold-blooded killer," he speaks in his loudest and angered voice as he addresses the crowd standing around him. He watches as the other police officers around him shuffle into the crowded space and take their stance around him. He lowers his voice and continues to speak, "I am afraid to say we have yet to confirm the whereabouts of one other member of our community. The location of Peter O'Brien still remains unknown, and his connection to the killer is somewhat debatable. We will discuss this in further detail at a later date when more evidence is presented," he finishes as he steps down from the podium, the crowd following his movement. As he veers towards the exit of the large room, someone stops him in his tracks. A woman with brown hair.
She pauses before speaking to him, her voice shaken and frazzled, "I'm really glad you're doing this for us, Detective Lockhart. It means a lot that you're looking for my best friend when I know he must be out there somewhere," she pauses but continues to pester with agony in her voice, "It's been hard this past year searching for him with nothing but misguided leads and false witnesses. Marie, my boss and close friend, has been too upset to even speak a word of that day. It's great to know you're still searching." She folds her arms and smiles gently to the police officer, and he smiles back at her with the same politeness she shows him. The crowd begins to dissipate and move towards the exits, a few stopping to chat with another police officer much like Reyna is.
He lifts his head and sighs, "I know you were close to him, Miss Swindell, but you can't continue to think that this killer is responsible for the death of your friend without evidence to support it," he pauses, fumbling with his pockets, "Most likely he disappeared to cover his connection with this killer and he will reappear later on, or if you do believe she is to blame, then he may be her prisoner." He stops himself, shaking his head and staring around at the other civilians who walked into this room and decided they were fit to find or locate this so called 'bride of the devil', but are moving only on small evidence. He continues to shake his head.
"Detective, I refuse to believe that this killer does not have a name, and I will find out her real name before anyone else does. I will discover who she is and I will bring her down," she raises her voice, charging out of the building. The luminescent streetlight on the pavement beside the local building shimmers in a puddle of light as Reyna stands by the pitch black road, thinking. The detective stands in the doorway with a creased frown now. She only stares down at the blank pavement below her feet.
The detective moves closer towards her, beginning to speak to her with a muffled voice, "May I join you? If it's not too much to ask." He stands beside her under the pool of light. "I guess I'm sorry for snapping like that to you. I get that it's been tough for you this past year, so I won't argue about that with you anymore." He bites his thin lips as she sighs, folding her arms once more. She bites her lip.
"You think I'd be prepared for something like this. I've seen movies where the wife runs away and the husband searches endlessly for her, and I've seen movies where someone is taken and the grieving begins, but I still can't believe he's gone," she admits, changing her attention towards him. He shifts his head towards Reyna, and a smile as wide as the moon escapes onto his face. "For all I know, he could be dead."
The detective freezes still and frowns. "He wouldn't want you to think he's dead, Rey. He'd want you to continue searching for him and he'd hope that you would forever care for him."
"I care for him so much, but it's been a year and the only evidence we have is a few photos of some woman and one woman who could tell us everything if only she could speak to us. My patience runs thin, Nathan," she sighs and lifts her head. He walks towards her and she smiles, biting her lip as he wraps his hands around her waist. "I am thankful for such a wonderful boyfriend," she continues as he leans closer and kisses her pink lips. "Let's go home please."
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~The Next Morning~
"Reyna? Hey, why are you up so early?" He questions as she bends down from her seated position on the bed to tie up her sneakers. "Come back to bed," he continues, but she only rises to her feet and steps closer to the small mirror placed on top of the aged dresser. "I don't want to leave this bed, Reyna." She applies a thin layer of lip gloss on her light pink lips.
She pauses, still holding the casing in her fingers. "You can stay here if you want," she replies as she trades the lip gloss for a hair brush. "I'll be back soon; I just need to visit someone." She brushes her hair as he rises from his stretched out position on the bed. He wraps the sheets around his naked body, a wide grin wiping over his face.
"You know I've gotta work today. You can't just meet with them later?" He asks as she spins around with the hairbrush in her hand. She brushes the back of her hair, winking at her boyfriend. He runs his left hand through his short hair.
"I can't. She's not the most accepting person of me right now, and I doubt she'd be happy if I missed our little meeting," Reyna explains, tossing the hairbrush on the bed. "We're not exactly friends anymore." Nathan's smile quickly appears then disappears once more as his glare drifts off into the distance. Reyna opens the door to the hallway and freezes against the wood frame. She slides her hand around the metallic phone in her pocket.
Nathan begins to mumble under his breath, "You're seeing Faith again, aren't you? You know how horrible she makes you feel." She bites her lip, leaning back against the door frame. She removes her hand from her pocket, letting the silver phone fall from her fingers. "Stay here," he finishes speaking as he wraps his fingers around the sheets around his waist. Reyna brushes the hair from her forehead with her fingers.
"I'll see you tonight, Nathan," she replies, disappearing off into the hallways of her house. Nathan collapses back onto the bed, clutching the sheet close to his body. He takes his phone from the bedside table and begins searching through endless posts online. Reyna steps down the winding staircase towards the kitchen bench, swiping her car keys from the countertop. She begins walking towards the front door as her cell phone begins to ring in her pocket. She slides her hand into the pocket of her jeans and answers the phone call. "Hello, who is this?"
She wraps her fingers around the door handle as she continues to hold the phone in her other hand. The other end only breathes into the phone. "Reyna. It's me, Peter."
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She stands alone in the centre of the small space, watching the tick of the clock. She doesn't move even when the door to her home swings wide open. She doesn't move when the other woman stands in front of her with her arms folded and her lips pursed. She doesn't move even when Reyna begins to argue.
"Faith! I'm here, what do you want?" Reyna screams at her ex-best-friend, moving her arm to touch Faith's shoulder. Faith barely moves, only brushing off the hand on her shoulder. Reyna sighs. From the time she and Faith broke off their friendship due to the lies, the deceit and the constant bickering to this day in time, the two have been constantly angered with each other. Days were spent screaming at one another. Moments were spent where neither could even dare try to look at the other. Minutes were spent in silence as neither even bothered to speak, but today is somehow different for them. Reyna screams but Faith is dead silent. "Tell me why you wanted to talk to me today, please. Please, Faith, I don't have all day." Faith only turns her head slightly as Reyna bickers with her. Normally, Faith always screams back at her, but this fateful morning is unlike any other. This fateful morning is the morning that the feud between Reyna Swindell and Faith Hyatt reaches its climax.
Faith stops staring at the ticking clock and smiles. "We've been at each other's throats for a year now and I cannot help but wonder if it had been different if-" she begins to question, folding her arms and staring down at the carpet-covered floor of her bedroom. She thinks about the times before the moment she broke and told her lies. She thinks about the times she had spent with Reyna as a child, without the maturity and the anger and the bickering. She even thinks about how it would be if she truly did still have her lung disease. None of that matters to anyone currently, however.
Reyna raises her voice, "If it had been different? If you hadn't lied to me all these years, then it would be better, Faith." She places her hands on her hips, pacing around the room, "We could have been friends still. Did you consider that before lying to me?" Faith freezes and tilts her head to the side, staring at the clock once more. She frowns as the clock ticks over to ten minutes past eight. She returns to the frozen state and stares only at the clock, ignoring Reyna once more.
"I don't know. I was young. I thought you'd support me if I lied and I thought you'd leave me if I didn't," she begs, crossing her arms and staring only at the clock. It is true, what Faith is telling her. The news that her lung disease had retracted and completely disappeared occurred when she a young girl, and so naturally the choice to tell the truth or lie to everyone became one she would worry about for a few days which turned into weeks. Her decision, however, was entirely her fault. Her parents tried to convince her to tell the truth, but her childish mind would only lie.
Reyna snaps her out of it, standing in front of Faith to break the uneasy stare. Faith ducks around her to stare at the clock. "Why would I leave you, Faith? You were my best friend. Nothing would have broken us back then," she continues, "but you continued the lie, even into our adult years." Reyna places her hands on her ex-best-friend, but Faith brushes her off and pushes her away. She stares at the clock once more. Reyna has one question to ask, "Faith, why did you ask for all of this? When you asked Brady to hurt you, you knew this would all happen."
She pauses then smiles. She lifts her head and turns to face Reyna who now leans against the wall to her right. "I'm halfway to hell already, Reyna. I thought I might as well move closer towards it all," she frowns, stepping closer towards Reyna. Her breathing paces as she steps closer and closer towards her ex-best-friend, the one person she thought she would always be able to count on. Now, as Reyna swallows her breath and stares silently towards Faith, the sound of the ticking clock is the only thing besides the tap of Faith's feet against the carpet. She freezes as she stands closer to Reyna, her breath creeping up on the other girl's skin. "I was never the pleasant child you thought I was, Reyna," she continues, resting her hand on the dresser beside the two of them. "My parents thought I was a saint too, but I couldn't help myself. I was young and I was foolish," she adds. They both pause, neither speaking and neither breathing very often. Faith mimics every movement Reyna makes with exceptional detail.
"What did you do, Faith? Did you lie to more people or did you do something even worse?" Reyna tries to move back further but only bumps heavier into the beige wall. Faith chuckles under her breath. Reyna remembers back to a day long ago when they were children; when they were carefree and happy. That day, they were pretending to be nobles and pirates; Reyna was the noble princess and Faith was the heartless pirate. They pretended they were fighting in the dead of night, and for children, it was nothing was happiness and a game of simple pretend. To an adult, you'd begin to see the complexities of the character of the pirate. Faith's ruthless anger had not been an emotion from a television show; it had been real and true. The look in her eyes as she pretended to wield the sword in her right hand and edge closer towards Reyna was not a look conjured for fun. It was a look conjured for and by truth. As Reyna had pretended to be the simple princess with the wide grin and the lively butterfly eyes, she hadn't thought about the anger in the pirate. She hadn't seen Faith's darkness as a child. She could see that exact look today, and this moment is not a game of pretend.
Faith steps back and stares back towards the ticking clock. "It doesn't matter what I did. It doesn't matter anymore," she speaks, "because what matters now is that I continue my life with a path of success." She paces closer to the clock, stepping into the small door frame. Reyna follows her for a moment, before pausing at the end of the bed, a few steps behind her. It is only then she realises the clock has frozen. The hands have stopped ticking. Faith inches one more step closer to the clock. "You can see yourself out."
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Reyna stares at her phone. She stares as the numbers flick to their succeeding digit. She waits for a phone call that deep in her heart she knows won't be coming. She stares at the unknown number that called to tell her it was him. The unknown number that told her Peter is alive. Nathan steps into the room, wrapping the towel around his body. "Hey, baby. What's wrong? You've been staring at the phone since I arrived here," he bugs her, collapsing in the dining chair beside her. She takes the phone in her fingers.
"I'm sorry, Nathan. I should have told you about the phone call," she begins, staring into her boyfriend's eyes. A few months ago, when the case to find Peter had been lacklustre and useless, Reyna and Nathan met during a night out. They talked for a few hours, and seemingly begun to hit it off together. Their friendship blossomed into a romance, and while their meeting was simple and ordinary, they fell in love in the most complicated time of their lives. "As I was walking out this morning to go visit...you know who, I received a phone call from...well, it was from him," she continues, placing her free hand on his. He frowns slightly, holding her hand.
"Him? He...Peter called you?" He questions, staring into her eyes. She stares back at him. "Did he tell you anything about where he is?" She stares into his eyes, thinking back to the short phone call. He said nothing but that it was him. He didn't tell her where he is or he didn't tell her why he is gone. He didn't tell her anything but that he spoke her name because she can't even prove he is still alive.
Reyna pauses, placing the phone back down on the table. "No, he didn't. I...I miss him, Nate. I miss seeing my best friend every day at work. I miss talking about everything with him." She places her hand on his bare chest, breaking their cute hand-holding.
"You can always talk to me about everything. I may not be gay but at least I love you, and that's what is most important to me. You can share anything you would have shared with Peter with me now, while we find him," he adds, moving closer towards her. She smirks, running her free hand through her hair. "You know what I can also give you..." He smiles and winks at her as her hand rises on his bare chest. The phone seems so distant and far from the two of them as they inch closer towards each other. Nathan presses his lips against his girlfriend's soft pink ones, and they kiss passionately in the downstairs dining room. The darkness engulfs the barely lit room; the flicker of the aged lightbulb reimagines the stunningly antique dining setting in a romantic tinge of yellow light.
He moves his hand to her waist yet she backs away from him, settling back into her chair. "I don't know if this is right; if this is what I want," she mumbles, moving her hands away from him. They hadn't been intimate with each other yet since Reyna wanted to wait till the right moment, but she knew in her heart that maybe one day that moment would come. It could be today, or it could be tomorrow. It could be in a few weeks or months or years. Somehow she feels torn between whether or not tonight could be the night.
"I'll be happy when you're happy, Reyna," he adds, rising from his seat and tightening his grip on the white towel around his waist. He smiles and then she smiles back at him. It isn't about the perfect moment anymore for her. It's about the perfect guy, and she definitely thinks she's found him.