A dance with devils lies.., p.13
A Dance With Devils: Lies And Truths Trilogy Book 1, page 13
“What are you doing, Malachi?”
Gray.
My head turns slowly, as my fingers take hold of the shard. I’m getting lost, is what I’m doing. Am lost. It’s better there, here. I remember it. Want it. It doesn’t hurt. No pain. Just one long slice across old scars hidden beneath these bracelets.
I push them along the floor, lifting them over the ridge of marred skin until the vein is free and my other hand is bringing the shard to it. Just one slice. One little cut and then I can see red again, let it join the rest of the mist and haze around me now. Darkness will come. A deep dark that goes on and on until there’s nothing and the thoughts stop. All the time in the world.
“Malachi?”
I feel it pierce and push harder, fingers grating the roughened edge to push it deeper, and then, finally my soul starts coming out of me to fall to the carpet beneath. The shard changes hands, slices at the skin on the other wrist, and my head turns at the same time, a sigh leaving me as my body rolls onto my back.
I can search for my little Alice in the mist now, watch her fade away from me, but something’s on top of me before I can find her in the haze, a hand slapping my face. No blues and greens. Just reds still turning and swirling. That’s a shame. I wanted my colours, my rainbows to slip away with.
“Jesus Christ, Malachi. Not again.” Gray’s eyes are over me, something in his mouth as he tries to lift my wrists up to his chest. “Hannah!”
No, no little Hannah. I want my little Alice, that’s all. Just her and her colours and rainbows. Our song. Where is that? I should’ve played it, let her listen and sit next to me. We might have found something then, found a way of living without memories and hatred.
“Little Alice,” mumbles out of me. "Bleed for her. For me."
She shouldn’t bleed for me. Or with me.
A sharp tug and I feel myself being pulled, strong arms heaving me somewhere. I don’t want that. I want here and now and all this comfort I’ve found for myself again. It makes me fight, makes me rally against whatever’s got me and try to get away, but the sudden searing pain that lands on my jaw sends me down to the floor.
Blood – everywhere.
I smile and let whatever it is tug me again. No point in fighting anyway. It’s done now.
Finished.
Chapter 17
Ally
T he air’s red. All of it. It’s floating and soaring and gliding around me.
I don’t know what happened, but it was happy and fun for a while. Maybe the skies have changed colour. No snow anymore – heat. I like that, can feel it all over me as it swirls and moves and warms my skin. It’s beginning to get hotter, though – too hot. And the red is burning me somehow, like the fire did. I can’t escape it. Can’t run. Too busy laughing to run. I should, though. But my Malachi is here somewhere – protecting me. I can feel him in the fiery colours, as the flecks and flashes of white streak through the red. And it’s all black around the red, as if he’s on the perimeter – watching me. I need him.
Where?
My eyes check left and right, body coming to an abrupt stop, and I sink to the floor.
Giggling washes over me. Lots of giggling coming from the red sky. I need to fly above it so I can look down on the world to find him.
“Where are you?” murmurs out of me.
Silence. Only this fucking giggling that’s confusing my view.
My legs propel me forward in any direction, but a hand catches my wrist and swings me back where I came from. Strong hand. Bright colours. I rip my arm from it and spin, searching all the red again for black holes and tunnels that mean something to me. Nothing does, so I run again. I run fast and hard, all the time asking where he is, where he’s gone. He was here with me before the red mist. He was on me, in me again. I felt him – so close.
“Come.” I stop, spin, and search for the sound of him behind me. Doesn’t sound like him, though. “I’m here. Follow me. We don’t have time.”
Gingerly, I do, desperate to find something to cling to in this jumble of thoughts.
Fingers latch into mine and then his face comes into view. Beautiful face. Like a dark angel. Strong and yet soft under those harsh lines, hair that gently falls over his face. And then it’s not him anymore – not my Malachi. Eyes. Swirls of black holes – evil and corrupt.
I panic and waver, limbs struggling, but I’m weak now. And tired. I’m getting so tired of running. Must, though. Must keep running until I don’t have to anymore.
Run, run, run.
His arm pulls me closer until his hands wrapped around my neck, and then I feel something in my mouth. Acrid taste. Another pill. I fight against it, beat my fists on his frame to let me go. I can’t do that – won’t. I don’t know what they are, why. But the pressure just keeps going. Harder and harder, a hand over my mouth until I’ve got no choice but to swallow again and try to break for air. He won’t let me, though. He’s so strong on me – so severe. And I’m limp now. Like a dying bird gasping for its last breath, as he moves me and turns me. It’s all spinning, changing.
And I’m no closer to flying.
The sudden crash against something hard takes what little breath I’ve got away. I fold and whimper, legs pulling up, as I realise I’m on the floor. What happened?
I don’t know.
“Where are you?” stutters out of me. Nothing. Only silence, but for the distant sound of the wolves still hunting. “Malachi?”
“Stay put, Alice. Breathe,” someone says. A man? Him. Not my Malachi.
My head shakes, eyes searching the murky area for inspiration as to what the hell is happening. No red mist. No dark tunnels anymore. I’m alone. No one other than me and this long, dark, empty corridor full of old things that are blurred and messy. Aged paintings. Furniture. Long swathes of gold and red fabric covering doorways and hanging from windows that hold nothing but more darkness behind them. And my lightning is going, fading to nothing but dim light and air. It’s blurry, obscure. Like a fog over my eyes and in my mind. I was there, not here.
And now I’m – where am I?
Time must pass as I sit here, cold, shivering, and – I run my hands over my legs - near fucking naked. I crawl them in further, hunching my frame over them for protection against the empty, desolate space. Nothing makes any sense. Where is my dress? I was … running. What from? And dancing. I was dancing and spinning. With him. Malachi. We were close. And he kissed me – I remember that now. I can feel it still, regardless of there being nothing and no one here with me.
Shouts sound out somewhere, a shrill yelp following it, as if frightened. That girl was being chased, hunted down like prey for them to play with. Free fodder, she said. I’m not free anything, and my body getting up and beginning to hunt for something to put on proves it. Halls and rooms pass me by in a blur, none of them offering anything to cover myself with until I turn into the room with the piano in it. Several blankets lie discarded on the couch, and it isn’t until I close the door gently that I realise there’s a robe hanging on the back of the door.
Slipping into it, I walk to the window to look out at the pitch black view. What now? Run again, or wait? My eyes land on the grand piano sitting perfectly in its corner, quiet and yet dominating. That’s what he is here – dominating. And strange. And that wouldn’t be so bad if I could trust it. I can’t. I can’t even remember what’s happened in the last however long let alone trust someone like him. But what I do know, what I can feel in the pit of my stomach regardless of this oddity and obscurity, is that he is inside me somehow now, or has been. I can sense him, feel something that wasn’t there when we arrived.
Eyes – such dark and torrid eyes.
I look down at myself and gently trace the contours of my thighs. Marks litter my skin, but it doesn’t feel like I’ve had sex. No, that’s not how it feels at all. It feels like my mind isn’t mine anymore – like it’s elsewhere in a blur of nonsense. Head fucked maybe.
A weak smile pulls at my lips, as my fingers twine my hair between them and meander down to my mouth. There were pills and dark corners, eyes and thoughts that didn’t belong to me. I should be angry, furious about that. I’m not. I’m erratic. Muddled. And strangely fascinated with what is happening around me in this strange place.
“Alice?”
My head turns back to look at the new voice in the room and I find a woman stood there, a long ball gown of reds and scarlets covering some of her small body.
She rolls her shoulders and walks to me with a smile in place.
“What do you want?” she asks. Strange question. I frown and watch as she spins in the space, her arms wide. “You have to know what you want here,” she continues. Dark hair frames her face, loose curls gliding around as she does. “It hurts, but it’s worth it. It helps. Gray helps. Malachi, too. He’ll be alright now. Don’t worry.”
Another freak.
Sidling around the edge of the room, I bypass her revolving form and head for the door again. Away, that’s what I should want. It’s what I wanted when I arrived here, and it definitely should be now I’m witnessing this behaviour. I need to go home and check in, make sure the boys are okay. A break? A low chuckle idles in my throat, gaze still trained on the freak still spinning. This isn’t a break – this is bizarre and peculiar. Yes home, home to sanity. If I could find a damn phone in this place it would be useful. At least then I’d feel safe in the knowledge that they’re okay while I try to get back to them.
I halt at the thought and look back at the woman. “I want a phone.”
“Oh,” she says, coming to an abrupt halt. “This way.”
She launches out of the room, her dress in her hands as she runs and takes corners as if she’s known them all her life. Right, left, up some stairs, with me chasing to keep up with her, and then down another set that wind and turn on themselves in a spiral.
A door pushes open in front of her eventually and we’re suddenly in what seems to be a room stuck in time. Old time. Maybe the twenties, or forties. I don’t know, but dust lingers on every surface, coats on chairs and hats perched on tables.
“There,” she says, pointing.
I look at the desk she’s aiming for and notice the old phone sat there, as much dust on it as there is on everything else. I’ve never used one of those before, wouldn’t even know how it works. I lift the top of it, wondering what, if anything, the cord does that dangles from the end of it. No sound. No swiping. No anything to help me understand what to do.
“No real phones?” I ask her.
She pitches to look at me, her hips swaying. “No real at all, Alice. Who wants real?” She sways again then turns to run her fingers over a wall. They tap the surface, quickly drumming out a tune of some sort. “New York is real. Here is … Lost. Or found. Poor Malachi. He’s lost, Alice. Can you find him, help him?”
Her whole frame suddenly stops its fluid movement, eyes sharp and piercing as they look back at me. “Could you hear him? Feel him inside you?” I frown at that and back a step away, slowly putting the old phone I’m holding back down. “So much power. They both have. Don’t know if they deserve it.” She knocks her head with her hand. “Good men, bad men. Broken men. But love. I do – both of them. One more than the other. Do you?”
Mad as a fucking hatter.
I sigh and drop into one of the old chairs, coughing a little at the plume of dust that rises into the air around me. No phones. No way out. A break, Whit said. Time out. Who has time out like this? This is … I don’t know what this is. But it isn’t for me. I need to leave, find some sense and get back to reality beyond these walls.
“I’ve got to go. Find him. Save him,” she suddenly shouts. Her body rushes away from me, the long swathe of her dress following after her. “Down we go.”
Gone.
Thank fuck.
Another sigh drops out of me, gaze searching the room for anything that might be useful until I give up trying and just grab an old coat to drape it over my knees. Maybe I should just try and sleep my way through all this. I could hide here. It doesn’t seem like anyone ever comes through this part of the place. I might get away with it. And if not, at least I’ll have rested before whatever happens next on the agenda of freakery.
I snuggle down, lifting the coat until I’m wrapped into it. Just sleep. Rest for a while. My eyes drift closed at the thought, some semblance of heat and quiet making me calm enough to relax, and I let the silence consume me. Maybe sanity will come back after this. Sanity and a way home.
~
I don’t know what time it is when I wake, but the light seeping into my eyelids causes me to squint and pull the covers tighter. It’s a few minutes later that I realise they aren’t covers at all. Whatever it is is scratchy and barely covers my body. I peel my eyes open slowly and stare out into the space, part not ready to acknowledge the reality around me because I’m still here, aren’t I?
I forgot that for a few seconds.
It’s barely light out there, more lacking darkness like it was when I came into this room. There’s a strange shade in the sky, as if mist and damp has clouded the area and draped it in a veil of film. Mountains, though. So many mountains, all of them snow drenched and striking. And then there’s me. Just me sitting here in this darkened room with no real light and only old, dusty things around me.
A puff of air blows out of my mouth, toes wiggling up under what is actually an old coat. What now? I suppose I should get up, find someone, see if there’s any more sense here this morning instead of whatever madness was lurking last night. I’m not ready, though. Not ready to find other people or see other things that can only be described as odd as fuck. And pills. I don’t know what they did to me, or where I was when I was made to take them. I remember them, though. At least in some reasonable sense of memory. And I can remember him on me – his eyes, his weight, his presence.
My Malachi.
I frown and keep gazing out into the strange outlook, unsure why those words seem to be so strong inside me. They’re like a memory on my skin, in my veins. I can feel them, as if they’re somehow part of me and he’s part of me, too. There’s no sense in that. No reason for it. But that mad woman said things like that. She asked me if I could feel him, hear him inside me. And then she said something about helping him. I don’t know what that meant.
Why would someone like him need help?
Maybe I’m just sleepy and hungry. Confused. And oddly sad, desperately sad. I’m not sure what the hell I am, but normal isn’t it while I’m here. Scattered memories inch through my thoughts, all of them laced with panic or fear, but not of him. He was there with me – running and chasing and … I don’t know. Up, I remember that. Up and flying and … protection.
Up, up, up.
The thought makes me grab at an old newspaper that looks as stuck in time as the rest of this room, perhaps hoping some more time sitting here alone will present logic or a way home. September fourth nineteen thirty six, it reads. Old pen rings circle around passages, all of them highlighting financial information – reports and, from what little I know, possible investments.
Leafing through, I’m eventually led to page seven, and a gasp escapes me. A face stares back at me from under a hat, sombre and stoic as he sits for a photo. Mid-thirties maybe. And too familiar for my liking. Dark eyes, dark lashes. A different era of clothing maybe, but the same cut of jaw and angles that brought me here stare back nonetheless.
The whole image is like a hole I’m falling into, black and swirling on the decaying paper in my hands. I can sense it inside me like I can Malachi, feel the pages sinking into my skin somehow. And then more comes flooding back into my memory, this time filled with passion and lips and hands that gripped me. A tree. A big fucking tree with snow on it’s branches and my back against its trunk.
I let go of the paper sharply, shoving it away, and watch as it comes to rest on the floor, the angle turned so the words jump off the page at me:
Malachi Albert Jones. Oil Magnate.
More words come at me like bullet points:
Hostile takeover.
Dominating presence in the market.
Recession.
Industrialist.
Capitalist.
Global.
Oil?
Malachi.
I look up and around the room again, unsure what to think about any of that or the fact that it’s making me feel so freaked out. I don’t even know why it’s relevant to me at all, but it is. I flick my gaze back to the picture again. He looks so like him. Everything. Eyes, frown, jaw line and mouth. And it still seems so sad. All of it. I can feel it sweeping over me, burying a sorrowful despondency in the pit of my stomach for no reason at all.
It must be his grandfather, surely. And maybe these were his rooms years ago? I snatch glances, looking for other signs of family pictures – nothing. Other than the old dusty antiques dotted around. Binoculars. A quilled pen in its ink pot. A pair of men’s leather gloves - there’s no other images in frames or family portraits.
Either way, it all feels private suddenly, like I shouldn’t be here.
Or maybe I should and it’s just missing clarity.
And oh shit, this coat?
I scramble out of the chair, perplexed by this feeling of intrusion that’s crawling all over my skin, and gently lay the heavy wool coat back where it came from. I shouldn’t be here. I’ll leave. Find another room to hide in or maybe keep searching for a phone that actually works. I’m stalled, though, my eyes staring at the coat and the paper and everything I should be moving away from. It’s so much like him, like someone dressed him in old fashioned clothes and took a photo. And I’m feeling odd now, like I’m swirling and spinning regardless of being still, as I stare into his eyes.
