INK: Vanishing Point (Book 2) (11 page)

“Nineteen? Seriously?” I
mean I guess it isn’t that bad, Trish is only twenty-one but
still, nineteen seems so young to me. “And you’ve already
slept with him? Jesus Trish, you’ve probably scarred the poor
boy for life.”

“There’s only a few years
difference between us; besides age ain’t nothing but a number,”
she quips pulling into my driveway, “And I haven’t
scarred anyone; this boy knows his shit. He’s teaching me
lessons between the sheets.”

“Trish, that’s just gross.”
I mean sure I go back and forth between Aiden and Eli, but that’s
different. There’s so much more to say but I’m stunned
looking at my house in shambles. A gasp escapes me. Windows are
boarded up in the front and there’s a blue tarp tacked to the
roof.

“Fuck me,” Trish says
looking at my house. “Are you sure it’s okay to leave you
here?”

“Yeah, I’m just getting my
car and probably going to head to my Dad’s house,” I lie.

“Good, stay the hell away from Eli
and Aiden if he ever shows his face around here again.” The
anger squints her eyes into slits.

“I know.” I’m too
tired to argue, “Thanks for covering for me with Eli.”

“My pleasure; any time I can stick
it to one of those assholes makes my day beam with sunshine.”
She waves her hands toward the sky.

I get out of the car and grab my bag and
new phone. I go straight to my car to convince Trish I’m not
staying. She drives off down the road. I put my backpack on the hood
and pull out my keys.

My living room is an absolute disaster;
it’s so surreal seeing it like this. I want to just drop to my
knees and cry. This was my home; it represented my peace of mind, my
security, my only hope of spending a moment alone. This can’t
be happening.

There’s blood smeared on the wall,
and hand prints leave a trail that leads from the living room to the
door. There are stains on the grout of the tile between the ash and
soot. I instinctively know they are blood, but mine or Aiden’s?

In the back bedroom it seems there is
only water and smoke damage. Nothing is burnt. The bed is overturned
and the things on my dresser have been disturbed. The jewelry box is
on the floor next to the bathroom door.

All the rings Aiden has given me are
strewn across the floor. I carefully pick them up, looking at them
one by one, revisiting every magical night that Aiden slid each one
on my finger. I put them all back in the box and close the lid. The
other side of the jewelry box is empty. My stomach bottoms out; I
have to find it. Looking around, I search the floor with what little
light I have. Shuffling through some papers and clothes on the floor
near the door. The glow from my phone causes something to glint; I
hurry and move closer.

A relieved sigh rides out as I pick up
the ring. There’s something missing though. I shuffle through
the trash on the floor, lift the mattress and further ransack the
whole room looking for the other ring that was tied to this one.

I sit back against the dresser defeated,
holding up the ring I found and dust it off. Trying to polish the ash
away from the diamond, I give it a blow. Looking at it a little
closer with my light shining directly on it, the beauty and
simplicity is breathtaking. There’s more than just a sparkle to
it; there’s always been something special about this one. The
simple one-carat diamond flanked by sapphires that only wish they
were as beautiful blue as his eyes.

When I lift the lid on the right side of
my jewelry box to put the ring away, I stop to look at it again.
This
one’s coming with me
.
I’m not sure why, but I want it to be near me.

Checking the closet for clothes that
might not smell of smoke, mold or mildew I come up empty. That’s
great; it looks like there’s a trip to Goodwill in my future. I
can’t very well go around wearing the same two outfits.

Shit! I forgot to ask Trish about
Raphael, and whether or not I still have a job. Oh well, that’s
something I’ll have to deal with in the morning.

The last light of day fades into the
horizon. The sky is a brilliant orange and pink collage dancing to
indicate that it’s time to go, but where? I walk outside the
front door and look around down the street. My car is sitting in the
driveway, calling to me. I’ve missed my car. It feels like it’s
been years since I’ve driven. The thought occurs to me to just
get in and see where it takes me. I ended up in Virginia Beach last
time I did that. Problem is, I have no idea if I have any money in my
bank account and I’m sure the car’s on empty.

I look at my studio, the detached garage
Aiden and I converted. Hey, that’s as good a place as any. The
windows are all blacked out so no one would be able to see any lights
on. It wasn’t damaged by the fire so the electric and water
still work in there. It’ll do for tonight. I unlock the door.

Spinning the dimmer switch the lights
come up slowly and illuminate the room. There’s no artwork in
here at all. It’s all gone. This is the first time I’ve
been in here since Gary and Alice were killed. A chill rakes through
my body; I try to push it aside. I’ve worked too freakin’
hard to let myself be afraid in my own studio. I spent too many years
being scared; I’ll be damned if I let any of this get to me.

My backpack drops on the floor and I go
to my drafting table and find unopened inks with some new pens.
Where
did these come from?

They are high quality and I immediately
want to dig into them. This requires some music. I put my player on
shuffle and sit back down at the table. Everything’s set up and
I press my pen on the pad to see where it will take me. Hopefully it
will be somewhere better than a quarter of a tank of gas.

The music flows through me, I close my
eyes to let a picture come into my mind. The imagery begins like a
movie and I start to sketch. Carefully drawing the lines of Gabriel’s
face, I notice he’s smiling and the ink is flowing freely
through my pen, taking over and drawing the scene.

After four or five hours of sketching I
put the pen down and rub my hand. It is the most bizarre thing; I
can’t stop drawing panel after panel like I was some kind of
machine, a comic matrix printer that spits out image after image.

As per my routine, my pens are placed
carefully by the sink and I hang each panel to observe the movement.
I’m not quite sure I can incorporate this into any kind of
comic. That is even if I have a job as a comic artist. Once all the
sketches are hung I turn the lights up slightly to take them all in.

There are many panels of Gabriel and I
doing things we’ve never done together. Some our bodies are
intertwined in erotic ribbons of lust and naughtiness. In others we
are walking on a city street. There are also panels of Eli and me.
They are all from the past. Some from when we were just kids running
around in the sprinklers or playing at the law firm. Oliver would
pretend to be angry with us, but I knew he secretly liked us being
there. Genie kept a close eye on us.

Aiden doesn’t appear in any of the
scenes. I’m not sure why it surprises me. He clearly doesn’t
want to have a part in my life. He's gone again. He has to know that
this is the last time he’s leaving me.

I never would have let him back in if
all of this madness in my life hadn’t started happening. Gary
and Alice, then Taffy.

I lean against the drafting table and
several more sheets fall onto the floor. I must have missed them. I
hang them up and stand back to look at them.

That’s Aiden. I guess he
is
on the brain. I laugh out loud a bit almost relieved to see him.
There we are, standing in the rain kissing, I’ve drawn steam
coming off of us; damn it must have been hot. The next panel is him
on me on the living room floor still kissing. He's bracing himself up
with one arm and his other hand is cupping my breast. My fingers are
tugging at his waist band while my other hand is grabbing onto a tuft
of his hair. Our eyes are locked
into
each other. I study the intensity of the gaze between us. There is so
much love in this image. I want to stare at it for hours, study it,
and reclaim that feeling.

I move to the next panel hanging from
the wire. A scream gets caught in my throat when I see I’ve
drawn Aiden’s features but in a shadowy, dirty form. There’s
something coating him that looks like the worst kind of grime and ash
imaginable. He’s grabbing my wrist and pushing on his crotch.
His eyes are hollow and his face is full of hatred; it's not Aiden,
it’s the Specter.

I stagger backward and look to the next
scene. I have a kitchen knife in my hand and it’s raised over
my head getting ready to fall on him. He’s holding a gun in his
hand, aimed at me. The Specter is there; he’s standing to the
side watching Aiden and me with delight dripping from his features.

Aiden’s expression is terrified;
he really thinks I’m going to plunge the knife down into him. I
can see the progression in the image of the gun pointing directly at
me. I’ve captured the horrified look on my face. I’m
absolutely scared shitless. Probably the same look I have at this
moment.

Fear courses through me; I don’t
want to look at the next panel. I look away for a moment to catch my
breath. Tears already cloud my vision and it’s hard to see. The
next panel I see a bullet coming out of the back of my neck and a
knife is lodged in Aiden's chest.

Aiden’s eyes look dead in the
picture. Carl is standing in the corner of the room by the door and
the Specter is looking directly at him. They are exchanging an
unreadable look. I can’t tell if Carl is afraid.

I back up against the wall and slide
down sobbing. Did I kill Aiden? Did I stab him in the chest? Jesus
Christ, Aiden, where the fuck are you? I scramble for my phone and
punch in his number frantically. It goes directly to voice mail.
Fuck!

“Aiden, it’s Shay, I
remember I remember. I’m so sorry please call me, I have to
know that you are okay!” My voice is barely coherent through a
series of sobs. I finally squeeze out, “Aiden, I also remember
that I love you.”

The phone drops to the floor and I sob
until I’ve been completely overcome by grief.

***

Carl

McNab’s number comes up on the
phone. I know I need to talk to him, but she really needs this. If
she can remember what happened it will make things easier all around.
I just want her to remember. She’s torturing herself thinking
she killed Aiden and McNab is being such an ass about letting her
remember on her own.

I know he’s right about not
implanting any suggestions, but I think she’s got a good enough
imagination that she can implant enough of her own. This is killing
me. I can feel her anguish; she’s remembering and I have to
just let it run its course. Her pain is driving a spike of sorrow
through me I can hardly bear, so I can imagine what it feels like for
her.

I’ve got to break this link
between us as soon as McNab says the word. I can’t take this
kind of frequent pain and I don’t know how she lives with it
every day.

At the hospital it wasn’t so bad;
she spent the first week not feeling much at all. But now she doesn’t
have Eli’s constant presence or the safety of knowing as long
as she was in that bed the cops weren’t coming for her.

The wind blows the blue tarp on the roof
around, catching my eye. I feel really bad about setting her house on
fire, but I had to do what I could to hide Aiden’s blood. I
didn’t get it good enough. I should have gotten rid of the
knife. I burned all the blood off the walkway and driveway. I thought
Aiden brought the knife out with him. But we left it inside and by
the time I realized it was still in there the fire department was
here.

When she’s done in there I hope
she remembers what happened. I hope she knows that Aiden didn’t
mean to hurt her, and that she didn’t really hurt him. That
will bring her peace.

Eli

Driving down the winding road toward the
park, I take the turns extra-slow. Mostly because I don’t want
be here. I hate this place. It’s so full of sadness for her, a
sadness that she wears around her neck like an anchor. She pours it
out here, always coming back enlivened and refreshed. I picture this
place as the dumping ground for all of the baggage Aiden has left her
with.

Her car isn’t here in the parking
lot. Should I leave? Should I look for her? Maybe she got dropped
off. It would be just like her to get stranded here with no phone and
no way to call anyone. I check the time: two fifteen. Preston wants
me in the office early for my review. I find out whether or not I’m
going to be suspended or fired and I’m running around chasing
after her. Shaking my head I smile.
I’d
go to hell and back for her. I’m just hoping I make it back
this time.

Maybe I was little too hard on Aiden for
losing her; she’s a slippery little vixen. I sit in the car for
a few more minutes staring at the Goddamn tree. Part of me smiles,
thinking about my tough girl climbing up there in her boots. Perching
in the tree away from everything and letting her despair pour into
the earth away from her. The larger part of me is envious. I wish it
were me she shared this place with. I wish I brought her here and
discovered it with her.

Better get this over with. I step out of
the car thinking how different it looks since I’m not drunk. It
really is pretty here. I walk across the grassy area to the tree.
This thing is massive. I walk around it looking up in the branches to
see if she’s up there. It's too dark to see anything but the
darkness of the branches against the midnight sky. I call out for
good measure, “Shay? Are you here?”

There’s no answer. She’s not
here even though I can feel her presence somehow. She leaves her
essence everywhere she goes. I swear I can feel her in my house for
months after she’s gone. An echo of a laugh escapes me, “Gone.”
I know she wants to come back to me. I know she loves me. I even know
we are meant to be together, but I have to figure out how to break
the hold Aiden has over her.