I shudder as a memory floods my mind, taking all of me into it.
The song wakes me. I stumble from the bed into the dark hallway in search of its source. His voice is new to me for only a second as memories flit about my head and recognition occurs halfway through the darkness. He is the man I love and trust—my father.
The song is odd. I don’t recognize it. He repeats it using the same taunting melody. When I get around the corner there’s a door with a sliver of silver light shining from it. The song is coming from the crack, echoing inside the light within the room that becomes bluer as I get closer. The color makes my bare feet on the marble floor feel as if it’s colder than it actually is. I shudder as the creepy chorus plays again off the pale-blue walls.
“Listen, listen to the wind and stone. Listen, listen to the sounds of old. Listen, listen as my hopes are drowned. Listen, listen to the sounds that bullets make of blood and bones. Where will you run today? How will you ever get away? Our love is meant to stay.”
When I peek through the slit, the cool blue paint on the walls and ivory floors contrast remarkably with the spatters of red all over. My father, a man who has never shown me a moment of love or kindness, is cutting up something bloody. A hand lies on the floor, pointing at the wall on the other side of the room. There is no arm attached. It takes several seconds for the images to compute, but he hums and sings the chorus again.
“Listen, listen to the wind and stone. Listen, listen to the sounds of old. Listen, listen as my hopes are drowned. Listen, listen to the sounds that bullets make of blood and bones. Where will you run today? How will you ever get away? Our love is meant to stay.”
I gasp, backing away. When I turn I trip, making the music stop. The warm singing in the cold room ceases, and hollow footsteps take its place.
“Jane?”
I scramble to my feet, spinning around.
My eyes pop open, as I come back from my memories. The song was his. The weirdness was never mine. The shit wrong with me—the cherry and the creepy song and the memory loss—are not mine. They are my father’s, and God help me, but I have fallen in love with a man just like him.
It takes a second to come out of the weird dream. The room I’m in reminds me of a place I’ve been. It has a soft bed with a fluffy pillow and pretty paint color, but I know it’s fake, like our sanity.
The door opens, with his smiling face poking through the opening. “You’re awake? I figured you would need a bit more sleep. You haven’t been sleeping or eating enough. You need that. You need to stay calm.”
“I need answers, all of them. I need to know now, right now, what this is. Why did you burn the house and attack Rory? Did you leave him at the house?”
He pushes the door open as if he’s freeing me, making me more comfortable, which I think is his intention. “You volunteered for this.”
“What? Where’s Rory?” He offers me his hand. I don’t hesitate—I climb from the bed and storm past him. “Stop coddling me, Derek. I’m not your fucking toy.”
He chuckles and follows me down the hall. We’re in a hotel. It’s a suite with a large living room. I sit down on the couch, holding my hands wide. “What the hell is going on?”
He strolls calmly to the TV, hooking up a VCR.
“Is that from my father’s house?”
He nods, dropping to his knees and turning the TV and VCR on. The wide flat-screen TV, which couldn’t be more opposite from the VCR connected to it, turns on. My face, my face from before, appears on the screen, frozen. Derek comes and sits next to me, patting my leg.
I shove his hand off me, looking at him with a glare. “What is this?”
“Your VHS. I stole it first a while ago. When you were sleepwalking once you told me where it was. I let that asshole Rory take the fake one I made from this one, missing all the good stuff, of course. Do you know how hard it was to make it dusty like that?”
I pause, completely stunned. “You are insane.”
He shrugs. “I know.” He presses “play” with the remote he stole from my father’s house with his ancient VCR, left over from when I was a kid. The picture runs clearer as he hits the button.
“You found us.” My smile is wide and coated in red lipstick. I brush my blonde hair behind my ears and nod. “I knew you would know the only place in the world I would ever hide something.” The light in my eyes dims. “It’s the only place no one would know about, unless I trusted them more than anything in the world.” I glance next to me, like I hear something but the camera can’t see it.
I look back at the camera, lowering my voice. “I’ve found something out. Something that’s big. All this time I’ve been hunting down Benjamin Dash has proved to be enlightening. He’s part of a CIA operation that takes requests or cleanup jobs as favors to other organizations. He’s part of the cleaning team for cleaning teams—part of something the world has no clue about. And the worst part is we knew all along. Our own government runs this. Dash was selected because of his theories. He’s built a team of people who can become like psychopaths, and enjoy the end of someone’s life. They all like to watch the spark go out.” Her eyes narrow, like she’s fighting emotions. “Anyway, he’s a doctor, and the intel I recovered on him and the program didn’t do what it was supposed to. Essentially, I showed up the government and its evil plotting and mind screwing with completely innocent people. The evidence against the government is in a safe-deposit box in a bank in Turin, Italy, in the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti. The key is in the place where you hid from the monsters. It’s the safest place I could think to put it.” She looks down for a brief second, shaking her head. “Sam, or whatever your name is now, let the past go. No good is going to come from opening that box. It already ruined our lives. It already ruined everything. Just let it go, trust me.” She looks up at the camera, nodding. “Let Father go. He was a weak man who preyed on the innocent, and nothing we did when we were little can be blamed on us. We were a product of our environment. That’s what I’ve learned in all of this. Learn to love and let go and be a strong person for the right reasons. It’s something we never have been very good at.”