The soft sound of knocking resonated through the empty house, sending shivers down Kai’s spine. She crouched beside her bed, shielding herself from view. She knew what—or more accurately, who was knocking at the door, and knew it was only a matter of time before they found their way into the house.
Her situation was one that she knew she’d end up in sooner or later. She had become too deeply entwined in it all; there was no escaping it now. Since Archer’s death six months prior, she had never been able to fully recover. When she had learned he had died at Shad’s hands, she was left with a feeling of indescribable rage, and lust for vengeance. It had taken a near-death confrontation with Shad to make Kai realize that she was powerless against him.
Now he was here, and Kai was certain it was to finally end her life. She lowered herself all the way down onto the hardwood floor of her bedroom, and slid underneath her bed. She knew it was a cliché hiding spot, but it was the best place she could think of.
Somewhere around the house, she heard the soft knocking, accompanied by the all too familiar voice of Shad.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” His tone was melodic; almost playful, as if this was nothing more than a game of hide-and-seek.
Kai’s bedroom was located on the second floor of the small house Kai called home. It was an older house that had been in her family for generations, and being an older home, the stairs creaked beneath even the slightest of weight. It was a distinct sound, and seemed conspicuous in the quiet of the home.
“So he found a way in.” Kai’s voice was soft, barely even a whisper. She inched forwards on her stomach, craning her head to see passed the doorway and into the dark hall.
From a nearby location, Kai heard Shad sigh.
“Kai, what good is hiding going to do you? It didn’t work the first time, why would it work now?”
Footsteps approached the doorway, the floorboards groaning beneath the weight. Moments later, booted feet appeared in the entrance, and Kai withheld her breath.
Shad chuckled softly, leaning against the doorframe, one leg crossed in front of the other. “Really Kai? This is the best you could do?” He sighed, shaking his head shamefully. “This is pitiful! And not to mention a very clichéd hiding spot, Kai. What were you thinking? ‘Oh, someone’s trying to break into my house. I better hide! Oh! I know, I’ll hide underneath the bed, ‘cause they’ll never look there!’”
He snorted in contempt, pushing himself away from the wall, and dropping onto his hands and knees, peering beneath the bed.
Kai stared wide-eyed at him, her mind too panicked to make any decision at all. Shad smiled at her, the look appearing more sinister than offering any kind of reassurance.
“Are you done ‘hiding’ now?” He placed a special emphasis on ‘hiding,’ to further his point on Kai’s stupidity.
Slowly, she nodded and wormed her way backwards away from Shad, and out from under the bed. As she got to her feet, she swallowed nervously, and turned her gaze towards Shad.
He had already risen from the floor, and seated himself upon her bed, watching her with dark eyes.
Kai watched him in silence, uncertain of how to word her questions. Shad’s condition had hardly improved in the last month and a half that she had been fleeing. His face was still gaunt, with dark shadows under his eyes, giving the impression that he hadn’t slept in a while. The clothing he wore, hung off him loosely, as he lacked any weight to him at all. Kai finally tore her gaze away from him, and found her voice. “You’re going to kill me now, aren’t you?”
The question brought a sudden outburst of laughter from Shad, as if he found it amusing. He shook his head, as he began a careful explanation of why he couldn’t kill her at this particular moment.
“You see Kai, murder is an exquisite art. One that you must endeavor to perfect—much like waiting for the butterfly to leave its cocoon—it cannot be rushed, but instead, it must be savored. Choosing the correct method requires patience, skill, creativity and a delicious taste for sadistic preference of pain, torture and suffering with the prolongation of screams from ones victim that only they can hear within their minds causing them to beg for the death that eludes them.”
Kai didn’t respond. She didn’t know how she could. Shad stood suddenly, a wicked grin spreading across his lips.
“I’ve gotten a little sidetracked, now haven’t I?” He didn’t wait for a response, adding onto his statement. “You know why I’m here, don’t you Kai?”
She shook her head, her voice cracking slightly as she replied, “No, I don’t…I thought I did, but you’ve already said otherwise.”
“Hmm? Oh, the whole ‘kill you’ thing.” He laughed quietly, “Yes, that isn’t why I’m here, although I’d love nothing more than to leave this house lifeless, I can’t rush into murder. As I said before, murder takes prior planning, and I currently lack the supplies to murder you and avoid getting caught.”
“So why are you here?”
“We do have unsettled business Kai…”
“Aside from me still being alive, what other business do ‘we’ have?”
Shad frowned, his entire demeanor darkening. “You’re going to play dumb?” His voice sounded stiff, and Kai could recognize the anger lurking beneath his words. “I know you have it.”
For a moment, Kai was genuinely confused. “Have what?”
Shad sighed, his patience growing thin. “Must we do this Kai?”
“What do you think I have?”
Shad was silent for a moment, his eyes burning with unspoken hatred. His voice came out strained as he replied through gritted teeth. “Is this how you plan on obtaining your desired revenge?” He prompted, although he didn’t actually wait to hear Kai’s reply. “You are going to try and expose them to the world...”
Realization dawned on Kai as she as she remembered her last encounter with Shad. She had managed to track him down to an old warehouse where he seemed to have made his home. The area had a surprising amount of security for such a place, and many of the doors within were locked tightly shut. It was outside one of these doors that Shad had almost succeeded in killing her. That was when he had decided that he could kill her and make it seem like suicide. That initial plan only backed up even further by the fact that it had still been fairly recent since Archer’s death and it was a well-known fact that Kai had never quite recovered the death. Kai had managed to evade death and get ahold of one of the keys and escaped through one of the locked rooms. On her way out, she had found a small wooden box, locked shut by a style of lock Kai had never seen before. Despite many attempts, she still had no idea how to open the box, or what lay inside. She was certain that this was what Shad was referring too, but she still couldn’t figure out what the ‘they’ part of his accusation was.
“Who are you talking about when you say ‘they’?”
“You…don’t know?” He spoke the words slowly, as if he wasn’t quite able to comprehend the thought. Then he shrugged, snorting softly in laughter, as his lips twisted back into a smug grin. “Then you were unable to open it.”
Kai’s silence was all the confirmation Shad needed. He continued speaking, his rising satisfaction more than apparent. “If you hand over the box to me now, Kai, we can end this and I’ll leave here with no trouble.” He shrugged again, raising a brow in indifference. “It’s all the same to me. But, consider this before you decide: is revenge really worth your own life?”
She remained silent as she considered his words. The question was one that had crossed her mind occasionally in the past, but she normally dismissed it rather quickly. Avenging Archer was worth her life, wasn’t it? He died because of Shad and handing the box over to the authorities would help them finally put an end to Shad’s madness. To see Shad behind bars…that had been the vengeance she sought. A world free from Shad’s presence, a world where Archer would not have died…
She closed her eyes, the guilt over Archer’s death was returning. Handing over the box to the authorities wouldn’t guarantee Shad’s arrest. Revenge wouldn’t bring Archer back; it wouldn’t make the guilt go away. As Kai came to a decision she crossed the room over to her dresser. She pulled open the top drawer, and shoved the clothing aside to reveal the wooden bottom. With the tips of her fingers, she felt along the edge of the drawer, feeling for a tiny nick in the wood. Her hand lingered over the nick as she considered her options once more. She sighed silently; this was what she would have to do. She dug her fingernail into the nick and flipped the wood upwards. It came free and she tossed aside, and reached into the compartment the wood had been concealing. The box rested inside, practically untouched since Kai had arrived back home after obtaining it. She picked it up, fingering the smooth metal that lined the edges of the box.
Kai turned to face Shad, holding the box out to him in one hand. “Take it and leave.”
He flashed a smile as he moved from the bedside to where she stood. Shad was silent as he took the box, and as he had promised before, he turned to leave. As he reached the doorway, he paused, glancing back at her over his shoulder. “Oh and Kai? You shouldn’t let yourself be so easily talked out of something you know you want.”
Shad disappeared, the gentle creaking of the floorboards telling of his departure. Kai knew that he had been referring to her initial want of revenge. She exhaled slowly as she replaced the wooden bottom of the drawer and packed the clothing back in. Archer wouldn’t have wanted her to become so obsessed with the idea of revenge. She knew that if he had seen how bad she had gotten he would’ve gone into a panicked state of mind.
Kai smiled halfheartedly. Revenge wasn’t going to help her, nor was it going to make her feel any better about Archer’s death. Shad would eventually get what was coming to him, and Kai didn’t care that it wouldn’t be her own doing. She wanted to be done with it all, and go back to as close of a normal life as she could. Life still wouldn’t be the same without Archer around, but, it was still life.
“Even if Archer’s gone now, I have to keep living…if not for me, then for him.” She spoke softly to herself, thinking back to before his death. “Living only for revenge isn’t what he would’ve have wanted. Perhaps, he’s even in a better place now.”
The thought brought the slightest of smiles to her lips. Archer was in a place where he could never be harmed again. She would leave things as they were now, content to let the authorities deal with Shad on their own. She would leave on for Archer and do the things he never got the chance to do. Next time death came knocking, she wasn’t going to open the door.
ns 15.158.61.13da2
