Colour Series Box Set (65 page)

THE HOTEL SUITE IS MY sanctuary at the moment, I have returned to my house over the last couple of days and work has begun to making it liveable and to my taste. The contractors have been given a month. I imagine my grandfather living in that house, he was a very powerful man and my mother's death, was the end of him and all his power. I slip away into memories for a minute as Shannon walks around the hotel suite inspecting it. I am not sure all of them are real memories most are my childhood nightmares warped and bent into images that haunted me for so long.

This time it is that front door that haunts me. I am a little boy again. My heart squeezes as I remember it. I ball my fists and clench my teeth bracing for the nighmares that threaten to come.

We walk up the path to the big door of the scary house, mommy has tears on her cheeks. I see them glisten like little stars as she holds my hand so tight it hurts me now. My daddy pulls her other arm so hard and I trip on the steps and skin my knee, the blood makes me want to cry. “Boys don’t cry!” Daddy’s words make me stop before I even start. The steps are cold and frightening the air is freezing, and the wind whips dead leaves across the entrance to the scary house. The blood is staining my pants where my knee bleeds.

The big door opens and an old man with grey hair is standing inside, his eyes are dark and they frighten me I try to hide behind my mom. Daddy shoves her forcing her to let go of my hand and she lands on her knees, she looks up at the old man and he has stars dancing on his cheeks too. They are all talking, but I can’t hear them I just hear my heart beating too fast.

Daddy has his gun out, the one I am not allowed to touch, the big silver one from the office drawer. He points the gun at mommy and yelling at the old man to choose. CRACK-THUD  - then mommy is gone there is blood on my face it is warm and sticky, it smells funny and the old man closes the door on me as daddy walks away. I hold my mommy’s hand and wait in the cold for dad to come back and get me or for the door to open again. Neither one happens, a long time later a man with funny eyes comes up the steps and takes mommy inside, but he leaves me in the cold to wait. I wait forever I am so cold and I wet my pants. I want my mommy.

 I just want to go back and jump in the way of the bullet, I should have saved my mother. I could have, but I didn’t because I cannot do good things.

I am snapped back to the real world by Shannon asking, “Are we eating here or downstairs Callum?” I shake off my trip to hell and answer her.

“I have arranged for dinner to be brought to us, but I need to discuss some things with you.” I try to keep the emotion of my memories out of my voice as I walk towards where she stands.  She is afraid, maybe not of me but of how she
feels
when I am near, but I can sense her fear. She is staring into space and her body is wound tight. I can see her chest rising and falling with each breath she takes and I can see the bruises from my hands forming on her delicate neck. I swallow a lump in my throat that I have marred her beauty again. I have never been able to control it, I hurt anyone who dares get close enough to me, before they can hurt me. I know it is wrong and I want to stop it, but I cannot. With Shannon, I seem to have even less control of it. I should be on my meds, but no one knows that I need them here.

I get close enough to take her hand and lead her to the table where we will eat later, her soft hands are so small and her red nails look vicious against her pale skin. Once we are both sitting, I cannot bear the silence and I start talking. “Shannon if I asked you what do you want and you could have anything what would you ask for?” Her eyes meet mine and I see a glimmer of hope and then her anger at that hope. “Callum we all know I cannot have what I want.” She hesitates before she carries on. “I want many things that I will never have Callum, I don’t like being given false hope.” Her tone is threatening and vengeful. “Who said the hope is false, I am asking you what you want Shannon, what would make you happy? Answer me before I have reason to lose my fucking temper again.” I just want her to tell me what it is she needs so I can give it to her.

She pushes her chair out slightly making a safe escape possible this time before she sighs and covers her face with her hands. “I just want regular Callum, I want to wake up and know that if I died someone would know that I am gone. I want to be in control of my own life just once before I die and I want to get close to another person without the burning desire to kill them. You think you can give me those things Callum? Because I know you can’t, no one can. People like us don’t get normal. We get whatever is left.” She keeps her face covered, but I feel the loneliness, she is lonely and I think that is what has fuelled her killing. She is a master manipulator I keep reminding myself to be careful of believing these moments of weakness.

“I can try Shannon, for starters I would know if you died, I would look for you if you suddenly disappeared. I can give you some of the control that you need and I promise you won’t kill me even when you want to.” She doesn’t look up, or answer me. I see the small drops of her tears on the table cloth. “But in order to do that Shannon I need you to know what I want from you in return. Nothing in life is free, you know better in our world. We all pay with our lives for what we want. ” There is always a catch in life, she of all people should know that.

Her green eyes look at me all puffy and red around the edges showing just how vulnerable she is. My stupid fucking brother didn’t nurture this woman into the asset she could be. He suffocated her into a caged animal and broke her spirit. “What do you want from me Callum? Three days ago you wanted to date me, an hour ago you wanted to strangle me. I cannot keep up, am I to be your fake girlfriend? Your real girlfriend, your doctor? What? What do you want? Moreover, why would I do what you want?”  She is trying the illusion of power with me again; I indulge her for now. I know she will cave to my demands if I make them seem like requests. She needs to have control; she craves it. However, I will not give it her, not yet.

“You will be my real
wife
, let’s be clear I was not holding back when I said I want you Shannon. You are done being a doctor so you can get that out of your head. You will maintain the image of being a doctor, but you will be my wife
first
. You will be by my side and you will have your wants met. I will help you with your need to kill by giving you the opportunity to kill the people whose untimely deaths will be mutually beneficial and satisfying. My plan for this family just became your plan too little princess. As to why would you do what I want? If you do not Shannon, you will be dead before you can pick up your phone and tell my idiot brother one word. That is why. It is me or it is the end.” I make sure she is looking me in the eye when I say end, because I mean it. If she walks away now Art, will kill her before she can tell a soul about my plan, my demons or what I did to her. I won’t let her go, she is mine now. My toy and I am done sharing my toys.

Her mouth is open slightly the shock of my words has her scrambling to find her own to answer me. I don’t give her a chance before I continue. “We will continue to appear to date, I however would like it to be more than a show. I feel something for you Shannon and I intend to act on it. I know you feel it even if you don’t want to, you cannot deny this pull. In a month when the house is ready, I will propose marriage and we will move in together. At our engagement dinner, you will poison some of my family, nothing as dramatic as you have been doing I would prefer if they died at home.” A smile creeps over her lips at the mention of poison and death and the twinkle in her eyes tells me I have won. “Callum like I said, false hope, I have no choice really. I feel something when I am near you and it scares the shit out of me. You scare me. I know you are going to hurt me and we will literally kill each other. I knew the second I saw you that you would be the one to end me.” She breathes heavily trying to mask her anger at being trapped with no real choice again. Hope is always false. There is no hope when you are born and bred to live in the shadow world of crime and death.

At that moment, a man in a penguin suit arrives with our dinner and pushes the cart next to us before he places the plates with their silver domes in front of us. He removes the covers and the aroma of the food takes over my senses.  I am immediately reminded of what I have left behind, the real food takes me back to eating at the estate with Rowan and Laurie, I want what they have that connection to another. I want it with Shannon. “Maybe I can be the one to truly
begin
you Shannon, not end you,” I say before we both start to eat the meal in front of us. I notice Shannon doesn’t eat her fillet only the potato and vegetables; she must be a vegetarian. Shit.

I watch her poke at the piece of steak for a while before I ask her. “Are you vegetarian?”  I am smiling at her utter disgust for the chunk of animal on her plate. “Yes. I should have said something earlier. Sorry.”  She pushes the meat to the very edge of her plate. “Don’t apologise for who you are Shannon, not to me, not to anyone.”  I swap her plate for the tray of dessert that was left waiting on the trolley beside us and cover the offending steak so it can’t bother her.

We both enjoy the dessert more than the dinner and I can see that she is feeling lighter after our meal than she was before. “How many do you plan to kill?” Her question catches me off guard and I have to take a breath to answer her. “All of them except Harmon, he is still too young to be broken completely,” I answer her truthfully. “And Amya, she is far away from all this and has turned her back on the family and my father already. She chose
my
side a long time ago.” Her eyes are searching mine to see if I am being honest. “How many do I get to kill? I am presuming that murder will be part of my wifely routine.” Her spark makes me smile, she has no idea how much the idea, of her killing my family, turns me on. “It will be yes, but you won’t be killing them all. The key to the plan is that it seems to be an outside threat. Sahib has most of it already planned, but I have added a few names to my list just for you.”  A wicked grin comes over her face and she is contemplating what I have said. Contemplating being with me despite what that means for her. I watch her seductively lick the chocolate dessert off her spoon. Her eyes meeting mine taunting me with her beauty and making me desire her, need her and fucking want her. She is deliberately seducing me, trying to bend me to her wants and needs. She is good at this. She wipes her lips with a finger and licks the sweet desert off of it.

“You think that will stop me from wanting to kill you? You are taking a big risk on me Callum my love life score reads ‘Me -18, Men -0’.” Her relatively small number of eighteen has me remembering Rowan again and his beautiful bloody heart of figures. She is still innocent compared to his brand of murder, yet hers strikes me as the worst of the two. “You cannot fix a killer Shannon, but you can change the way they kill. I have done it before. I want you enough to take the risk, I told you that you won’t kill me and I meant it.” She lets out a slightly defeated sigh, all I can see are her lips. She is fucking killing me slowly right now.

“Callum is it because I look like Cassie? I need to know if I am just her ghost to you.” What? She might as well have kicked me in the nut sack. Is it? I don’t even know the answer to that. It is and yet it is her that haunts my mind when it’s idle not her sister. She pulls her slightly messy hair over one shoulder, exposing her neck. All I see is her and that soft skin where my fingerprints become darker as the minutes tick past, not Cassie, just her.

“Shannon we both know I killed your sister, we can stop dancing around the truth. I am drawn to the darkness in you, it matches mine, your sister had no dark – she was only light and had a deep love only for Rowan. She was never mine to love, you, however, are all mine whether you want to be or not. I don’t think I can feel love anymore but I can feel want and I wanted you the second I saw you. You were yelling at your father’s grave. Cassie fucking broke my heart. No, she stole it and took it to her grave. It is not her I see, it is all you.” Honestly, I have skirted the issue of Cassie’s death since the day it happened it feels good to own it. I let Rowan own the guilt for all these years. It made it easy for me to manipulate him. Shannon is all I see she is consuming my ability to think clearly, she has my dick at attention all day and I want her all of her. Something about playing with death makes me come alive. I felt nothing good for so long that this feeling has me craving it worse than any drug, worse than sugar.

“I am afraid to feel Callum, Feelings are madness if I feel then I have to
be sorry
for what I do and I don’t want to experience anything worse in my life than I already have.” She takes a breath causing her chest to rise and fall, my eyes go there, I am a man I cannot help it, her breasts are perfect.

 “I feel something for you, not the usual grey that makes me murder, something new and scary and I am afraid more deadly than my usual urge to kill. I am scared of what we became together Callum; I am afraid to lose myself to you. I know we will destroy each other, it may be fast, it may be slow, but we will and I think you know that it is true.”  She places her spoon on the plate the clink of the metal against the glass the only sound breaking the silence between us.

“I know you killed Cassie, I heard everything that night, including you crying. I know you will not love like that again and in all honesty I am never going to love you Callum, I am a sociopath I cannot feel love like others do. So I will follow your plan, and I will give you what I can, but I do not want to
lose all of me,
please. I am a killer. Please don’t take that from me; it is the only thing that keeps me alive in this fucked up place.” I am listening but not hearing her because my brain is focused on the beauty that sits opposite me. The way her hair shines and her breasts tease me from beneath her sheer top. To the long, lean legs, I know are below the table cloth. She has made me lose my focus. I need to stay focused.