Let The Light In 2

The wax looked like blood as it slid down the candle shaped to be the number fourteen.

“Happy birthday, darling,” Diana smiled, dimples appearing in her freckled cheeks.

“Fourteen, jesus, feels like yesterday we took you home,” Michael sighed, sadly but gave me a grin when I glanced up at him.

“Thank you, guys, I love you both so much,” I leaned over the marble table and blew. The candles flickered once and then extinguished. My act had gotten brilliant. Perfected even. The act of emotion. I hadn’t told anyone my thoughts - the real ones - kept my anger and rage in check. No more outbursts. Nobody suspected anything. Even Dr Caswell had stopped visiting two months ago. I was too good. Impossibly good. Diana kissed my head and clapped her hands. Cairo - the maid - brought out present after present, lying them on the table in front of me. I opened them one by one, faking each reaction, each present turning into a blur. It wasn’t their fault I didn’t like the presents. I didn’t like anything. Or feel anything, really. Diana and Michael were good parents; well respected, kind, too stupid to realise how fucked up I really was. All traits I could tolerate. They’d be good to me the past seven months. The only thing wrong with Diana was the fact she was a respected proffessor at Oxford. Scarlett went there too. The college student. That I couldn’t wrap my head around. Scarlett hadn't breathed a word of what side of me she'd seen. Not of my threats. Her friends studied there too. Grant, Lydia, Jamie. Slit their fucking throats- They weren't saying anything. For that, I was grateful but I needed a reason. Or maybe I didn't. As long as she kept her fucking mouth shut there wouldn't be a problem. Of course she was. She was still scared. I saw it in her manner, posture, eye contact. Perks of being raised by a literal cult. You become good at reading people and their lies. I'd done my research as soon as I entered this house. Michael had insisted I got a phone and I had access to the internet. Calloway was a serial killer, and led a cult, that's all they had on him. But it was something. Was he still alive? Still cared? In jail? I had no idea. But Scarlett was going to help me. She had those pictures. All of them. All the hospitals Calloway had bought. The one he had found me and my Mother, god, I enjoyed the life leaving her useless corpse- Sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself. Thoughts like those slip through sometimes. I really try sometimes to block them out. Prove that I'm not what Jamie said I was. You’re not special. You’re just a broken little kid who learned to fake charm so no one would see how empty you really are. I hated how I couldn't feel anything. How I was empty. Incapable of anything. I'd watched my mother raped and murdered and stood there. She deserved it. That fucking traitor. There was no point in trying to be anything else. I didn't know what was wrong with me. There was nothing wrong with me. Calloway loved me. Loved my emptiness and that was all that mattered.

"Honey? You alright?" Diana was in my face, leaning to my level.

"Yes," I smiled, even though I was thinking about slitting her student's throats. Stark contrast. Thank you. Who's voice was in my head? Calloway's? Mine? I didn't care. I'd get back to him. Rejoin the cult. Do what I had to do. But first, I needed to know why Calloway had bought all those asyulms. Why he'd chosen me and my Mother? Why Scarlett and the others had chosen this specific case? Were they still working on it? Why hadn't she said anything about my outburst? Who was I? Why was I empty? And most of all: Was the cult going to come back for me? Yes. No. Maybe. Probably.