Shame washing over me as all the little bricks of my persona crumble to the ground. He will never look
at me the way he did. It’s no wonder he changed.
“I thought maybe if we started at where you came from then we would have an idea of where you
would go.” Alexi comes and sits beside me, slowly, carefully, as though he can sense how fragile I am
feeling. So many things in my head drowning him out. I don’t care where he sits anymore. The real
danger is facing me in a cardboard box that he has positioned back on the table. The past catching up
to me once more, and I’m so terrified if I touch even one of those cruddy, mouldy covers that everything
will turn to dust and I will never recover. I don’t want those memories back.
He doesn’t seem like a guy who knows he has an edge over me. He isn’t beaming with devious delight.
He’s acting as though I’ve had a major shock and he’s placing himself and his words around me
carefully.
Meanwhile, I just want to burn those damn books and never see them again.
“I’m sorry, Cam. If I had known that it was all real … I would never have …” he trails off, his words
heavy and raw, reflecting my emotions and I keep staring at that box. Like some numb illiterate mute
who has lost all ability to communicate.
Afraid to do anything else as my entire being turns to fragile stones that could crumble if I move one
tiny little bit. I feel like all that is holding me up is the lack of air in this room. One little breeze and I will
topple into a pile of ashes and blow away like the nothing I am.
I assume he means when he used my past against me to wound me. Truly believing I was lying to him
about it all, and now he knows I never did. It’s the apology I had been waiting on, yet it doesn’t really
make me feel any better at all. It means nothing to me now, in the new light of things.
It all makes sense though. Why he’s so overly aware of standing behind me, changing how he is
towards me these past weeks. The insight I suspected and know for sure he has. The click, click, click
as every detail falls into place.
Alexi really has been trying to change how he treats me, because maybe, just maybe, he truly cares
about me, and these books opened his eyes to everything about that little voice in my head. The one
who tells me I’m not good enough. The story of a lonely, hopeless case who tried to survive at any cost.
That I keep everyone at a distance because I’m afraid of how people can hurt me.
“It doesn’t matter anymore.” I’m numb and shocked. I think it’s finally seeing something from my past in
the flesh. Like somehow, it’s had this strange effect of slapping me in the face with a lot of pent up pain.
I feel traumatised to have laid eyes on something very real, like a portal to my scars I never expected to
examine again. It’s all fresh once more. The things I left behind and swore would never touch me
again. All here in my lap.
“It does matter. All of it matters. It’s why you feel the way you do about me. It’s why you're sitting here
like this, afraid to believe in me.” His soft tone pulls me to look at him, breaking my connection to that
box and I shake my head sadly.
“How can you stand to look at me, knowing what you do? How can you feel anything for the girl you
read about in those books?” The self-pity oozing, but it’s all I hear as it drowns my head in rushing
noise. Blotting out what’s happening between us and I’m just caught in the shame from being exposed.
It’s all that matters now. He knows Camilla is not who I am, who I was born. I came from nothing, am
nothing and will never be worth anything more than nothing. She’s someone I created to mask where I
came from and nothing about her is true; not the posh upbringing, the high-class education, and all my
airs and graces are self-taught. I have had my mask ripped off when I least expected, and by the
person I never wanted to see behind it.
It’s the worst feeling in the world.
He doesn’t just have the bare facts and minor plot to my existence; he has every thought and feeling
and gritty detail. He has the evil things I thought of doing to Rick in his sleep and the times I plotted to
make my mother overdose so I could be free. He has the very moments of weakness where I thought
about picking up one of her needles and blocking life out the way she did. The times I talked myself off
the ledge of becoming another wasted junkie, fucking her life away.
He has the darkest stupid fantasies of a little girl praying for a brave hero on a big fierce dragon to
come and burn down the world to save her from her prison. He has it all. It’s like having a massive
microscope and blazing light shone on your deepest darkest depths and exposing them to the world.
It doesn’t feel good at all.
“Why would you think I would look at you in any other way than with complete infatuation? You are
stronger than I ever gave you credit for. You survived, you kept going no matter what was done to you
and look at you now. You are not even a shadow of where you came from, Cam. You are worlds apart
from what’s in those books. You are a queen among mere mortals.” Alexi sounds genuine, a strong
statement, a hint of pride in that husky voice, his words a bit strange for the man he is, but it all feels
like a fake band-aid to cover my bleeding wounds.
“It’s all a lie, I am nothing but a shell and a mask,” I repeat robotically. I think I’m in shock, this feeling of
being stuck in an airless void where emotion is suspended, and I’m detached from everything around
me. Dreaming.
‘Cam …’ Alexi starts but I hush him up.
“Look at me … really look at me. It’s all fake. It’s makeup and hair dye and expensive clothes and a
fake accent I practised to death. It’s tricks, smoke and mirrors and false confidence. Nothing else.
Nothing worthwhile. Nothing real. It’s an act to fool people into thinking I am more than I am.” I get up,
wrapping myself up again in my arms and pace away from him, but he darts to his feet fast and follows
me, oozing that hostile aura he wears well. It doesn’t even faze me. He’s not the worst thing in the
room anymore.
“That’s bullshit. I didn’t fall for the fake, Cam, I fell for the honesty in you. The person you are when
someone gives you a chance to open up—I see that now. The parts that were trying to reach out to me
and show me the real her. I fell for her even when I didn’t want to, and that’s who I see every day.
That’s who I see now.”
He follows me around the room even though I try to walk away from him, suddenly penned in and
claustrophobic and needing to be free of his scrutiny. I dodge him, changing direction several times but
he is relentless and keeps blocking me.
“I don’t know who I really am. I’m definitely not who you see. The voice in my head is still that same
stupid girl who had hopes for something more, someone to save her. That moron girl who was naïve
and weak and should have let silly hopes and dreams go to hell.” I cry at him in despair, so mired in
self-pity and just needing to let it out.
“I’m trying to save you. I’m trying to give you more. So, it’s not stupid. I’m right here offering hope.” He
catches my wrist and tugs me gently to face him as I turn to walk off again. Still being cautious even if
his demeanour is on the more aggressive side.
“Be real Lexi, how do you go about saving someone like me whose monsters dwell inside her own
head? I’m beyond saving.”
You can’t save someone like me.
“By going back and cutting them down at the source. Help remove them from the shadows of your life
and free you, for a future where all monsters have to go through me to get to you.” Alexi’s eyes glint
and his face twists slightly to hint at anger. The more sadistic side of him peeking out in a micro flash to
show his demonic side. Something in his words stilling me in my tracks.
“What do you mean? I don’t understand. Cutting them down at their source? How can you do that?”
His hold on my wrist loosens and he lets my hand drop to my side once more, avoiding eye contact
immediately and inhales slowly and deliberately. His whole manner changing so swiftly, and I recognise
the evasive behaviour. I know him well enough to know avoidance and guilt when I see it. The journals
are not all he hid from me.
‘Alexi? What are you talking about?’ My little suspicion radar pings into effect and this time it’s me who
follows him when he moves away. All thoughts of woe and misery held still as that little drama detector
in me jumps to high alert. It’s the way he said it. There is something there. That gut feeling of
foreboding, and I need to know.
Alexi evades me and paces towards the little unit where we keep the drinks and glasses, but I tug at his
sleeve and stop him in his tracks.
‘ALEXI!’ I yell it, this time in frustration, and he stops dead so that I walk into the back of him and jump
back from our soft collision. Anxiety and anger kindling once more. I can feel his hesitation oozing my
way.
“I went to London. He didn’t mail me those books.” It’s the same tone of confession, and for a second
time my insides flip over and my heart stops in my chest.
“What?” it’s that knee-jerk reaction of a response and he visibly closes up as he turns to face me.
Caught out. Shutting down to deadpan when cornered.
“You went there? You were in that shithole? Why?” It’s an accusatory tone, spat at him in response. I
swallow hard, blood running cold at how much worse this is getting, and slowly I try to sit on the edge
of the table, my legs turning to jelly and giving way on me. Forgetting about the box and weakening to
lightheaded, that this night just keeps getting worse.
I didn’t think it could, and yet he has this great habit of proving me wrong. Alexi in Hackney, in the place
I lived. The squalor and shame of that run-down shithole.
Oh, God.
Alexi seems restless and paces away as though he too is having a hard time reeling in a reaction or his
thoughts and feelings. This feels like one very long night of large confessions and major traumatic
events. I want to lie on the floor and die.
I swear this better be a nightmare and I wake up to find none of it is real…well maybe the first part
could still be.
Maybe he thought I went back? I have no clue why he would go there at all. I don’t like it one bit. It’s
one thing to read about the poverty I existed in, it’s another thing entirely to see it for yourself. Even I
would never go back to that rat hole. I can’t even imagine what he thought when he walked into that rot
riddled tiny flat in one of the worst areas in the borough, especially after all this time abandoned.
“I haven’t told you everything … I’m not sure I should.” He walks across the room then comes back
towards me again, too much nervous energy and he cannot look at me. He is emanating so much
energy it’s like an instant anxiety trigger, and suddenly I don’t want to know anymore. My instincts are
telling me it must be worse than the books, worse than him being there. I don’t think my nerves can
take any of it, but not knowing will be worse, and my head will run riot and twist itself insane with
questions.
I don’t want to know but I need to know.
“I think you owe me a million explanations tonight, Alexi. If you want me to stay, then be honest with
me! Stop letting this all filter out in a drib-drab motion and just get it over with. I don’t think my nerves
can take much more. It surely can’t be worse than …” I wave my hand in the air in an encompassing
motion, meaning ‘this, everything’ hoping to God I’m right.
He throws me a look that says, ‘I bet it can’, and my stomach drops to my toes like a lead weight. Not
sure what it is he wants to tell me, and suddenly afraid of what could be worse than my past being in
his possession. Maybe I should have just stayed in the elevator and left after all.
Alexi walks past me to the kitchen, so I’m left perched on the coffee table with lack of mobility, and he
pulls out a glass to pour himself a drink, motioning with a look to ask if I want one too and I nod.
Something tells me I need a stiff drink if he thinks it’s bad enough to warrant one.
Mr cool and controlled has done a bloody runner, and this guy is making me antsy as hell.
A million things are running through my head and yet I draw a blank on what he could have to tell me
that’s worse than knowing everything about Lisa. That’s the worst in my eyes. Second is standing in
that place.
I detailed everything, and I mean every single thing I lived through. Rape does not make for good
reading when written by an eleven-year-old on the verge of a complete breakdown. I bleached my body
until my skin bled in a bath hot enough to melt my skin. I felt so filthy and used. At eleven I understood
what had been done to me. I should never have known that kind of thing at such a young age.
He read that. God … he read it all.
He saw the where. He stood in a room I described and could envision the scene I set.
He comes back and hands me something dark on ice and downs his in one go, still standing over me,
and I can feel the nervous energy coming off him in droves. Apprehension in his posture and the way
he moves around before sitting further away so he can look me dead on across the couch.
Sitting away from me is not a good sign. Alexi needing space is Alexi drumming up the courage to tell
me something bad; I can feel it. King of invading my space only wants his when he is stressed.
“I went there when he told me he had those.” He nods towards the box and I avoid looking at it again.
It’s like a giant black cloud in the room, and I’m afraid if I set my eyes on it again it will suck me right
into misery. I want them gone. I can’t function knowing they are so close.
“He read them … tracked Rick down …” It’s the way he adds it quickly, a strained tone to his voice that
snaps my attention to his like a hawk.
Rick!!!
Why would he want to find him of all people? Even him saying that name leaves a horrible taste in my
mouth, bile rising in my throat, and I want to scrub that name from his tongue, so he never says it
again.
Alexi should never have a connection to that man, not even a verbal one. Those two worlds should
never collide. As much of a bastard as he is, it was nothing compared to that sadistic freak. Alexi would
never do the things Rick did.
“Why? I would never go back to him. Never go anywhere near that place, not for anything.” It’s an
automatic response and he just plays with his glass, rolling it so the ice slides about the empty vessel
and makes a dull clink-clink noise as he does so. He stares at its depths, and I know he is wrestling
with the right words, a coldness coming over him that is more in keeping with the devil I met so long
ago, and I shudder at his appearance. He is choosing his words carefully and thinking over his
approach.
“Because I asked him to.” That hint of a low growl as Satan Alexi moves into that face, and my mind
puts two and two together and runs in fright at the conclusion. My insides somersault and a cold
weakness flushes my entire body instantly. I know the beast in him and all the signs of it being pulled
out to admit it ate all the village sheep. I don’t know if I want to know more but I need to.
I stare at him, stupefied and holding my breath. My heart hammering in my chest and hands trembling
because a huge part of me already suspects what he is hiding, even if it seems preposterous to normal
people. Alexi is not normal people, he is Alexi Carrero; I know he has capabilities that are far worse
than anything I have witnessed him do. His reputation through the years was not built on a myth. I
know where this is heading, even if I don’t understand why he felt he had to go there and do this.
“Why did you need to find him, he means nothing to me?” I can barely whisper the words out because
I’m scared to have him tell me more. Unable to keep looking at him as my trembling makes the ice in
my glass clink uncontrollably, and I follow Alexi’s example and down the burning liquid in one go.
Warming my throat and singeing it all the way down to my belly, giving me an instant numb warmth that
does nothing to calm my insides which have hit a spin cycle on a washing machine. I know what’s
coming and I don’t know if I can bear for him to say the words.
Oh, Alexi.
“Mico said it was guilt, a way to, somehow, take back the things I did to you. Maybe it was, or maybe I
just couldn’t let any man walk this earth who dared hurt you like that. Someone like him doesn’t
deserve to breathe and walk around untouched. I wanted to make him suffer the way he made you
suffer. I wanted to do something besides searching for you endlessly.”
And there it is. Exactly what I feared. What I knew was coming. The question is, how straightforward
was it? I know him. He’s not a quick and clean type when he has a vendetta. That sick, twisted bastard
in him isn’t retiring anytime soon.
“Oh, my God, what did you do? Alexi, you didn’t need to do anything. He’s my past. Oh, God … I don’t
know if I want to hear this.” I blanch at him, eyes widening as a million thoughts run through my head
and I cannot help but gawp at him. He is in full-blown Mafia King mode. Deadpan, almost emotionless
with that slight furrow of a scowl on his hardened face. His eyes paling out as that meaner side of him
comes to fruition. Disconnection to his sins; something he excels at. When he has wronged, this is the
version who comes out to shield him from remorse and I don’t like his appearance now. This is how he
deals with all the things that would make other humans crumble. He cuts off, so emotions don’t make
him feel regret that normally accompanies heinous acts. I saw this side many times with me.
Alexi has done something awful. Worse than a snap of a neck no doubt. It’s all over him. All the signs
are present.
“Not as much as I should have.” He looks away, face changing to show something else, but he’s too
quick to turn from me to hide it and I sit in stony-faced shock. I hate that I know him well enough to
figure this out, and my mind is struggling to comprehend how bad it could have been. He knows no
limits when it comes to cruelty and I’m afraid to dig deeper for specifics.
“Is he …?” I can’t even say the words. Bile rising in my throat almost choking me, but I have to know if
he ended it and he’s not chained up somewhere enduring a lifetime of excruciating torture in my name.
I couldn’t bear that. I’m not Rick. I’m not as cold as Alexi either, even if I used to be.
“He won’t bother you or any other girl ever again. It’s done.” He jumps to his feet and stalks back to the
kitchen to pour himself a second drink, obviously to hide whatever warring emotions are on show, and I
try to absorb what he said. Trying hard not to show anything on the surface to what he just admitted.
Alexi went after Rick, did whatever he’s hinting at, and now he’s dead. I can summarise that is exactly
what he means, and he’s admitting to killing for me for a second time. My gut says he isn’t holding back
on the death part because, in his world, life holds little value. It’s not something shocking or unheard of.
Sadly, it’s part of his norm to deal with people in this way. Alexi doesn’t see cold-blooded murder the
way someone outside his world would; killing is just a tool, an accepted part of life.
Someone like Rick is like swatting a fly or running over a toad in the road. It’s nothing to him, so I can
only guess his aversion to spelling it out properly means he took the long slow route of killing Rick, in
gruesome painful ways that lasted days. Something he thinks will disgust me.
I don’t even know how to feel about that other than a sense of nothing. Even though I should be
abhorred, afraid maybe. I should feel something, maybe disgust or shock but I don’t. Not really. Beyond
the surprise of his confession to all of this.
Rick deserved to die for all he did.
There’s more fear in connecting Alexi to the sort of monster in my head who could torture a man than
knowing that perverted fuck writhed in agony until he took his last breath.
I don’t care that a life has been snubbed out.
I care about seeing Alexi as some cruel and evil being who could do it. Afraid he changes how I look at
him with a few sentences and I can’t have him give me the sort of details that would do that.
That’s fucked up.
There is something truly wrong with me.
What I do care about is that he took it upon himself to track him down and do something about
someone who caused me so much pain and misery in my life. Whether it was guilt for how he wronged
me, or just a need to hurt someone that had inflicted trauma on the person he claims to love. He didn’t
go after him for anything other than doing it for me.
Alexi really does love me. In his own fucked up way. Killing Rick was a way of making amends for the
wrongs he did me or just to ease my suffering and snub out the monsters plaguing my life.
Alexi is all about actions and not words, and you cannot get any louder than hunting down and slaying
a pig like Rick for me.
It’s not a lie, a game, a way to get to me—it’s a truth. I’m watching him now as he pours a drink and
hides from me because he’s worried my reaction to his confession will be like that of his mother;
rejection and fear of him. Seeing an unlovable cold murderer. Convinced I will only see a monster, just
like she did. Crushing his soul, just the way a cold woman did to a child who never deserved it. It
explains so much about him.
I suddenly feel completely overwhelmed. All those floating emotions swirling around me and the ones
which flood my head and heart are empathy and gratitude. For a misunderstood little boy who shows
his love in the strangest ways.
Like hunting down a dog killer and beating his car to death.
He didn’t tell me this because he wanted to prove anything, other than he’s always cared. He didn’t do
it to make me come back to him either. He didn’t even tell me until now. He is only telling me because
he wants honesty. Something we never had the first time around.
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