Feeling even sicker to my stomach, I cross the road, wrapping my arms around myself as the cold air blows. Cars drive up and down the street slowly, people curious, wanting to know just as much as me what’s going on, yet at the same time I don’t want to know, fear the answer and what it means about me. With each step, my heart slams harder in my chest. By the time I arrive at the curb, I’m barreling with adrenaline, my stomach burning. I know what lies on the other side of the crowd. God, do I know.
When I push through the crowd and reach the front, my hunch becomes painfully correct. A girl lies on the ground, a circle of dried blood pooled around her head making her blond hair look red. She’s wearing an apron too—an apron from the Devil & Angels Bar. I know her. Sydney, the waitress I’ve been fighting with.
“Jesus,” I mutter under my breath, unable to take my eyes off her. I know this girl and now she’s dead. Just last night she was walking around in the bar and now she’s here, lying on the ground. I got into a fight with this girl and now she’s dead. I thought about killing this girl and now she’s dead. “This is not good.”
“I know. It’s terrible, right?” Some woman says from beside me, horror stricken as she gapes at the body, probably a first timer in the dead body department. She’s probably in her forties, her black hair obviously dyed, and she’s wearing too much pink blush that matches her shirt that says Jesus Rocks! I actually think she’s knocked on my door a few times to try and convert me to something or anotherism. It actually happens a lot and my mom always sends them away with a smile and a wave as if she’s glad they stopped by even if she never goes to church. “Fairfield’s such a good community… this stuff shouldn’t happen here.”
“And what? Stuff like this should happen in other places because they aren’t good communities.” I say in a low voice.
“That’s not what I was saying at all,” she gasps, offended.
“That’s exactly what you were saying.”
The woman shakes her head in revulsion, and then she inches to the side away from me. I focus on the scene in front of me. Sydney looks so peaceful, like she’s asleep, only the blood shatters the illusion, paints it red with the nightmare that this is a reality. That she’s dead. Her shirt torn. Skin as pale as the snow. The white button down shirt, tied at the bottom, splattered with blood. The white shirt that’s missing a top button... a little heart button… I step back so suddenly that I bump into the person behind me. Muttering an apology, my eyes stay fixed on Sydney.
It’s just a coincidence. I must have found the button and picked it up before all this happened. I’m being set up. I wait for Lily to chime in with whatever she has to say on the matter, but she’s still inside my mind. Everything’s still. My body. My mind. It seems wrong, yet right. I seem empty, yet I seem whole at the same time.
Men in uniforms walk over to the body with a sheet in hand. They drape it over the body, cover it up from the wandering eyes. My heart slams against my rib cage as they start to scan the ground for evidence and I decide it’s my cue to leave. Turning away from the body, I squeeze my way to the back of the crowd and dash across the street to my car. Impatient to get away from here, I dump my purse out on the ground and search through the contents until I find my keys. Then I toss everything back into bag and hop into my car, revving up the engine.
“This can’t be happening… The button isn’t real,” I whisper as I push the car into drive, watching the lights across the street flash, flash, flash. Feel the rain falling… let the building burn… help me… Don’t leave me behind. Please don’t let me die. I’m sorry. A loud bang, and I walk up to the dead body, slowly pulling the buttons I’ve counted for years off his shirt, one by one. And with each one, I get a sick gratification from it.
“Good girl,” she whispers. “I knew you’d eventually come around.”
With my foot on the brake, I stuff my hand inside my pocket and retrieve the heart shaped button, stained with a dot of blood. The red one I’m not sure of who it belongs too, but I have a feeling that person might be lying somewhere in a parking lot, too. I should throw both of them out the window. Get rid of the evidence. The problem is I can’t. I attempt to several times, but my obsessive compulsive anxiety disorder is stopping me. I end up putting them back into my pocket and opening up the car door to throw up in the parking lot. My stomach is pretty much empty at this point and I mostly just dry heave. When I’m finished, I shut the door, ignoring the tears streaming down my face and drive away, wondering what the hell I did last night. Wondering if maybe Lily got too out of control and finally went through with her dark thoughts.
Maybe the end of Maddie is nearing.
Maybe she never existed at all.
Chapter 11
Maddie
I think I’m paranoid. Insane. Joined the crazy train and there’s no getting off. Not after what happened with Sydney. I can’t stop thinking about it, no matter how much it makes me ill. I’ve been trying to text Bella for the last day, hoping she could give me some insight to what I was up to, but she hasn’t responded to my messages yet.
“Blood on my arms. Buttons. That doesn’t mean anything. I could have been drunk, got into a fight or something, and simply passed out. Or maybe it was River’s blood all over me,” I say to myself as I pace my room, back and forth, back and forth, Lily chattering away in my head. She’s growing stronger with each passing hour and Maddie is desperately trying to hang on to reality. “I didn’t kill anyone. There’s no way.” Lily laughs and I let out a scream through my teeth in aggravation.
It’s been a day since Sydney died. A day since I brought home that button like a psychopath collecting a souvenir. A day since I woke up in the freezer with blood all over my body. And about an hour since the news announced the murder of Sydney M. Ralwington’s, former daughter, friend, waitress, soon to be worm food. “God, what the f**k is wrong with you?” There is no answer to that question, no resolution, no nothing. I never wanted to be crazy. Never wanted to fully act on my twisted impulses, the ones I’ve been fighting for the last six years. They were just supposed to be thoughts, but now… is it possible I’ve brought the madness out and made it reality? Did I kill Sydney? Or did something else happen? Was I set up by someone maybe? But who? Who knows me enough that they’d know putting a button in my pocket would mean something? There’s only one person who knows about it and she lives inside me.