Dark Savior: A Dark Bad Boy Romance (12 page)

I know I shouldn’t be snooping around, and I feel bad about it, but something tells me that there’s more to that room. Something tells me that this is not just the room an adolescent boy left behind after he moved out.

I keep myself busy with washing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen. It helps to make the time pass until I can make sure that he’s not going to return until later. If he sticks to his usual behavior, I won’t see him again until tomorrow. He always shows up some time in the middle of the day, usually in the afternoon. We fuck, we eat, we talk a little, and then he disappears and doesn’t come back until the next day. It’s the weirdest life I’m living right now. A life that only consists of sleep, food, sex and occasionally reading. I’ve been scanning through the many books in this place, mainly to distract myself and pass time. It stops me from thinking about my situation too much and facing reality.

I’m hiding. While I failed to end my life, it turns out that I’m quite good at hiding from it. Everything is on pause. My life is defined by the complete dependence on this man. He is my everything. Literally.

And I’m about to betray his trust.

I should feel worse about it than I do, but when I finally make my way over to the door, turning and squeezing the key in my hand, my heart is not pounding because I have a bad conscience, but because I’m scared. I’m still scared about him coming back too early and catching me in the act. I’m also scared about what I might find when I open that door.

What am I hoping to find?

I stop in front of the door and try the key on the lock. Until now, I couldn’t even be sure that it’ll work, but a faint click tells me that it does. I take a deep breath before I dare to turn the key and open the door.

Darkness greets me as I slowly push the door open and take my first peek inside. It’s not quite dark outside yet, so I haven’t turned on the other lights in the apartment. The curtains are closed in this room, so even the faint remains of daylight don’t enter this little dungeon.

Dungeon appears to be the proper word for what appears in front of me. I flick on the light switch to my right inside the door. The room is about the same size as the other bedroom, and just as I suspected, it looks like it belonged to a teenage boy. Furniture is limited to a small single bed right positioned against the wall opposite the door, a dark wooden dresser, one bookshelf in a similar color, and a desk and chair situated right beneath the only window at the far end of the room.

I step inside the room, leaving the door wide open so I can hear the lock on the apartment door in case Kade decides to show up unexpectedly. At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be anything unusual about the room. The small bookshelf is filled with comic books, school books, almost no fiction books unlike those in the living room and the other bedroom, and a few items such as pens, collectibles, and random things kids collect. There are no posters or pictures on the wall, but I can tell that there used to be a few, because the wallpaper shows signs of removed tape and outlines indicating something once existed on the walls. The bed is made up in dark blue sheets, but nothing indicates that someone has slept in it recently. The bed frame is covered with a thick layer of dust, as are the dresser and the bookshelf.

But the desk is not. The small desk beneath the window and the office chair in front of it both seem like they have been used recently. The surface is covered with notebooks, paper and pens instead of dust. I step closer and examine the notes on the table. The handwriting is very hard to decipher. I pick up one of the pieces of paper and hold it up close to my face to read it. At first it looks like a grocery list with bullet points, but it’s not. It appears to be some kind of schedule, with times written down in the far column and then notes on what to do during that specific time spelled out right next to it.

The date that’s written in the upper right corner of the note is the date Kade and I met. The day that was supposed to be the last day of my life.

I freeze when I see the number because it brings back all the memories that are attached to that day, that decision. Everything that lead up to that point is expressed in those simple numbers.

Was this his schedule? All the things he had planned for that day instead of finding me?

I try to decipher the notes, but find it close to impossible. However, there’s one word that does look familiar. The name of the canyon and the bridge where he found me. The time that’s written next to it is the approximate time we met. I never asked him why he was driving by that deserted bridge at that particular time of the day. I had chosen it because I knew that hardly anyone ever went there at that time, so I could be sure not to be seen. From the looks of it, he had done the exact same thing.

He didn’t just drive by or cross the bridge on his trip somewhere else. It had been his destination. There’s just one word written next to the time at which he intended to reach the bridge. “Dump,” it says.

“Dump?”

My voice sounds weirdly foreign in the silence surrounding me. He wanted to dump something down into the canyon?

I search my memory, but there’s no image of him holding anything when he was walking up to me, nor do I remember seeing anything inside the car. Whatever he wanted to get rid of that day, he didn’t do it while I was around. What on earth could be worth driving so far out of town just to dump it down into a desolate canyon? Was it some kind of toxic waste? Something illegal?

My heart starts racing. I knew there was something weird about him, scary even. What kind of business is he involved in? Drugs maybe?

I look at the rest of the notes for the day, but they confuse me even more. The next word is “Burn” and then there’s what appears to be a phone number. Most of the scribblings above have been crossed out so that it’s impossible to read them. And whatever he had planned after “dump” and “burn” did not have to be written down.

I put the note back on the table, trying to position it just the way I found it. I scan the rest of the papers and notes on the desk, but decide not to touch any of it. Instead, I find three little drawers along the left side of the desk. There’s a keyhole on the first one, but it’s not locked. My heart stops when I see what’s inside.

It’s a gun. I’ve never touched a real gun before and the sight alone causes me to freeze instantly. My family never owned a gun, which is probably for the best considering my parents’ drinking habits. Of course, having a gun does not make him a criminal, but it still scares the shit out of me. Don’t people say that owning a firearm makes them feel safer? How come it does the exact opposite for me?

I close the drawer as quickly as I opened it. Why does he have a gun in here? And why in this room, the one that is always locked? Does he just keep it locked because of me? If he is hiding anything truly bad in here, he’s not really doing a good job. A simple door lock wouldn’t keep the police out if they busted in to investigate him.

Even though my rational mind is telling me to leave this room, I keep snooping and open the next drawer. I still don’t know what I’m looking for, but with every stone I turn, I have more questions. The second drawer reveals a folder that looks like the files they have in a doctor’s office. However, it’s anything but a health record. It’s filled with blurred black and white pictures that must have been taken from a far-off distance. The quality is quite poor, and some of them are partly covered by something blocking the subject, leaves of a tree or bushes mostly, but I can tell that they are all pictures of the same man. At first, I almost mistake him for Kade because he’s the same type: dark, rather tall and strong-looking. But the man in the pictures has less hair and is not as handsome as Kade. It doesn’t seem like he’s aware that someone is taking his picture. I flip through them, cold shivers wandering down my spine as I realize that these are the kind of photos a stalker would take of his victim.

Did Kade take these photos? Why did he stalk that man? Maybe he was some kind of investigator and actually works for the police?

I shake my head. No, that can’t be it. If this was legit and just part of his job, he would not go to so much trouble hiding them. And that’s even if this was his room growing up and everything he has told me about this place so far has been true. I can’t even be sure of that.

I lift my head, still holding the photos in my hands, and spot a pin board above the desk. I have no idea how I could have missed seeing this earlier. There’s a picture right at eye level. The picture is of a little boy and a woman, the same woman I’d seen in the photos in the living room before he removed them. The boy must be about four or five years old, and judging from the dark hair, it could very well be Kade. He has the cutest smile, beaming right into the camera while the woman who is kneeling next to him is looking at him, smiling just as brightly. While their faces display a moment of happiness and joy, their appearance screams poverty. The boy’s clothes are worn out and way too big, looking as if he still has to grow into them even though they’ve been worn by many other children before him. He’s not wearing shoes and standing bare-footed in the grass. His mother is wearing nothing but a simple and old-fashioned summer dress for which she looks way too young. If this picture is of Kade and his mother, it can’t be much older than about twenty years, but the whole style of it, the fact that it is black and white, the clothing the two are wearing, make it appear a lot older. If someone told me that this has been taken in the 1950s, I would easily believe them.

It’s still a beautiful picture. Despite the evident poverty, both of them seem happy and carefree, and the way the woman is looking at her son is so heartwarming, it almost makes me jealous. This boy has known a kind of love I never knew, and I envy him for that.

Something else catches my eye. There’s a tiny note attached to the board, right next to the picture. It’s written in a different handwriting than the one on the other papers and notes on the desk. This one is pretty and legible, and it appears to be a short letter that was attached to something else, like a greeting card.

“
My dear Kaden
,” it reads.

“Kaden?” I whisper, again startled by my own voice. His name is Kaden? Did I not hear him correctly when he first said it? Or did he just cut the N at the end? Why would he do that?

“
My dear Kaden. To all the great things you’ll do. My boy. My hero. I wish I could have done more
.”

That’s all it says. It sounds like a card  congratulating someone on a special occasion, but the text has a melancholic ring to it.

To all the great things you’ll do
.

Looking at the confusing and slightly frightening findings on this desk, I’m not sure what to think of this. Not all things this Kaden is involved in may have been that great.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Kade

Now, that’s a first. Meadow is neither crying nor moping around on the couch when I enter the apartment today. Instead, I find her sitting at the kitchen counter, leaning on her elbows as she casts me a leery look.

She looks more awake than usual. Her whole posture is different, straighter, more alert, and she fixates her gaze on me as if I wronged her in some way. Something must have happened during my absence.

I close the door behind me and place the bag with food on the counter next to her. She keeps her eyes glued on me, still not saying a word.

I reciprocate the look and stare back at her, scanning her up and down to determine what might be wrong. That's when I see it. A key. A single key is lying on the counter right in front of her, and it's not just any key. I recognize it as the key for my room.

Fuck.

"Where did you get th—"

"Hello, Kaden," she interrupts me, proving that she's already investigated the room while I was gone. She wouldn’t know this name if she hadn't.

How the hell did she do this? How was she able to get hold of this key? How could I let this happen?

"You stole this from me," I say, hoping that the threat in my voice is obvious. "I hate thieves."

She looks scared and gulps visibly. Good.

"Did you go inside?" I ask.

Her eyes narrow. "Yes, I did, Kaden."

I roll my eyes at her and huff. She's trying to be intimidating, but this doesn't work on me. Silly little girl.

I approach her in a quick motion and grab her by the upper arm, squeezing it just enough to remind her of the power difference between us. I know she's afraid of me, I can tell by the nervous flickering in her eyes as I close my hand around her slim arm. But she's trying to hide her fear under this persistent attitude for which I have no patience.

"Listen," I hiss at her. "I hate thieves, and I hate liars. So whatever question I'm going to ask you now, you had better reply with nothing but the truth."

Her eyes widen, but not with fear as I'd hoped, but in indignation.

"Are you kidding me?" she exclaims. "
You
are going to ask
me
questions? Don't you think there are a few things I'd like to know?"

"I'm sure you do," I say. "But you're not the one in charge here, remember? You're my guest. You're at my fucking mercy right now, little girl. Don't you forget that."

"I—"

"No!" I interrupt her. "You're a guest in my home, and you've betrayed my trust. You stole from me and you snooped around in what's none of your business. How dare you think you have any right to question me right now?"

She flinches at my words. Now, she definitely is as scared as I wanted her to be. She realizes that I have a point. No matter what she found in there or what she may know about me or think she knows about me, it was wrong for her to take the key and go in that room.

She looks as vulnerable and lost as she did when I found her. Even though I caused this and wanted her to be this way just a few moments ago, I can't help but feel sorry for her. I fucking hate to see her suffer. My grip around her arm loosens involuntarily.