Pieces of Lies (21 page)

Josh was there for me through all of it, and now he was back again, picking me up as I fell down. He was the only thing keeping me from taking the gun I kept in a locked box under my bed and paying Clint a visit.

By the third day, Josh was beginning to get restless. I knew he wanted to leave and go and deal with the Lappell. “Norah, I’ve been here for days and as much as I want to be here for you, I should go and sort out this mess of a situation.” 

I ran over to him as he began to gather his things and grabbed him by the arm. “Don’t go, please. I need you Josh. Stay with me.” I stroked his cheek which was hot and his eyes looked at me with desire as I expressed my need for him. He came towards me, but then stopped and started to pull away, walking towards the door.

“No Josh, no.” I was desperate for him to stay, desperate for his comfort and his friendship. I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts. I was terrified of my emotions and what I would do if I began to think about Clint. I knew where the darkness would take me.

“Norah, I will come back as soon as I can. I just can’t leave this alone. I need to ensure your identity is secure and I need to figure out how I will get the Lappell off your back. I need to go.”

My heart pounded as the room began to close in all around me. All I could see was hurt that I would have to endure alone and I felt a shudder from the mountain of rage that was about to erupt from within. In a moment of desperation I blurted out, “Kiss me Josh.” 

He stopped in the doorway and stilled. His back was to me. I said it again but with ferocious need, “Kiss me, please.” Josh turned to face me, his chest moving back and forth rapidly as he breathed. He swallowed, seeing the desperation in my eyes.

“I know you don’t want me to go, but I have to. I have to sort this out. I am doing this for you Norah.” 

I couldn’t bare it, I couldn’t have him leave. “Will you at least kiss me before you go Josh?” I pleaded. I was sure he would stay once I had my arms around him. It was a desperate plan from a desperate girl.

Josh watched me as I shuffled towards him.

“You want me to kiss you, now?” he asked, not taking his eyes off my movements. My lips formed a hard line as I composed my speech.

“More than anything. Kiss me Josh. From the moment I met you and you gave me back my sketchbook I’ve wanted to kiss you.” 

His eyes expanded in shock at hearing that. “You have?” This was clearly news to Josh.

“I didn’t want my father to take you away from me, so I never kissed you. You were too important to me in high school, you still are.”

He gasped a little, “You wanted me too?” 

I stilled, met his eyes, and nodded.

He dropped his keys and they hit the floor. The metal clang echoed into the silence of the room as Josh looked to my eyes and then to my lips. He strode towards me so fast that I almost fell backwards from the speed of his movement. His arms flew round me, wrapping me, taking me into his body and into his chest. His mouth found mine immediately with passion, with need, an intensity I had never known, as if years and years of want made up this one monumental moment. He embraced my request and was giving it everything he could. I kissed him back with equal force, equal need. My mind spun like a whirlwind as I allowed my body to respond to his kiss. He pulled me closer as our tongues met, intertwining, becoming one, deeper and deeper the kiss got, until I started to feel light headed from lack of breath. It didn’t stop though; his hands ran down my back and then up into my hair. He switched the position of his head so he could take a tiny breath and returned to my mouth for a second deep kiss. He lifted my body up as he kissed me again, my breasts pushed up against his chest. I opened my eyes as I felt his arousal on my hip. He opened his eyes too, knowing that the moment was escalating into something more. Josh stopped instantly and took a step back.

We were both panting hard.
Would I let it go further? I wasn’t sure.
In that precious and surreal minute I wanted Josh. I wanted to feel him in me; I wanted to know how our bodies would feel together as one and if sex would be as perfect and intense as that amazing kiss. We both saw it in each other’s eyes. We could take that plunge, we were ready. Josh walked towards me, about to take me into his arms again but a tear escaped my eye and rolled down my cheek. Josh saw it and retreated from me. He shook his head.

“What are you doing?” I said confused, “I thought you wanted me?” He breathed heavily and inched forward but stopped himself.

“I do want you Norah, more than anything I have ever wanted in my whole life, but not like this.” He closed his eyes and opened them, his breathing slowing. “You’ve been through a lot, and things with Clint are still raw. It would be wrong of me to do this while you are so emotional.”

I slumped to the ground, he was completely right. I was trying to use him to hide. He crouched down next to me. “Norah, it’s taking everything in me right now to leave you. I’ve wanted this since high school. That kiss; it was everything I knew it would be, but I want you to want me when you are not in love with Clint.” I raised my head, and he kissed my forehead, “It’s alright Norah; I will figure this out, OK.” I nodded. I wasn’t thinking straight at all. “I’ll try and get back to you as soon as I can. Just stay here.” 

His lips stayed on my forehead for a long time before he left.

Chapter 14

Closed Eyes

My face was pressed against the cold cement and a gun was firmly planted at my temple on the other side. My mouth was gagged with horrible oil stained material and my hands were bound with rope behind my back. I was whimpering as the steel metal of the gun continued to push into my skin. Weak from lack of food and water, it was hard for me to keep my eyes open without passing out altogether.

“What are we waiting for?” A deep rough voice came from the direction of the gun pointed at my head. “Roberto wants to do it alright. That will send a message.”

I tried to scream but the material already in my mouth seemed to lodge itself further backwards and down my throat, stifling any sound I tried to make. I quivered and then felt a sharp twinge of pain to my stomach as a heavy boot kicked into my body. “Quiet you, or we’ll do it now.”

I tried to gasp for more air as the pain of the kick moved through my body, forcing me to squirm, but I could only curl up tighter in a fetal position, tears springing from my eyes from the searing pain in my abdomen.

“Where the fuck is Don?” There were at least three or four different voices around me, but from my position I could only see a pair of terribly scuffed men’s boots in front of me and the other voices seemed to be coming from behind my back, towards the front of the room. I was sure that the person with those boots was also the one holding the gun to my head. I heard the sound of a cell phone ring. Voices quietened as another voice answered the cell, “Yes we have her. Come and do it now. This will teach those fuckers who took out Raymond.”

I closed my eyes tightly as more tears escaped down my face as I listened to these men talk about my imminent death. I wanted to be sick. I wanted to scream, but all I could think about was all the things I would never got a chance to do. I was never going to get married, have children, become an artist or leave New York. I was going to die with a bullet to my head on this cold cement floor, having done nothing to deserve this type of death. How cruel was life to first take my mother and then do this to me.
Fuck you life! Damn it to hell!

I lay there shaking, waiting for death to come, waiting for the moment I would black out completely and never wake up. “Cover up her face; I can’t stand looking at it. What is she now, twelve?” Feet shuffled around me, “Thirteen I think, and isn’t she a peach?” The gun moved slightly off my head, turning upwards towards the discussion taking place above me.

“Well put something over her, I don’t want to see a kid’s brains splattered everywhere.”

I tensed immediately as the shock of those words moved through me, and came to rest in the gaping black hole in my heart. The glimmer of hope I had reserved, was now completely gone.

“Grow some fucking balls Frank, will you. God damn it.”

Any minute now I would be dead.

Loud crashing sounds like someone hitting a wall, a gunshot, and then a blackout. I tried to scream again but I only choked more on my gag. I was hit by something warm and very heavy which toppled on top of me. Something lay on the top half of my body, a dead person, I think. I couldn’t see anything as the weight was covering my chest and head. I felt winded, but I was more thankful that I was alive. There was sudden movement from the heaviness. I think the body was twitching, which caused me to frantically try and move out from underneath it, fearing it was still alive. I instinctively wanted to escape and get as far away as I could possibly manage.

As I tried to wiggle to get free, I felt a warm liquid substance flow into my hair and downwards, covering my whole my face. I was lucky I was gagged because I would have vomited everywhere from the sickening smell of the stuff. I was pretty sure it was blood. I squirmed some more and managed to move my face out of the current. I twisted my shoulders and pulled my head upwards, coming face to face with a head of dark hair flopped on top of me. I had to squeeze my eyes closed as I saw part of the man’s skull opened up by the bullet in the back of his head. It was all too much for me, as emotions of fear which stalled my body, and my natural survival instinct that pushed me to try and move, were working against each other.

More gun shots and grunting echoed all around the room. Something grabbed at my foot and tried to pull and drag my body. I tried to kick, but hands pulled me out from underneath the bleeding man and onto my back. I could now see those black boots which kicked me earlier. They belonged to the dead man who had fallen on top of me and whose blood was now everywhere, caked on my face and in my hair. 

Through the red sticky curtain of death, I could see clearly now my father and his associates had taken control of the room. My father’s right-hand man had hold of one of my kidnappers, who he was bludgeoning to death with the back of a revolver. Parts of the kidnapper’s facial flesh started to come clean off his face and the blood splatter flew across the room, landing on my legs and thighs. I just watched in utter horror and revulsion, unable to move from the floor.

I could only stare horrified, as the men who had kidnapped me were shot and beaten to death before my very eyes. The last thing I remembered was thinking that this was much worse than death, I would never be the same and I would forever be tortured by this reality. I had lost any ounce of innocence I thought I still had. 

Then finally, black. Just black. I passed out, smashing my head back onto the hard cement floor.

“Norah, Norah.” I felt sunlight on my face, safe and warm. My eyelids parted. It was Clint staring down at me with those eyes that could level me with just one look and encapsulate my heart.

“I love you,” he whispered leaning over the top of me. I reached up to hold him and draw him close to my chest, but as I lifted my body up and stretched out my arms, they suddenly closed into each other and I found myself with my arms wrapped tightly around my body. Clint was gone and I was all alone in the dark with nothing but the horror that was my beaten soul.

Panting. I shot up in bed sweating and trying to catch my breath. I looked around my room to get some clarity. A dream? Not just a dream. Memories.  
Fuck!
 

I pulled myself out of bed and ran to my bathroom and to the basin, grasping both sides of it to keep myself steady. Suddenly I jerked forward holding my mouth. I turned back around and only barely made it to the toilet as the contents of my stomach spewed forth into the toilet bowl. I leaned over the toilet with one arm against the wall in front of me, my head resting to the side on my shoulder as I tried to gather my equilibrium. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, my other hand going to my chest as I fought with my body to suck air into my lungs. I went back to the basin, ran the faucet and splashed some cool water onto my face to calm myself down. My breathing finally slowed and I stood up watching myself in the mirror.

Thinking back to the dream, which really was a horrific memory that I kept hidden in my mind, other obscene flashes started to pop up into my head. It was like that one memory had unlocked all the other things I had hidden in that black hole. The dam had been finally broken and I was suddenly surrounded by a stifling assortment of haunting mental imagery. I jerked forward again holding my mouth.
Fuck!
 

This time only bile escaped my lips and into the toilet bowl. This was all too much for me to handle right now, especially alone in the dead of night. Immediately I felt the darkness crawl all over my skin and start to take over. I knew I couldn’t let that happen. I had fought too hard and too long to be taken over by such mind shattering visions that I had pushed into the darkest corners of my soul under lock and key. I had to find a release.
What to do? What to do?
Paint.

Hurrying to the paint room, I stripped bare as I walked; tossing my clothes aside in the hallway, my fists seething in rage. This was not like me when I started a piece. I was in a different state of mind. I was letting these memories lead me when normally it was the control I used over them that inspired my work. I felt possessed and overwhelmed and I knew this was going to be a different experience the moment I stepped into the paint room.

Reaching the paint room, I flung on the light, pressed play on my iPod, and covered myself head to toe in black paint.
Enter Sandman
by
Metallica
filled the room. I looked at the flat canvas on the ground that I was about to start on, but then my hands started to tremble, changing into a rough frantic shake. The shaking increased and my eyes closed hard as I started to yell, “No, no, no, no, no, NO!” My teeth clenched and my breathing rapidly increased until everything became a reaction. It was too late. Too much darkness and too many memories had consumed me.