RoseBlood

The Last Cassia

The house is quiet again.

Quiet, like it was when my parents were still alive. Away from home, busy as always, leaving me alone in the solitary peace I'd grown to appreciate, to read through Lizzie's Agatha Christie collections and books that looked interesting enough from the library. Or to write my own ideas about victims, killers, killers who were victims, their motives and lives and minds. I could sit for hours at a time getting lost in books, paying no attention to the tight ambience of the family house, silent except for the gentle humming of the fridge and of the heat feeding the radiators.

I wander around as if I'm seeing it all for the first time again, or like I'm one of Mum and Dad's clients, looking around a brand new house, and I'm taking in my surroundings, the surroundings that could all be mine soon enough. Except all of this is already mine. The things that have happened over the years, from the sweet, random childhood memories to the crimson mess of a person I once paid no attention to that I'd seen just yesterday afternoon in my basement.

Lizzie had come around whilst police and forensics were heading out, giving me nods of respect and recognition on their way. Brunsley was the last to go, along with Lizzie, after telling her what had happened and who it was as I sat listening with the Tyrels on the sofa. Elias was on one side of me, at the end, hands linked together between his knees, hunched over and staring into space, then Edith, who I let lean against my side as she played with her fingers and blinked slowly, probably trying to blink away the gory imprints from her mind. Emerson was at the other end, leaning back into his seat, dark waves of hair splayed against the material. When our eyes occasionally met, he held the glance until it turned into a thoughtful stare, and then one of us blinked and made ourselves look at something else.

'You'll either hate him or you'll love him.'

Lizzie had to get out a tissue to dab at her eyes, distraught at what she was hearing, her breaths frequently hitching in her throat as she shook her head again and again.

"I would never have thought that young lady could do something so... so..." She left the adjective a mystery, sighing instead. "I just can't believe it. And she really killed herself?"

"Yes," Brunsley confirmed solemnly. "I suppose she preferred the idea of living in the delusion she called love than accepting the truth. It's been a horrible series of events, but at least it's over now. The cases have been solved. There's no danger."

I frowned slightly at his last words. There's no danger.

They echoed in my head as he left, along with Lizzie, after I assured her several times that I'd be okay, and just needed a while to clear my head. They made me falter as I spoke to Mia on the phone, telling her what had happened and catching her gasps and sounds of shock loudly from the other end of the line. They distracted me when Edith insisted on staying the night because everything that happened was terrible and it was too late to drive home. I'd nodded and shrugged, and then Elias joined in, and Emerson. So, by midnight, I tried and failed at sleeping soundly in my room, Edith in the spare mattress set up beside me, and the boys were fine sharing the long sofa downstairs, only just big enough for the both of them to sleep at either end. My parents' room is left undisturbed, the bed perfectly made, the sheets crisp and free of wrinkles.

There's no danger.

I won't be paranoid like my dad was. And I wouldn't bury myself in work like he and Mum did. But I, the last Cassia left standing after the RoseBlood Killer's mess, am safe, for the first time in my entire life. There's no ghost of the past coming to haunt me. I'm eighteen, just a couple of weeks away from going back to college and taking my options for my degree, and there is absolutely no danger.

I've never felt more empty.

Even when I didn't know there was danger, I wanted it, though I didn't want it to the point of my parents getting murdered, obviously. Every time my mind lingers on the fact, my stomach twists suddenly, and I tense a little, letting that hard, merciless fact sink in as tears threaten to flow. Bobby and Judith Cassia are dead. They're dead, and I'll never see them again, no matter what I do.

And this wouldn't be the end of it. Because, even if Hayley Lore and her dark secrets and life of lies have been abruptly ended, there must be others like her.

I give into my restlessness as the sky grows a little brighter outside, the deep navy starting to transform into the gradual sunrise, propping myself up to look out the window. In my street alone, there are families and couples, young and old, some of them as busy as Mum and Dad were, others more reserved and a little jumpy like Clarissa was. But everyone out there is different, and if you look too carefully, in all the wrong places, you'll come across someone just like Hayley, emotionless to the blood they make pool on the floor and tears they bring out through every sort of pain. If they haven't struck yet, they might soon, with a little push, or all at once. Beyond my street, there's my town that leads off into others, my country, separated only by oceans from others, until you've got the big picture of hidden horrors speckled all around us, masked perfectly by the normality of every day.

I miss them. I miss my parents. I'm crying more. I'm letting myself.

But, if I'm the last Cassia, and now is the time I choose what person I'm going to mould myself into, I know that one thing is for certain. And that one thing is going to make Lizzie and Mia and Brunsley and Emerson and Elias and Edith all have similar reactions of groaning and shaking heads and persuasions not to, until they realise that it makes sense, that I will do it, no matter how stupid it might seem.

Edith wakes up groggily as I think all this, blinking up at me in interest, catching the growing smile on my face, overpowering the drying tears from the memories of my mum and dad.

"What is it, Holl?"

I stare out the window for a moment longer before I glance down at her, biting at the smile pulling at my lips.

There's going to be a lot more danger from now on.