Merciless

CHAPTER 8

Aria

It’s odd, the things that you think when you’re alone for hours in a room filled with nothing but hopelessness and anger. Some
thoughts make sense of course.

Thoughts of Mika and how he should have been there. He should have been at the bar, and I find myself wondering if he knew. If he took my notebook because he knew how much I loved my art and I’d know he had it and come after him. I find it hard to believe he wouldn’t expect me to go
after it. Or else why do it? I’ve spent hours trying to determine the intentions of a psychotic asshole.

But the truth is that I wouldn’t have gone after him for any other reason. I wouldn’t have left the safety of home… if that picture hadn’t been tucked safely inside.
The thoughts of Mika and how bleak my reality is seem reasonable.

Other thoughts though… other thoughts don’t make sense.Like the flashbacks of my mother.

I’ve been haunted by so many images of what happened the day she died for years now. But none of those keep me company as I rock on the cement floor in the corner of the cell.
It’s the sweeter things I remember that are driving me mad.My thumb brushes against the cut on my lip, sending a sharp pain through me that reminds me this isn’t a dream.
“Aria,” I hear my mother call out for me in the memory. I was hiding in the closet, so proud that I’d hidden so well. “Ria?” Her voice changed to fear and desperation, and my smile vanished. “Ria, please!” she begged as her hushed cry from the hallway beckoned me to show myself. My fingers
gripped the door of the closet just as she forced the guest room door open.

I remember how her light blue dress swung around her knees. How her
perfectly pinned hair didn’t come undone. Yet her voice and her bearing were nothing but distraught.
I wish I could go back to that moment Where she was running toward
me and so close. Where she’d inevitably be in reach.
“Don’t hide from me.” Her words were ragged as she pulled me into her chest. She rocked me too fast, she held me too hard before gripping my arms and making me look her in the eyes. I’ll never forget how hers watered over. “You can’t hide like that.” Her words were so pained, they
came out as only a whisper.
“I’m sorry, Momma,” I tried to speak the words, so she knew I meant
them. “I was only playing.”
Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she pulled me back into her
arms and rocked me. She whispered many things, but the one that’s stayed with me is that we don’t live in a world where we can play.
I should have known better than to run after Mika.
Every possible situation of a setup runs through my head as I bite my thumbnail and rock against the cement wall. I can’t sit. My legs beg me to run, but with nowhere to go, I simply stand and lean on the far wall across from the door. Waiting for it to open.
I was only playing myself, thinking that I could prove myself to be anything when I went to hunt down Mika. I was childish and foolish. I can hear my mother saying it now. How foolish she was, she said it all the time before she died. And foolish is what I’ve become.
I keep whispering that I’m sorry, and I know the man is watching me.

Carter. That’s what the men called him.
Carter Cross. I know he can hear my whispers of despair.

I’m not saying it to him though; it’s an apology to my mother. I should
have known better than to chase after the memory of her in that picture.