PAINT IT RED (MikhAiah)

8: Playing With Fire 🔞

"To know the secrets of life, we must first become aware of their existence." —Albert Einstein

***

AIAH

I stare at my last text and the empty space below it, because she never messages back. Seriously, I suck at flirting.

Groaning, I get up, flicking a gaze over at the monitor on the wall. Tyler walks around in front of the camera in just his boxers, smirking as he texts someone. My secondary phone dings right on cue, and I look down and read the messages he's sending to a girl named Denise.

TYLER: What're you wearing? I'm thinking of you.

I roll my eyes, hoping Denise tells him to fuck himself. But she doesn't.

It's hard to watch them live their lives for a month. I have to watch them loving the freedom they stole from me. The freedom they stole from us.

Tyler is the first one who is married and apparently having an affair. I've been saving him for closer to last, but right now, I can't afford to go home and sprint through so many. And sprint is an accurate depiction of how that time will go, considering it'll be too easy to get caught if I try to space it out as I do now.

Colet assured me the feds are investigating our hometown. It was only a matter of time before they linked the kills and made the connection. I'd hoped to have more time before they got on my trail, hence the reason I started the kills outside of town.

It's not like they'll link any of it to me, of course. Aiah Arceta doesn't exist in that town. Never has.

Marquee died ten years ago. I look nothing like her anymore. They made sure of that. My eyes flick to the small mirror on the wall beside me. Without any makeup, you can see a few faint scars.

I spent a lot of money to help make sure there were as few scars as possible. Marquee was a poor girl from Delaney Grove, but Sophia Laforteza was an heiress who died in a car accident the same night my death certificate was signed. She was so mangled and unrecognizable that Colet had no problem shifting the info around in the computers.

Sophia might have died that night, but the stranger I never met saved my life.

I went in as Marquee, left as Sophia, took on her rich, orphan life, and "legally" changed her name to Aiah Arceta to avoid anyone from her past finding me out.

It was the easiest way to build a fund to support us and to change my identity. Colet didn't get good at more inventive forms of identity changes until the past couple of years.

It took a while to see my scars on my face as marks of survival instead of brutal reminders of that night. The scars on other parts of my body didn't heal as cleanly. But the scars on my soul took the longest to deal with.

They say everyone has their own healing process.

The first year of mine was spent mourning for my family and suffering from all the trauma. I cried until there was nothing but sand left to fall from my eyes. I curled into a ball and showered three times a day, never feeling clean.

The second year was spent being angry and seeking outlets. I took on kickboxing first. By the third year, I'd moved on to various other forms of mixed martial arts. Several black belts are mine now.

I never want to be anyone else's victim.

The fourth year was spent getting stronger, dealing with all my fears, and learning to stand on my own without all the sleepless nights.

The fifth year was the first time I could withstand any physical contact. I learned to grow. I learned not to flinch away when someone barely touched me. I learned to be as normal as I could be.