The Suicide Master (October Writing Challenge)

Chapter 15: The Suicide Master

Chapter 15

The Suicide Master

"Where did they all go?" Emery asked him, pacing around the dining room. "Am I really going crazy?"

Ethan stared at her questioningly. "No you are not. We might not know where they are, but we'll find them."

She sighed and slumped down in one of the many chairs. "This was supposed to be fun," she cried. Ethan sat next to her and tried to comfort her, but Emery shrugged away.

"You've shed too many tears, Emery," he remarked sadly, crushing her to his chest. There was a moment of silence as she cried into him and he held her, softly whispering comforting words to her.

"How's your foot?" She asked, pushing away from him. It felt weird, like tearing Velcro apart. He wiped a fresh tear from her flushed cheek.

"Better, but it still--"

"Oh, how sweet! The broken boy and the insane girl are making everything better!" The voice interjected. "I don't care. Now, Emery, I have a proposition for you."

"What?" Emery wondered aloud. "Who are you? How--where are our friends?"

"Oh they're all dead," the voice answered. "As for who I am, I'll not tell you right now. What I want you to know is that your sister is still alive, but not for long. We'll kill her if you don't do what I ask."

"We?" She inquired. Ethan stiffened next to her.

"We. Now, my proposition--"

"Where is my sister?"

"Slow down there, Em. You didn't let me finish. I have Amily here, and you can come get her without harm," the voice was cynical and terrifying as it finished its proposition, "but only two of you are leaving this house. I'll hand over Amily, but you have to kill Ethan. Do we have a deal?"

"What? No! Where the hell is my sister?" Emery fumed.

"Somewhere."

"I'll come get her right now! I'm not killing anybody, and you're not killing anybody else!"

"I haven't killed anybody. They took their own lives by their own choice. Just know that if you even attempt to find us, I'll kill her on the spot."

"I won't murder him!"

"Emery," Ethan said, his head down but his hand still tightly holding hers. "Just do it. You can't sacrifice your sister for me."

"But--"

"We don't know who these guys are, Emery. I have no doubt that they'll kill your sister if you don't kill me." Emery's eyes swam with tears, her thoughts in incoherent, jumbled messes.

"Just do it," he muttered, picking up her hand and placing it on his chest. Emery could feel his rapid heartbeat through his shirt, his burning skin. She shied her hand away when a tear fell on her arm. She wrapped her arms around him.

Emery rested her chin on his shoulder and whispered, "I won't."

"But, Emery, you can't--"

"I won't," she said sternly. "We need to find these guys and now, before anyone else dies." He nodded against her neck.

"Okay."

"Alright. I think I have an idea of where they might be," Emery said quietly. "Follow me." He nodded and she stood up, walking to the basement door. She turned and looked behind her, watching Ethan limp to where she stood.

"Can you make it?" He nodded and she started down the stairs, not bothering to be quiet.

Once Emery got to the bottom of the stairs, she rushed to the iron door, ready to punch the numbers into the dial but stopped, realizing that Ethan wouldn't be able to catch up.

"Come on!" She hurried him. He picked his right foot up off the wooden stair and put his hands on the railing beside him. He put his weight on his hands and jumped down two steps at a time, reaching the bottom and hobbling to where she stood.

"Zero, Seven, Nine, One," she murmured, pushing the LED numbers and the latch opened. Emery whipped the door open, only to stop at the scene before her.

"Emery..." Ethan whispered.

There, inside the light room, stood a darkly clothed man. He loomed over Emery's sister, just barely holding on to her last morsels of life. She bled profusely from her stomach, her eyes open, but not all the way.

"No... Emery..." her voice was hoarse, weak. She didn't have much time.

"You should have listened to me, Em," the man said. "You could have avoided this situation. But, after all, we wouldn't have let you leave anyway."

Another black clothed man entered the room from a door they hadn't noticed before.

"I apologize," he said. "But your sister would have been dead regardless." From what she could see of his face, Emery saw his gaze shift behind him to where Amily laid on the floor. Her eyes, once so bright, were drifting closed.

Emery fell to her knees, dissolving into tears. Her sister... she was always so happy, so bright. Seeing her weak face like that simply killed Emery, causing her to cry out in what felt to her like physical pain, tearing her apart from the inside-out. There were so many tears -- too many. Ethan stood rigidly next to her, his shoulders slumped and his head down, but Emery could see the salty drops splattering on the floor like tiny paintballs. Even the shadowed men were silent.

"Why did you do this?!" Emery bawled, her red face scrunched up in psychological pain. "Why?!"

The man holding the still-dripping knife pulled his mask up, revealing his face. His eyes were dark, and his hair even darker. It ruffled up in messy knots and curled around his face.

Benny stood there, silent, before dropping the mask and looking at Emery's broken form.

"I didn't want to kill her, Emery. It just happened. The rest of them murdered themselves. I had no part in it."

Emery sat there, confused, surprised, angry, and sad beyond words.

"Bh..." she couldn't finish the name before her voice cracked.

"Sorry, guys." The second man tugged his mask off. It was Riley.

"Wh..." Emery started before seeing Ethan starting forward, toward the two teenagers. Revenge burned bright in his eyes. He ripped the small handgun out of Riley's hand and stood back. "Ethan..."

"Hush, Emery. Don't look," he said quietly. She closed her eyes as he raised the gun and looked away.

"We're going to need you to tell us a few things, Miss Brooks," the rigid-sitting police officer said, adjacent from Emery's cold, still frame.

"What happened at that lake house?"

She said nothing, only stared at her snow-covered shoes disdainfully.

"How many people died and what were their relationships with you?"

Nothing.

"Who were the criminals?"

She sucked in a sharp breath in a gasp that hurt her lungs, dry from screaming and crying.

"Their names were..." She couldn't say their names without her tears choking her words back. She settled for an alias. She wasn't ready yet.

"They called themselves..." Emery paused, her previous words still caught in her throat. She couldn't speak. She simply couldn't explain.

"...The Suicide Masters..."  

End