Black Temptation

Chapter 56

"What do you mean it's gone?"

"Like someone's been in here! It's gone! The gas mask, the spray gun, the suit, the real poisonous gas, everything!"

"Why would you have poisonous gas just lying around?"

"It wasn't lying around! I locked it up and I'm the only one with a key!"

I pause. "You don't think-"

Then the phone rings. We stare at it for a while, scared at the sound. Harry nods and I slowly, cautiously, pick it up.

"...Yes?"

"McKenzie! McKenzie!"

"Hello? Who is this?"

"You have to get out of the house now! Get out of the house! Do you hear me?"

"Wait, who is this?"

"Get out of the house! Tell Harry and get out of the house!"

And the phone call dies with buzz.

"Who was that-"

"We have to go!" I scream as the phone rings, again.

"...yes?"

Harry grabs our emergency back up clothes and shoots out of the door when I call.

"Harry, wait!" As the call hangs up and I run outside with him. "Maybe we should we stop and see a friend on the way."

***

Broken bottles of 40's, suffocating scents of cigarette buds and the fluctuating fierceness of roaches leave one feeling unwelcome in the most blatant way.

"How do you know where he lives?" Harry asks, stepping over mud puddles.

"I have my ways..." I say. "...actually Adele told me."

A shadow crawls closer to us.

"Hello?" He says.

"PJ?" I say.

No one answers and the shadow sticks to the wall. He huffs, halting to see what happens.

"I hate that you brought me here. Who lives in a ditch?"

"Well you could've dropped me off and stayed outside."

"Seriously? And let you go off on your own into god knows where to see god knows what? You must have the wrong Harry Styles. If you wanted to let me let you go on your own, you should've just let me by you that car."

"I don't need your charity. I don't need your money. What I need for you is to trust me on this. PJ knows something...."

"How so?" PJ speaks, flicking himself around the corner. His clothes are baggy, dirty and stained. His hair is disheveled and oddly, kinda curly...he's skinnier than I once remembered.

"We need your help, PJ." I respond, holding onto Harry's suddenly taut, dead hand. He laughs.

"My help? You would be so lucky, but frankly, I just don't give a damn. And especially when your overly protective, dysfunctional man whore of a boyfriend keeps staring at me like wants to rip my head off."

"Don't mind if I do!" PJ steps backwards and I pull Harry backwards.

"Hey! Hey! Not the time! We are not against each other! PJ, you called us here! But we need you too. We want to out him, but we can't find a way to not get killed in the process. Tell us any weaknesses, soft spots, anything that can help us fight him!"

"You can't out him?"

"Why not?"

"Because...your theory is very wrong. Peters doesn't care about something being in public or private. He just wants to mess with you. Remember in Greece?"

My mind instantly shoots back to that time. That dastardly, hell driven time.

"So?" I question.

"So! Your little husband of a friend there was there for another reason for the get go."

Harry and I look back at each other.

"You're saying he came there to rape me from the beginning?"

PJ nods. I laugh in his face. How dumb. He did that out of drunken spite, not pre meditated harm.

"And how would you know?" I say laughing.

"The reason is not how, but who?"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh you don't know?"

"Know what?"

The air falls silent and PJ seems to become more irritated as the minutes progress.

"Susan and Charles pressured Macklemore into coming out to his parents so they could say they had a legitimate reason for being there. They never knew you guys were going to Greece until they were told."

"Told? By who?"

Eyes stare, my body fixated on the fear that ruptured my spleen like JENGA blocks.

"Peters...."

PJ nods.

"Do you see now? Peters doesn't care! He just wants to hurt you! Every time you move an inch he is always there. He will always be there."

My hands fidget with the cloth of my shirt as I think of what to do now when Harry interjects.

"How do you know this?"

PJ breathes away.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try us."

He looks away and buries his face in his hands, lip swollen under his teeth.

"I don't know if this will help as much as it's about to hurt."

"What-what ever! Just say it!" I scream.

A breath is taken and he speaks,

"I know all this stuff because I'm closer to Peters than you think...and so are you. Harry-your entire life has been a lie. Alexander...Alexander,"

"What? What?!" He screams.

"He's-"

"What??"

"Alexander is Peters!"

We stare forward like a shot just ringed through the room.

"What?" Harry screams.

PJ starts panting like a sick dog.

"Yes! Well, one of them! He has always been. He stole the identity of the the real Peters to get him on your bad side so you would blame someone else for all the things that has been happening! So you'd falsely blame the real Peters! He's been trying to kill you this entire time! He only came to your house to see if you had any weapons you could use against him! He's been trying to get rid of you your whole life...because-because you're not his real son....

I am."