The Devil In Disguise

CHAPTER 26: Eleven Tragedies

"So much for the bait plan," I said bitterly to my parents.

We were in my living room, my parents sitting on the sofa opposite to the armchair I was in. The room was craftily decorated to look modern, but cosy at the same time, with a strange colour combination of black, white and mustard yellow. However, I felt anything other than relaxed.

My parents exchanged a glance with each other.

"It's time to tighten up on your rules, you'll need a curfew and some — er — conditions on going out," Dad said apologetically. I just nodded. So much freedom had already been sucked from my life by him — why not more?

"What is the plan anyway?" I asked, anger creeping into my voice. "I should know, since I'm the main part. Or has this plan been scrapped like all the other failed ones to lure him?"

"Well, we never used you in the other plans; we just set them up as if you were in that situation to, you know, make him come to us. But now, you really are going to be there," Mum explained.

"He won't fall for it. He's too clever."

"Not too clever for the police," Dad assured —but that made me angrier.

"Yes, he is! Even through my detailed descriptions, they can never identify him! They don't have a name, number, fingerprint, nothing!"

"That's not true!" Mum said in a steady voice, trying to calm my rising hysteria, "You gave them the number plate on his car!"

"I gave them the first four digits, I didn't see the rest. That's all, and there's no point even trying to track down all the cars starting with those digits on their plates. He'll already have another car by now."

"No, he wouldn't! How could he possibly have another car, he doesn't even know that you saw —"

"He knows everything!" I snapped, curling my hands into fists. I was tired of them underestimating him over and over. He wasn't normal or moral in any way!

"He managed to black out all the security footage of Frankie and Benny's, not to mention CCTV cameras from a mile around it too, so no one would catch anything! If that itself doesn't help you register how dangerous he is, I don't know what will!" I threw my hands behind my head in anxious frustration. Breathe in, breathe out. Saying all this out loud just scared me more, and I didn't think that was possible.

They stayed silent. I could tell that they just wanted to embrace me, tell me that it was okay and that they'd sort it out, but that's what I believed two years ago. Now, on his third attempt to capture and kill me, I knew they were as helpless as I was.

Mum's eyes were bright and moisture had begun to form in them like salty crystals.

"I don't know what to do," she whispered. A tear slipped from her eye and she wiped it away impatiently. Dad's lip quivered as he looked at her, his own emotion rising to the surface.

"No one does," I admitted, shrugging, my voice softening. I didn't want to see them cry; especially Mum. She cried even less than Dad did, and he cried once in a blue moon, for the saddest of things. But I guess this was every parent's nightmare: losing a child.

"He's trying to take my baby away from me," Mum's voice cracked as she broke down and sobbed. She put her face in her hands, trying to hide her tears, but her body shook. Dad held her, blinking rapidly, trying to get rid of his own tears to be strong for her.

I stared at the picture in front of me. He was breaking everything. He'd broken me several times, but I'd fixed myself shabbily and tried to carry on with the life he tried so hard to take. He was breaking friendships that had only been born recently. And he was breaking my parents who didn't know who he was and why he was doing this, other than the reason that he was a sociopath.