The Devil In Disguise

CHAPTER 35: The Second Time

"SECOND TIME?!"

I laughed lightly at their shock. They were still processing the first time, almost disbelieving of the fact that their dear friend Karissa, whom they supposedly knew so well, had been kidnapped — and had hid it from everyone.

Suddenly, a subtle movement caught my eye. Simon was slowly leaning forward and his fingers crept towards one of the crisp packets from the coffee table. Xander, having noticed a few seconds before, sighed in disappointment, while Corina and Grace shook their heads at Simon. All of them looked vaguely as if they sometimes wondered why they even liked him. I bit my lip to stop smiling as Simon slowly sat back with a crisp packet held tightly in his hand.

Noticing all the disappointing, this-is-not-the-time-to-eat looks, he widened his eyes in indignation.

"What?" he exclaimed, holding the crisps to his chest protectively.

"This is not the time to eat!" Corina and Grace told him off sternly. Xander just murmured, "You're a lost cause, Simon."

Simon took a deep, meditative breath and whispered, "Haters. They're everywhere. Shake it off, Simon."

Unable to help myself, I lost it, and started laughing. My laugh set off the others and eased the tension in the room, and as we laughed, I felt more of the weight on my chest leave.

"I won't lie, I'm hungry now," Xander stated, eyeing the food on the table. Corina and Grace murmured their agreements and I said exasperatedly,

"Well, then eat the food, you idiots! What do you think I put it there for, decoration?"

"It certainly looks ravishing," Simon growled seductively, and the next second he was stuffing crisps into his mouth.

"I agree, Xander," I said after staring for a moment. "He is a lost cause."

Corina and Grace snorted, and the four of us grabbed our own food, ready for the next tale of Karissa's horror film of a life.

After a few minutes, the four of them quieted down, and an air of resentful anticipation settled on the room as they waited for me to begin again.

"OK... back to the story. This was a year later. I was being homeschooled at this point, and I'd moved somewhere else, taking a different identity. After Katy's death, we knew that I wasn't safe. After we settled down, everything was okay for a while, in a way... I wasn't being attacked by him, but I also was... mentally. A shit ton of nightmares, just about every night. And Katy's death on my mind, every day."

They nodded sympathetically. Simon crunched on his third packet of crisps and Corina shot him a death glare.

"So... he couldn't find me for maybe... five months? Yeah, five months," I nodded to myself. "But then he found me. I didn't know how. I still don't. But he started small. He liked causing fear, he relished in it. He started with small things, things that normal people wouldn't even notice, and if they did they'd brush it off as coincidences — but he knew that I wouldn't. I was paranoid and he liked that he had made me that way.

"There was this alley near the house I lived in. It was a five minute walk, and to get to the local shops you'd have to walk through it. I never went alone, but it wouldn't make a difference even if I did. My parents didn't notice the things I noticed.

"The walls in the alley were heavily graffitied. It was like there was a rule; no black or white graffiti, but all other colours were allowed. It made the walls brighter, and strangely beautiful. But my parents and I were walking through it one day and they were just talking. I was trailing behind... but then I saw black graffiti on one of the walls. Words, artsy looking, but still out of place. They said, 'No one ever believes the victim.' I was confused at first, and I tried to brush it off, but I had this... nagging gut feeling that it was him, that he'd hired someone to do that to scare me. Y'know?"