Chapter 30

Of all the things I‘d imagined happening, it hadn‘t been this.

“Levi?” I whispered.

Levi stood up and turned to face me. His face was blank, but he seemed to be waiting for me to say something. Or do something. But my legs wouldn’t move, and my mouth wouldn’t speak, and I was frozen in place as my brain raced to figure out what was going on.

“Levi…what are you doing here?” I asked, finally. “Did Kyle bring you here, too?”

Without answering, Levi began to walk toward me, stopping only once he’d reached the middle of the floor. Then he lifted his chin up and closed his eyes, swaying slightly to the music. In another place and another time, I would’ve been inspired to dance too, but right now just I wanted him to stop.

“I just love this, don’t you? It’s sad and dark, just like the world we live in,” Levi said, opening his eyes to look at me again. He let his hands drift through the air like he was conducting an unseen orchestra. “Most people associate the piece with the Disney movie. A fairytale suitable for kids. But the real story? It’s much more tragic. Don’t you agree?”

My mouth had gone dry and I was struggling to come up with a plan of action. It was difficult on account of the fact that I still didn’t know what the hell was going on. Was Kyle here? Had Levi been drawn here, too? Were we safer in the studio than we were outside?

I was closer than Levi was to the front door of the studio, so I knew I could make a run for it if I had to. But even if I did, where did that leave Zhara?

Of course, all of this was a moot point until I knew why Levi was here.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him again, trying to remain calm.

He tilted his head to the side and looked at me surprised. “You still haven’t figured it out?”

“Figured what out?” I asked.

“The answers to all your questions, Emmy. Why did Kyle kill? Why’d he choose those women? How’d he get away with it for so long? Why didn’t he kill you, too? Why? Why? WHY?” Levi said, ticking the questions off his fingers as he sauntered around the wooden floor, his boots scratching along the surface as he went.

As he paced, he began to distance himself from me and Zhara, which was good. I glanced down at my friend to see if he was awake yet, but he still hadn’t moved. He wouldn’t be out forever though. And when he did stir, I’d need him to leave before he could be hurt again.

“You’re right. I haven’t figured it out yet, Levi. But I’m beginning to wonder why you would have the answers,” I said. “Unless Kyle confided in you after all.”

“Oh, I know Kyle better than he even knows himself,” Levi said confidently. “The things I could tell you would Blow. Your. Mind.”

I swallowed hard. “Why don’t you enlighten me then,” I said.

Levi stared at me like he was amused by my brazenness. “I’ll answer some of your questions,” he said. “But then you’ve got to do something for me.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Oh, we’ll get to that soon enough,” he said, waving me off like we had all the time in the world. “Questions first, fun later.”

I didn’t like the sound of that, but figured I wasn’t in a position to argue.

“Did Kyle really do it?” I asked, thinking fast. Ever since I’d seen Levi in the studio, I’d begun to wonder.

“Really? You’re wasting a question on that?” he answered, almost laughing at me.

“I didn’t realize there was a limit,” I said.

“Maybe not an exact number, but if I get bored…well, you don’t want me to get bored,” he said, inspecting his hands.

What the hell is going on?

“But the answer is yes,” he said.

I was surprised by the answer, but continued. “Okay,” I said, collecting my thoughts. “Why did he choose them? What did they do that made them targets?”

“You’d have to ask him to get the full answer to that. But from what I gather, it has something to do with women and their demands. He doesn’t take too kindly to them it seems.”

“Did Kyle make you come here?” I asked again. I had to know once and for all.

Levi raised one of his eyebrows at me questioningly. “You want to know if Kyle orchestrated all of this?” he asked, spinning around in a circle. When he stopped, he had an eerie smile on his face. “No. Not Kyle. This one was all me.”

I felt all the blood rush from my body.

“Why?” I asked, shakily. I took a step toward the front door, but then forced myself to stop. I still didn’t have a plan and it wouldn’t be wise to push Levi into doing something drastic at this point.

“Well, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about,” he said, simply.

“Fuss?” I asked, confused.

“Yes, Emmy. I wanted to meet the girl who was able to take down one of the most evil, emotionless, violent men I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing,” he said. “I wanted to know why Kyle was willing to give up a nearly flawless killing career for you. Why he would lie to his partner all this time.”

“Partner?” I squeaked, unbelievably. Levi was Kyle’s partner? I went through all the things I’d learned over the past few weeks and tried to piece together whether it could be true. Kyle’s diary entries about me had never mentioned a partner—then again, he’d lied in half of them. Was it possible he’d written Levi out of it?

Then I remembered something the lone survivor of the killings had said. She’d mentioned hearing different voices while blind-folded. At the time, I’d wondered if Kyle had suffered from multiple personalities, or if the voices had just been a way to amp up the fear factor for his victims. But then there were all the different ways the women had been tortured. The styles had seemed to be all over the place.

Oh my God, there were two of them.

“You’re scared, right?” Levi said, breaking through my thoughts. “That’s good. I like it when they’re scared.”

“You helped him kill those girls?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“Emmy, I’m the one who finally pushed him over the edge and convinced him that raping the whores wasn’t enough!” he said. “But then, he’d always had trouble finishing the job, even when we were in school. He didn’t have the stones for it. Needed someone to tell him it was okay. Push him to the next level. Show him the way. That’s what I did for him. Together we were an unstoppable force.”

“You were the one who nailed the frogs to the doors,” I breathed, thinking back on the story he’d told me.

“The idea was actually Kyle’s, but I took it and ran with it. He wanted to nail one to the door of this teacher he hated. Miss Carmichael. She was a testy old broad. I was the one who suggested we leave them on every classroom door. See, Kyle has good instincts and clever ideas, but I take ’em and make ’em bigger, better…infamous.”

“But then Kyle slipped up, leavin’ evidence behind—kind of like what he did with this diary business—so I had to think quick. I knew if they locked Kyle up, it’d be the end for him. He’d never survive. And then I would’ve lost him, probably for good. Besides, it’s better to be owed than to owe someone, right? So, I did the time…”

I chanced a look at Zhara, but he was still lying on the floor. I couldn’t tell if the bleeding had stopped, but a flesh wound was the least of my worries right now. I turned my attention back to Levi, who was getting closer and closer to me as he paced around the room.

“When I finally looked Kyle up all those years later, I found out he was still up to no good. Only, he still had a lot to learn,” Levi said. “We always were better as a team. Besides, he owed me.”

“That’s when you started killing,” I said, everything beginning to make sense.

He nodded, proud of himself. “Kyle would choose the girls. That was his thing. And he always had his reasons. I didn’t care who they were as long as they were dead when we were done with ’em. See, I’m an equal-opportunity killer. It’s all just meat to tenderize. Don’t matter much whether it’s white or dark.”

I felt sick as he said this, and for a second I thought I might pass out. But if I lost consciousness, I knew I’d be done for. And I wasn’t going to make myself an easy target. For him or Kyle. So, I forced myself to take deep breaths and concentrate on why I was still there. To save Zhara. And hopefully myself, too.

“How do I fit into all of this?” I asked.

“Well that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? You know, the first time I learned about you was when our paths crossed at the prison? Thanks for fillin’ me in on so much, by the way. I may never have found out who you were if you hadn’t talked to me that day. But then you told me Kyle had written about you in his diary. That stupid fucking diary!” he screamed in a fit of rage. He took a few moments to calm down before talking again. “That’s when I found out he’d been keepin’ a secret. And that secret was you.”

I blinked, surprised to find this out. Kyle and Levi had killed together, shared the worst parts of themselves with each other, and he hadn’t told him about me? Hadn’t confessed the obsessive crush he had on some random girl? Why?

“I had to see what was so damn special about you,” Levi said, pointing at me. “And I had to show him that you don’t keep things from your partner. Because when you do, everybody loses.”

He began walking toward me now, slowly, one step at a time. It forced me to move, too, until I was on the other side of Zhara, further away from the exit. This was fine with me though. Because, while Levi probably assumed I wanted to escape, I had another plan forming.

“Things got all fucked up when you came around, Emmy,” Levi said. “If Kyle had just brought you to me like all the others, it would’ve been fine. He should’ve known that people like us can’t have real relationships. You can’t love with this much hate in your heart.”

“Gotta agree with you there,” I said, then immediately regretted it.

Levi stopped walking and squinted at me. I froze in place. I didn’t want to piss him off. Not before I knew we could get away.

But then Levi chuckled and began circling again. “I do like your spunk. Could be that’s what drew Kyle in. That and your body. Dancers are pretty flexible, right? Oh the things I could do to you,” he said, surveying me from head to toe.

I shuddered to think about what he must be picturing in his sadistic mind.

Then he shook his head and took a deep breath. “Too bad I have to kill you after,” he said finally, like the comment was nothing. When he saw my face, he broke out into a smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll still have fun doing it. I just wish Kyle could be here, too. Get the old gang back together for another epic kill.”

“Why isn’t Kyle here, Levi?” I asked as I moved closer to Zhara. Levi was blocking the path to the front door now, and I was on the other side, just feet away from the storage room. Exactly where I wanted to be.

“He’s not here because I didn’t invite him,” he snarled.

I paused as a new thought came to me.

“Or maybe you just don’t know where he is,” I said slowly, realizing it was possible that Kyle hadn’t contacted him at all since he’d gotten out.

And that meant Kyle might not have broken out of prison to kill me, after all.

My eyes grew wide as everything started to come together. “I thought this had all been Kyle; the note, murdering my neighbor, tonight…but it was all you.”

“It’s true,” he admitted, nodding proudly. “Slaughtering that bitch friend of yours was especially fulfilling. She was so young and…perky. Figured I’d have a little bit of fun while I worked my way to you.”

“That’s the thing, though. She wasn’t even my friend. Not really,” I said, feeling bad as I said it, but playing a hunch. Something I’d said before had bothered Levi and I think I knew what it was. If I could just get him worked up, distract him for even a minute, he might mess up. “Kyle would have known that.”

Levi whirled around, fury in his eyes now. “Well, Kyle’s not here!” he growled at me. “I’m in charge now. I choose who lives and dies. I make the decisions now. Me.”

“Kyle wouldn’t want you to kill me, would he Levi?” I asked, pushing him further. Levi frowned. “He kept me from you for a reason. He didn’t want me to turn out like the others.”

“We’re partners,” Levi spat. “That means we share everything. I explained that to him in Quentin. He knows he should’ve told me about you. And he understands what I have to do now. He’s accepted it. What we have—our needs are more important than his schoolboy crush on you.”

“Are you sure about that?” I asked, stepping backward and holding my hands in front of me as he began to advance toward me again. “Why hasn’t Kyle contacted you yet? If you’re so close, why isn’t he here with you now? Sounds like he may not be totally on board with being partners anymore.”

“He’d never choose you over me!” he yelled, the sound echoing off the walls.

“But he won’t be happy when he finds out you did this without him,” I said.

“Then he’ll know how I felt,” Levi said.

“You don’t have to do this, Levi,” I said finally, feeling the tension in the room hitting its peak. “You could still leave. Just walk out the door and disappear. The cops will keep looking for Kyle and you’ll be free. They don’t even know about you yet.”

Levi seemed to think about this a moment and I wondered if he was going to take me up on it.

“That’s a good point,” he mused, scratching his beard. “And they won’t ever find out.”

Then he lunged at me, running full force in my direction.

The sudden movement made me jump, but then I grabbed a handful of Zhara’s shirt and pulled his body into the costume closet with me. Levi was closing the distance between us quickly, and for a few seconds I wasn’t sure I’d make it inside in time. But then I was slamming the door and throwing my body against the wood, as I scrambled to flip the gold-colored lock. A second after the latch clicked, there was a loud bang on the door as Levi crashed into it full-force. The structure shook like an earthquake, but it held.

For now.

I looked frantically around the room. My heart was beating fast and my adrenaline pumping just as hard. I’d gotten us away from Levi for the time being, but I’d also managed to trap us in a closet with no other means of escape.

Another thud sounded through the space as Levi hit the door again. He was going to try and break it down. And if he kept going at the door like he was, he’d succeed. I had to think of something. Hide. Find something to defend myself with in case…

In case…

I shook Zhara, but he still wasn’t stirring. So I grabbed his arms and pulled him further inside. I looked down at him and then back at the door that Levi was now repeatedly hitting.

“Sorry, Zhara,” I whispered, and then began to roll him toward the back of the closet, underneath a line of hanging tutus. When his body was flush against the wall, I grabbed a box of random costumes and threw them on top of him, so there was no trace that he was stashed back there.

Then I turned to find a place to hide myself.

The costume closet, which was more like an elaborate walk-in area, had been built around the exterior of the main room and spanned two of the walls. Shaped like an L, the owners had installed rods on both sides of the walkway, in order to store company costumes as well as props and other gear. It was like a tiny maze of spandex and touelle, leaving plenty of places to hide.

Of course, I wouldn’t be able to hide forever. Eventually Levi would find me.

I heard a cracking sound from behind me and knew I didn’t have much time. So, I rushed around the corner and immediately found my salvation.

Our company performed The Nutcracker every winter and one of the scenes called for the ballerinas to climb out of these super-sized boxes shaped like letter blocks. They were just big enough for a dancer to fit inside, and unless you knew it opened, you’d think it was solid. But choosing to hide there would mean making myself even more of a sitting duck if Levi found me.

A crash echoed through the room and I knew that Levi had broken down the door. I didn’t have time to find another place to hide. I needed to disappear now. So, before I could talk myself out of it, I climbed on top of the first box and reached for the lid of the one stacked on top of it. Then I got inside.

As soon as the lid was closed, all noise outside became a muffled silence. Except for the sounds of my own breathing—which seemed insanely loud to me when I was trying so desperately to be quiet—I couldn’t hear much of what was happening outside the box. This was almost worse, because I’d have no way of knowing where he was. Or whether he was close to finding me.

A minute passed. Then two. Then more. I refused to let myself move an inch, even when my calves began to tighten up from the weird way I was crouched. I remained motionless, listening for any sign that Levi was nearby.

When I was just beginning to convince myself that Levi had given up, I caught a sound so faint that it left me craning my neck to hear. It slowly grew louder until finally I understood what it was.

And then I stopped breathing all together.

“I’m gonna get you,” a voice whispered softly. Fear flooded my body and I had to put my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. “I’m gonna get you, Emmy. No use hiding, cuz I’m. Gonna. Get. You.”