The drive to my condo is hazed in grief-stricken mania. I don't even have it in me to smoke that much needed cigarette I'd been longing for, needing, just hours before. Memories keep spilling over in my mind like hot lava down a mountain, and there isn't any way to control it. I'm melting, draining myself of all control and I have no way to stop the purging.
Remembering my daughter's lifeless form covered in a white sheet is layering with the images of beautiful Diego laying on Scooby-doo sheets, and together, they're assaulting me both mentally and physically until I long to shed myself of all control. I can't stop the break! Cries wrack through me, my pain pouring from me in tears and broken screams.
Pulling into a screeching halt in the empty parking lot of my complex, the burning nausea sears its way up my throat, threatening to spill before I can reach the sanctity of my home. I'm getting sick from the overwhelming grief, and I race for the door, stopping to battle the lock. Fearing I might vomit right on the front step, I cover my mouth and burst into the condo, barely making it to the toilet where I finally puked up my guts.
Sobs escape me in-between bouts of sickness, and I rage inside, hating my weakness, which bubbles out of my mouth like rancid mental decay. Diego's murder is wringing out so much in me at once. I hadn't been this vulnerable since my daughter's murder and now the debilitating defenselessness returns with a vengeance. Moaning aloud at the stomach pains, I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, snarling out to nobody in the room, "I fucking hate this shit!" My words echo back, a reminder that I'm in this grief alone, like some tortured ghost, haunting an abandoned castle, without so much as a mouse to keep company with.
I chose this, I remind myself. I chose to be alone because I deserve it. I deserve all of it... all of this!
Time seems to stop, keeping me in its prison for what seems like an eternity before the hysteria finishes its fiery escape and I can lean away from the toilet safely. I gulp in air, forcing myself to find some semblance of calm through the wild storm I'd been coasting on for hours now. Wincing at the tightness of my stomach, I angrily push away from the commode and lean back against the bathtub, letting my legs splay out before me on the tile. My eyes close as the cold porcelain chills my fevered skin and I sigh aloud, grateful for the cooling transition.
I wait, remaining wound up and dizzy, unsure if I need to purge more for the torment still claws maliciously at my insides. My head is heavy and the fury bites hard at me, but an unnatural tranquility settles over me like a warm blanket the longer I recline there. The bathroom floor, hot skin and cold porcelain propel me back to a vague memory.
A memory to the night I died.
To the night Alec had packed up and left, but not before blaming me for our daughter's murder. The cruel memories pool into my mind, gather and filling until I feel like I'm drowning. I can still see his handsome face twisting into an expression of rage and disgust.
"Go to Hell, Cobalt."
Alec always was a charming motherfucker.
Those had been his final, parting words before abandoning me, leaving me broken in our dead daughter's room, surrounded by her belongings and lack of presence. I was dressed in black, unable to find the strength to change clothes after burying my baby in the cold, frozen winter ground mere hours before. My entire reason for anything was gone, and now my marriage was broken as well. What did I have to live for, anyway? Other than to suffer, which I couldn't. I didn't want to breathe without my family…without my daughter!
I sobbed, gagged, crawled into our bathroom, grabbing up handfuls of the anti-depressants and sleeping pills the docs had prescribed me after Rose died. There was no thought behind my actions. Only the desire to end the pain and find my child in whatever lay beyond the realm of the living.
I wanted to be the mother for her in death that I hadn't been in life. My career had been so fucking important when I should have been home with my daughter more. I should have held her more, found time for her, rather than leaving her with a nanny most days and nights. Even as I felt my consciousness shift towards the cold, my guild had devoured me, becoming a living breathing tormentor, possessing me.
Feeding on my mind.
Alec returned minutes later to retrieve some paperwork he'd forgotten and found me unresponsive on the floor.
That night, Alec Lindsay had killed my soul but saved my life.
Aside from shadow, bright light, haze, and loud voices, I remember nothing. Not a fucking thing which has always nagged at me because I can't shake the feeling, there is something about it I should remember.
But beyond taking the pills and waking up in the hospital, my uncle, and New York's finest commissioner, standing next to my bed with disappointment in his eyes, my mind's completely blank. Whatever happened between suicide and resurrection eludes me.
As I sit on the floor, wiping vomit from my mouth, I can't help but close my eyes as the odd feelings overtake me. The sensation that I'm not alone pulsates around me. As I lay dying on the floor six years before, I vaguely remember experiencing the same thing that I'm feeling now. A quiet presence encircling me, the distant hissing of a snake, the sense of being loved all combine and warm me.
My eyes grow heavier by the second, and a soft voice, one I don't recognize yet seems so familiar, intrudes my thoughts. A warning, a foreshadowing of what looms just ahead.
…You cannot stop the truth. Darkness cannot contain the light forever…it's coming. It's coming…
Through in the darkness of my mind, I see a single candle flickering, fluttering back and forth, gripping my focus, and refusing to release it. I want to move towards it, use its illumination to light my way, and find the soft male voice whispering to me from the night.
Then a shriek, ear splitting and bone-shilling causes me to jump.
Fuck! Something else is here, watching me…hating me! It wants to hurt me. I sense its blood lust, its delight at disgusting me…frightening me…like a stalker needing to control every aspect of its victim.
My world grows cold, dark, and vaporous. The stench of rotting flesh chokes me as a static laced voice growls to me from the darkness of my mind.
…Your bitch daughter feeds the damned! And you shall too!…
A snake hisses, and the gentle voice warns me from the night, urgency in his tone.
Wake up, Cobalt! Hurry! Wake up!
Like taking in air after drowning, I jerk awake, gasping, sliding across the tile floor certain a nightmare is coming. But as I search the room and the hallway beyond, I find I'm alone, no monsters there to eat me, or ghosts to haunt me. Just the soft buzzing sound of the ceiling fans whirling in the rooms beyond.
I'm losing my damned mind, and all I can do I ride the madness.
Once I'm sure I'm safe I pause, covering my sweaty face with cold hands and count to ten…then twenty and thirty until I'm confident my shit has officially come together.
That must have been a dream, I tell myself as my heartbeat eases, and I find myself strong enough to get my ass up off the floor. But despite convincing myself I'm okay, and this is just another day, I can't shake the heat off my skin and chill in my blood. I refuse to dwell on any of this madness because I'll fall apart, and my job is waiting for me.
Diego is waiting for me to solve his murder.
I focus my energy on the boy and my daughter as I reach out with weak hands to grasp the toilet, then the sink, pulling myself unsteadily to my feet. Everything I do next becomes mechanical. I shower, dress in my blessed tailored pinstriped pant suit, cream-colored blouse, and boots before pinning my dark hair up into a tight bun. A little librarian-ish, but it works for what I need. My suits are designed to fit me like skin so I can run and move quickly if needed and my jacket hides my weapon.
Suspects get real goddamn edgy when they see someone approaching with a piece in plain sight.
My next decision is spontaneous and something I might regret later, but I can't help it. I have to know. Before leaving for work, I make a beeline to the small office next to my bedroom and pull out my old briefcase from New York. And do something I've never done before.
I read the case files of my daughter's murder.
And with every sentence I digest, I die a little more inside.