Taylor hugged his backpack to his chest as he settled into a chair across from a couple that he could easily guess were Caleb and Nikolai's parents, even if he hadn't been told beforehand. The police chief had asked him and Cadon if they wanted to speak with them, and Cadon had accepted.
He wasn't sure why, though.
Glancing sideways, Taylor watched as Adon sat himself down beside him, his eyes narrowed on the two people opposite them. There was an officer sitting at each end of the table, one of them being the chief, himself.
Squeezing the backpack a little tighter, Taylor slowly straightened and looked at Caleb's mother. Her attention was locked onto Cadon, and he didn't doubt that he saw her son in his features.
She really does look like Caleb, too. They have similar eyes and hair color, among other things.
"You wanted to meet with us. What did you want to say?" Cadon asked as he tilted his head slightly.
Taylor wasn't sure how he wasn't breaking down. Adon knew everything, and now part of him is even the person, himself, who had gotten murdered by the woman before him. Yet, he was holding himself together perfectly fine, and even seemed interested in what his murderer and mother had to say.
"I wanted to tell you that your father is sorry for what he did to you, Caleb."
What?
Cadon slowly tilted his head the other way, taking in what she was saying, but not responding in any other way.
Taylor took that moment to look at the man across from himself. He seemed stoic and sat straight in his chair, as if he had accepted whatever was said, and what was going to be added.
What is going on?
The police chief leaned forward and addressed him and Cadon, drawing their attention.
"So, I wanted to talk to you about this when you got here instead of over the phone because of its importance," he said, making Cadon raise an eyebrow for him to continue.
"Well, the statements for these two are a bit different than what you boys have told me, but they correlate with what the exorcist has said, so I need more information from you two."
Taylor felt a cold sweat beginning to shiver down his spine, but it stopped abruptly when Cadon slipped his hand into his own beneath the table, then squeezed gently.
"Not a problem, officer. Taylor? I think this is where you get the chance to tell your story, for real," he said, drawing Taylor's eyes up to his own beautiful ones.
The smile there, half from Caleb and half from Adon, made his heart swell in his chest.
"Okay," he whispered quietly, then sat up straighter and looked across the table at the two older adults who were now staring at him with nervous, but dark, eyes.
"I bought that house because of its price and location. It was perfect for me, and only needed a few upgrades here and there," he began.
"Little did I know that there were two skeletons beneath my feet when I settled down for my first night of sleep."
He looked to his right with a warm smile, seeing Caleb's appearance mixed in with Adon's perfectly.
"That was when I first encountered Caleb, though he didn't show himself to me yet. He let me into his dream."
He leaned back and smiled at the memory. It had truly taken him by surprise, but what a wonder it had been.
"Walking down those steps that I didn't even knew existed yet... There was a hot tub right as I got downstairs to my right. It looked so inviting, with the smaller jets running to send little ripples through the surface of the water."
He paused for moment as he reminisced.
"But that wall of fish tanks behind it? Far more impressive. I didn't realize it was a dream right away, and just thought that some cool, rich squatter was hanging out in my house," he said with a slight laugh.
"As I looked further around the room, I noticed a large, king-sized bed on the other side, and a black stove in the corner. At the time, I didn't realize that the apple peeler on the stove with a little destroyed tomato within its blades meant something. I thought that it was strange to try and peel a cherry tomato in general, but with an apple peeler? Just odd."
He looked to Cadon, who was staring at him with a proud grin.
"I then found the calendar."
He paused for a moment, then added. "I forgot to mention that this entire time, and even when I was conscious, I was hearing a clinking sound, as if something metal was hitting something else metal, like pipes being banged together... or a metal baseball bat hitting a railing or pipe."
His hand slowly inched its way into his backpack as he continued his story.
"At first, that calendar said Run! on the twenty-second, but when I looked again, it had changed to happy birthday."
He licked his lips and fought off his hesitancy to continue. He was worried about painting Nikolai in a negative light, but the truth had to be said, even if it made someone look bad. It hadn't been the banshee's fault.
"I had decided that I'd had enough of that situation and headed for the stairs, but the hot tub... for some reason, it called to me. I ended up settling into it, just to try and relax for a few moments. Well, before I could even take a few calming breaths, something had grabbed my ankle and yanked me beneath the water, forcing me to wake up in my bed upstairs, soaked and confused."
The two across from them looked at each other, a faint shine of hope in their eyes that made Taylor's stomach twist nervously. They thought that he was crazy. He would have felt worse, but that hand in his own steadied his resolve and made him continue.
"I brushed off the dream at that point. It was just a dream, anyways. But the next day, when I was trying to eat dinner on the couch, it got cold. It wasn't cold outside, and I didn't have the air-conditioner on, so it made no sense to feel a chill constantly," he said as he slowly looked down at the little pink ring he'd removed from his bag.
All eyes went to the item, but he was extremely cautious, almost protective, of anyone who even twitched in its direction. He refused to let anyone else wrong Nikolai.
"That's when I first encountered him," he whispered as he stared at the little ring.
"I didn't understand it at the time, but he was standing on the other side of that wall. Standing guard, staying rooted to that spot so that if anyone ever discovered that basement, he could protect his little brother from harm."
A sad smile wandered onto his face as he blinked back tears.
"He didn't have the mental ability to understand that his brother had died along with him. He was guarding a corpse for years while feeling like he was freezing to death over and over again."
The police chief leaned back in his chair slightly and crossed his arms calmly over his chest.
"That is quite a tale. I'm curious, how did you finally meet either of them face to face?" he asked with interest, but surprisingly, no humor. He was honestly trying to believe him.
"Well, I first realized that there was something behind the dreams when I was forced into another. It was the same set up, but it was colder at the top of the stairs when the dream first started. I really didn't want to slowly wade through it again like last time, so I hurried down them, but then things began to change. The chill that I had left upstairs began to seep downward, and at the same time, I heard that thumping sound, but this time it didn't sound like metal on metal. It sounded like someone was dragging something down the stairs, making it thump each time it hit a stair."
He paused again, hesitated for a moment, then slowly slipped the ring on. A harsh chill sank into his bones, making him cough a few times before he was able to open eyes that clearly belonged to Nikolai and not himself.
"I had planned to kill him. He'd escaped from me when I'd dragged him underneath the water in the hot tub. Caleb had woken him up, but I couldn't process that at the time. I wanted him away from my little brother. He was a human, and humans killed us. I could easily kill him inside of my brother's dream if I tried again, so I brought my baseball bat and made my way towards him while remaining invisible," came Nikolai's voice, clearly having taken over.
Taylor blinked a few times, making one of his eyes change to its normal color so that he could continue with his own story, too.
"Caleb ended up intervening, though. Nikolai had me trapped by the fish tanks, but for some reason, Caleb stepped in front of him, and of course, he would never harm his brother," Taylor said, nodding slightly to Cadon, who smiled back at him, clearly remembering, and not regretting that moment in the least.
"When I woke up the next morning, Adoni's girlfriend, at the time, Sasha, was there and had decided to hang up a chalkboard to try and communicate with whatever was in my house," he said, earning a nod from the chief.
"Yes, she gave us a very thorough statement of everything that happened. You have a very good friend there, boys," he said, earning a nod from them both before Taylor felt Nikolai take partial control back.
"They researched once Caleb contacted them, and figured out that my brother and I had both disappeared at the same time, and considering that there were two possible entities in the house, they concluded that it was us," he said, his eyes locking with Caleb's mother.
Taylor could feel the hatred bubbling through his system like shards of glass and ice, but he did his best to meet that chill with a warmth of his own.
This is our chance. Your chance. Attack them with words.
Nikolai let out a quiet growl through his lips, startling the officers, but thankfully, neither pulled a gun or responded in a negative way.
"I nearly killed Adon trying to possess him. Thankfully, I succeeded and he healed, and while I had a lot of trouble controlling myself at first, we eventually began to be able to work together after I took complete control. Being able to breathe again, and just not be freezing every day allowed me to slowly return to my senses. I still do not have the same emotions as a normal person, and my cognitive ability is still recovering, but Adon gave me a chance to exist again... and to tell our story so that the one who killed us is brought to justice."
His eyes remained on Caleb's mother as he spoke, refusing to look anywhere else.
"Caleb managed to show Taylor a dream of the attack that killed us, but it wasn't until later that we were able to verbally say that his mother had bludgeoned us both to death with the metal baseball bat I now carry with me," he said, watching the woman try to hide her anger behind a forced, slight-smile.
"It has been so very long since that day, Nikolai," his mother started. "I know that you love your brother dearly, but that day did not play out that way. I was at the grocery store when that happened, buying food for Caleb's birthday party later that evening," she said calmly before looking at her husband.
There was a gleam to her eyes that told Adon and Nikolai that she was going to begin spinning her tail now, and that, judging from the man's expression and posture, they had agreed to use him as the scapegoat.
"I was the one who killed you both," Nikolai's father finally said, proving that he was intending to take the fall.
"You were not," Nikolai replied immediately, not even bothering to look at his father. His eyes were squarly locked on Caleb's mother. Adon could feel the immense amount of effort it was taking the banshee not to leap across the table and snap her neck.
You're doing amazing. I'm here for you, and so is Caleb and Adon. We can do this... the right way.
Nikolai licked his lips and lifted his free hand to point at the woman.
"You bludgeoned your son to death because you didn't like that he wanted to be a social worker instead of a chemist or whatever else he was smart enough to do. You were mad because he wanted to move out with me and travel the world's oceans and study fish for fun when he wasn't working. You were mad because eight months before his birthday, he confessed that he was gay... but you tried, so many times, sometimes even multiple times a day, to force him to change his mind. You wanted grandkids from me, but you, at least, in your own words, didn't want your own son to be a disappointment who liked boys. You already treated him poorly. Putting him in the basement with just a crappy mattress and a fish bowl. Yet you expected him to grow up to be an obedient child who would stay with you and not move away or choose a career path that didn't pay a hefty sum that you could mooch from."
He took a breath and finally looked away from her, his attention turning to Cadon.
"You wanted to change him to be what you wanted and what you could manipulate. And when you couldn't do that? The day of his birthday. The day he would turn eighteen and earn his freedom from having to live in the basement with his treasured little fish and shoddy tiny bed, you beat him to death."
The woman turned her ice-cold eyes back to her husband, who took the hint and quickly leaned forward calmly.
"I'm afraid that your memory has been distorted, son. I killed you and your brother. I had lost my temper and could not stand that he was gay. I took it out on him, and when you tried to defend him, I killed you to keep from having a witness."
Liar.
"You loved Caleb almost more than me, your own son."
The man blinked abruptly, but quickly bit back any kind of emotion that might have slipped free of his façade.
"You loved him, but by the time you heard what was going on downstairs, it was too late. He was already critically injured, and I was beaten so badly that it was unlikely that I would live, either, even if you tried to stop her," he said, making Taylor want to hug him.
Since he couldn't physically do it, he wrapped his free arm back around the backpack in his lap and squeezed Cadon's hand tighter.
"We were dead either way, so you decided to just go along with what your wife wanted. You let us take our last breaths down there as you sealed up the basement permanently, ignoring your bleeding, unconscious sons. Then you went about your life as if nothing had ever happened."
His father seemed like he wanted to reply, but he didn't seem able to. Instead, his wife smacked her hand on the desk between them and hurried to speak.
"We put out Amber Alerts for both of you! Of course we were worried! And I didn't kill you!"
Nikolai had Taylor's body lean back in their seat and smile knowingly.
"You were trying to blame him for beating us to death, but then you said that you put out Amber Alerts for us. So, after my father allegedly beat us to death, you decided that you didn't know where we were and were so worried that you notified the police to put out the alerts after sealing up the basement for no reason? Your story has more holes in it than my skeleton does from the droves of rats that had gnawed on my decomposing body in that decrepit basement!"
The floor shook slightly with his yell, but thankfully he calmed himself and remained in his seat... but just barely.
The police chief seemed to realize that things were going to get harder to manage and stood up, but not before he looked toward Nikolai and smiled.
"Lad, are you able to tell that story, in full, in front of a judge and jury without getting too upset? This case will likely go to a death penalty, and if you can give us enough detail that our forensic scientists can corroborate your story after they go over the scene, we might be able to convict."
Caleb's mother started jumping to her feet, but when Nikolai met her with a ferocious snarl as he, too, got to his feet, she quickly sat back down with fearful, wide eyes.
It's okay. Let's sit back down and talk to the police chief.
Nikolai did as told, turning his attention back to the other man.
"Yes. I will tell this story to them. I will tell them the truth," he looked toward Cadon and nodded.
Cadon smiled and looked up at the police chief.
"Yes, both of us will tell everyone what had happened. We will see to it that we get justice for ourselves... the right way."
The police chief nodded and gestured for them to leave.
"I will contact you shortly for the trial dates. Thank you for coming today."
Nikolai allowed him to slip the ring off at that point, making Taylor sigh with relief as the chill left his body. He quickly stood up and after slipping the ring back into his back and settling it over his shoulder, he walked out with Cadon, the weight in his chest from the stress of the situation loosening the slightest amount.
They would testify against Caleb and Nikolai's parents and finally get justice for them, but they had one more thing they needed to tend to first.
Need to find that exorcist...
(Okay, this is technically the end chapter but the epilogue is going to go into actually finishing off the full story and what happens a bit afterward. Look forward to it? :3)