Demented ➳ h.s [Editing Starting Soon]

CHARLOTTE’S POV

My hands shook while I rapidly searched for answers. Signs that I hadn’t seen before. I spent hours watching court tapes over and over and listening to the voice recordings of the people of Cheshire. There was nothing new. Other than my conclusion that Frankie was in the court tapes as well. I wanted proof that Harry wasn’t a murderer, but I also wanted proof that my brother wasn’t either.

I love Frankie too dearly to ever imagine him doing something so vicious and animalistic as to skin women and rape them. Celia tried to lighten the air by explaining that Frankie was gay, anyway. We were proven wrong while calling around Florida and finding that Frankie had lied to more people than we thought.

The love I have for him is fading and turning into a type of love where I’m willing to kill. If I had to kill Frankie, I wouldn’t think about it at this point. I’d just do it; get it over with. But in this way, I’d make him suffer. The way he killed five women, abused Celia, and wanted me to die. If that was the case, he knew he was hurting Celia. He wanted me to fall weak at the sight of my best friend being tortured.

He thinks I’m stupid.

He honestly has always underestimated my talent. He thinks I can crumble, break. What he doesn’t realize is the fact that I watched my parents and my grandfather die. I’m not vulnerable anymore. If anything, I’m as mentally strong as he is. He’s always been one to think he’s a tad bit smarter than everyone. He thought and I guess still thinks that he’s always four steps ahead when he was always eight steps behind. I no longer need to guess and assume and investigate. I know Frankie has done this. I just need evidence.. and a reason why.

As if the God I have almost stopped believing in was listening to my thoughts, a brick fell through my window. Celia was on the ground watching the court tapes to see if she saw anything else unusual. There was a note attached to the brick. I picked it up and Celia sat on the bed next to me after looking out the window and seeing no one there. The note read:

869 so watery love..
nice fed mom

you have two days, have fun

“What does that mean?” Celia shook her head, I couldn’t answer her question.

“Whatever it means,” I said while assuming my position, “we’re going to need a lot of coffee. Harry is sentenced in two days.”

****

We spent all night and all of the next day typing and wondering what the note meant. We got into a fight or two from tiredness but decided it was best for us to both keep quiet. “Holy…” Celia trailed off. It was as if she’d discovered something but was too stunned to show me.

“What?”

“It’s an anagram. Charlotte, it’s an anagram!” She shook my shoulders and hugged me tightly. “We’ve done it!”

“How, though?”

“The note. I typed and searched and I remembered that a lot of crimes have anagrams or mixed messages or something to want to mess you up. So.. I searched for a bunch of anagramming sites and finally found one. The note actually says:

869 Roosevelt Way
come find me”

“Oh my God.”

“Yeah.” He really does underestimate me. Well, he should obviously since I wouldn’t have thought of anagramming the note but he really does underestimate me. “He’s asking for us to come. Well, they are.”

“We have to go. Now. Call Jack and find something all black. You’re coming on this mission,” I told Celia and began to pack the laptops, notebooks, and everything else into a duffle bag. The same one we used to get into Navarro. Jack came around ten minutes later, speeding down the street.

Hour One

“Got everything?” I nodded and continued to get dressed while he waited, “Alright, I’ll get everything into the car. Hurry, Celia’s waiting. We have ten hours until Harry’s sentence. We have to hurry.” I checked the time, one o’clock in the morning. When I got into the car, Jack spoke again, “Okay,” he started to pull out of the driveway. “869 Roosevelt Way is three hours away, it’s some abandoned warehouse you see in the movies. Creepy as hell, I’ve driven past it once. Anyway, that eats up three of our ten hours.”

“Then we can take out thirty minutes for bathroom breaks and food.”

“True,” I said. “All in all, three and a half hours. That’s all we have to find them. We need time to get back.” We said we could survive on the things Celia had in her unnecessary purse: two thin packs of gum, a bottle of water, sleeping pills, four tampons, and a brownie for the first two hours of the trip since none of us had eaten since early morning yesterday. Celia had the map in her hand and I decided that I’d take a well-deserved nap.

Hour Two

I slept.

Hour Three

I slept.

Hour Four

I slept.

Hour Five

Jack shook me awake and told me that Celia went to the bathroom to, “Change the tampon holding in her waterfall of fluids, as she said.” Which I believed. I went into the gas station and paid for the gas while telling the person which pump we were at.

“Hm,” she said. The lady at front was no older than thirty but was already aging terribly.

“Yes?” I asked while placing food on the counter to purchase.

“I saw a boy come through here earlier, had the same features as you, yet not at all.”

“Blonde? Brown eyes?” She nodded. “How long ago?”

“Maybe four hours ago. Pretty late to be here. Bless his heart, he looked tired but devious at the same time. Scared the life out of me, that look he gave. He looked as if he’d lost his mind,” Celia emerged from the bathroom.

“Hey, are we done here? We have somewhere to go.” The lady nodded and I pulled Celia along and met Jack in the car where we drove off. “Frankie went through there four hours ago. Asked the lady at the front, she knows.”

“Well, at least we know we’re going in the right direction,” Jack’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “But I can’t imagine how hard this is for you, Char. I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” I said and leaned back in the back seat, holding the map tightly and eating a few bags of chips.

Hour Six

Celia and I slept. My third hour sleeping, Celia’s first.

Hour Seven

I woke up a half hour before the warehouses came into view. There was an old house—small enough for two people planning to kill—at the front with a note attached to the front door. “Stop the car!” Jack skidded to the side of the road instead of parking. Celia woke up and instantly became alert, jumping out of the car along with Jack and I. This note said:

her tin do..

Another anagram. We all took five minutes to think. Jack was an expert at thinking and came up with the words, “Third one. It has to be ‘third one’.”

“Let’s check.” So we did. We got a crowbar from behind the porch steps and went to the third building. It didn’t shock us much when we found that it was the third one. What did shock us was to find Raven hanging by the feet at the ceiling.

“You see,” a voice said behind us. “I knew you’d figure it out one way or another. You’re not as stupid as I thought, baby sis.”

Frankie smiled, hands folded behind his back. “Why?” Celia asked. Raven was screaming and grunting behind us. “How?”

“Take a seat my friends, and I’ll tell you.” Hands pressed on all of our shoulders. Men, two of them. Heavy built, a bit smaller than Jack, I observed. It won’t be easy but it can be done. “You see, I’ve always been there. I remember,” he made a laughing sound that fit into a scoff, “remember a few months ago. When I came to England, Char?” I nodded, almost to tears. “I met your dear friend, Harry. Probably doesn’t remember me, but oh do I remember him. He was ‘The One’. He had all the girls but only wanted one,” he pointed at Raven who screamed in response. “I met Raven, we became great friends, honestly. She told me all about how she thought Harry was sleeping with all these girls.”

“You killed them.”

“With the help of Raven. You see, Raven was so pissed at herself and Harry that she needed payback. She thought that it would be okay to cheat on Harry since she had her speculations he was cheating on her with four other girls. And so, that’s where the plan started. I got all the names and faces of the girls I was to go after—we were to go after. And poof, they’re gone. Until maybe a week later when their bodies are being eaten out from the rats.”

“I’m going to be sick,” Celia complained.

“Be my guest. I’ve seen worse. Raven was supposed to also be dead and so she went ‘missing’ around the time the other girls did. Raven was pronounced dead after I took some of her blood and sprayed it around a little. Then, I went back home to Celia, Nonna, and Grandpa. No one blames the American.”

“But why did you try to kill Charlotte and Celia,” asked Jack.

“That’s where the fault in the plan came. Little Charlotte had to go off and take a liking to poor little Harold and found the desire to want to break him free. She found everything. The files, court tapes, everything. All from you,” he punched Jack across the face. Blood trickled down his nose and Frankie continued his speech, “I found this out from Raven, who is an amazing hacker. So, I did what I thought I had to do. I tried to kill you and Celia but I found that way too easy, too simple. So, I used the only way I could think of. Anagrams.”

“What does Louis have to do with this?”

“Ah, I almost forgot. Thank you, Char, you always help me remember. Louis, the poor sucker he is, did everything I asked him to in fear of losing you. Poor sap. He stole your files because I told him to, and he brought them to me. I think that’s all. Not that you’ll need it when you rot in Hell.” He walked around for a little while until coming back. Rope was around all of our bodies. “I’m going out for two hours to run an errand, I need some food. In the meantime, Chuck and Bill are going to watch you. Listen, as a hint, this is your chance to escape.” He looked at the two muscular men and then laughed at us, “Don’t die before I get back. I want to kill you myself.”

We were all in separate chairs, spread at least a foot apart. Beavis and Butthead left after a half hour, we could hear the orgy in the house we’d seen at the front. “Okay,” Jack said. “We can sit back to back, I have a lighter and a pocket knife in my pocket. Char, you get the lighter and Celia you can get the knife.” I looked over at Raven who’d passed out.

“The blood is rushing to her head. She’s going to die if we don’t get her down, and we need her down to prove to the court,” I said. We continued to cut and burn the rope and broke free.

Now,” Celia said, stretching. “How do we get her down without busting her head open?”

I responded, “Good question.” We searched and found two dusty mattresses and stacked them on top of each other, right under her body. We then found the rope that was attached to her and slowly let it go. She fell almost perfectly on the mattress. That’s when Jack picked her up and we started to walk out to get our phones. A car had pulled back up, Frankie was back early. A whole hour early. He came straight to the building to see us idiotically standing there; nothing to do, nowhere to go.

“Well, aren’t you all smart. You even got Raven, the girl who tried to kill two-thirds of you, down.” He continued speaking but I reached behind me where I’d seen an unloaded gun. I didn’t want to kill Frankie, but it was my only choice. “I know you’re reaching for that gun, Charlotte. Good luck finding the bullets.” Shots started firing, all from Frankie. We all went behind the desk except Jack, who laid down Raven and then went out to try and fight Frankie. Celia searched for anything in Raven’s pockets and ended up just looking for bullets with me. This end of the warehouse was unfortunately dark but in the darkness, I found one bullet. Just one.

“Can’t get close or he kills you. Fuck this up and he kills all of us,” Celia lectured. “No pressure.” I rolled my eyes and put the bullet in the gun. I’ve always been good at aiming but my shaking didn’t help at all. I took a deep breath, aimed, and shot.

I missed.

Sort of. I hit him in the shoulder and he fell to the ground to collect himself. Celia handed me the lighter and the knife while we ran and I pushed Jack off of Frankie. Stabbing is hard. You have to find it within yourself to want to kill someone, and that’s hard. I didn’t want to try and kill Frankie, but I knew I had to. Watching him take his last breath wasn’t enough, my arm just kept stabbing and stabbing. All the years of pain I’d endured was going away, killing my own brother. It hurt. Hurt is an understatement but it hurt. “Char, Char! It’s over,” Celia cried out to me. And I tried to fall into her arms but Jack had Raven over his shoulder and put me other his other. We still had to invade the courtroom. We would have to make our four hour drive into two hours or else… we’d be too late.

Notes

Thought I'd write this longer one <3

One more chapter until the end of Demented.. this has been one hell of a ride, and one hell of a story. I love all your cute faces, and thanks for sticking with me x