Someone Who Loves You: SKULL Book Two

Chapter One: Mia

Chapter 1

Argent, Lea County, NM  

May 4, 2020

    MIA LEWIS gasped as she jerked awake. The sharp, piercing pain jabbed and shot through her shoulder as she rolled onto her back. Staring up at the ceiling, she noticed there was an odd blue light tinge to the room. But her eyes refused to focus, giving herself a headache in the process.  So, she chalked the blue glow as part of her fuzzy brain.  She blinked furiously, trying to clear her head.

    Slowly, ever so slowly, she tried sitting up, wincing as the pain stabbed her shoulder again. After several tries, she managed to get herself in an upright position. It didn’t make her feel any better, though.

    Where am I?  Is that a door?  

    The last thing she remembered was stopping at a gas station on her way to Santa Fe. Then… nothing.. blank. Her mind was just as blurry as her vision. Some things she recalled, but getting them to make sense was not happening.

    The faint, bluish glow, she now realized, was not her fuzzy head or eyes, but a string of lights adorning what she thought was the door frame. The lights, like the kind you decorate a Christmas tree with, were skull shaped. The little skulls grinned at her, gaped at her.  

    She sat there, trying to let her eyes adjust.

    She now saw a string of the same lights decorating a coat tree. It was the only piece of furniture in the room.

    The gas station.

    The thought blasted her. She’d paid first, put gas in the car, then—

    Then what?

    Her mind was blank. No. Not blank. Black. A big, black void.

    With a loud grunt, she managed to get to her knees.  Was that door wide open?  And where was she? An abandoned house? Only… that ceiling looked odd. It looked like… rock? Why would a house have a rock ceiling?

    Now on her feet, she wondered how many abandoned houses were in Albuquerque. Outside Albuquerque?  Was she even in Albuquerque?  Was she still even in New Mexico?

    Where the hell am I?

    No windows. No bed. No chair.  Nothing.

    Just a coat tree, two strings of lights and a door.

    Weird.

    Mia took all of this in as her mind drifted. When it did, the image that came back to her left her rattled.

    He took me!  Walked right up to me and took me!

    She’d been getting into her newly gassed car when the tall, blond man approached her.

    Hello, Mia.  I have been watching you.

    That voice chilled her. Had a low, sinister rumble to it.

    She had tried to get into her car and drive away.  But, something… struck her?

    I’ve been watching all of you.

    The pain hit her shoulder once more, her arm hanging limply by her side.  Reaching up with her left hand, she touched her shoulder, fingers came back with blood.  What happened? Did he drug me? Is that what happened to my arm?

    The door opened.

    That was when she realized the door was not wide open, but closed. Now that she could see, she knew the difference.

    His shadow loomed in the doorway as he just stood there for several long moments. “Ah, Mia,” he said at last, “You are awake.”

    A shiver went down Mia’s spine and clawed back up to her throat. That voice, that horrible, awful voice. Her eyes widened as she stared at his frame. 

    Oh, God. He’s going to kill me! The thought hit her. Nearly slapped her silly. Yet she could only stare at him.

    She wanted to run, but would she be able to do it? Her brain was still foggy from whatever he drugged her with.

    “Wh-Who are you?” she managed to ask. All she could see were his eyes – brown? – and that a bandana covered the lower half of his face.

    He c****d his head to the side, those awful eyes – grey in color, she saw now – held an ominous glint. A low, evil sounding chuckle came from his covered mouth. “Why, Mia! I am someone who loves you!” came the horrible reply.

    Her eyes widened at that. She thought she would retch. No, don’t. She took a deep breath, moved to the left, hoping to get him to move away from the door.

    And it worked.

    Just not the way she had hoped.

    He moved all right. Right in front of her, almost springing like a jack rabbit.

    He knew what I was thinking!

    And, then, pain seared across her belly. She looked down at herself, a long gash marked her shirt, but she could see red spreading over it. The dark liquid oozed from her abdomen.

    He cut me! Oh, God….

    She hadn’t even noticed the large bowie knife in his hand. It sliced right across her belly.

    “Ah…” she choked out. Her feet instinctively halted, and she clutched her stomach. Mia could feel the warm stickiness there, felt it oozing between her fingers. She made her feet move, nonetheless, slowly making her way out the door.

Soulless, wicked laughter followed as she stumbled out into a hallway.  “Where are you going, my love?” his awful voice asked.

    Away from you!  Now move, feet, damn it, move!

    Her feet felt heavy, her body starting to numb.  She saw a way out, however, and forced her legs to move. Her steps took on more determination as she finally reached the door at the end of the hallway.

    “Mia, sweetheart, you don’t remember me, do you?” his wicked voice taunted.

    Remember him?  Why would I remember him?

    Soon, realizing she was not yet out of the strange house, she let go of a frustrated whimper. A living room – or what looked like a living room – took shape before her. Tears started to roll down her face at the thought of being trapped.  NO! NO! NO!  She needed to find a way out.

    “You must remember this,” he began to sing, playing with the knife. “A kiss is still a kiss…”  His disgusting laugh followed her as his unhurried, deliberate footsteps followed made the floorboards creak.  “A sigh is still a sigh…”

    Oh, God! I’m going to die here! Butchered by a mad man!

    “Please, Mia,” he said with a hint of sadness.  “Remember me.”

    She wanted to scoff at him. Tell him she didn’t remember. Tell him he could go screw himself.

    There! A window! If I can get to that window…

    Was it nighttime?  She didn’t care as long as she could get there.

    She didn’t.

    Mia felt a sharp pain slice into her back. At once, her knees buckled, her arms went limp, and she sank to the floor.  Her eyes blurred.

    At first, still on her knees. She willed her legs to move. To stand. To get to that window. She knew – knew – her brain was telling her legs what to do, where to go, to escape. But, nothing was happening. Her eyes blurred more, tears falling in huge drops.

    She felt her body slump over, hit the floor.  But she couldn’t move.

    Why can’t I move?

    Booted feet came to her, her eyes rolling as she watched those boots stop next to her.  A hand pulled at her red hair. “Don’t worry, my love. It will all be over soon.”

    “You killed her?!” a new voice exclaimed.

    “Not yet,” her attacker replied.

    Riley… Gemma… I’m dying…

    “I wanted to play!” the other protested.

    A loud snort.  “Tough s**t. She’s mine to do with as I please.”

    Mia, hearing all of this wanted to scream. Found she couldn’t. The two voices, in fact, sounded as if they were in a tin can.  Sounded as if they were so far away. Her body was numb.  She had no feeling, anywhere. Her shoulder quit hurting, her stomach quit hurting. All Mia could feel now was… nothing.

    And that was the last thought she had.

    One Night Later: Albuquerque, NM

    THE TWO cars sat in a ditch off the side of Interstate 25, crushed and mangled. The silver Toyota Camry was nose down in the ditch, while the Lincoln Towncar was rammed into the passenger’s side of the Camry.  

    A woman was in the Camry, disemboweled and decapitated. In the 1970’s Lincoln, a man who reeked of booze.

    New Mexico State Police Detective Remijo “Remy” Garcia shook his head. Too many times he had seen this; an innocent killed by a drunk driver. Sometimes the inebriated driver survived, other times, like this one, not.

    But that was not what happened here. This bothered him. There had been something amiss about that wreck.  It looked…staged.

    Like someone deliberately wanted it to look like an accident caused by a drunk driver.  But why?

    Later, Remy found out why, when the coroner removed the woman’s body from the Camry.

    She’d been beheaded, to be sure, but not from the wreck.

    Now, Remy stood in the city morgue, along with his partner, Lieutenant Philip Ortega, and Medical Examiner Sorsha Carter. All three stood there, looking down at the poor dead woman.  Her head sat on the stump left under her chin, mouth slack, lips cracking. If it wasn’t for that fact that her head was separated  from the rest of the body, Remy would have thought the girl was sleeping.

    Carter looked up at the two officers “As we have surmised, her head was removed before the accident,” she stated flatly “The wound to her abdomen would have bled out eventually, but she could have been saved.”

    Ortega sniffed “So the decapitation killed her?” His eyes held sadness for the young woman’s demise, for the tragedy of it all. His phone beeped, and he pulled it out.

    “Well,” Carter inclined her head. “Yes, and no.”

    “Yes and no?”  Remy asked.

    “The wound to her abdomen would not have immobilized her,” Carter replied.

    “So what did?”

    “This,” Carter said, lifting up the headless body to reveal an angry, gaping gash in the woman’s back. It was horizontal and very deep. “This, gentlemen, is not only what immobilized her, but what killed her as well.” She lay the body back down. “This cut is so deep, it not only severed the spine, but the spinal cord, too. You see, when the spinal cord is hurt, it will cause you to be paralyzed, have pinched nerves, things of that sort. But, when the spinal cord is completely severed, near the brain, as this young lady’s, it’s all she wrote for you. Your body cannot function without the brain.”

    Remy pinched the bridge of his nose. “Because your brain is the one that motorizes everything.”

    Carter nodded.  “Yep.”  She looked down at the body. Her eyes flashed a hint of grief for the woman. But, Remy knew she had to keep her emotions at bay in her line of work.  “Everything in our bodies needs the spinal cord. It is what connects our organs to our brains.”

    Remy let out a heavy sigh. “Jesus…”

    Ortega came back to the table “And you are positive this is what killed her?”

    Carter nodded. “I’ll know more once I do the full autopsy, but yes.  She was dead before that so-called wreck.”

    “And him?”  Ortega pointed to the other body.

    “He was dead before the crash, too.” She caught the looks on their faces. “In fact, boys, he was dead three weeks prior to the accident.”

    “I KNOW,” Ortega said when they stopped on the steps of the building. He looked at Remy.

    “The Love Talker?” Remy asked. He knew Ortega had been thinking it. So had he. But, there were some things that were not similar. The woman’s head, for one thing. Most of the Love Talker victims had the heads missing. The wound to the back was the same as the other Love Talker victims, as was the belly wound. But the whole car accident set-up was new.

    “s**t,” Ortega swore. He sighed heavily. “That phone call I got?” When Remy nodded, he said, “I’ve been told to keep this on the down-low.”  He looked at Remy.  “Sorsha, too. In fact, she probably has gotten the call already.”

    “What?” Remy exclaimed. “But, why?  That’s…”

    Ortega put a hand on Remy’s shoulder. “I know, partner, and I agree. But I have my orders, and so does she.”

    Remy sighed angrily as they headed toward the SUV. The whole thing was f****d up.  And it was only going to get worse before it got better.