Page 29 of Unlikable

The girl’s eyes slipped bloody into the inside pocket of his jacket. Like a trophy. She should have listened to him. Should have just done what he had asked her to do.

This is her own fault.

Nicholas throws the violin into the bushes and walks back to the clearing. Eleonora has found Cecile, which is exactly what he was hoping for.

He continues to wait in the shadows of the corridor leading to the centre of the maze and watches Eleonora take the girl in her arms. Her breathing can be heard even here.

“What happened?” he hears her ask.

What Cecile replies to this, Nicholas cannot understand, but he does not care either. What matters most is that the feeling he feels now, the feeling of victory and euphoria, has finally returned to him after a long time.

His fingers itch to strike, but he forces himself to wait a little longer. To watch these girls hopelessly try to find a way out of here. If this is his last match, it should be a stunner of an ending.

When he had not heard from Cecile all day, Nicholas just knew she had betrayed him. He hates people who don’t keep their promises. A headache? Of course.

Mother dearest was less difficult to persuade. She’d brought Cecile to him, and when he threatened to kill Cecile in front of her, she knew what to do. She brought the lion’s last prey to his den.

Afterwards, when his mother saw what he had done to Cecile as punishment for the girl breaking her promise, she had called him a monster.

“Is this what you wanted?” she had shouted. “Is this the monster I put on earth? God forgive me for this sin.” Then she had looked at him in disgust. “I am going to take Eleonora to safety, and then you will pay for your actions. I no longer care that I will be exposed. That people will hate me for what I brought into the world and that I will never get the antidote for the demonic stuff you administered to me. I would rather die than help you any longer. Her words would have been believable if she had not stammered and trembled with fear so much. “You were never my son.”

Her words meant nothing to him. He just couldn’t take the risk of letting her go, which would ruin his stunner of an ending. His mother was fast and determined, but not fast enough.

When he had taken her life, he kept staring at her for a moment, just to see if he would feel something. Whether killing his own mother would give him something of an emotion.

It didn’t.

And so perhaps it is just as well that Eleonora will be his last victim. He realises he is not normal. That there is something wrong with him. At least, that’s how he would be described. He can’t help the fact that he was born this way, made this way. He just can’t do otherwise. He has to take revenge on the people who humiliated him. He has to kill.

Nicholas keeps a sharp eye on the two girls. He laughingly shakes his head as Eleonora again tries to lift her friend upright. “I’m going to get help,” he hears her say. She sounds unsure of herself.

Eleonora bends over Cecile, whispers something to her and then turns away from her, walking towards one of the other exits.

“Come on, girl,” Nicholas sings loudly above the noise of the wind, and he leaves his hiding place. “Come quickly.”

Eleonora comes to a halt. She stands with her back to him, her arms clasped tightly against her body.

Cecile starts squawking at hearing his singing.

“Come on, girl, come quickly…” he sings on ominously. “Come on, girl, it won’t take long. Now come quickly, quickly and quickly.” Nicholas walks into the moonlight, and when Eleonora turns to look at him, he stares straight into her soul. “Because in the end, you will come…”

Eleonora starts screaming.

“Back anyway.”