Portion of Chapter Six

Part of chapter six of the ole novel. 

Chapter Six: Acheros

Acheros felt the cold steel rip and tear its way through the object, and it was only a few moments longer before the last strand in the rope was slit, the former bonds falling to the ground in a heap, useless. “Alright, you listen very carefully now, understand?” Acheros waited a few moments before the woman-- arms still tightly contorted behind her back, mouth held firmly shut by the thick tape draped over her face-- nodded her head in frightened assent. “Okay,” Ro spoke with sincerity and calm, his voice taking on a personality all to its own. “I’m going to let you go. Not here, that would be foolish, but I’m gonna take you out to my car, we’re gonna drive somewhere far off, and I’m gonna let you go.”

The woman began to cry, her entire body shaking. They were not tears of grief, but happiness. She was more happy than Ro had seen any woman, in a long long time. And why was he sparing her anyway? He never spared the women he kidnapped, it was stupid, foolish. The authorities would be on him in an instant. Even if he threatened and promised death if they were to talk, the women would talk anyway. He was being brash. But perhaps he couldn’t do it anymore. For nearly two years, he had been doing the same thing. Hoping against hope that it was her, only to find heartbreak after heartbreak. And each new one tore out another piece of what was left of his tortured soul. 

But it wasn’t this pain that made him decide to free this woman. It was Her. Cecilia Beck. The woman he had loved more than he had ever loved anything his entire life, and the one person he knew on the Earth better than he knew himself. She would be ashamed of him. She would hate him. “Ro. Dear, Ro. What are you doing? What have you become? You were so much more than this, a better man than this.”

A better man. Better. Ro wasn’t sure what he was anymore. Maybe he was a monster, like his family had always assumed. Maybe Cecilia had been the only thing preventing his full fall, and with her gone, there was nothing left but his inner evil. What had he become? 

Acheros still could recall the day he had asked Cecilia to marry him. he could remember it like the countless facts and definitions he had memorized over his years of schooling. Nearly three years ago now, he guessed. Three years sounded like an eternity, but for Acheros, every day had passed in the blink of an eye without the woman who had been his all.

It had started out as a normal day, those three years ago. The sun was shining, though by no means was it the perfect weather for what he intended to do. It had been fairly cold-- it was an October morning-- and as the day dragged on, more and more clouds began to dot the sky above, blotting out the dimples of sunlight that drifted between the trunks of the myriad of trees. Acheros had asked Cecilia to accompany him on a walk through the estate’s grounds, but more specifically to his favorite spot in the vast land his father owned. His father was a wealthy man, and the estate on which Arthur Edgerton had built his home was nearly seventy acres, fifty of which was situated in a dense, beautiful forest of trees. Far back in the woods, Acheros had discovered a small pond when he was a boy. It was barely more than a pool of water, but it was the most beautiful place he had ever seen in nature. Ro must have been only eight or nine when he had found it, but he loved it from that moment on. It was surrounded by trees on all sides, tiger lillies shooting up around its edges. In the cool, dim light of the evenings, Acheros used to lay down by its side and listen to the frogs sing their songs to each other. It was the only place Ro had ever found peace and tranquility on the estate, and it was truly his. 

Finally, after a long trek through the grounds marred by Cecilia tripping over a root and splashing mud all over her frontside, Ro led the two of them to the side of the pond. At that moment, the weather had been perfect, Ro could recall. He couldn’t have planned it any better had he tried. Two dark, foreboding clouds high above had parted, and the sunlight shined down perfectly above the clearing around the pond. Leading her gently to the side of the water, Acheros had dropped to one knee, fishing the all important piece from deep inside his suit’s inner pocket. 

She had gasped, Acheros remembered with a smile, her hands covering that beautiful, impossibly perfect face as she realized just what was happening. “Cecilia Beck,” Acheros had begun a little nervously, his voice catching on her name but gaining strength as he continued. “I love you. And the past seven years of my life have been the best by a long shot. You took me from the edge of a dark, deep abyss, and gave me a reason to be hopeful in life again. You are the single greatest part of my life, and I would be remiss if I couldn’t spend every moment of the rest of it with you. Cecilia,” Acheros had gently raised the top of the ring box open, revealing a beautiful, glittering diamond ring, “Will you marry me?”

She had simultaneously begun to laugh and cry, throwing her head to the side and closing her eyes tight as a single tear slid down her cheek. She nodded vehemently after a few moments of stunned indifference, “Yes. Yes of course I will, Ro. I’m so happy.” Acheros’s eyes had nearly bulged out of his head, the blue in them swirling. She said yes! He couldn’t believe it. He slid the diamond onto her finger, noting with excitement how dazzling it was in the sunlight. He felt an uplifting chuckle escape his lips, and he bounded to his feet in an instant. Sweeping Cecilia into his arms, he remembered-- even three years later-- how perfect those thin, vibrant lips had tasted and felt. He had kissed her for only a moment, but it was as though time had frozen. Just the two of them, alone, together in the forest by his favorite place in the world. It was a moment he would relive countless times over the next year, and countless times since, though with an entirely different emotion.

The realization hit him once more that Cecilia was unalterably gone. She was dead. She would never come back, and every happy memory and every enjoyable moment was tainted with the knowledge that it was all his fault. That somewhere, Cecilia hated him for what he had caused her, and for what he had become in the years since she died. Wrenching himself back to the present, he resigned himself to what had to be done.