What Happened to Erin?

In his mind, it isn’t stalking; he is safeguarding what he holds most sacred. No boundary is too far when the heart is sworn to guard its own. A moral justification to gild the acts of unspeakable deeds.

Aries sits idle in the Braidwood High’s parking lot. But not from a lack of purpose. The last bell is due to ring, signaling the end of the school day. It isn’t like this every day. He still has his own business to run which his presence is integral for handling the daily operations. Mostly, his men watch her and report back to him. This is a rarity he cherishes, carving time to see her even if it’s a glimpse—a moment’s breath.

Just then, the distant peal of the bell rings out. Aries erects in his seat, despite the same sight to meet his gaze for the last seven years, anticipation still hums beneath his skin. The front entrance swings open followed by the first cluster of students, ensued by the slow tide, streaming down at a sluggish pace.

Exerting patience, he waits, the air locked in his chest. And when his eyes find her, his first breath is a baptism. Dark eyes illuminate like molten light splintering the night sky, a crack in the void. Aries spots the navy blue ribbon first, perched in a neat bow with raven hair like obsidian liquid pouring over her shoulders. Her emergence like the open heavens splitting after a storm, a gilded breach that varnishes the world in a divine lustre.

She walks side by side with a common friend. Opal laughs at something she says, her smile radiant and even the sight of it floods his soul with sunlight. Unable to be with her hurts, but it hurts even more to stay away. Seeing her salves the quiet ache in his spirit. A beloved curse, condemned to trace the edges of her existence.

Out of nowhere, some boy catches her elbow, forcing her to a standstill. Aries lurches forward, grabbing the wheel as his knuckles brighten with a false flush. Opal listens to what he says, nodding responsively. The boy’s demeanour is sheepish, smiling awkwardly like he’s asking her for something. Opal shuts him down with a polite head shake and a neutral expression, a sort of delicate indifference.

Aries eases back as a silhouette slices past his window. Aries opens the car door and bursts halfway out of the driver’s side.

The spindly kid with round glasses to frame his face, he pivots to stare back at him inquisitively. Aries flashes a glance back before he points him out. “Who’s that guy over there?”

“The one talking to Opal?”

Anger flicks fast. “You know her?”

“Don’t you? She’s the piano prodigy.” His eyes dart over him with a quick scan, a fearful bob of the knob in his throat. “Then again, you don’t look like you go here.”

“Do you recognise the guy?”

He nods quickly. “That’s Kyle Morrison.”

Aries yanks himself back and shuts the door behind him. This is not the first time he caught a boy buzzing around her like a fly. She swatted most of them away herself, the ones she didn’t. Aries got rid of just like he did with Tony Hendricks—a fuck boy who thought Opal was someone who he could fuck with.

That was until Tony was ambushed during one of his evening runs, brutally beaten with multiple skull fractures and broken ribs. Reportedly, a single assailant. That’s when his parents decided to relocate since Braidwood wasn’t the perfect model of a safe small town they believed it to be.

Shortly, Opal’s father pulls up by the curb. She hugs her friend goodbye, her smile returning like a lance of light. A sharp ringtone shatters the revelry. Aries leans back to thrust up his hips, slipping out his phone.

He answers without saying anything.

“Where you at?”

“On my way.”

“Sidorov is already here at the shipping terminal. Little man is shaking like a chihuahua. He’s nervous about meeting you, heard about the raids.”

Aries starts the car, engine rumbling as the hellcat pulls out of the parking space, using one hand to swivel the wheel as he backs out.

“They staked over a quarter mill on the haul,” Aries says contemplatively. “I’d be nervous too.”

“No, I think he’s scared of you. That you might link him to the rips.”

“If there’s no information supporting that their syndicate is involved. He has nothing to worry about. The cargo was chipped and is being tracked. Talk to the shipping master, have him check in.”

“Got it, boss. You need me to fetch Calum? I’m sure he’s missing his uncle Jax.”

“Took care of it.”

Dinner is almost ready. In the fading of a warm twilight, Aries is sitting on the edge of the couch, his eyes locked on his phone screen, scrolling absently. Grandma Adeline shuffles into the living to turn on the TV, the news is due to start soon. She turns and casts the remote on a random surface, her attention ensnared by Aries, his thick brows knotted in intense concentration.

“You looking at that phone like it’s porn.”

A shadow of a smile flits over his face.

“I can promise you it ain’t.”

“Oh, I know,” she says with confident certitude. “It’s cause I raised you better than that.”

“It’s cause I was more afraid you than grandpa.”

She lets out a throaty laugh as she wobbles back to the kitchen. Aries fastens his eyes back on his screen, his world narrowing into focus. But not oblivious to the muffled footsteps inching towards him, stalking slowly from behind. Aries’s finger freezes on a photo as his eyes lift readily.

A small form springs and pounces onto his back, arms hooking around his neck.

A smile splits his face as he glances over his shoulder, embraced by the warmth in Calum’s eyes as light the shallows of the sea.

“You got that homework done?”

Calum slumps against him, propping his chin on Aries’s stalwart shoulder.

“Most of it,” he mumbles and his eyes wander to his phone. The picture of the girl with a navy blue ribbon. “She’s pretty.” Aries fixes his eyes back on the screen, smiling softly at the photo. “Ye, she is.”

“Do you know her?”

“Do you want to finish the rest of your homework?”

Calum shakes his head frantically.

“Then let’s agree to not ask each other questions we don’t like.”

He nods his head slowly with a remorseful look that demands guilt. “Okay… but just so you know. She’s too pretty for you.”

Aries’s eyes swing back and Calum breaks into a smile of cunning mischief.

“I can’t argue there. But you’re still gonna pay for that.”

Aries grabs him and Calum screams an ear-piercing pitch as he flips him over his shoulder to plant him on his lap, attacking with a barrage of inescapable tickles. Calum squirms and churns with tortuous laughter, blue-tinged light from the TV reflecting on his skin, illuminating his face.

Aries’s eyes flick up and freeze, a debilitating current clamps down on every muscle as every movement slows to stillness.

Calum’s laughs wilt as he watches the mounting horror etched into every feature of his big brother’s face. The sudden silence even summons grandma Adeline. She notices Aries’s deathly still posture first, like he’s spellbound, under something haunting.

Her eyes follow his line of sight to the TV—the alarming red, BREAKING NEWS banner. She scurries over to reach the remote and increase the volume to tune into the report of a missing teenage girl. A white-blonde girl from an affluent family like most who reside in Braidwood.

It is tragic, tragic things happen all the time—but not in Braidwood.

Except for what happened to Erin.

The question is why did it bother him? Even Calum sees it, too difficult to miss. Calum’s eyes bounce between his horror-stricken face and the picture profile of the missing girl.

“Do you know her?” he asks quietly.

His mind seized by shock, the truth slips, “I did.”