All The Darkness

By Lo-arna Green

Nate knew a life of colour when he had Stella by his side.
Now she's gone, her life cut short, he sinks deep into darkness when he discovers who is responsible.
He leaves town and leads a quiet life keeping to himself, not feeling he deserves anything more than just merely existing, in all the darkness.

Edie is trapped in her life, made prisoner by those who are meant to love and protect her.
She is drowning in a quicksand she can't breathe in. She's lost her voice, her strength, her self-esteem.
When these two cross paths, they'll both wonder if they deserve happiness. Can they make their way out of the darkness and to happiness with each other?

How do we convince ourselves we deserve happiness? How do we live with the dark acts we have committed?
All the Darkness explores the parts of our minds we try to keep hidden, even from ourselves.

Book 2 in All The Colours series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lo-arna Green
• Release date: Jan 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311823823

Lo-arna Green

Lou Belle is a professional daydreamer who enjoys penning poetry and prose, usually of a romantic nature but occasionally dabbles in sci-fi and supernatural/horror.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Nate

Four Years Earlier

The night I wish I could erase from existence plays on repeat, stretching my mind to its limits. I imagine my brain is an elastic band stretched out so far it's losing colour and will snap at any moment.

I'll snap.

It should have been me.

I shouldn't be here. Free, walking around. Breathing.

I should be gone.

I should be in prison where some meathead has claimed me as his bitch.

I should be rotting six feet under the earth.

But I'm not and she is.

With her long, soft silky hair and shiny, vibrant green eyes always full of admiration and raw unashamed love for me.

Gone.

Her eyes will never shine again.

I will never again have the chance to run my fingers through her hair.

Her lush lips will never curve upwards for me, ever again.

I lose my head in her sister, just for a short moment in time.

Her sister isn't her. She's beautiful. But she isn't my Stella.

Her eyes are wrong, and her hair doesn’t smell the same.

But I shut my eyes and grit my teeth as I drive further into her.

I slap my flesh so hard against hers it is no wonder her head hits the headboard; I don't put my hand between her head and the board. I don't even shuffle our bodies further down the bed. I would have for my Stella had I had the chance. But this isn't about caring, this isn't about love. There is nothing tender about fucking the sister of the girl you have loved since forever to try and stitch shattered hearts back together. I just want to come and get the fuck out of here. This is only the second time I've done this—one clumsy tangle of limbs before Stella was mine, this time is better physically now that I am older, though each thrust smashes more cracks on to the surface of my rotten heart.

I pack a bag and I leave. I can't stay in this town without her. Nothing makes sense without her. I don't make sense. I lose myself in the bright lights and dark alleys of Melbourne, which is of course what I want, to be invisible. That is all a piece of shit like me deserves. It's easy to be invisible in the city. Months pass in a blur of alcohol and willing women, they teach me things and I pretend they are Stella. That she is still here, that I didn't let her down. I pretend I didn't fuck her sister not all that long after I let her down. When I return home, I find the whole family is gone. Stella's mum and sister. Gone. Just like my Stella.

Kelly is there for comfort and the comfort grows into something more. Something I wasn't sure I would ever be capable of without Stella. Kelly smooths over some of the cracks etched on my black heart. But she still receives a watercolour version of what I once was.

That's all my life is; it is black without Stella. Nothing.

Black eventually gives way to grey.

Until it over time becomes peppered with water colour.

There's some spark there, but it's dull. Some colour, but it is watered down.

Watercolour can be pretty, but this isn't.

This is half a life.

Half a heart.

My heart is superficial.

It beats, but there is nothing inside.

***

Kelly stands over me now with a knife in her hand. I see the madness racking her body, making her a trembling, wild mess. My Kelly is a mad Kelly. She has something wrong with her head. She doesn't see reason, she doesn't know logic and she does not hold any morals. I can't wrap my head around why better hearts than Kelly's are still when hers still beats. She hurt Jazz—it is still something I wish I could have prevented.

If only we could see hearts when we look at people to see what is truly inside of them.

It would save us a lot of trouble; and time.

My time is running out.

Kelly is seeing to it.

You never loved me, she growls in a voice saturated with a hate so black I have no control of the dancing my chin is partaking in. You always loved her.

I swallow, almost choking on my tongue. Saliva has left my body. My breath is trying to flee as well. I wish I was just watercolour on a page, and then I could float out the window never to return.

I was never good enough for you, her eyes are absent of soul. She towers over me, sucking me in to her vortex.

You were, I rasp. It's me who isn't good enough.

Relief floods me. I spoke the truth. For the first time since that night, truth has spilled from my lips.

Her grip on the knife slacks, her jaw pops. What?

I close my eyes and transport myself back.

Away from here.

Away from her.

Give me the knife, I request calmly.

Because I am calm now. I just want to get to my Stella. I'm sick of pretending on this earth that it will ever be okay without her or that evil isn't lurking underneath my skin.

Are you crazy?

I chortle. Coming from her, that is funny.

What? What's so funny? her whiny pitch scratches at my nerves.

A sunburn beneath my skin.

I saw who took her. I wasn't unconscious! I shout, veins popping in my neck. My head shakes with the force of it.

What, she expels on a breath; the knife bounces on the wood floor. I crawl to it. Her eyes widen. It's warm in my hand, yet holding it chills me. I heave myself off the floorboards.

You didn't stop him? she croaks, both of her hands cupping her throat, like the words burnt her on the way out.

I shake my head, my pulse thumps in time with her discomfort, dances with it.

Rejoices.

No. He had a cricket bat pressed against my throat. Promised he would take care of her. Winked at me. Winked. Anger is back, coursing through my blood, rushing in my ears.

An angry red sea sloshing inside.

He's my brother, the words tear from her chest, moisture leaking from her eyes follow the words. And he is . . . sick.

Your fucking brother? What the fuck?

I loved you—always. I guess he thought he was doing me a favour. Removing Stella.

Removing? my voice is low, soft.

So . . . I could have you, her eyes bore into mine. I see the love in them but now it makes my stomach churn. I remember the knife in my hand, the one I was going to push into my heart to end my suffering, so I could be with my Stella once again.

I place my forehead against hers; she sighs and melts into me.

Just how I want her.

I slide the knife into her skin and am surprised by the ease of it going in. I expected it to be harder than it is. I enjoy it so much I pull it out of her and back in. It's almost sensual. A new height I didn't know was possible. I do it over and over.

In and out.

In and twist.

Out and sigh.

My hands are wet, they smell metallic.

I keep going.

I keep going until I can't see for red.

Red is everywhere.

Red is for dead.

Chapter 2

Nate

Present Day

For four years I've lived off the grid.

For four years I've kept to myself.

I haven't looked back since I left town that night. That night.

My body is a vessel.

There's nothing inside.

My organs work as they should, my heart beats and that's as far as it goes.

My hands are still red. I've scrubbed them many times but I can still see.

I don't regret what I did.

Perhaps the scariest part yet is I would do it again.

I only wish I’d been able to do the same to that rotten mongrel who ended my girl's life.

Or better yet, I wish I'd had the balls to stop him before he took her.

But I didn't . . . and here I am.

I live a quiet life.

Work every day. Beers and fishing on the weekend and that's about it.

I don't keep in contact with anyone back home and I never intend to.

Townsville in Far North Queensland was as far as I could get at the time without leaving the country. I didn't really feel like going further north and I definitely wasn't heading south to Tasmania. Heading west was out of the question, couldn't run the risk of running into Jazz, I had no way of knowing what she did and didn't know.

I left Albury with Kelly's body and arrived in Townsville without. When I allow myself to think back to that night, I remember I was going to end my own suffering because what the fuck was there left to live for? Instead, I cut her life short. Was that wrong of me? Yes. I didn't have the right to do that but it feels right somehow. I've avenged Stella in some way—however small—it's there.

I enjoy the laid-back lifestyle here. The scenery isn't hard on the eyes. Nobody knows me here, I've made surface mates and that's all I want. Nobody knows the real me here. Nobody digs. Everything from my past doesn't exist here, only existing in my dreams, as well as haunting me while I'm awake and stone cold sober. But nobody knows.

I wake up and go through the day on auto pilot and then lay in bed at night thinking of Stella. Sometimes I am lucky to get some hours of oblivion where I sleep, but most nights are just filled with restlessness and regret.

My mind won't stop.

My heart can't forget her.

Her and her sister always went on about colours. Jazz more so, but Stella enjoyed blabbing on about them too in her bubbly voice that I could listen to for hours. I didn't care if she was droning on about the most boring topic in the world; I would just shut my eyes and enjoy her voice. A voice that always made me smile and feel warm. Her laugh was addictive; you couldn't help but laugh along with her, even if you didn't find whatever she was laughing at particularly funny.

I have colours from time to time . . . just mere glimpses of blurry water colours. Nothing I can really grab on to.

I will never know vibrant again. I don't have drama, but I don't have passion either and to be truly alive, I think you need both.

Chapter 3

Edie

Edina May, get your arse back in here, his voice pushes all the air out of my lungs.

My legs hurt, yet I can't straighten from my crouching position because he will see me. And I really don't want to have to lie to my co-workers again tomorrow.

I hear his boots across the wood decking, each clomp in time with my heavy, thumping, terrified heart. I'm squeezing my hands so tightly together, digging my nails in so hard there is half-moon marks on my skin.

Better that than his hands on me.

I don't know how this happened.

I don't know how I got here.

I don't know how to get out from this.

I'm stuck under all the rubble that is my shitty life. I'm suffocating.

Frozen.

Stuck.

Maybe I should just let him kill me.

It's the only way I'll ever be able to get away from him.

His boots move from the decking to the grass. He's moving closer. I can't track his movements now. He's like a cat.

He pounces. Pulling me from my safe haven.

His knuckles connect with the bones in my face. I close my eyes and imagine I'm elsewhere, anywhere but here—until his rage weakens. He will wear himself out soon. It always happens.

Especially when he starts out as brutally as he did tonight.

He's always more worked up when I give chase. He spits in my face, his toxic saliva runs into the corner of my eye, mingling with my tears until my face is nothing but moist wreckage.

My blood.

His sweat.

My tears.

His spit.

He heaves his body off mine and moves away over the damp grass.

Leaving me to sort myself out.

Just another day at our house.

Chapter 4

Nate

I give my fellow workers the usual greeting smile as I head into work in the morning.

A smile that doesn't reach my eyes.

But nobody seems to pick up on that. I don't mind. I prefer to blend into the background as much as possible. After I skipped my hometown, I got myself an apprenticeship as a mechanic. It's fairly solitary work which I enjoy. I join in on Friday night staff drinks but for the most part, they leave me alone.

Nate, can you run a customer home for us? Gary, my boss asks as I pour myself a morning coffee in our small makeshift kitchen.

Sure, I nod. I don't mind doing the runs, usually the apprentice does that but I don't think I'm above errand jobs and besides, I've only been fully qualified a few months.

Cheers mate. Young Benjamin might find himself out on his arse one of these days.

Late again?

The first year apprentice Gary hired when I qualified values the partying side of life more than the working.

Fuckin' had it. I tell you.

I stir my coffee with a smirk. Gary talks big but he has a heart of gold. I think Benny boy has about ten more chances up his sleeve, at least and he isn't a bad bloke. Not really. Just needs to rework his priorities a little.

How many stops? I ask as a take a generous sip of my coffee, enjoying the warmth as it spreads throughout my veins.

Just one today. Other customers had rides organised. She's a bit spooked I think, Gary chews on his lip pensively.

The customer?

Yeah. Go easy there, he slaps me on the shoulder and exits the room. I frown, finishing off my coffee quickly and doesn't my scorched tongue know it. I walk out to the customer waiting area that contains a weathered red leather couch and some random magazines that haven't been updated in easily a year, more likely longer. Sometimes Gary's wife, Marley comes in and pretends she knows how to run a garage, does a little bookwork, answers the phones and leaves magazines but that doesn't happen often. She much prefers the day spa. Nice enough lady, just not much between the ears from what I've witnessed. I heard her tell Gary once 'business stuff' was too serious and boring for her.

There's a woman huddled in the far corner of the couch. She has her arms crossed and her torso bent over so far she is almost completely doubled over.

Hi, I say.

She jumps. Okay, Gary wasn't wrong. I'm Nate. I'm taking you home?

She clears her throats as she stands. Yes. Thank you, her voice shakes so I smile kindly at her. Usually I don't care about making conversation or even bothering to make eye contact with the customers, I throw a grunt their way as I head to the car and they follow. Usually that's okay because everyone has their faces in their phones or just don't want to talk to the grease monkey. But this woman doesn't seem self-absorbed or snobby. She's scared as shit and I want to know what's got her that worked up.

Where to? I ask once we are in the car and I have started the engine. She rattles off an address, I plug it into the GPS and then an automated voice fills the silence in the car.

I'm Edina, she says timidly after we drive down to the end of the street.

Edina? How do you spell that?

E-d-i-n-a.

Different to how I thought, it sounds like Edeena, I thought there would be more e's in there. What the fuck am I even talking about?

She blushes.

Nate, I go on. "You