The Boy Within the Walls (Brahms x Greta)

11︱Emily

"I did my best." 

Like a deer caught in headlights her head slowly turns, peers towards the man towering over her. Outside, the forest was solemn. Snowflakes fall like magic sprinkles and the wind howls gently, framing the melancholic feel of the forest. 

He did his best. She couldn't help but scoff as she gazed at her friend's grave. The mound of dirt where two stones lay atop, below Malcolm's corpse was rotting. 

God forgive me. Her thoughts run scattered. Brahms picked a beautiful spot to bury him, just beside the lake in their estate. Frozen, the lake spreads into the lush green forest as snow blankets their surroundings. A giant oak tree sways above them covered with dripping snow and icicles. 

"You picked a beautiful spot to bury him." She turns to see him staring at her dumbfoundedly. His hands are in his pockets, and he's staring so profoundly at her it makes her squirm on her feet. There's been some tension between them, but also some sort of understanding. 

He's more lenient with her now, as if confident that she wouldn't dare try to leave. Finally, she has the liberty to do chores on her own, to roam the estate without being guarded like a prisoner. Days pass as she explores the estate, roams the halls, and takes care of Brahms. 

But she knows. He was always watching her. His secret passages in the walls, she discovers, spans almost every nook and cranny of the manor. Vulnerable as she was, she wasn't stupid. She hears every creak of the walls as she stalks the house.

"Tell me about Emily, Brahms." 

Silence hangs between them. The tension was so palpable she could almost taste it. For a moment she thinks she's crossed the line but he turns towards her, breaking the tension. 

"Don't you already know? I heard Malcolm spilling the tea." Her breath hitches. Of course, he'd been listening to their conversations. What did she expect? 

"I heard his side of the story." 

"Two types of stories," Brahms interjects, eyeing her warily. 

"Polite talk and pub talk." She stares at him cautiously, waiting for the ax to fall. But he stays calm, staring at her somberly as if waiting for her to speak again.  

"Did you kill her?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

He pauses,  shuffles his hands in his pockets, and shifts his weight foot to foot. The snow crunches beneath his feet as he finds the courage to speak again. 

"I don't recall exactly what happened, but she angered me. That's what I remember." He peculiarly stares at her and she braces herself for whatever he has to say. 

"My mother was always critical of me. What I'd wear, how I talk, who I could be friends with. As far as she was concerned, I had to be perfect, live up to the Heelshire name." The snow falls on his hair like glitter, the curls framing his already cracked mask. 

"I wasn't allowed to mingle with other children, except for Emily. Mummy would always invite her over, force me to play with her. It was fine at first, we got along. But as time went by she changed, showed her true colors."

"Which is what, exactly?"

"She was controlling, mean, cruel. She'd be nice and polite when the adults were around but bully me when we were alone. One day we played in the woods and she said something, I can't remember what, but it triggered me. I hit her and I didn't stop." 

She stares at him uneasily, terrified at his revelation. Was he always this disturbed a child? She muses to herself, her stomach-churning. 

"When I got home my mother saw the blood on my fists and panicked, she slapped and beat me. She went on and on about how I was abnormal and a killer and that I had to be punished. She locked me up in my room and she..."

He stops, staring intently at her, fear and hesitation in his eyes. She reaches out to console him. "It's okay Brahms, you don't have to continue if you don't want to." 

She thinks she's heard it all but he touches her hand ever so softly and continues. "She spilled gasoline on me and lit me on fire. She locked me in my room and left me to burn to death. My father got to me just in time." 

He hangs his head in shame. Through the holes of the mask, she could see the tears forming in his eyes. She could hear the muffled sounds of sobbing behind the mask. 

"I'm sorry, Brahms." 

She places a consolatory hand on his shoulder, feels his body rising and falling as he weeps. The curls dangle in front of his face, framing his mask and giving him a rugged, boyish look. For a moment she feels a kinship with him. 

They'd both suffered at the hands of other people. She with Cole, Brahms with his parents. The wind wails eerily, the cold seeping into her bones. She shivers. 

Suddenly she feels Brahms wrapping her with his coat. "You're cold." He says through shivering teeth. "I'm fine." She turns away from him. In the corner of her eye, she spies Brahms staring at her intently, as if analyzing her. 

Nausea suddenly grips her as she avoids his gaze, penetrating and direct. She knows it's only a matter of time until the other shoe drops. 

"Greta?" Brahms calls for her, in his deep masculine voice. 

She turns towards him, eyes him warily. 

"You're afraid of me, aren't you?"

"Should I be?"

He doesn't speak. The silence, coupled with the wailing wind is haunting. The mask with all its cracks and edges stares back at her. 

"Are you going to hurt me, Brahms? Are you going to kill me like the others?"

"No. You're different..."

"I bet Emily was different too at some point, and you still killed her."

He glares back at her. Fear suddenly grips her when she realizes Brahms towering over her, a dark look in his eyes. The same ominous ones that stared back at her when he hit her. Yet there was something about him, a sense of restrained violence. She stares at his body, his tense breathing, his shoulders rising and falling, his hands balled into fists. 

She realizes she may have crossed a line. Was this the end for her? 

She closes her eyes, waits for the inevitable. Her breathing intensifies as she anticipates what's coming, a fist, a kick, a blow. 

Nothing comes. 

The sound of crunching snow fills her ears and she opens her eyes, just in time to catch Brahms trudging his way back to the manor, leaving her in the dark cold.