Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
EMERY
She was quiet now, but I could still feel the heat coming off her, the tension in her body, her heart hammering under my hand. She’d fought like a damn wildcat, my fierce little rabbit, but now that we’d come into our side of the city, she stopped fighting and went still, staring out the window, looking confused, not understanding where we were taking her.
Just to hold her like this was everything. I thought I could keep her like this forever. I didn’t want to let her go. Now that I had her back, someone might have to pry my cold dead fingers off her.
I knew she was upset, knew I’d have to calm her down, show her she was safe.
I was beginning to realize what a fucking stupid idea it was to grab her like this. She was scared, really scared. I told myself I never wanted to see her scared of me like this again. Yet, the others said tonight was our best chance, but that we needed to be covered, needed to hide our faces, couldn’t give ourselves away.
So I donned a mask again and was forced to hide.
I wish I’d done it another way, but the twins were willing to help as long as I did it their way. And I couldn’t risk getting caught. Uncertain of who else might be watching. Or guarding her.
My hold tightened on her thinking of that motherfucker who shot me. Let him try to take her from me again and see where he got put in the ground.
I closed my eyes as Dom raced back to the church.
No, I needed to get my head clear, needed to drain these violent tendencies out of me. Let the past burn away. I was smart enough to understand I needed to get my act together, needed to leave the anger and terror behind.
For Eve.
And for myself.
As Dom turned down a desolate road toward our home, she trembled against me, her face turning away from the window. I wished she’d turn and look at me instead, look me in the eyes so I could stare at her, feel her, know she was real, and this wasn’t some bittersweet dream. I almost asked her to until I felt something wet hit my hand.
Oh, baby. What have I done?
Her tears hit my arm and I was scared now, because if she turned and looked at me teary-eyed, I might break.
I’d promised so many things in the dark. Anything to have her back. But this had been the price, and I was a selfish piece of shit.
You’re right, Em. You are. Can’t do anything right. That’s why she’ll leave you.
I didn’t allow myself to react to Nina’s words even if, for once, she was probably right.
I wanted to comfort Eve instead. But we were turning into the church, driving down into the garage, and I wanted to get her inside first. Then I’d do whatever I had to, to fix what I’d already fucked up.
As Dom pulled in next to Lez’s Dodge Hellcat and parked, I kept hold of Eve while getting out. She didn’t struggle this time, just gazed around, still confused, probably wondering why we brought her to an abandoned church. Her mask had slipped off in her struggle so I got a good look at her. Her face was wet from tears, pale, with dark circles under her eyes. I knew this wasn’t all my doing. I remembered she looked that way ever since they put her in that hellhole, Severfalls.
“Where are we?” she whispered. I wasn’t sure if she was asking me or just thinking out loud, but I decided to answer.
“Somewhere safe. Like I promised.”
She looked at me, and I thought maybe my heart stopped for a second as her eyes finally locked with mine. She didn’t say a word, just searched the darkness where my eyes lay hidden behind the mask.
As we stared at each other, Dom moved around us and took out the wheelchair from the trunk. Lez cursed as he opened the car door.
“Please don’t do this,” Eve’s friend begged.
Eve peered around me. I barely moved my eyes from her to notice Lez carrying the girl out of the car while Dom had her chair and was starting for the door leading inside.
Lez still had his knife pressed to the girl, as if she could actually do anything.
Eve wrenched herself from my hold. “Hurt her and I’ll kill you,” she spat.
Lez didn’t react as he passed by. The girl looked at Eve, wide-eyed.
“It’s okay, Eve, it-it’s okay,” she stammered, clearly not okay.
“Lez, she can’t even walk,” I said, bringing Eve with me to follow them. “Lose the knife.”
“No, but she can scream,” he replied as he carried her through the door. “Can’t afford to have her give us away.”
We both knew there was hardly anyone around and he was being an overdramatic asshole. Or he just wanted an excuse to use his weapon for any reason. Either way, he was scaring her and upsetting Eve.
I wrapped an arm across Eve’s back, steering her through the passage, deciding not to argue, burying my irritation down. I didn’t want to scare her more by getting pissed off now, even if Lez was asking for his blade to be shoved far up his ass.
Once we entered the community room, Dom unfolded the girl’s chair and Lez set her in it. He crouched beside her, pointing his knife up.
“No screaming. Either of you. Got it?”
Lena’s jaw clenched as she stared down the point of the knife. She slowly nodded.
“Good.” He flipped the knife back and sheathed it. “Dom, get their things.”
Dom moved, first taking the girl’s purse, then looking to search Eve. My baby didn’t move so I searched, finding her phone and ID in the sling she wore. He rifled through the purse to grab the phone, setting everything down at his station.
As he and Lez moved aside, Eve shrugged away from me to go to her friend. She leaned down and grabbed hold of the girl’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Eve’s voice quivered. “I’m so sorry, Lena.”
She pulled her in, and they embraced. Her friend whispered something in her ear. I watched from afar, wishing I wasn’t fixated on the fact that our reunion hadn’t gone like I hoped.
No hugs for you, asshole.
I clenched and unclenched my hands, trying not to feel the ache of wanting Eve to hold me back, knowing after everything I technically didn’t deserve it.
What the fuck did you expect? For her to just skip into your arms and have a good cry, being blissfully happy you're not dead in the water?
It hadn’t really occurred to me how things should have gone.
Just be glad you have her back.
And I was. I was so happy to have her. So fucking happy it scared the shit out of me. I was on edge. Nervous even.
I thought about how she fought me bringing her here, how she looked at me. I hoped I hadn’t lost her already.
She pulled out of her friend’s embrace and straightened, looking around. Dom was at his computer, and Lez had disappeared.
“Why are we here?” She looked at me as she said it.
I shifted on my feet, feeling like a little kid about to be scolded. “Your friend wasn’t planned,” I said gruffly. “It was supposed to be just you.”
“Okay. Then why am I here?”
Her defensive look made my heart sink a little.
When I didn’t respond, she frowned. “Are you taking me back to Severfalls?” she asked in a low voice, trying to keep the fear from showing.
“No,” I said firmly.
She studied me, maybe thinking she could see the truth even through the mask, uncertain if she could trust me. I was more than ready to show her how much she could when Andrea appeared from her room.
She looked between Eve and Lena, her face going crimson. “What have you done?”
I turned to her. “What I said I would.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “Only, she’s not alone. And I didn’t honestly think…” She put a hand up to her mouth, and I could see the horror in her eyes. I could only guess what she was thinking, what she thought I planned to do with Eve. But she was wrong. “This is wrong,” she said, dropping her hand. “Just because the others think she can tell you anything, what’s done is done.”
Eve gazed at Andrea as she held her friend’s hand in comfort. “You look familiar,” she whispered. “Why do you look familiar?”
Andrea glanced at me, then cleared her throat and said, “I worked for your father.”
We stood in silence while I watched Eve try to understand what the fuck was going on. I imagined it was close to the same bewildered shit I felt when they first brought me here too.
“We met once when you were a child,” Andrea continued. “At one of your dad’s parties. I took a picture with you and gave you a jolly rancher. I used to stash them in my pocket for…for…”
“For us freaks from time to time, isn’t that right?” I added bitterly.
Andrea peered at me, all guilty. “Y-yes. Yes, that’s right.”
I tilted my head at her. “So kind-hearted, when she wasn’t helping the other nurses to strap us down to the table.”
Andrea’s gaze fell to the floor. “I help them now,” she said weakly. “To find some justice. To try to mend what I did.”
“Them?” Lena asked.
“Emery. And Dominic, Leslie, Cassidy, and Micheal.”
Eve’s eyes widened as she must have realized who Andrea was talking about.
“So what? That justice involves helping them kidnap us?” Lena snapped.
“It wasn’t my decision,” Andrea said.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. You can’t keep us here.” Lena’s glare turned on me, pulling Eve closer to her. “You—they said you—”
Her words were cut short as Lez appeared from one of the rooms, flipping his knife in one hand. Dom came to stand beside me and signed at Lez.
“Cassidy isn’t returning till early morning,” Lez said. “Micheal will come sometime later tomorrow.”
“Why don’t we get a room set up for you,” Andrea said. “There’s a couch in one of them and I can set up a spare air mattress.”
“W-we aren’t staying,” she tried to wheel herself back while pulling Eve with her. “We can’t. You can’t keep us.” She shrieked as Lez and I took a step simultaneously toward her and Eve. “Stay the fuck back, you psychopaths!”
Lez sighed. “I’ll get the rope,” he said, turning for the storage closet.
“No!” Andrea and I snapped at him.
“That won’t be necessary, Leslie,” Andrea added.
“They aren’t going anywhere,” I said in a low, dangerous voice, more threatening than I meant to, trying to keep my anger at bay. “Eve stays with me.”
“Eve isn’t going anywhere near you,” Lena remarked. “Not after what you did,” she hissed. “What you did to her. And if you so much as touch her—"
Eve stumbled back, clutching her chest as if the air had been knocked out of her. “Lena, wait… y-you can see…” Her voice broke, barely more than a gasp. Her pupils dilated as if the room had suddenly shrunk around her. “But he’s not r-real…” The words tumbled out, trembling. The color drained from her face, a tremor running through her as she stared, frozen in shock.
I got closer, unable to ignore that both she and Eve flinched. That stilled me for a moment but then I reached out for Eve, wanting her to take my hand. “Eve, no one will hurt you.”
She stared at my hand, but didn’t take it. “I don’t want to be alone…”
“You won’t be, I’ll be right here.”
“I don’t want to be alone…with you.”
I froze as her words hit me like a knife to the gut. My hand lowered out of reflex. “Eve.”
Silent tears fell as she turned her head away. “I’m scared…” She paused as if to say more and just shook her head. “I won’t be able to say no…to stop…not again.”
I didn’t understand.
Nina’s laughter came without warning. I told you so.
I shook her off even as her words and Eve’s seeped through me like poison. I hardly even noticed as Andrea swept around them to the closet and grabbed the spare air mattress and blankets. “I’m sorry to say you won’t be able to leave,” she said. “They won’t allow it and I won’t be able to stop them. It’s getting late and we can discuss things in the morning. For now, get some sleep.”
Time slowed as Lena spoke to Eve, eying Lez by the door and then me. Eve nodded and, without looking my way, she followed Andrea to the spare room, Lena behind her.
Nina’s laughter turned into a ringing in my ears.
Take her, Em. She’s yours, right? She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She’s all messed in the head. Like you. Give her some of your medicine, that’ll fix her.
I tried to shake her off again, the urge to break something almost too tempting. Instead, I took deep breaths, closing my eyes.
Kittens, sunlight, a mother’s warm embrace, Eve’s hair caught in the wind, Eve’s smile.
I opened my eyes and moved, approaching the spare room where the pair stood as Andrea set up the bed.
“There’s a bathroom right down the hall,” she said as she laid down the blankets.
I watched for a moment as she moved around to adjust the bed, then I steered down the hall. I kicked open the door to Cassidy’s room and grabbed two pillows. I brought them back to the spare room and set them on the bed.
Lena grimaced at me while Eve looked…about the same. But I’d do everything I could to make her feel safe even if her avoidance hurt like hell, hurt more than the bullets that had ripped through my skin.
Something had changed since we’d been separated. It was as if she didn’t see me, didn’t believe who I was, couldn’t comprehend I was alive, or all the above. I needed to talk to her, set things straight.
First, lose the mask, idiot.
There was something comforting about wearing one. About hiding my face. I thought she’d understand too, that she was no longer scared of it, but it was like she was haunted by it. For every fucked-up thing I did, how I scared the shit out of her, it didn’t take much for me now to see why.
I left the room and stood in the passage, closed my eyes again, breathing in and out for a few seconds. I lifted my hand up to the mask and slipped it off. Gripping it, I turned back to the room.
As I stood in the shadow of the doorway, Andrea turned to leave. She gave me a look that read don’t do anything stupid as she skirted around me.
I directed my eyes away, across the room to Eve, and caught her gaze. She kept her back to the opposite wall, one hand in a fist at her side, her other in the sling which I had yet to ask about. She bowed her head, a lock of hair falling in her face. Not her real hair as I could see the line of the wig, but I wanted to brush the strand away regardless.
I took a step toward her and heard her friend curse softly. I glanced over and saw her gaping at my face, giving me a look that made me want to put the mask back on.
“I always wondered…” she started to say. Then shook her head. I could see the tension in her body from me being so close. Like she wished she could get as far from me as possible but couldn’t.
I glared at her until she couldn’t look me in the eye and forced her gaze down to her hands instead. I turned to Eve who was still watching me, frozen like a doe, like she was considering bolting away from me but she was also waiting to see what I did first.
I knew the longer I stood there, the more uncomfortable she’d likely get, so, as calmly as possible, I said, “I want to talk to Eve.”
Neither of them said a word at first. Then Lena shifted at the corner of my eye. “I’m not leaving,” she said quietly.
I knew I could pick her up with ease and put her in a seat outside the room if I really wanted to. I think she knew it too. But if I did that, I’d damage the trust between us even more. Eve felt safe with her friend. Not with me.
I’d been prepared to have Eve in my room, holding her the rest of the night. Not for this, though.
“Eve,” I said softly. “Will you talk to me?”
Yeah, just like old times, right? Just the two of us, facing each other, one analyzing the other, trying to figure out what the fuck was wrong with them.
Only it wasn’t just me who could use therapy. But I was no doctor, just the crazy motherfucker with a lot of problems, obsessed with his therapist. And this time, she needed someone. And I wanted it to be me.
She averted her gaze. “I can’t,” she said, her words barely audible. She looked so exhausted, like something was draining the life out of her. “You’re not real…” she repeated. She mumbled something else I didn’t catch.
Yeah, this wasn’t right.
Before I could answer, she moved off the wall. My heart leaped when she came toward me, only to sink instantly when she skirted around me to leave the room.
I went to follow, then stopped when she went into the bathroom. I placed my hand on the side of the door. Fuck.
“She has no reason to talk to you,” Lena said, her voice trembling. “You’ve done enough. You’ve broken her, can't you see that? Why can’t you let her go? Why can’t you just leave her alone?”
I bowed my head. “I can’t.”
“You’re a monster.”
“I know,” I said, numbed to that fact already. “I know I’ve scared her.”
Lena made a sound of disbelief. “Scared her? You hurt her. Are you really so blind to that? Are you really going to pretend like you didn’t ruin her whole life?” I heard her sniffle. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
I laughed a little, covering my face. “A whole lot. A whole fucking lot.”
I left the room but didn’t go far. From the hall, I heard Lena’s soft cries. Eve’s seemed to echo faintly from the bathroom, and Nina’s, mocking and cruel, lingered in the dark. Achievement unlocked: Making all the women cry. And everyone said I wouldn’t live up to anything. Well, I sure as fuck showed them.
I wanted to step out into the cold night and just walk until my legs gave out. But I couldn’t separate myself from Eve even now. Didn’t dare let her be far, didn’t want her out of my sight. So I waited instead.
I sat in the community room until she emerged and crept into the spare room. Still, I didn’t move. Andrea slipped from her room with a few pairs of spare clothes and into the kitchen, bringing the girls bottles of water. When she eventually came out of their room, she gave me a despaired look.
I rose, grabbing my chair and bringing it with me as I walked toward her. She shut the door and blocked my way.
“I don't know what your plan is,” she said. “But I’ve decided I won’t let you hurt those girls. None of you will. I don’t care what the Martel family did. No more, Emery. Let her go.”
Boy, was I already sick of hearing that.
I moved to the wall beside the door and set the seat down against it, then sat my ass back down. I reclined, resting my head against the whitewashed plaster.
She stared at me for a moment, then shook her head and turned away, walking back to her room.
I turned the mask in my lap over and over, itching to put it back on. Irritated, I flung it away.
Lez paused before me. Like me, he no longer wore his mask.
“Sitting in for the long haul?” he said.
“I’m used to it.”
“I’ll bet.”
My eyes flickered up to his cat-like green ones. “If you or Dom try anything. If you so much as look at her wrong, a forensic team will be picking glass out of your ass in the morgue, understand?”
“Kinky.”
I gave him a tight smile as a warning. “I’m serious.”
He smirked. “Would you say dead serious?”
I leaned forward. “You’ll find out. If you fuck with her.”
His eyes flickered up to the door, then back to me. “That threat extend to her friend?”
I stared at him, unsure if he was serious or just messing around. “Yes,” I decided.
His eyes narrowed. “You really got it bad for the Martel girl, don’t you?” When I didn’t answer, he shook his head and laughed. “Shit,” he said under his breath. “Who could have predicted that? I can see the obsession written all over you.”
I reclined again, closing my eyes. “You wouldn’t get it.”
“Is that the answer to a joke? Cause that’s what this is.” When I opened my eyes, he went to walk away but then turned back. “She’s still a Martel. Remember that when she betrays us.”
I let him go, knowing that the chances of him trusting her were as likely now as her trusting us.
And of her ever trusting me again.
“Eve? Eve!”
My eyes flew open, and I shot out of my chair. I must have dozed off for a second, rare for me to do, but then the meds had been changing my sleep pattern. I whirled around, shoving the door open without missing a beat and found Lena sitting up on the bed alone.
“Where is she?” she shouted.
I turned from the room and went to the bathroom. The lights were off.
I stalked to the community room and found it empty, as was the kitchen. Only, I noticed a few of the drawers were out as if someone had been rummaging around.
I tensed, hyperaware now. I went deathly calm even if internally I was far from calm. I broke from the kitchen and started searching every room, kicking and wrenching doors open.
Andrea’s exam room was dark. She must have gone to her apartment for the night. Dom was asleep in his room until I slammed his door against the inner wall and he shot up with a gun pointed at me. No Eve beside him. I went to Leslie’s next. He was gone.
Fury washed over me. I rushed down the hall, ready to beat the fucking door down to his little armory when I paused and noticed a light on in Cassidy’s room. I pushed the door aside.
Cassidy wasn’t back yet from her shift. My eyes drifted past the bed to the other side of the room where a full-length mirror stood against one wall.
Eve stood in front of the mirror, wearing nothing but her red dress, her real hair flowing across her shoulders. She stared at her reflection. In her good hand was a knife.
She brought the point of the blade up to her face and started to slowly cut across her cheek, beads of blood forming across the sliced open skin.
I shot into the room and grabbed her wrist, pulling the knife away from her. Eve yelped, dropping the knife at her feet. She turned and looked at me, confused, as if she hadn’t even noticed me until I grabbed her. Her wide eyes reminded me of a doll’s, scared and glassed over until she blinked and the dazed look was gone. Her gaze changed.
“Emery,” she whispered.
I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t keep my hands off her. I brushed her hair away, cupping her face, my thumb smearing away blood. “Baby, what have you done?”
Her brows knitted in confusion. “What you wanted me to do.”
“What I wanted?”
She nodded, her eyes searching mine as if she were still coming out of a daze. “So that we could be together.”
I thought my heart would burst out of my chest and do a happy dance. “We are together, baby, I’m right here.”
She blinked again. “We are…”
“That’s right.”
“But not for long. You’ll leave me.”
I shook my head. “I’m never going to leave you.”
“You said I have to be like you…you said it was the only way. And then…I could meet you in the water.”
This was wrong. “I never said that, Eve,” I said in a low but cautious voice.
“I was scared. I knew I couldn’t say no,” she continued. “So I tried to stay away. I tried…but I couldn’t.” Her hand drifted up to my face, fingers trailing along my jaw. “I didn’t want this to be a dream. I didn’t want this to stop. Didn’t want to stop seeing you like this…so I did as you asked, even when I was sure you were betraying me. I can’t say no.” She smiled sadly, and the blood started to bead again, wetting my hand. “Even if you’re just a ghost.”
A ghost.
Oh no, Eve.
I gripped her face firmly, tilting her head back, making sure she looked at me. “Listen to me, Eve. I would never ask you to hurt yourself for me, do you understand? Never.” My hands shook as I held her. “Whatever you’re seeing, it’s not me.”
She paled. She studied my face now as if seeing it for the first time. “You won’t go?”
I pulled her to me, pressing my mouth to her forehead where I noticed she had a Band-Aid—another cut. Oh, my sweet girl. My baby.
“I swear it, Evee,” I whispered against her hair. “I fucking swear it with my life.”
I sat by the door as Eve slept, her friend lying beside her. Morning was approaching, and Dom was already up, having only slept a few hours because of me. He’d taken the girls’ phones before they could contact anyone and shut them off to ensure they couldn’t be tracked.
Lez had been working on his car in the garage and was now “napping” in his room, though I could hear the TV playing faintly. No one slept normally around here.
Andrea returned at first light. She jumped when I approached her in the kitchen.
“I take it they’re still alive,” she said passively. “So I got a few things. Extra clothes, groceries, hygiene and bathroom products, stuff they may need, more bottles of water. They’ll be the most well cared for hostages you’ve ever kept.” She didn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice.
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. I started going through the bags and putting some of the food and water bottles away. I noticed her watching me, but she didn’t tell me to stop.
“I’m going to ask you a question about the drugs we took under the warehouse, and I need you to tell me honestly,” I said as I put cans on a shelf.
She stilled by the counter where she set down a bag of oranges. “Okay,” she said.
I put away some of the bottles in the fridge before I turned to her. “The side effects,” I said. “I know some have to be more common than others.”
She gripped the counter, and I could see it was hard for her to look at me. She cleared her throat. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Were hallucinations common?”
“No,” she said.
“But they weren’t rare either, were they?”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “Not rare, no, just not common.”
“That’s why Leslie and I had them but not so much the others.”
She opened her eyes and locked with mine. “You, Leslie, and sometimes Cassidy. There were maybe a handful of others but that was all, out of the…”
“The twenty or so kids,” I finished for her.
She nodded. “It usually depends on…several factors. How much you were drugged and tested, and for how long.”
“And if someone were easily traumatized?”
She gave me a serious look. “Why are you asking this?”
I grit my teeth, trying to keep a measure of control. “Eve was in Severfalls for weeks. Now she’s seeing…things that aren’t there.”
Andrea looked ashen as I said it. “What does she see?”
I looked her dead in the eye and said, “Me. Or rather a version of me like how I see—”
“Your sister.” She covered her mouth.
“Yes,” I said, my voice cracking.
She dropped her hand. “They’ve tested on her.” She gave me a sympathetic look. “By now though, I’d suspect they would have improved the drug to have less of those side effects. But with Eve, after everything she’d been through, she was already susceptible to seeing things that severe trauma might produce. The drug likely heightened that.”
“And now she’s having a mental break.” I took a deep breath, trying not to have one myself. I straightened, glaring at her. “Micheal said Severfalls was testing on women who were…expecting.” I tried not to shake as I said it. “Do you think that Eve might be…”
“I’ll find out for sure.”
The urge to sink down and drop to my knees was strong but I kept myself upright. “I need you to help me help her. Will you do that?”
She studied me closely. I could see she was finally starting to get what was really going on between me and Eve. “How long?” she asked, as realization finally hit her. “How long have you been in love with her?”
I exhaled slowly. “Would you believe me if I said the moment I saw her?”
For a moment, I actually thought she might cry. Another one to add to the list. “Yes,” she said. “I can believe that. Does she…”
“She said she did once, in a paper she was writing about me. I hadn’t believed her at the time, too fucked up in my own head. But that had changed. Now? I don’t know and that scares the shit out of me.” I actually trembled, feeling sick. “I can’t tell if it’s the break in reality or if she really still does. She was willing to hurt herself because a fake version of me told her to. And she can’t distinguish between us. I don’t know if that’s love or just the trauma. I don’t know if I’ll ever know.”
Andrea closed the distance between us, placing her hand on my arm. I forced myself not to flinch. “I’ll do whatever I can,” she said, “to help you and her. So you can know for sure. I mean that, Emery. If you really mean what you say, we’ll work together and make her better.”