Chapter Twenty-Nine
He had killed someone. He had killed someone, with the exact same fetish that I had let him express on me.
He had taken things too far with me only last night.
With this new information there was only one thing that I was thinking.
And it was… there was someone else before me.
I knew death. I knew that I had killed. It was the only vivid memory I kept from my childhood.
I too knew what it was like to kill by accident.
I was the one who they screamed at. I was the one who wished it would all end.
I was the one who threw the toy with that very intention.
The very toy locked dad’s break in the moment that ended my parents’ life.
But he had fully unleashed on someone who had died. She had spread her blood all through his luxurious penthouse, and I bet he licked up every single bit of her pouring blood. Images flooded my mind of his tongue becoming the mop to liquid that once gave her life.
Is that what he wanted the most? Is that what this fetish was about? Did he want someone to die for him? Was that the highest expression of love that he needed? Because it was the only one that he had ever known.
“I wanted her image to live on, so that’s when I created the digital version of her. She was so bright, there needed to be some sort of memory for her life.”
“Ruth…” I sighed and he nodded.
“Ruth wasn’t her original name. I couldn’t let her keep her original name because the AI that I created is too smart, it can read the whole internet and within the world wide web, is images of what the world believes is still a missing person.”
Holy shit. He got away with it; he covered up the murder.
No one else knows. But I know now, and I’m sure Jackie does too.
She would have helped him cover it up. But when my parents died.
I had got away with it too. No one knew I was the cause.
Other than Elyse. But even she refused to believe the truth that she saw in front of her very eyes.
Henry sat still, his hands now hidden under the table, and I could tell he was fidgeting with them, by the way that his shoulders were moving.
He sat there, staring at me, waiting for my answer.
But I didn’t say anything, I didn’t even flinch or shake.
Because I wasn’t really sitting in front of him anymore, at least my body was, but my mind was somewhere far different.
Recreating every single vivid detail of the story that he told me of her, of Ruth, the digital version of his first bloody lover. The AI that I had befriended.
“Wait,” I finally said. “So, yesterday, under the water…” I suddenly felt breathless, dizzy as I felt as though I could feel her long red hair in my hand again.
“I didn’t fucking pass out at all,” I spat.
Thinking about how he had lied to me about that, no he hadn’t just lied to me, he had completely gaslighted me.
He made me believe that my current reality was something entirely different.
I sat back in my chair. I had never raised my voice at Henry before, and in the grand scheme of things, that was probably the last thing that I should have been screaming about.
But for some fucked up reason it was that which had made my blood boil the most. Blood boil, I scoffed at my own thought.
He probably loved that reaction from me, it no doubt made him want me more.
Henry stood up from his seat, dragging it over closer to me, so that he was sitting slightly to my left.
He sat down, reaching for my knees underneath the table, swinging them around towards him.
Taking my hands in his, he sat still waiting for me to look him in the eyes again, holding my gaze long enough, long enough to the very moment he felt the muscles in my hands, shoulders, jaw and stomach relax.
“You know I always wanted to tell you from the start. I never wanted to keep anything from you. The more I got to know you the more that I had complete confidence that you were finally the one who I could confide everything in. Who would love me for everything that I had done. All of me… I was never planning on lying to you yesterday, not at all. It was the very reason that I took you out there. I know that I should have told you the truth before we even entered the water. But my plan was if you could discover it for yourself then, it gave me a chance to open up to you, to have the exact same conversation that we’re having now.
But after your reaction, and the fact that you passed out from what you saw, I realized that it wasn’t the time. ”
I was so confused, I had to look away from him, staring down at our hands that were intertwined in my lap.
The hands that not too long ago I thought were going to be ones that I could hold forever.
But now I was holding the hands of a murderer, a liar, a gas lighter and there were still so many unanswered questions.
“So that’s why you took me on the bush walk today.
Did you know that I would see the blonde hair?
Did you think that that may be another great chance to tell me?
Who even is she?” As soon as I spoke the words out of my mouth, it all made sense.
How was I only seeing all of this so clearly now?
Aria, the blonde AI image. The fucking stunning blonde AI.
He had killed her too. He must have. But that wasn’t five years ago, it was fresh and right in front of me.
“Who was she?” I spat again, before giving him a chance to answer.
My heart pounded as my mind ran at a thousand miles per hour.
“Who was she to you? She’s the blonde AI, isn’t she?
What was she, some sort of island blood slave that you kept here?
I can’t believe I thought that I was the only one.
” I tried to wiggle my way out of his hold, but he pulled me tighter towards him, his knees squeezing mine together as his fingers dug into my wrists.
“There has never been anyone for me but you, Molly. There has never been anyone else that I was born to spend my life with. You are my one and only. This is why I am telling you all of this. Do you not think that I don’t know what you could do with this kind of information?
You could end my life forever. You could tell everyone the truth.
The truth of who I really am and who I’ve been.
Heck, you could bring whoever you wanted to come and see the bodies.
You could completely end everything that I have built in a single heartbeat with this information.
And the truth is, I don’t mind if you do, because now that I have met you, a world without you, Molly, is a world that I don’t want to be a part of.
Since I have met you, there will be no after you.
There is only before you, and with you. And what I promised you, was nothing but the truth, I’ve only told you the very first part of my story.
We will get to the blonde,” he said, as I noticed the way he almost spat on the world “blonde.” “But there’s a few more pieces that I need to put together before we get there. ”