16. Jael
Another Life - SZA
T he morning sun creeps into the bedroom; crisp white light that matches how I feel on the inside. After another night of spiraling, I’ve woken in a state of calm, like I’ve expelled all the toxins that lived inside me.
I had a moment of weakness where I let lines blur and dark desires take over.
But I’m awake now. My time at the cabin has to come to an end.
This cabin was always a temporary refuge. Trouble is closing in from all sides and I have to stay a few steps ahead.
Detective Laurent, Dr. Wolford, now Deputy Dudley.
The tide is rising and I can see myself drowning if I’m not careful.
I sit on the edge of the bed and flick on the small TV mounted to the wall. The local news is on, predictably covering the Cleaver murders. What else is new?
Photographs of the victims flash across the screen like a sports team roster.
Everyone from Maximillion Keys to Celeste Fairchild and Detective Maloney.
Lyra Hendrix.
My heart aches at the photo they’ve used of her. It must be fairly recent. She looks so much different than I remember her, dark eyes shining and her braids hanging around her heart-shaped face. My sister is a couple years older than me, but she’s always been the shorter, curvier one. I was slender and tall even as a girl.
Our mother used it against us.
She told my sister to focus on being a prodigy piano player. She told me to focus using my looks to get ahead in life. I had nothing else to offer…
I switch off the TV and draw in a deep breath.
My sister isn’t dead, and though I’m no closer to finding her, I’ll never stop looking. Giving up isn’t an option.
I redirect my energy into packing. The duffle bag sits on the bed, its zipper opening a gaping hole that swallows my things up. I pack what I’ve brought and stuff in some of Mrs. Klum’s things too, like a few spare changes of clothes. Mr. Klum’s belongings aren’t spared—some of his weapon collection will be coming with me.
Packed and ready to go, I move into the kitchen to make some food. I’m running low on energy after last night’s mess, and if I’m feeling it, Bront? must be too. He’s barely eaten in days. He’s been strapped to that chair since we’ve gotten here.
Beast with superhuman strength or not, fatigue and starvation are taking their toll.
The pantry door creaks as I open it and dig out several cans of soup. A few of them will be going with me on the road. Three of them I set aside for now. One for me, two for Bront?. The kitchen fills with the savory aroma of chicken noodle soup as I dial down the heat on the stove and pour it into bowls.
I’ve used two cans of chicken noodle and one can of pot roast and vegetables. I eat first, quiet and alone at the family table, listening to the birds chirp outside.
Bront?’s head hangs forward when I enter the main room. The chains have rubbed his wrists raw and the blood from his gashes, even the fresh scratch marks from last night, has dried. He lifts his head at the sound of my padding feet. His dark green eyes meet mine, and I see it—exhaustion, hunger, pain.
But also a flicker of determination. Even now, he won’t beg. He won’t plead.
“I brought you something.”
He doesn’t respond, but I’ve stopped expecting it from him.
I claim the chair across from him and reach for his leather minotaur mask. “In order to feed you, I need to take this off.”
He tenses at first but then holds still as I slide the mask off and reveal his exhausted, mangled face. Scooping up a spoonful of chicken noodle, I feed him his first bite.
“You must be confused,” I mutter. “One second I’m feeding you, then I’m pointing a gun at your head and fucking you. Now I’m back to feeding you.”
My dark humor falls flat.
He opens his mouth to accept another spoonful of soup but otherwise offers no reaction.
I scoop up more and feed him that too.
“I’m not even sure I can explain it. Sometimes it’s like… sometimes it’s like I can’t control what goes on in my head. I just… do things. It’s like I blackout, and then, once it’s out of my system, I realize I’ve messed up.” A small, bittersweet note of laughter leaves me. “My mother used to tell me I was impossible. I was nothing but trouble, always looking for attention. So I’d do these things that would force her to see me.
“Play with a ball in the house and break a lamp. Scribble on the mirror with lipstick. Steal her favorite pieces of jewelry. Pick fights with my sister when she was trying to practice. I didn’t get why I was doing these things. But I just wanted her time. I guess it’s manifested in other ways now that I’m grown.”
The chicken noodle disappears, the bowl soon empty. I switch it out for the pot roast and vegetables, serving him that too.
“Are you thirsty?” I ask in between spoonfuls. “I brought you a glass of water.”
Bront? doesn’t say he is, but I assume he must be. We’re on day three, and he hasn’t had any water. A man of his size must be on the verge of dehydration.
“What was your childhood like?” I ask. “Do you have any brothers and sisters?”
It’s funny, because his silence has started to mean different things. Depending on his body language or the energy he gives off, I receive a different impression, and it’s almost like a conversation of its own.
At my question about his childhood, he doesn’t shy away from my gaze. He peers at me openly, his misshapen features relaxed. Not clenched or etched with defiance.
“I have a whole backstory for you,” I laugh, then spoon more pot roast to his mouth. “You grew up in the woods raised by wolves or some other predatory animal. You found your way to Brighter Days and wound up by the hospital for the food scraps. Nurse Big Bird used to feed stray dogs all the time. Not saying you’re a stray dog… but, you know.”
His gaze doesn’t waver, though I detect a hint of humor.
“I’ve wondered about your scars. I think it’d be impossible to count them all. Does the mask make you feel better? You prefer to stay hidden?”
We’re on the last few spoonfuls of pot roast and veggies. I collect the green beans, carrots, and chunks of meat and lift the spoon to his scarred lips. They part for me, the closeness between us almost intimate.
I’m feeding him like a lover would.
My heart flutters inside my chest. It’s like skipping a beat, leaving me acutely aware how confusing this all is.
“Maybe I need to wear a mask too,” I whisper. “No one’s ever seen me anyway. My mother had no interest in me. My sister doesn’t want to be around me. I was thrown away at that hospital. The only time I’ve ever gotten attention is when I’m… like last night.”
“No.”
My brows jump, stunned by his single word response. “No what?”
“No mask.”
Silence hangs between us, heavy and full of things unsaid.
He won’t offer any other explanation. He won’t go deeper, telling me exactly what he means. But I don’t need him to—the sincerity in his rough, gravel-like voice spoke for itself. The sliver of understanding I find staring him in the face tells me what I need to know.
My throat tightens as I blink to tears.
“Thanks,” I mumble. “That… that actually… it means a lot.”
I give him more water and then take the empty glass and bowls into the kitchen, where they join the rest of the pile in the sink. The Klums will find a mess when they eventually return, but they’ll just have to understand that other things were more important.
Carrying my duffle bag and backpack into the main room of the cabin, I set them down by the door. The keys to the station wagon dig into the palm of my hand as I clutch them and turn around to face Bront? one last time.
“I wasn’t going to leave you alive. This place was going to burn down with you in it,” I say, gesturing to the bottles of lighter fluid in the far corner. I’d dug them out of the Klum’s shed out back. A laugh that’s dark and brutally honest leaves me. “But I’m not going to do that. I’m going to leave you like this and let you figure out your own way to escape. Hopefully, you’ll take it as a sign of good will.
“If I’m being honest, it feels weird parting ways. You’ve… you’ve been a part of my life for years now. You’ve brought me so much fear that seeing you still disgusts me. It pisses me off to know what you put me through. All the times I was made to feel crazy. But I guess… there was some other part of me that took comfort in the fact that you were watching. You were always lurking. In some fucked up way, I wasn’t so alone anymore.”
Bront?’s jaw sets. Something new darkens in his expression.
He’s angry. He… doesn’t want me to leave.
I turn my back on him and step toward the door at the same time there’s a sharp knock from the other side.
My blood turns to ice, intuition aware of who it must be.
“Ms. Hyde,” comes Deputy Dudley’s voice from the doorstep. “I know you’re home. Your car is in the drive and the lights are on. Please answer the door. There’s a very important situation I would like to discuss with you.”
I slink toward the door and peek through the peephole.
The deputy isn’t alone.
He’s standing beside another man in uniform, their squad car flashing red and blue lights from a close distance.
“Shit,” I whisper under my breath.
This can’t be good.