Chapter 28
TRAP
LONDON
What does it mean to be liberated?
Throughout my career as a psychologist, I’ve counseled countless patients, each one mentally shackled, constrained by internalized limitations. Even those with the most disturbed personalities, who believed themselves utterly free, were governed by a crippling psychosis.
Strip away our matter, and we exist purely in thought.
We are all manifestations of thought, defined by the characters we form within ourselves. Every new moment, every path we choose and journey we embark upon, is first conceived in thought. This thought here, this is my transformation.
I’m being christened by darkness.
I’ve stared into my own reflection and glimpsed the unvarnished truth, undistorted by the images our minds create. When confronted with that raw honesty, you either accept it or you fracture.
No one can withstand the absolute destruction of their mind. We’re not tempered glass—we’re fragile shards, and I’m cracking.
Have I used my skills to break the minds of six patients? Did I place the murder weapon in their hands? Or has Grayson shattered my mind?
Which reality is true?
My bare feet pound against the earth as I race toward the edge of the woods. Grayson’s house looms tall and ominous against the night sky, its lights forming a refracted halo in the crisp air. I use the faint glow to guide me toward the fence.
I’m almost there.
Static erupts, crackling through the dark. “Touching the fence will end the game too soon, love. You don’t want to do that.”
I pant, my chest tight, as I stare up at the razor wire. I can hear the electricity humming along the metal fencing.
Bastard.
I glance around, desperate for another escape.
“There’s only one way out,” Grayson’s disembodied voice says. “And that’s in.”
The mouth of the garden maze lies before me, enclosed by towering walls of vegetation.
“This is madness,” I whisper to myself. “What if I refuse?” I shout into the darkness. “What if I just sit right here all night?”
The chirring of crickets is my only answer.
“Shit,” I mutter, burying my head in my hands as I inhale a searing, bone-weary breath. The ache in my back feels as if I’ve been cracked in two, the lower half of my body a snarled web of pain.
Atonement. A thought that comes to me on a frantic note, a scream slicing through the night. Somewhere within this maze, a man awaits his fate, one of Grayson’s victims. What has he done to deserve this? Is he even worthy of saving?
Who has the right to make that choice?
I never signed up to be a savior. I’m definitely no hero. Yet I refuse to become the vile creature Grayson has painted me to be. I can’t. My father’s blood doesn’t course through my veins.
I have a choice.
I yank the skirt up, freeing my ankles, and sprint toward the entrance of the maze. I took an oath as a doctor—I can’t allow gravity to pull me into the blackest hole…not yet.
Fire snakes a blistering trail through my lungs as I reach the latticed opening, halting just inside to catch my breath. I brace my hand against the wall of green. Thorns bite into my palm, and I wince.
The screaming is louder now, sending a shiver crawling along my spine. A faint glow brightens the sky above the tallest hedges, and I know that’s my destination.
I step inside.
A cold sweat blankets my skin, my teeth chattering. The deeper I head into the maze, winding along paths walled by shadowy green, the colder the air becomes. The temperature plunges as the night grows darker.
“Dammit,” I curse as I stumble into a dead end. I spin around, fingers gripping at my tangled hair. “Where the hell am I going?”
The distorted hiss of the speaker erupts, and I whirl toward the sound.
“You’re too impatient. Head east,” Grayson directs. “You’ll find your patient in the center.”
“Which way is fucking east?” I mutter, my breath fogging the chilly air. Frustrated, I chase the glowing light instead, navigating the maze by shadows and instinct.
A faint tinkling sound disrupts the silence that’s filled the maze until now. The clang whispers into my ears, and I follow the chime, my dress dragging behind me as I cross the worn path. As I turn a corner, the hollow center of the maze brightens.
And shock seizes the air in my lungs.
No.
At first, I refuse to look—to see—so I stare down at my trembling hands instead. My thoughts spiral into a void, pulled downward by the undertow.
Then I look up at the keys.
A canopy of gleaming silver and bronze and rusted metals held aloft by red string—a blanket of blood woven through the sky. The keys clang together, playing a dark, chiming melody that chills me to the bone.
My voice fractures on a frantic laugh, and I look down at the faded key on my skin until my eyes blur. I don’t have my glasses, and yet, as sweat trickles into my eyes, the sharp sting pierces my vision clear.
He knows me.
In my vanity, I concealed the ugly and vile—and yet he saw.
In my profession, your past can be as damning as a misdiagnosis. Shame is the conception of most sins against ourselves.
The keys shine in the spotlights, twirling and shimmering like stars in a black sky. Twin beams illuminate a glass container in the center of the maze clearing: a tank filled to the brim with what appears to be water, a half-naked man suspended above it.
The man sees me, and he starts to scream as he fights his restraint. “Oh, please. Help me—”
I want to turn away—to run—but Grayson’s deep voice cuts through the night, halting me.
“Below your patient is a concentrated solution of sodium hydroxide—caustic enough to rapidly dissolve flesh and bone,” he explains.
“To help your patient, London, you must follow the rules. If you deem his life worthy of saving, that is.”
“Christ… Fuck you, Grayson,” I shout as I spin in a circle, searching for the source of his voice. I claw at the strands of beads draping my shoulders, tearing at them until they snap, glass orbs spilling across the ground.
Then I scream, my body shaking with a violent tremble. Breaths ragged, I touch my chest, willing my heart rate to slow. “How do I save him?” I ask slowly.
“There’s a path you have to follow, stones guiding the way.
As you stand on each one, select a key. For every key you choose, your patient will either be lowered or lifted higher above.
” He pauses a beat. “There are two special keys that I’ve selected for you.
One will set the fiend free, the other is the kill switch. ”
Breath searing my lungs, I stare at the transparent container. A labyrinth of tubes wind intricately around the rectangular tank.
“Too many wrong choices and your patient will suffer the same fate as his victims,” Grayson says. “But for every sincere confession you encourage from him, redeeming his black soul, you’ll move him farther away from his death.”
I tear a hand through my hair. “What crime did he commit?” I ask Grayson. “What is his mental disorder?”
“I’m innocent,” the man cries.
“Shut up,” I snap at him before I glance at the suspended keys. “Tell me these things, Grayson, or I won’t know how to help him.”
I wait, the chilly air nipping at my skin, before his voice finally returns. “Roger’s particular paraphilia is pedophilic disorder, though I don’t doubt you’ll unearth many others beneath his rotten flesh.”
Sickened, I nod to myself. Although pedophilia isn’t my area of specialty, I’ve treated two patients previously diagnosed with the disorder. My stomach churns violently. No paraphilia disgusts me more. Grayson knew exactly how difficult he was making this for me.
I can’t do this.
“At least seven children have suffered because of Roger’s illness,” Grayson says. “Four were murdered, taken from this world by Roger’s hands. Their remains dissolved and buried. He was brought up on charges for only one—his nephew—but the court failed to prosecute due to insufficient evidence.”
Legs shaking and weak, I step onto the first stone of the path. “Why didn’t you just hand the evidence over to the authorities?” I demand of Grayson.
“Because this man had no mercy for his innocent victims, he deserves to be shown none.”
I draw in a deep breath to fill my lungs. Right. I’m trying to reason with a vigilante psychopath. “I can’t do this,” I tell him. “You know I can’t do this—”
“One last thing,” Grayson interrupts. “You should know that Roger’s most recent victim, a boy by the name of Micheal, hasn’t been recovered yet.”
Heart slamming against my chest, I lift my gaze to the man dangling above the container, vitriol burning my throat.
The speaker cuts out with a whine of feedback as I balance on the rock, taking measured breaths.
A wail rips through the canopy, raw and guttural. A scream wrenched from an abyss of never-ending pain. And I realize—as I teeter on the rock, bare feet gripping the serrated edge of stone—that it came from me.
I reach for the first key.
My fingertips graze the silver metal before I latch on. One suspended heartbeat, then I close my eyes and yank.
A grinding noise echoes through the clearing before Rodger’s body jerks and drops. He cries out. “Stop—stop,” he pleads. “Don’t do it. You’re going to kill me.”
I breathe slowly, trying to ease the nausea churning in my stomach. “And if I don’t play, he’ll definitely kill you.”
I step onto the next stone and push onto my toes, fingers stretching toward the suspended keys. Pain flares in my lower back. There’s no logic to Grayson’s game—one of these keys could free this vile man, or they could all send him plunging down.
I grasp a bronze skeleton key and pull.
Roger drops another inch.
Shit. Panicked, I skip the next stone and charge the container. It’s tall, possibly six feet high, and looks like a vertical fish tank.
A sick realization washes over me. Grayson has taken aspects of me to design my tests. He’s even turned something I used to inspire tranquility in my therapy room into a deathtrap.