43
Rayne
The Final Tape
I n the video, it was snowing. The sky looked gray and cold, flakes drifting gently between the trees.
My mother wore her bright red coat, with a thick scarf wrapped around her beautiful long hair as she walked through the woods.
She held the camera in her hand, unsteady.
Her eyes were reddened, with deep dark circles beneath, as if she hadn’t slept in days.
She looked exhausted. Defeated. But she tried to smile at the camera.
“Hi, honey. It’s Mom.”
In silence, my heart broke. Salem squeezed my hand.
“If you’re seeing this, I’m probably not with you anymore.
” Her voice trembled, and she looked away from the camera for a moment.
“Maybe it’s been a few years now. Maybe you’re grown up.
No matter how long it’s been, I want you to know how much I love you.
From the very first time I held your little tiny hand, I’ve loved you so much, Rayne.
And I’ve always wanted nothing but happiness and safety for you.
I would do anything to keep you safe.” She smiled, but it was sad. “Anything in the world.”
Crows squawked overhead and she flinched, the camera going out of focus. For a moment, the only sound was her deep and panicked breathing. When she finally lifted the camera again, her back was against a tree and she lowered her voice, as if she was afraid someone was listening.
“This is important, honey. You need to listen to me. You need to believe me. If I’m dead now, it’s because your father killed me.”
Like a knife in my gut, her words ripped me open. Salem made a horrified sound, but edged closer to me, wrapping her arms around me. Shielding me.
“I promise, I did everything I could. I’m doing everything.
..” She trailed off. Her head swiveled, and she stared off into the woods.
Her eyes were wide—the expression of a hunted animal.
“Your father has gotten involved in things he doesn’t fully understand.
I told him not to involve you. Just a child.
.. his own child...” She closed her eyes, exhaling heavily.
“He thinks God is speaking, but all I hear is the Devil.”
Cold chills ran over my arms. She started walking again, slowly, every step crunching in fresh snow.
“He’s intercepting my letters,” she said. “He has been for months. He watches whenever I leave the house.” She kept glancing over her shoulder. I’d never seen her look so afraid. Even as a child, I’d seen the rift between my parents, but I never knew it was this deep.
Mom was terrified of him. How could I have never seen it? How had nobody else—not my aunt, not my uncle—noticed what was happening?
But then I recalled what my uncle said, the “wild” stories my father told him about Mom. He was setting her up, sabotaging her, seeding the poisonous roots that trapped her here.
A rage more deep and cold than any before settled in my heart.
“I’m going to hide this tape where he’ll never find it,” she said. “I love you, honey. No matter what he tells you about me, please believe that. I wish I could protect you from all the awful things in this world.”
My nails dug viciously into my palm. I was biting my lip so hard I tasted blood.
Mom came closer to the camera. A feeling of claustrophobia crushed my lungs.
“No matter what he told you about me, don’t believe it.
No one believes me, but you... you need to .
He isn’t a holy man, Rayne. I don’t know what he’s trying to do, but I promise you I tried—I’m trying —to get us out of here.
He tells people I’m crazy.” Her eyes welled with tears.
The tapes. The book. The photos and the whispers. The long breadcrumb trail led straight to my father’s guilt.
“I won’t go without you,” she said fiercely. “If I’m gone, please know this: I never wanted to leave you.”
Static filled the screen.
He killed her. The murderer who took her from me, who stole my hope, my dreams, my love—was my own father.
I stared, unmoving, trapped in the limbo of anger and grief. All this time...
“She was trying to tell me,” I said. “I didn’t want to listen.
I shut it out, I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t stand the whispers.
I ignored them until they turned into screams.” I closed my eyes, remembering all the times I turned my music louder, plugged my ears, closed my eyes.
The echoes of her dead voice were more than I could bear.
My father had fooled so many, only to be killed by his own hubris in the end. I still didn’t fully understand how he’d done it, or what wicked bargain he’d struck to bring the angel here. But that creature was tied to both my mother, and the book we’d dug out of her grave.
“It’s not your fault, Rayne.” Salem’s voice was full of all the gentleness I’d spent my life longing for. “You buried your childhood with her. You’ve been trying to protect the scared kid inside you all this time, because no one else would.”
I squeezed her hand as the guilt rose inside me like a tidal wave. It created a whirlpool with my anger, threatening to drown me, but Salem kept me from sinking. “I couldn’t hear her over my own fear. So she went to you instead.”
Salem wrapped her arms around me, and I immediately did the same to her, squeezing her close.
“All these years I’ve wondered who killed her. My father lied. He lied to me... to everyone.” I didn’t care about crying, for once. There was relief in this sadness, validation in this agony. I knew the truth now.
“She wants to protect you,” Salem said. “She told me so. She said we have to stop her before you get hurt. I don’t know how, but I think the angel is a part of her. Or she’s a part of it.”
She wiped the tears from my face. It ached to look at her, in a way that was too beautiful to put into words.
“You’ve protected me,” she said. “I’m going to protect you too.”
Her promise lit a fire in the darkness of my pain. She’d chosen me, again and again, and even after all the horror, she was determined to be here. She’d faced her own fear, risked her life... for me.
“I love you,” I said, and watched fireworks light up her eyes. Her breath stuttered, her fingers tightening around me.
Leaning close, her breath was mine. A little shiver ran through her when I tipped up her chin and whispered into her mouth, “I adore you.” Her lips were so soft.
The way she sighed, the way she moaned , fuck.
“I look at you, and I finally understand why I’ve stayed alive.
You broke me open and found something I didn’t think I had anymore.
When I said you were mine, I meant it. But what I should have told you.
.. what I should have said... is that I’m yours . ”
“God, I love you too,” she said. “I love you so much.”
How strange to smile, laugh, and weep all at once. How odd to feel hope in the midst of terror, to feel joy despite my grief. For the first time in so long, my hollow heart was full.
Curled against me, she said, “What are we going to do now?”
And, without a shadow of doubt, I said, “We’re going to get off this island. We’re going to live.”