Chapter 6 #2
‘That’s what Stoke said. He made it sound like it wasn’t a question of if, but when.’
‘But why?’
I close my eyes and lay my head on Mav’s familiar shoulder.
‘Maybe to get rid of me, pawn the embarrassing stepdaughter onto someone else? Or, maybe, none of it was true. Stoke tried to mess with my head. The Heath lied to me, tried to make me believe I had never left the clinic. They told me I’d had a psychotic break and that everything over the past few months was a figment of my mind.
They made me think that maybe you guys weren’t real. ’
I let out a hard, emotionally charged breath, close to tears, and yet too scared that I’ll be dragged back right now to cry.
'Those sons of bitches,' Blake snarls.
‘Joseph Banderville was in Stoke’s office when I woke up there, too,’ I add. ‘He pretended to be my doctor when I recognized him coming out.’
Shade looks furious. ‘Why would he have been there at all?’
I shrug again. 'I don’t know. I figured they were working together. They might not have known Joe was dead yet. I didn’t see him again after the first day.’
I let out a sigh. ‘I realized while I was at The Heath…this time, I mean, that it's a bad place. So much worse than I thought while I lived there.’
I see Douglas nodding from the front as he drives across the mammoth forecourt toward a small plane much like the one that brought me to Richmond all those months ago for my mom’s funeral.
‘I want to take The Heath down,' I say. 'I want that place closed, and I want Stoke to be banned from ever working with patients again. He shouldn’t be a doctor. He should be in jail. The Blanks, too.'
‘Do you still have the flash drive?’ I ask Mav who nods and draws it out of his pocket, handing it to me.
I give it to Blake immediately. ‘This has an encrypted folder on it that I think might be important. I had some papers from the files, but I gave them to a Blank who said she was a reporter.’
‘A reporter?’
I nod. ‘She was going to do an exposé on The Heath, so I told her where to find the papers I took. She didn’t come back after that though, so I don’t know what’s going on.’
Blake hugs me tightly.
‘I’ll crack it,’ he promises.
We get to where the plane is waiting on the tarmac. Shade opens the door, but before he can get out, Blake has his arm around Douglas’ body from the backseat, and has a knife pressed to his throat.
'Don’t move if you know what’s good for you,' Blake snarls.
'What’s this then?' Douglas says, staying remarkably calm in the face of Blake's violence.
'You’re one of them. What did you do to Daisy while she was at The Heath, huh? Did you put her down in those fucking cells before today? Did you zap her with electricity?' He glances at my face, finding the tender spot where I was smacked by the Blank. 'Did you ever hit her?'
I put my hand on Blake’s, the one holding the knife.
'Douglas was okay,' I say. 'He had to follow the rules, but he was fair. The papers I found showed he barely ever corrected any of us. They pretty much exonerated him.'
Douglas turns his head as much as he can with the knife there and gives me a nod.
'Never sat right with me, what they were doing to you and the others.
Cure you?' He scoffs. 'Torture you into submission, more like. If you want that place taken down, I'll help if I can. Now go, lass. The police will probably already know you’re gone and Stoke has powerful friends. If they don’t know where you are yet, they will soon. '
I nod. 'Thanks, Douglas,' I say quietly. ‘Will you be okay?’
He gives me a smirk and a wink. ‘Right as rain, lass. Off you go.’
I give him a wan smile and get out of the car. Blake stays behind me and Mav grabs some duffle bags from the trunk as Shade goes up the stairs and into the plane.
He’s speaking with the captain when I come through the door, and I sit in one of the chairs, putting my seatbelt on.
I don’t say anything as the doors close, but my heart is pounding. What if they stop us from leaving somehow?
But within five minutes, Mav sits beside me and the plane begins to move toward the runway. The captain comes on the loudspeaker and says something, but I don’t really hear it.
I'm out. I've escaped The Heath. I'm going back home with the guys. My fingers press into my thighs as the plane picks up speed, hoping that nothing happens now…not when we’re so close.
Shade’s phone is on the table, and it begins to buzz just as we’re about to lift off. It keeps buzzing, and finally, he swears and answers it.
Is it Stoke? Does he somehow know Shade has helped me escape? Is he going to tell John if we don’t go back?
I can’t hear the voice on the other end, but Shade’s face drains of color and my stomach churns.
'I understand,' he says. 'Thank you for letting me know. I’ll…be there in the morning.'
He puts his phone down, and stares down at the table in front of him.
'Who was that? Are you okay?' Mav asks him from next to me.
He looks up, his face holding an expression I’ve never seen before. I don’t know what it means.
'It’s my father,' he says, his tone devoid of emotion. 'He’s dead.'
Blake
‘Dead? What the fuck?’
Shade is silent, just staring at the seat in front of him.
I watch him as emotions flit over his face.
I don't think he knows how to feel. I don't think he knows how he's supposed to feel. I mean, after all, his dad was a motherfucker. The world is a better place without him, as far as I’m concerned.
'There's more,' Shade murmurs after a couple of minutes, like it’s an afterthought. 'Joseph Banderville was with him. He's dead too.'
Nice! A two fer.
With another Banderville out of the picture, my mind is already turning at the possibilities. Daisy could be safe from these assholes once and for all. It's not like they can come back from the grave to fuck up her life.
The seatbelt sign goes off.
'How did they…?' Mav asks, standing up from his seat.
'I don't know exactly. An accident of some kind.'
'Who was that on the phone?'
'Detective Anders. She's asked me to go into the station.' He rolls his eyes and looks out the window. 'We'll have to figure out our alibi before we land.'
He takes out his phone.
'What are you doing?' I ask.
'I'm messaging Sauvage. We're on his plane, and that detective might subpoena him for his flight data. There might be stuff he doesn't want out in the open, and the last thing we need is that French fuck pissed off at us.'
Daisy gets up out of her seat, goes to the table, and puts her hand over Shade's. She doesn't say anything. He looks up at her and gives her a weak smile, putting his other hand over hers.
'Why don't you go take a shower, sweetheart?' he says. 'I'll be okay. Promise.'
She stares at him and then nods, looking around. He points to the back of the plane where there's a door leading into a bedroom, which I found out when I did my recon on the way to the UK.
She disappears into the back of the plane, face blank.
'There's no fucking way both of them dying was an accident,' I say.
'The bodies are piling up,' Mav mutters, then looks apologetically at Shade. 'Sorry.'
'No,' Shade says. 'It's okay. It's just unexpected.' His brow furrows. 'It means Andy's in charge now, though.'
'Is that going to be a problem?' I ask.
'I haven't seen him in months. Not since Daisy arrived. He's been at Harvard all this time. He hasn't come back once, not even to see Pop.'
'Well, he'll definitely be coming back now,' I say, raising a brow and turning away. 'You’re right. We should get our story straight before you go see the cops. Figure out what Sauvage wants you to say. Maybe we decided to take Daisy on a little jaunt to London for four days. A birthday trip.'
'Her birthday's not ’til March.'
'Early gift,’ Mav says with a shrug. ‘It's almost mid-February, isn’t it?'
I check my phone. ‘Fuck.’
‘What?’
‘It’s the fourteenth. Valentine’s Day. With everything… I didn’t even realize.’
‘Me neither,’ Mav says quietly. ‘We should do something. Even if it’s not today.’
Shade nods absently.
I think Mav wants us to give our girl some space, but I decide to go to the back of the plane to check on her. She’s not showing much, and I want to make sure she’s okay… well, as okay as she can be.
I hear her in the shower, and sit on the bed to wait, leaning back and trying to relax.
I think I've been in fight-or-flight mode since she was taken.
I've slept, but not well, and I feel like my heart is only just starting to go back to its baseline.
My body is finally uncurling, my muscles relaxing.
I crack my neck, trying to ease the tension.
A few minutes later, I close my eyes, willing myself to remember that Daisy is here with us, and we're not letting her out of our sights again.
I hear the water shut off, and Daisy comes out of the bathroom wrapped in two towels, one on her head and the other around her body. She looks surprised that I'm in the room, but she doesn’t tell me to leave.
'Do you want some alone time?' I ask carefully. ‘I could go. You could get some sleep.’
She doesn’t move, just seems to consider my words, but then shakes her head.
'I… I don’t know what to do,’ she confesses. ‘It feels like it’s been months since I've been by myself. But it’s been just over two weeks. I was kept drugged for the first few days.'
My knuckles crack as my hands ball into fists and she winces at the sound.
'I'm sort of afraid that I'm going to wake up and this was all a dream. That I'll still be back at The Heath, freezing my ass off in the cell downstairs.'
'Those fuckers,' I snarl at the reminder of how she was treated, but she just shrugs.
'I hate that you think this is normal,' I say.