Chapter 22
“Ihave a proposition.” I stand in the doorway of Ambrose’s study with my arms crossed, determined to plead my case.
We’ve hardly spoken since the masquerade event, having driven home in tense silence that night, both of us stewing in our emotions.
That night, I had briefly hoped that maybe he was softening toward me and wondered what that could mean for my future, only to see him later for the monster he truly is.
It was the harsh reminder I needed not to fall for his deceitful charm.
It’s been a couple days now, and I’ve had enough time to plot out my next steps.
As much as I wish to keep my distance from him, I’m still at his mercy in some regards.
So, I’m forced to be friendly in hopes of getting what I need, even though the sight of him killing Richard in cold blood without an ounce of emotion refuses to leave my mind.
Ambrose looks up from the book he’s reading. “And what would that proposition be?”
“Well—” I sink down on the couch across from him “—our deal is that I need to take lives for you. However, I’ve decided I’m only going to do so by killing men that deserve it.”
He gently closes his book to give me his full attention. His eyes glint with amusement. “Okay… and?”
“And it’s hard for me to determine who really deserves it without having all the information. I can’t exactly just walk into town and ascertain someone’s true nature by having a friendly conversation.”
“You seemed to do it easily enough with that bartender,” he counters.
I spear him with a glare. “The bartender dug his own grave by trying to drug me. I wouldn’t have gone after him if he hadn’t. I gave him a test, and he failed.”
Ambrose’s lips lift in a smirk. “Whatever you say. Are you going to tell me what your proposition is?”
“Yes. You said you have internet here, and I’d like to have a device I can access it on. You know, to do some research. I’ll be able to complete our deal more quickly by figuring out who to target, and you know that I don’t have anyone to contact to rescue me even if I wanted to.”
He’s silent for a moment, thinking, so I continue.
“Plus, if we’re bonded or whatever you call it, it would be stupid for me to try to escape considering it would kill me anyway.”
His eyes are fixed on me, as if he’s trying to discern whether I’m being truthful or not, before he finally nods. “Okay. I’ll get you something tomorrow.”
Well, that was easy enough, though I wish I had been lying about not having someone to help me escape.
The next day, Ambrose hands me an older looking tablet that has a few scratches but otherwise seems to function fine.
To my surprise, he hasn’t blocked any of the social media sites I pull up, though I only check them out of curiosity.
I haven’t actually used any of them in years since Joel would always freak out and accuse me of trying to talk to other men whenever I was on them.
Even if I happened to remember my passwords for any of the accounts, I wouldn’t log into them anyway.
There’s nothing and no one I miss from my old life.
My old life. It feels weird to think of it that way, because does that mean I’m considering this my new life?
Or maybe just a stepping stone to a new life?
Yeah, that’s it. It’s a middle ground between where I’ve been and where I want to be.
A temporary place where I’m forced to endure hardship until I’m finally free.
I plop down on the couch and am scrolling through a news page on the tablet when it hits me that I may very well be one of these news stories if Joel cared enough to report me missing.
I open a new tab and type my full name into the search bar.
Nothing comes up aside from the generic sites that offer up a person’s private information for a fee, and one article from a local newspaper written a dozen years ago about an academic award I had won in high school. Otherwise, no missing persons reports.
I had wondered what would win over—Joel’s need for control or his desire to maintain the image of control.
He must’ve preferred not to tell his cop buddies that his wife ran away.
I’m sure that would shatter his illusion of superiority when his coworkers would ask questions or rib him about not being able to control his woman.
I’m sure he crafted up some clever story about me spending time with my parents, even though I haven’t spoken to them in years.
Oh well. At this point, I hope to never see Joel or anyone from my old life again. Once I’m free from Ambrose, I’ll be forging my own path, starting from scratch. How or where or when, I’m not sure, but for once, the haziness of the future doesn’t scare me—it impels me.
I close the tab with my name typed in the search bar and go back to scrolling the local news site.
It doesn’t take long for me to come across something that snags my attention.
I recognize the man’s name and, after reading the first paragraph, I realize it’s an article about the pastor I had seen on the news last week.
He’d been manipulating the elderly members of his church into signing over their assets to the church and, by association, him.
As the week has passed, more people have come forward about the pastor, including members of a church he led ten years ago in a different state. Apparently this isn’t the first time he’s found himself embroiled in a scandal.
My blood boils when I see the claims made against him from members of his former church, though. A woman in her early twenties has come forward to recount not only the abuse she suffered from her parents, but the way the pastor had covered it up.
Her quote in the article is heartbreaking.
“I thought I would be able to trust him. He preached every Sunday about acting with virtue, loving others the way God loves us, and speaking the truth. So I confided in him. I showed him my bruises, told him about the fear my brother and I experienced every day. I was only nine years old, and I thought he would help me. Instead, he used Bible verses to convince me it was my fault.”
A couple lines later, she quotes the verses.
“They’ve stuck in my head ever since. ‘For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.’ He had told me that I deserved discipline for my perceived disobedience and claimed that this was God strengthening my spirit.
All I wanted was to feel safe as a child, and instead he had made me believe the abuse was my fault. ”
My eyes brim with furious tears, not only with empathy for this girl who went through so much, but also because I had fallen into something so similar with Joel.
For a long time, I had thought that if I was a better wife—if I looked prettier, had more patience, gave him what he wanted—that the abuse would stop.
If only I could be good enough, I’d deserve the safety and happiness I so desperately desired.
It took too long for me to realize that wasn’t how it worked.
And this poor girl had only been a child.
This article is all the confirmation I need to mentally add him to my list of victims.
Is this enough proof to determine if he deserves to die?
Maybe, maybe not. But I need to kill regardless, and I’d rather kill someone like him than someone who at least attempts to be a good person.
People will commit great acts of evil if they’re convinced they have the moral high ground.
Killing in the name of God, oppression in the name of maintaining superiority.
The more I see it, the more sickening it becomes.
Besides, I plan on getting a full confession this time, by any means necessary.