8. Chapter 8
Chapter eight
I grip the banister, hanging onto it as though it’s the only thing anchoring me here, a wash of nausea sweeping over me. No.
No, no no no.
That one word is all I can think, running through my head in time with each short, sharp and shallow inhale I suck in.
It can’t be him here. But it is him. It doesn’t make sense, and yet it makes perfect sense.
Dirk is naked from the waist up, arms lifted and chained separately to the top beams of the x. There's blood down his temple, smeared all the way to his jaw. His mouth is taped closed; head hanging forward. More blood has dried in rivulets down his arms, some of it still glistening wet, so much of it that I can’t see where it’s coming from, that for a moment I believe he must be dead. His legs, inside black pants, have been plastered up to his knees, like he’s standing in one great white boot, except his bare feet are sticking out the bottom, toes only just reaching the ground.
The only thing that helps me chase away the blotches on my vision is that he's alive. He must be. I saw his hand move.
That’s what the Cocooner does. Kills last. But there’s so much blood. My grip on the gun tightens so much that it hurts my palm.
I can't let the panic control me, can’t lose any chance to save him. The Cocooner is here somewhere and probably knows I'm here too. I'm crouched, looking at Dirk’s face from a handful of meters away when he stirs. My heart soars.
He's okay.
When his head lifts, slow and bleary, I have to witness the fear as the horror of realisation comes to his eyes. He’s here, a victim in the way he’d feared the most. Strung up, unable to move, drowning, turned into something that should only exist in the sick mind of your own killer.
My heartbeat trips over itself. I want to get him down, out of here. I want to skip to the part where he’s safe, and this moment is behind us. His usually pale skin is drained-looking, lips colourless.
Then his eyes find me. They're wide. He tries to yell, but fails, jarring against the chains around his wrists.
"El?" The voice is small, coming from behind me.
I spin around, gun coming up, then lowering again. " Olivia ?" I gasp. Her clothes are torn, there's a bruise on her temple, and white plaster drying on her skinny arms, leaving skin visible, specks caught in the hairs.
"El? Oh thank god, you're here! He got me…" Her chattering peels off as I urgently hold my finger to my lips.
"Shh, shh! You're okay now, but we have to be quiet."
Olivia nods, eyes wide, edging closer to me. "Okay," she says in that small voice again.
Dirk's muffled yell is louder, urgent. He's smashing his hands back against the pole to make the loudest noise he can. The racket sets my teeth on edge. I can only think of the wounds along his arms, of them opening again. Is he trying to bring the attention of whoever else is in this building? He must know I’m not going to leave him.
"You wait here," I'm whispering to Olivia, glancing sharply towards Dirk as the place echoes with his thrashing. "I'll come for you, okay?"
"Oh no, don't leave me alone, please."
"You'll be able to see me. I need to get Dirk."
" Ellll ," he's working the tape off his mouth, forcing his mouth open even with it on, yelling. I want to tell him to be quiet, I can help him, just don't tell the Cocooner I'm here. How panicked is he, to not think of that?
Olivia edges closer again, reaching for my arm, my gun still in that hand. "But the Cocooner…"
"They're here, I know." Her hand slides down to my wrist.
" El! "
I glance his way; the tape hanging off one side of his mouth, the other side red where the skin has torn in his effort to break it. "El it’s her ! It’s her! Get away!"
"What…" I turn back to Olivia.
There’s a dull explosion of pain in the back of my head, then another. I know now as the blackness closes in, the world tumbling, and I’m helpless to stop it. It all slides away.
***
I wake up to a nightmare. My head aches and pounds, thrumming at the inside of my skull. That’s what wakes me up. I groan, trying to roll, only to be rewarded with fire shooting through my hip and down towards my right knee. This time I cry out, eyes coming open. But things can still get worse.
I’m on an old, thin mattress the walkway blurry above me. The walkway, where I was when… Abruptly, against every tortured nerve in my body, I sit up, though I can’t do more than that, my right leg refusing to obey.
This time, I’m looking up at Dirk, from the floor a few meters ahead of him, and Olivia is between us, her back to me. But I can still see what she’s doing, see the brush in her hand as she paints the white plaster onto him. She's reached his waist, his skin. She's laying a strip of white bandage over the latest swath of white, across the v that disappears into his pants, into more plaster.
His chest heaves, the tape back over his mouth. His blood has made small puddles on the floor, mingling pink with plaster. I make a noise of pain as I crumple back to the mattress, failing in an attempt to stand. Olivia turns to me. I can see the butt of my gun sticking out of a painter’s belt slung low around her hips.
"You woke up!" she says brightly.
"No," I try to croak out, reaching for Dirk. "Don't…" My throat scratches, voice failing. "…hurt him."
She glances back at Dirk, at his face. His eyes are full of rage, his hands curled into white-knuckled fists. “Oh, that little bit of blood?” She gestures vaguely at his temple, like the rest of the blood doesn’t exist. “That was his doing. He headbutted me!” Her voice, I’ve heard it so many times, joking, asking me about my day. Different now, losing some sweet edge I never realised before was false. “I had to knock him out again before he did anything else foolish.” Now she tilts her head to his bloodied arms, adding, “Had to weaken him, just a little.”
Bile rises in my throat. "Let him go…" I start.
She ignores me, gazing instead at him. "He's going to be a perfect final piece. Black wings, they'll look good on him, don't you think?" As she speaks, she reaches up and strokes a lock of Dirk’s black hair. His head snaps to the side, towards her hand, and if he wasn't gagged, I'm convinced he'd have taken a finger off her. She flinches her hand away, looking almost hurt. "He'll see in the end." Then to me; "So will you."
My leg won’t work, that much I ascertain as I try to stand again and fall back down with an involuntary scream. I look up at the walkway, then down at the thin, stained mattress I'm lying on. She pushed me off, I realise, tumbling me onto this thin excuse of a soft landing. Something is broken. My shoulder aches, and a million other little pains make themselves known.
"Olivia please…" My eyes cut to Dirk, back to her, pleading. "Not him."
"Ah, yes, Olivia , what a whore." Then she smiles at me, a bigger smile than I've ever seen. Her gums show, pale pink. “You think help is coming, don't you?”
I sway. "You… you tampered with my carphone." All those calls that wouldn't go through. Only Dirk. Only the one she'd planned to take.
“It was only a matter of time before you figured out the pattern. I was hoping you would, hoping you’d be here in time to see.” She pouts towards Dirk, laying another bandage over his torso, above his belly button now. When she gets to his head, his nose... "He was so stirred up by you leaving those messages, saying you were on your way. Good of you to tell us. Now," she says, almost a lament as she smirks, tilting her head. "What to do with you? The wife ?"
I force my face to soften. "Anything you want. We can talk about it. I can tell you all you want to know about Caleb- my husband- just stop." The last word comes out as a half-sob. Deep down, I know reasoning with her is useless.
Olivia ignores me. "He had such plans for you, you know. We’d talk about them while he was inside me."
I bite my lip. At this moment, everything Caleb ever did, murder, lying, cheating apparently, it doesn't matter. My opinion of him can't get any lower. All that matters is now changing this outcome. "What were the plans?" I ask.
She grins suddenly. "I waited a long time for your call. An ad in the paper, ‘roommate wanted’. The moment I found out you were going back to work. You couldn't afford all that he gave you on your own, after all. To be sharing a house with you… like he did. It was perfect.”
My body trembles. I watch her trace a finger across Dirk’s skin, leaving white smears down his chest, his abs. "Take me instead," I say. "I'm the wife, like you said. It’s what he would have wanted. What he planned."
Olivia pauses and stares at me, apparently considering this new offer. Dirk is mumbling, yelling through the tape again. Her attention draws to him. "You'll behave," she tells him, before ripping the tape off. "Or I'll make you two a matching set."
"Not her," he says immediately, voice hoarse. "I won't fight you anymore, I swear. Just let her go." His head sways slightly, like he’s having trouble keeping it up. How weakened is he? How close to dying ahead of Olivia’s schedule?
Olivia's smile widens, reminiscent now of a clown’s.
My fingers dig into the edge of the mattress as I edge forward. "Dirk don't…"
“Will you really behave?” She’s talking to him now, to my horror, applying more plaster as she does, his skin flinching as she lays the cold liquid over his chest. So high up now. Not far to go. "Just to save her?” She tilts her head, leaning close, and I hold my breath, waiting for him to lunge. But he doesn’t. “Is that why you wouldn’t fuck me? You're holding out for her?" I can see him fighting the urge to recoil.
"Whatever you want, I won't fight," he repeats, ignoring her question. "You only need one of us."
"Dirk, I'm sorry." I'm sobbing the words out, tears running down my face. My shoulder aches in bursts, sharp pains down my arm, dislocated probably. I drag myself to the edge of the mattress. "For everything I said." I don't know why it seems important now. "You could never have been…"
"It’s okay, El," he says with admirable calm, and when I meet his eye over her head, it’s as though it’s just us two, for this one blessed moment. "I would always have done this for you."
"No!" Olivia shouts suddenly, shaking her head so vehemently that her hair whips from side to side. "She's his . You can't have her." She starts working faster. The plaster is up to his armpits, turning pink again where it mixes with half-dried blood over his collarbone. He tilts his chin away, the muscles in his jaw bunched. The fear spikes in his eyes, but that stays the only movement he makes. He keeps his promise. Olivia starts to hum as she sweeps the brush around his throat. When she gets to his face, his hair, I'll have to watch him die.
I can't keep the panic back as that reality hits, my breath coming in gasps. The pain is an echo in the back of my mind. Somewhere in the depths of the factory, something clangs. Olivia pauses, eyes narrowing in that direction. Then she appears to shrug it off. "It’s been so long since we had girl talk, Eleanor." With a conspiratorial grin back at me, she goes on. "You've been getting a midnight visitor… who was it?"
"Fuck you, crazy bitch," I growl. She’s painting his chin, the line of his jaw. My body is telling me to lie down, curl up and be forgotten.
“Oh, is this about dear Caleb? He talked about you, you know…”
“He talked about you, too,” I cut her off. It’s an outright lie, but it’s all I’ve got, and the words get the reaction I’d hoped for. Her gaze snaps to me, the brush hovering in mid-air.
“I didn’t know what else he was showing you, but I knew about his side piece.” There’s as much venom in the words as I can push through my own fear. Her eyes darken. I go on, pushing further, twisting the knife. “He wanted things I didn’t want to do. I encouraged it, and he’d get out his… other needs, then come home to me, his real lover.”
She is staring at me still, utterly motionless. It’s not working. She can see through it, can hear the shake in my voice. But then, her lower lip trembles. “You’re lying.”
I laugh, a low, choked sound. “He’d always shower after his visit to you. Said he wanted to wash the filth off.”
“Stop it, you’re lying! He loved me, respected me! I was the only one who saw him…”
“He said you must have daddy issues, to look at him all doe-eyed even while he…”
“ARGH!!” She charges at me before I expect it, forgetting the gun on her hip as she crashes into me, all biting nails and thin, choking fingers.
I yell as the impact jars my punished body, but I know this is my only chance. If I can fight the pain for long enough… if I can just get that gun. She’s kneeling up in front of me, fingers tangled in my hair. I don’t give myself time to brace, jerking myself into a twist so that my shoulder rams into her stomach. At the same time as a choking sound jars from her, I feel the crack deep in my shoulder, and know that my shoulder has popped back in. The pain is sharp and sudden, and my arm is still weak and slightly numb, but it works, and I use the momentum to roll and gain the upper hand.
Then we're in a tangle on the floor. She finally remembers the gun but it goes flying out of her hand as I frantically try to pin her from chasing it. Her fingers find my shoulder and dig in. I scream. Dirk's chains rattle, his voice joining the cacophony. Olivia gets on top and straddles me, her hands around my throat. She's so strong for the skin and bone she appears to be, with a crazed look in her eye. Not my housemate, never just my housemate. My hand flings out, fingers curling over the lip of something metal.
Gripping, I fling whatever it is that my hand lands on at her head. The can connects with her skull with a loud clang, white plaster coating one side of her face and pouring down her chest, splattering over me. I manage to scramble back while she's frantically wiping at her eye, clearing away the paint to see again.
My chest is heaving, the adrenaline not quite enough to make standing possible. The can is still hooked on my fingertips as I lean heavily on the wall, chest heaving. She's standing between me and Dirk. When her eyes cut to the gun, I know I can't make it there before her.
And I'm right. She lunges for it, and so do I, but I collapse a meter away, ending up in a puddle of paint on the floor.
" Cassandra ?"
Olivia stares past me, momentarily distracted from raising the gun. I recognise the voice with a flood of relief.
He's standing on the edge of the circle of light we’re all caught in. To my surprise, the silver mask dangles from his fingertips, face exposed, staring at Olivia. Black smudges make his eyes look hollow, the smear across his mouth vaguely reminiscent of warpaint streaking up his cheek.
Olivia's face breaks into a smile, made into her very own mask on one side by the plaster. "Tris!” Her one good eye fixes on the mask. “It was you." Her brow furrows then smooths, the gun dangling from her fingertips. “It was you…”
I look between them, and I see it now; the resemblance. The blond hair, the set of the jaw. Tristan’s sister, the one supposedly killed by my husband. Tristan shakes his head once as though to dislodge something, stepping closer. "You're… you're dead."
"No," Olivia sighs, reaching a hand out for him, the smile on her face turned saccharine. "I was reborn. He taught me, showed me." Again, that shadow comes across her face, almost a twitch. Her eyes are glossy as she gazes into his. “You… you killed him. Him . Why?”
Tristan is staring at her hand, face deceptively blank against what must be going on within. “Why?” he asks, as though he’s just been asked to solve a complex equation. Then he looks around, taking everything else in. First Dirk, panting, near cocooned, the plaster, the blood, then landing on me, battered and barely holding myself up against the wall, pain pouring sweat off me.
“Why did I kill the Cocooner?” Back to her, Tristan frowns. "It’s been you, all along. Ever since."
"You didn’t know what he meant to me. You couldn’t have.” Olivia-Cassandra is consoling herself, or him, it’s hard to say which.
The whites of Tristan’s eyes stand out against the black smudging. “What he meant to you? We all thought he killed you. I thought he did. I… I searched for you.”
“You don't understand yet. That’s okay.” Cassandra steps closer, her grip white-knuckled over his hand. “I didn’t know what had happened to you. But here we both are, alive!” Her laugh is almost a happy sob, and she touches his cheek. “I missed you. When you joined the force, we were going different ways. But look where we are now, come back together again! Like when we were kids." When she strokes his cheek, she leaves a smear of white.
Tristan only stares at her, and my chest constricts with a horrible question; where does his loyalty lie, in this moment?
The answer to that is uncertain enough that I start to edge along the wall, out of Cassandra’s peripherals, behind her. Dirk is staring, pale and too haunted to be confused. I need to get to him. When it comes time to detach from the wall, I lunge for the nearest support- an old folding chair, gasping as I cross the space to it, my shoulders stinging as they do the work of propping me up.
I swallow the cry I want to make as my foot taps the chair leg and sends fire all the way up to my hip. Panting, I hop on my good leg to the next support beam. I’ll be halfway to him then.
"Come, help me finish this," Cassandra is saying. "With you, we can have both of them… start fresh. No one will know who we are. We can do this together."
Tristan is shaking his head, pulling back, tugging his hand from hers. "I did all this for you… everything I am, because I thought you'd been his victim. I killed because of what I thought happened to you. And all along you were this?" He looks to Dirk again, and glances at me, freezing me in place, waiting for him to stop me. He doesn't. But he glances at the knife that was hidden from my vision in the middle of the room, under the paint tray, telling me to take it.
I try to hobble to the middle of the room but end up on my hands in an awkward crawl. More painful but faster, I scoop up the old flip knife and fall towards Dirk. He blinks at me as though coming back around from wherever he went as I brace on the plaster that has hardened on his stomach.
Cassandra steps towards Tristan again, but this time he flinches, moving back. "Tris, it’s still me. I found my way, just like you. We'll show our parents now, huh? We have worth."
Dirk’s feet are bound only by thick rope, and I fall to my knees to saw at it.
Tristan turns, bringing his back to us, a barrier between us and her. "I called the cops. They're on their way."
Her expression changes, eyebrows drawing down, mouth twisting. "You choose this slut over your own family?"
The rope falls away, and Dirk starts wriggling, cracking the plaster around his legs. I don’t know how I’m going to break the chains with a knife, but as I grasp him to pull myself up, my head coming up only to the bottom of his chest because of the way he’s elevated off the floor, I see a way. The chains tie his hands, looping around the pole and his wrist, but above, tethering them to the top is more of the same thick fibrous rope.
Reaching for that rope, the knife wavering in my hand, is one of the most excruciating things I've ever made myself do. Even standing on my good leg, my shoulder protests, but somehow, with tears streaming down my face, my breath all but stopped, I get the knife under the rope.
"You've got it, El, almost," Dirk is saying, lucid again, using his freed knee to push under my hip and give me the extra inch I need.
I cry out in pain as I saw the knife back and forth, white spots dancing in my vision. I'm convinced I'm not going to make it, that I'm going to pass out with a thread left, failing him. But then the strap gives suddenly, releasing all the weight I was pulling back from it. I almost fly back, but Dirk catches my arm with the hand I just released, and I press the knife into that hand before crumpling at his feet, panting like I've just run a marathon.
Vaguely, through the yellow, I'm aware of him sawing at the binds on his other wrist, and of words.
"I won't hurt you, Cass," Tristan is telling her, voice breaking. "But I won't let you hurt them either."
"Won’t let me?" she asks, mocking and angry. She lifts the gun, forgotten until now, and points it shakily at him. "You have no say over me. No one does!"
Blearily, I look at Dirk. He's grabbing handfuls of the plaster on his torso and flinging it off as if it burns. He's alright, he's alive, that’s all I wanted… my head lulls. Suddenly his grip is on my arm, his palm slick with fresh blood, and his cuts have opened again from the movement. He’s pulling me up and back into the world of pain, flinging my arm over his shoulder.
"Stay now, Cass… get help. I'll be with you, I…"
But she's backing up, glancing around like she's waiting for men to jump out and arrest her from the shadows at any moment. "No, no !"
Tristan’s voice hardens now. "I'll stop you, one way or another. Don't leave."
She shakes her head; the shadow falling over her as she backs into it. Dirk’s hand holds my waist, keeping me up, looking for an exit. Then Cassandra is gone, and it’s just us standing with Tristan. A weight leaves the room, the terror going with her.
Glancing down at his mask, Tristan turns to face us. Distantly, I hear sirens.
It’s over.
Dirk tenses. I feel it through the side of his body. He’s waiting to see what this Seb will do. But I can see it in the set of his shoulders. Tristan is done. There’s no more fight left. He lets the mask fall from his fingertip, and it lands face up, its edge in a puddle of spilled plaster.
Then, as pathetic a state as we’re in, he raises his hands to us and waits.
He's surrendering. The sirens are blaring now. They're urgent and close.
"They'll catch you," I say, almost pleading. "You need to go now …"
But Tristan only sits down, waiting. He doesn't say anything. He's finished. Cassandra made him this, and now who she really is has broken him. My heart lurches. I should want this. He’s about to be caught, to pay for his crimes.
The flashlights reach us first, then the shouts, almost frantic, too many guns pointed at Needler. I squint against a torch in my face and hear our names, static on the radio, declaring in those inhuman tones that we appear to be alive.
They're yelling for him to put his hands up even though they already are, then yelling to keep them up. Like he can still be a threat, sitting there on the floor.
This is it, Needler in custody, caught like I'd wanted for so long.
But it’s all wrong.