Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
OPHELIA
The counter smells of chemical cleaner, slightly sticky against my palms. I’m dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans that Damien’s lawyer brought along for me, wearing my taped pair of glasses.
An officer, different from the one when I was first brought in, reads questions off a monitor in a drone, then slides paperwork across the counter.
“It was self-defence,” I grumble, a complaint I’ve made repeatedly through the night. “There’s no need for this inquisition.”
“You’ve been charged with Unlawful Possession and Carrying a Weapon with Intent.”
So much for the pawn shop owner’s claim that legality didn’t matter when, ‘you’ll only use it when someone else is already breaking the law.’
Turns out, cops don’t take the same view.
“Conditions of release,” the duty sergeant continues, taking me through curfews, check-ins, and court dates. “Sign here that you understand your responsibilities.”
The pen’s chain clinks against the counter, and I quickly scribble my name before anyone changes their mind. The sergeant gives me a paper satchel with my belongings and another officer escorts me to the door, waiting under the sensor until my fingers find the handrail.
Damien’s red car isn’t parked along the curb directly outside. I stand on the footpath, birds chittering above my head, the occasional swish of a vehicle passing by.
When five minutes have passed, I walk towards the corner, wondering if he’s parked nearby, unaware of my release. Still no luck.
I take my phone from the bag and find the battery’s died overnight. There’s probably a message sitting there, explaining where he is, and I pluck at my throat.
Maybe they found his father.
I wish now, I’d stayed at the table. Sat in my discomfort a little longer. At the time, my thoughts had been internally focused, but now all I can think is how it must have been for Damien. Living above his dad’s remains. The constant worry he’ll be discovered.
The man his stories painted is a monster, but nobody is only one thing. He must have different memories of him too. Better memories.
My chest knots as I picture Damien, alone in that enormous house. Grieving.
Twenty minutes must have passed before I walk back into the station, approaching the front counter.
“Is there a phone I can use to call a taxi? Mine’s dead.” The officer dials the number and hands across the receiver.
All I want is to collapse on my cabin bed and sleep, but the police weren’t happy with my temporary campsite address and released me to Bryan’s instead. I need to warn him what’s happening before an officer pounds on his door, asking for me, so it’s his address I give the driver.
The vehicle reeks of pine air freshener, and I roll down the taxi window an inch and take shallow breaths, my eyelids growing heavy throughout the ten-minute drive. The adrenaline from last night has completely burned away.
When the taxi pulls into the curb, I frown at the red car parked ahead of us. After I’ve paid the driver and he’s driven away, I walk closer.
It’s Damien’s Jaguar.
I rest my palm on the cold metal roof and peer inside at the empty driver’s seat. How did he know I’d come here?
My steps are slow as I approach the front door and test the handle. Unlocked. I swing it open and pause, pulse loud in my ears.
The house smells wrong.
Not the brightness of morning coffee and toast, it’s an earthier scent. Raw steaks and sweat.
I push open the lounge door and light from a muted television flickers against the drawn curtains. My fumbling fingers locate the remote on the couch, and the screen goes blank.
“Bryan?”
My voice doesn’t carry, swallowed by the thick silence.
The door to the kitchen is closed, and I press my ear against it. Someone’s on the other side; their shifting weight makes the floorboards creak. There’s a wheeze that Bryan’s lungs make when he’s stressed.
“She didn’t know.” Even softened by the door, Damien’s voice is calm and measured. “All those nights you were drugging her cocoa, and she had no idea.”
I grit my teeth and push my way into the kitchen.
My tired eyes blur the scene into shapes and shadows, only deciphering the broad details.
Bryan seated in the centre of the room. Damien standing over him.
A step closer reveals that masking tape binds Bryan’s wrists to the wooden arms, his ankles to the legs. His chest is bare, head lolling forward so his chin touches his collarbone.
Blood drips from his nose onto the linoleum with a soft splash that turns my stomach.
Another step.
Damien’s shirt sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms, something clutched in his hands. Blood spatter dots the white cotton. His tuxedo jacket hangs over the back of another chair.
An electric crackle fills the air with ozone, and the object in Damien’s hand resolves into a set of jumper cables. At his feet is a plastic bucket, half full of water.
Bryan snaps his chin up, and his eyes are wide, bulging. He jerks against his restraints, shouts muffled by whatever’s stuffed in his mouth.
“Ophelia.” Damien puts his body between me and Bryan. His hand cups my shoulder briefly, voice whisper soft. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Police released me.” My voice sounds distant. “I had to warn Bryan I’m using his address in case they drop by.”
Silence except for whimpering.
I sidestep Damien, a ring of tinnitus in my right ear. Squatting in front of Bryan, I feel across his stubbled cheeks and drag a sodden bandana from his mouth.
“Please,” Bryan pants. “I’ll do anything. Say anything, just—”
Damien sparks the jumper leads against each other, and Bryan gives another tear-soaked scream.
“I didn’t… it wasn’t… You don’t understand!” The words tumble over one another, slurred with pain.
“I’ll have the lawyer update your address.” Damien’s hand finds my arm, warm, reassuring. “I found something. Last night.” His words are stilted, hesitant. “On the camera footage.”
“What footage? Show me.”
The whimpers grow louder and Damien stuffs Bryan’s mouth again, muffling his pleas.
“It’s…” The leads clank against the wooden floor, and Damien’s warm hands frame my face, his concerned eyes staring into mine. “I really don’t want you to see it. If I describe—”
“No. If it involves me, I want to see it.”
There’s tension in his hands, then they drop away from my face. “Okay.”
He guides me to the table where a laptop sits open, the screen a bright blur. There’s a flash drive inserted, like the ones I saw in Bryan’s drawer.
Damien angles the screen towards me, pressing play.
My room appears in black and white, an image far clearer than the grainy camera stills I’m used to from cop reality shows. The footage shows Bryan leaving with our cocoa mugs, me changing and collapsing into bed.
The footage jumps and Bryan enters my room again, this time with someone else. A naked man.
My stomach heaves. I press stop rather than watch my own violation. All I can think about is my nightmares. Unseen men touching me, penetrating me while I couldn’t fight back. The mornings I woke, confused and sore, scared at the prospect of living through another day.
All the things I blamed on Craig.
I close the image, and the screen changes, showing a folder full of files. There are more drives piled beside the laptop and I switch one out, seeing the same pattern.
Enlarging it to three hundred percent, I frown at the labels, working out the first part are dates.
I insert another one. Another. Going through them all. One of them is the night before my suicide attempt. Once or twice a week leading up to it, nothing for months, then they start again.
The laptop screen swims and I close it carefully, my hands steady despite the emotions crowding my chest, compressing my lungs until I can barely breathe.
“How long have you been torturing him?”
“Less than an hour.”
I tug Bryan’s gag free and he immediately starts babbling. “I’m sorry. So sorry. But your mother stopped sending enough money, and I couldn’t afford—” He cuts himself off, shaking his head, voice pleading. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“So you sold me.” The words come out flat. Emotionless. “You drugged my cocoa and let strangers rape me in my sleep.”
“You didn’t know!” Spittle hits my arm and I wipe it away, mouth drawn in disgust. “It wasn’t—they paid well, and I made sure they didn’t hurt—”
My hand cracks across his face and the impact jolts up my arm.
It’s nowhere near enough.
“I did it for you,” Bryan says in a hoarse voice.
“To keep a roof over you head. It’s…” His eyes narrow, flicking to the side.
“We can stop. These videos, we can use them for blackmail. Fund your university courses. My retirement. I promise… no more… but it’s already done.
You just need their info and we’ll make them pay. We’ll finally have real money.”
The disconnect leaves me reeling. I walk away, opening the pantry, sweeping food out of my way.
Cans dent the floor, a few rolling, the sound ominous as thunder. Behind the cereal boxes, my fingers find the cold metal of the safe and trace the keypad. “What’s the combination?”
“You don’t understand.” Bryan screams again and singed meat hits my nostrils. His anguished cry tapers into low sobs.
“Tell her the fucking combination!”
Bryan sobs out four digits and I type them in, the safe door releasing with a dull thunk.
I lift the bottles close enough to read, tossing my prescription aside, keeping the two in his name, labelled Ativan. The first is nearly empty, the second not yet opened.
An echo of bitterness coats my tongue. I slow, swaying on my feet, and Damien is there, his arms around me, keeping me upright. “What do you need?”
“Bryan’s sleeping pills.” I hand him the medication. “I want him to take all of them.”
“Ophelia. Sweetheart, please—” Bryan’s voice pitches higher. “You can’t… Please just call the cops. I’ll confess everything. I’ll go to prison.”
“I can gag him again,” Damien says. “You don’t have to listen.”