45. To own is to… Snare
Chapter forty-five
To own is to… Snare
C hloe
I stare at the smartly dressed woman as she sits on the edge of my bed, speaking in the same cooing, tranquil voice she’s used with me since she barged in here. I don’t know what she and Agent Assface argued about in the hall, but judging by his crossed arms and scowl from the corner of the room, I’m guessing she won. She reminds me of Mahari, and it makes my chest ache. They’re polar opposites in the physical sense; it's more the kind, soft way she carries herself. Each movement is slow and measured, as if we have all the time in the world.
“I can’t begin to understand what you’ve experienced since you were taken, Chloe, but know that I’m here to help you work through it. Agent Benigno needs to know what led to you being with that man before he flees the country again.” She reaches out to place and hand on my knee, and it’s like my body has a mind of its own. I jerk my leg away, my chest tightening. Everything in me recoils at the thought of being touched. Phantom hands, the smell of sage, oak, salty sea air, mixed with urine and bleach… It’s all clogging my mind, muddling it .
"Chloe, I was granted permission to watch the body camera footage from the SWAT team," she says, acknowledging me with a small nod. "I understand how our minds can become our greatest enemies, even when we think we are protecting ourselves."
“Please, stop,” I breathe out, my temples throbbing, but of course, like the last three hours, she doesn’t. Wasting time building rapport, coddling me, girl talk, like I’d tell her how funny her story was when she droned on about how her nail tech didn’t cut her acrylics short enough and it took her ten minutes to open her front door. Like I could possibly give a fuck after everything.
“You suffered things I cannot imagine. A little bit of care, of kindness, does not negate what he did to you or countless others. He wasn’t your ally.”
The last statement is said with a finality that makes my chest grow hot, anger hitting me all at once. God help me; they both see it.
She takes a deep breath. It’s a single moment, a crack in her patience. Her pretty, ruddy-colored cheeks and fiery hair turn into a mirror, reflecting the realization I came to ages ago, that very first few weeks with Warrick.
I’ve truly lost my fucking mind somewhere along the way.
“There is nothing to be ashamed of. The mind protects us however it can. Sometimes, it bends our perceptions to do so. People who suffer extreme and long-term trauma at the hands of a particular person can grow to…rely on their abuser. They can experience powerful feelings of adoration and even love. It’s our mind's way of coping, and it’s not as uncommon as many think.”
My eyes leave her face, focusing on the way my blonde hair twists between my scarred fingers, weaving silky strands. Twist, pull, and weave. Twist, pull, and weave.
“Men like him, who buy women… They are masters at pulling those feelings out. Manipulation to them is as easy as breathing. It comes so naturally, so smooth, that you don’t even—”
Neither of us noticed Agent Benigno moved before he slaps down a stack of pictures in front of us. I flinch, my eyes going wide as my mind tries to make sense of the piles of gore laid out in front of me. The social worker gasps, gagging as she quickly gathers them up, only serving to spread them all out before she tucks them to her chest. Even with the pictures hidden, I can still see them, like I never looked away.
“That is what the man you’re protecting is capable of. The women who came before you, that was what you were on the fast track to ending up like. That’s what he did domestically, for fucking fun . Those pictures were his, by the way, found in that fucking house. Shall I show you the drone footage of lifeless families, fucking hospitals decimated because of the illegal weapons he panders? Surely, you have a conscience!” He yells, and I scream, actually scream.
Everything hurts.
Most of all, my head.
My body trembles violently, and my teeth chatter because he’s lying. Warrick…my Warrick would never do that to me. He wouldn’t. I blink rapidly, trying to dispel not the tears, but the images of the women, their bodies muddled and blown apart, trying to reason the same man who held me…loved me, the one who washed, fed, and dressed me up, could do those things. That Basilisk and Warrick are one and the same. His tear-soaked face flashes behind tightly squeezed eyes as he strikes me with the whip, the sound of the cane hitting my hand, the way I begged him to stop.
I sit there, panting, strange, choked sounds leaving me as the social worker argues with him. Over me. Like I’m not a person capable of intelligent thought. Has my mind truly gone that far off?
“We are running out of time, Ms. Durian. Despite starting off as an unwilling participant, she's currently behaving like a damn girlfriend. She grabbed a gun to help him get away! She’s a girlfriend protecting a dangerous man who kills for sport. Indiscriminately. Fuck your kiddie gloves! Have you any idea how many years we’ve searched for him? How many men have lost their lives for getting too close?”
Is that what I am? Masters’ girlfriend? My heart gives a treacherous little flutter.
I watch as the woman pales, showing the first signs of her anxiety I’m sure has been riding her from the moment she was given this assignment. She holds out her hand to him, my own panic lessening as the room quiets. “Chloe, please , people are going to die. I can only do so much if you won’t help yourself.”
“There is a huge difference between how victims and accomplices are treated,” Agent Benigno warns behind her. “It’s time to make a move, kid.”
I run my thumb over the white lily on my wrist, feeling the prod scraping my insides. I’m finding it, the will to talk. Not about Warrick, of course, but about the rest. Like maybe if I spew the agony, the vitriol, I can make them understand that everything…. Each side can be real at the same time. He can be a horrible monster, he can do terrible things and love me, and he could hurt and balm. Smooth and grating. I’m finding it. I can feel the weight of his gun, the trust in his eyes, the desperation, the longing when he handed it to me. He handed it to me, all because I asked. He trusted me time and time again, despite all his damage and misgivings.
My mind is certainly horridly twisted, but it was real.
It was fucking real.
It was real when I shot them, the exhilaration, the relief. That woman at the estate… My hands aren’t clean, and I don’t think I want them to be. I don’t want to go back to feeling helpless. I like the version of myself that isn’t, the version of me all those terrifying people made.
Like my Master, my Basilisk can be both, so can I.
I lift my eyes, my lips parting to speak, to finally fucking speak when I’m cut off by the door opening, another agent shuffling through. She never once glances my way; I’m furniture after all, barely sentient. She leans in, whispering something to the two of them, and something about the action sours my empty gut. It has been days now since I’ve seen him, and food is back to having no taste. My world is cast in black and white.
Like dying but being forced to breathe anyway.
The idea is an alluring one, but his tormented eyes, swimming with hurt hazel ones, stop the thoughts before they take root. Even now, I can’t leave him. Not really. I hope he knows, even if I never see him again. He can’t leave me either. I couldn’t stomach it. Oh, how the idea makes me want to scream. His hurt is mine, his anger and rage. His I love yous belong to me. New tears swim in my eyes as Ms. Durian turns to me, coming to my side again in a way I’m sure is meant to be comforting.
I lean away.
“Chloe, your parents are here to see you.”
I stop breathing.
“I don’t—”
The door opening cuts my words off, and whatever tension was building in the room doubles on itself as my willowy wraith of a mother walks in. The dark bags under her eyes are poorly concealed, her face thinner than I remember it. My father clears his throat, adjusting his suit as they’re hurtled inside. The sound of shuffling and awkward murmurs fill the place where a tearful reunion should be, but there’s none of that.
Of course, there wouldn’t be.
My father’s public appeal, the only one in the entire three years I was gone. My mother’s absence far before that. The pictures of her Warrick showed me. The years of silence, trailing off the years of screaming and tears that proceeded it. Guilt, hate, and regret are so palatable, it twisted the dynamic of a family. I see it the moment my father’s eyes finally lift to mine, but I’m not paying attention to him, no… All my focus is on her.
Waiting.
Watching.
For what?
Who knows?
As if she can feel my anticipation, she shifts on her feet, tugging her cardigan over her slight shoulders. Tighter and tighter, she tugs, like that thin barrier might keep something out—or something in. I’d forgotten how similar her and Renee’s eyes had been. The sight of them makes my chest ache.
It’s Ms. Durian that breaks the stalemate. “We’ll give you some privacy.” Her eyes turn to my father with a loaded look, and suddenly, it makes more sense. Why else would they fly all this way just for the daughter they cast out?
They’re here to help .
Not me, of course.
Never me.
“Chloe...” My dad’s voice is thicker than I expected, but I swallow past the lump in my throat because she still hasn’t looked at me. Only my lap, at my scarred hands. After all these years, she’s looking at them directly.
For the first time, maybe.
“We were so worried about you,” he offers, and maybe it’s true, but she’s still not looking at me .
I swallow again, begging my voice to stay steady as I ignore him. “What about you? Were you worried?” The questions is loaded, quipped.
It’s unlike anything I ever asked them before, and it works. Her eyes widen before snapping to me. “Of course, Chloe. I was sick the moment your work called and said they hadn’t seen you. We reported you missing right away. I haven’t been eating. I couldn’t sleep these past years—I’d lost another-“
She stops herself, but the words hang heavily in the air. Suffocating.
The ones she wasn’t strong enough to say.
She’d lost another daughter. That should mean something. Before, it would’ve meant everything. I would’ve clung to that unspoken word like a fly clings to shit.
Despite that, they just stand, their backs to the wall, as far away as the tiny room will allow.
It’s Dad who speaks up again, taking the weight off her shoulders the way he always has. I used to think of him as invincible, so… strong. He’s the same age as Warrick, I’d recently found out, and comparing the two… He looks as frail as a snow-heavy twig. If the situation was different, I might blush thinking of all the things my master did to me while my father stands right here. If only he knew the way his little girl, his only remaining daughter had been deified, the ways my soul has gathered up each unwanted touch, each abuse, and used them to transform into something other , something unreckonable and hedonistic. I gathered up all the terrible, ugly, and wonderful things and made them my own. “They said the man who held you…that you might be able to help find him.”
The words are spoken so carefully, like saying them out loud might make them real.
But they are real; whether or not they can stomach it matters very little. That man who held me turned my world upside down. He adored me. He healed parts they damaged then damaged parts of his very own. Damaged parts I love, because he loves them.
“I can’t help them,” I answer honestly, because it’s true. I can’t.
I have no clue where he is. His means could take him anywhere, but inside, deep down, I like to pretend he’s close, that he’s watching me still, that I have the blanket of comfort that offered me when I’d walk the halls of our home without a person in sight. I was never alone, never without his guidance. I always had his eyes, his protection.
He nods, opening his mouth to speak before my mom’s voice interrupts. The room falls oh so silent, even the machines whispering their incessant beeping, hers lingering like sediment in my lungs.
Did they rape you?
Something bizarre happens in my chest, a bubble that escapes as a laugh barrels up my throat, spilling out into the room. I laugh . Not the fake cynical kind, but I genuinely laugh, jarring all my aches and pains. My parents’ eyes go wide, their shocked expressions making me laugh harder. I laugh hysterically until tears are streaming down my cheeks, and theirs too, although they don’t get the joke yet.
I’m sure the humor would be lost on them either way.
“The rape was the fun part,” I choke out between tendrils of manic laughter, because it’s true . Of all the torment, at least, that I learned to enjoy. Learned to crave. At least that I could make mine, the tiny time I had any control at all.
“Chloe.” My dad sounds like he’s going to vomit, and Mom is sobbing now, loudly. “Help them catch this fucking monster!”
That dims whatever bizarre thing had overcome me, sobering my laughter. I sniffle, wiping my eyes with my free hands. Both are free now, much to the displeasure of Agent Benigno. “Why in the world would I do that?”
“What? What do you mean, Chloe?!” Mom screeches, making me flinch, memories of me locked in my room hiding under the covers as she’d scream at me through the door assaulting my mind.
My hands tremble as I tilt my head to the side, letting my long blonde locks fall into my face as I close my good eye. My vision blurs, and everything snaps into perspective. I can barely make them out, but my picture of them is crystal clear. “He’s the best thing that ever happened to me, Mom.”
The silence that follows is deafening.
Thank God.
If she made another sound like that, I’m worried there would be nothing left for my master to look fondly on.
“Don’t say things like that. They’ll arrest you!” Dad whispers, swallowing hard, perhaps vomit, judging by the sickly tone of his skin. “You’re confused. You need help, professional help, and we’re here now.”
“Chloe, there will be a trial. You could go to prison .”
They’re so wrapped up in themselves, they don’t notice the flurry of activity at the door. Agent Benigno was listening, just as I knew he would be. I straighten my head, glancing over just as the door slams open. “It would appear so.”
“Chloe Tyson, you are under arrest for suspected….”
My parents erupt, my mom’s voice resuming the shrill that makes my teeth ache. “She’s a victim. She’s not well. You can’t arrest her!”
“My daughter is a good girl. She’s not a criminal!”
I wait to see if that praise will turn me on; it doesn’t. Seems a good place for the line to be drawn.
Agent Benigno's hands are rough as he cuffs me, Ms. Durian nowhere to be seen—licking her wounds in the hall, I’m sure. Part of me feels bad for wasting her time, the part of me that misses Mahari, I’m sure. I’m blissfully numb, aside from the ache in my chest, as I’m helped from my hospital bed. My parents are palmed by cops, forced into the hall. My hospital gown flows open, baring my backside to the room. I want to ask them to close it, knowing Sir wouldn’t like it, but I can’t find the words.
My mom’s voice carries down the hall, promising things far too late for them to change a single thing .
I turn over my shoulder to look at them. They’re holding each other, always each other instead of me. “Go back home and grieve your children.”
Again, the screeching stops as I’m jerked roughly by the man holding my elbow at a painful angle, my hands cuffed behind my back. I barely react as I’m led through the halls I now realize have been emptied. No other nurses or patients, no janitors or staff. When armed men meet us at the entrance, their guns at the ready, the back of the van's double doors flung wide in the cover of night, my eyes widen. Something equal parts warm and needling swells in the battered, broken organ in my chest—they’re worried. That much is obvious, but not about him getting away.
A smile dusts my cheeks.
They’re worried about him finding them .