Chapter Sixteen – Tristan
I may or may not be waiting for Mabel in her room. Laying on her bed, I can smell her; it’s a poor substitute for the real thing, but I’ll take what I can get. When I hear her footsteps approaching in the hall, I sit up and swing my legs off the side of the bed. She rounds the corner and steps inside, and before she says a word I can tell she’s upset.
I stand and go to her. “What’s wrong?” Her session with Wolf must be the culprit. I don’t doubt the asshole said something to get under her skin; he’s good at that.
Mabel’s lips part, and her pretty gray-blue eyes lift to my face. “I—” The word comes out of her with a soft breath. “I need some time alone. To think.”
My initial reaction is to tell her that I can help fix whatever it is, that Wolf is an asshole and probably said whatever he said just to be a dick, but I manage to hold myself back. If Mabel needs space, then I need to give it to her.
The only thing I do is nod. After I move out into the hall, Mabel shuts the door.
Jaw clenching, now that I’m not with Mabel, I do the only thing I can: I head down to the first floor and barge into the office where Wolf is, writing something down on his little notepad. Acting like he’s an actual therapist and not a psycho in disguise. Right.
“Tristan,” Wolf says without so much as glancing in my direction. “What can I do for you? We aren’t scheduled for another few hours.”
“What the fuck did you say to her?”
“To who?”
I glare at him as I grind my teeth. There’s only one her in this house, and he knows it. He just wants me to say her name. “Mabel. She wants time alone, and she didn’t look too happy—which leads me to think you said something that upset her. What did you say?”
Wolf leans back in his chair. “You know as well as I do that what we discuss in our sessions is private.”
“I know all about patient confidentiality,” I hiss out the word. “But you’re not a real therapist.”
His dark eyebrows lift. “I’m not? Strange. I must have imagined all those years of schooling—” Wolf is trying to be funny in a dry, deadpanned way, but I’m not having it. My hands clench into fists at my sides, which he notices. “Angry on Mabel’s behalf, are you? Interesting. Am I going to have to use that collar again? It has been a while. Maybe you’ve forgotten just how quickly it can drop you to the ground.”
Wolf keeps me chained like a dog; it’s not something I ever forget. Still, I can’t let this go. “You didn’t bring her here to help her. You said it yourself. You brought her here for me, so why don’t you cut the shit and tell me what you said to her?”
Wolf motions to the chair I call home when I’m in the middle of a session with him. “Sit.”
As the gears grind in my head, I go to sit. I sit and I seethe.
He stands, sets down his notepad and pen, and gives me his back as he goes toward the desk in the far corner, away from the windows. He reaches into his pocket and kneels down behind it, like he’s getting something out of a drawer that he keeps locked. Whatever it is, it doesn’t interest me. Only Mabel does.
Wolf says nothing, but he must find what he’s searching for, because soon enough he returns to me and sets something down on the small table next to my chair. He takes his seat and watches me all the while.
“I believe that’s yours,” he says, gesturing to the object he placed near me.
I saw what it was the moment he strolled over, and I can’t fight the uneasy feeling in my gut. I almost don’t want to look at it, but at the same time, resisting its lure is impossible. My fingers flex, clammy all of a sudden.
“Pick it up,” Wolf instructs.
I don’t want to. If I don’t touch it, it remains where it is, unburdening. But if I do as he says and pick it up, everything I’ve tried to move on from might come crashing back.
“You know I’m aware of everything that goes on in this house. I know you and Mabel have gotten… close. Pick it up. Show me you can look at yourself without spiraling. Prove to me you are more than that hideous mask.”
Hideous? I’m insulted. Personally, I thought it was a pretty cool mask: unnerving, a little creepy, and intimidating all the way. The mask served its purpose for five whole years.
I reach for it. The mask is heavier than I remember, but just as cold. On its metal face is an etched cobra, with nothing more than eyeholes and two tiny nose holes. It shows nothing on your face; it was the reason I could hide in plain sight—although I always did suspect Atticus knew who I was.
I had a whole outfit. Black leather gloves, straps that went all over, as many knives as I could fit on me. I was one with the shadows, a serpent in disguise. I was the Cobra.
I am the Cobra.
“You wore that mask at first to move on from what you did, but you never really believed that lie. You cut yourself time and time again, etching Shay’s name into your forearm as a punishment.”
My fury over whatever Wolf told Mabel is overshadowed by the mask in my hands. I can think of nothing else as I stare down at it. The obsession that carved my soul as easily as my knives dug into my flesh, the shock over seeing Shay again… the feelings that rose up as a result.
This mask and what it stands for is everything wrong with me, but I’d be lying if I claimed to be past it. How can you ever move on from your past when it’s written in your flesh? How can you ignore everything that helped shape you?
“Mabel has seen the scars and knows you’re a killer, but she doesn’t know why,” Wolf remarks. “She doesn’t know that that mask is who you really are.”
I glare at Wolf. “Did you—”
“Tell her? No, I did not. What do you think would happen if she finds out?”
My eyes fall to the mask. It’s strange how it’s been so long since I’ve seen it; it makes it feel foreign even though I have every bit of it committed to memory. Muscle memory makes me want to put it on. It takes quite the mental load to keep it in my hands.
As I run my thumb over the mouth area, I mumble, “Fuck off. She’d tell me to fuck off. What else could she say? What I did, why I did it… a normal person could never understand. Yes, she might have some issues of her own, but they’re nothing like mine. She wasn’t in love with her brother.”
“And if she were to tell you to, in your words, fuck off, how would you react?”
The only thing I can do is sigh and look away from the mask.
“Would you let her go, knowing she hates you or even finds you disgusting for it, or would you lash out at her? After all, as someone who grew up as a hitman, you know countless ways to kill someone, how to make things look like an accident. You don’t need knives or a gun. All you’d need is your hands. You are a walking, talking weapon.”
If I told her the full truth and she didn’t react well—because who in their right mind would—would I let her go… or would I kill her?
I already know the answer, and it’s why I tell Wolf as I set the mask aside, “I would never hurt her.”
“And what about Shay? I’m certain you used to say the same about Shay, but in doing what you did, you hurt her in more ways than one.”
“Mabel isn’t Shay. This is different—”
“Is it?” Wolf cuts in. “Are you different? Why don’t you tell Mabel the full truth, then, and prove it. Prove it to me, prove it to Mabel, prove it to yourself.” Wolf is baiting me, just as he baited me by bringing Mabel here in the first place.
I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Will I fall for this, too?
Wolf frowns at me. “Oh, don’t look so glum, Tristan. I can’t force you to share your darkest secret with Mabel. Whether or not you do—and, of course, whether or not you act on any impulses afterward—is completely up to you.” His tone turns a bit snide. “I am, after all, not a real therapist. I’m only here for the show.”
“Fuck you,” I growl out the words as I get to my feet. “Fuck you and fuck all of this.”
As I storm out of Wolf’s office, I can understand how Mabel left feeling so upset. The man is an asshole through and through; he always knows just what to say to piss me off. Showing me my mask… what did he think would happen? That I’d sing Kumbaya and cast it into the trash?
I know I need to see Mabel. Need to talk to her, to touch her. I just need her.
But she wants some space, time to think about whatever Wolf said during their session. I can’t force my way in her room—I mean, I could, but it wouldn’t get me where I want to be. Mabel isn’t Shay; she needs her space. She needs some time to cool down before we… before I tell her anything.
So, I’ll wait. I’ll go out of my goddamned mind in the meantime, but I’ll wait. I’ll wait forever if I have to.
Hours go by. I wait, yes, but when night falls and Mabel still hasn’t come to find me, I grow desperate. Needy. She keeps herself locked in her room during dinner, and I spend most of my time lingering in the rooms nearby, hoping I’ll hear her. When it’s late enough that she must be in bed, I sit outside her door.
Wolf is probably having a field day watching me go insane through his tiny little cameras everywhere, but I don’t care. I need to be close to her, and this is as close as I can be without violating her space.
And I… I don’t want to violate her. I just want her. I want to consume and to claim, to simply exist, for once. I want to know peace, and there’s not a shadow of a doubt inside me that Mabel is the closest thing to peace I will ever know.
Sometime during the night, I manage to fall asleep in the hall, just outside her door. I wake up before she does, so I make sure I’m gone before she can see me. Finding out how needy I’ve turned out to be might just scare Mabel away before I even get the chance to tell her everything.
Fuck. I still don’t know if I should. Any rational person would end things if they found out the full truth.
It’s well after lunch the next day when Mabel finally comes to me. By then, I’ve already accepted whatever outcome will be. If she wants to end things with me after hearing the whole of it, then so be it. It’ll cut me to the bone, to my very fucking soul, but if that’s what comes, I won’t stop her, and I definitely won’t kill her.
Now me, on the other hand? I make no such promises. If Mabel says she wants nothing more to do with me, I might just say goodbye to the world. Everyone in it would be better off without me.
I’m sitting outside, on the ground, my feet resting off the edge of the patio’s concrete when I hear Mabel’s voice behind me: “Tristan. Let’s go for a walk.”