Chapter 30 Nancy
THIRTY
NANCY
She fled past the window in a flicker of white.
Ginny.
She tore across the grass as if escaping. But the gates were locked up tight. What was she doing? Looking for Elijah. Robert. The evening sun lit her tufted hair like a dandelion bursting with seed before the woods ate her up.
My files fell to the floor, erupting in a sea of paperwork. I let them lay. I had to catch up with her. The halls dashed past as I tore through the asylum and threw myself out the side door. My lungs burned by the time I’d reached the edge of the woods. She’d got a hell of a head start.
The woods stood tall and ominous, making me shiver.
I hated going into them. Over the years, we’d found enough patients hanging there.
Hell, Marney had left one up there until he’d rotted enough that his head detached from his body all by itself.
The twisted branches had the last remnants of fall clinging a deathly yellow against the sky, the smell of damp earth and rot filling my lungs as I stepped into the thicket.
‘Ginny?’ The decaying foliage deadened my voice. Only the rustle of leaves answered back.
Then I heard it.
A scuffle. A scream.
Silence.
Another blood-curdling scream.
I hit the ground running.
Roots tore at my shoes as I fumbled toward the screaming, praying it wasn’t Ginny.
Unless the baby was coming.
My baby.
But it wasn’t new life that awaited me. I crashed into a tree to steady myself as I stumbled into a nightmare.
Robert lay sprawled on the forest floor with his throat no longer recognisable as human.
Awkwardly placed limbs and scarlet. So much blood.
Blood had soaked the dirt a rich black, like the asylum grounds were sucking up Robert’s life-force like some hungry vampire.
His face, what remained of it, was a ruin.
One eye was nothing but a mangled socket, and the other? Frozen in place.
My stomach lurched and threw an acrid, burning liquid up my throat. As much as I hated him for what he did, it still gutted me to see him like that. The man I’d shared so many years with was gone.
Beside him, stood Ginny, clinging onto a pair of shears and looking more blood than girl.
She rocked back and forth, one hand cradling her precious cargo while the other twitched against the shears.
Her nightgown was soaked to the elbows, crimson coated her fingers.
And in her face? A vacancy that ignited a spark of fear in me.
Her sweet pink hair ribbon danced in the wind, contrasting so sharply with the destruction on the ground.
‘Ginny,’ I whispered, reaching out for the shears.
I stumbled forward with my heart hammering, but before I could reach her, someone whimpered behind me.
Larry.
He lumbered into view, his giant frame trembling. Catching sight of Robert’s body, he froze. His hands fluttered helplessly at his sides, like he didn’t know what to do with them.
‘Blood,’ he whimpered. ‘So much blood on Dr. Robert.’
Panic wrapped around me as I tried to find a solution. If they found Ginny dazed and drenched in Robert’s blood, they’d drag her to one of the high security wards. I’d never see her. Hell, they might cut the baby out before it ever drew breath.
I couldn’t let that happen.
‘Larry, I need your shirt,’ I demanded.
‘My shirt?’ He clung to the hem.
‘It’s to help Ginny. Please?’
Larry bit his lip before tugging it over his head, wrapping his arms around himself and looking dismayed.
I stripped Ginny’s bloody gown with shaking hands and stuffed it under a nearby tree root. Hauling Larry’s shirt over Ginny’s head, I tugged it down quickly. It swamped her, even with her bump.
‘Go. Shower. Now. Wash it all off and get in bed,’ I hissed.
‘What if someone sees?’ Ginny sounded dazed, but not manic.
‘He tried to hurt you, didn’t he? Put that baby inside you. That was wrong.’ I tried to cut through her haze.
She nodded, her lower lip shaking.
‘There’s an old fountain near the edge of the woods by the back fence. There will be standing water in it from the rain. Wash the blood off as best as you can and wait until everyone comes out to help me. Sneak in, and go straight into the showers.’
Her wide eyes found mine at last as she let the shears go. ‘I’m gonna go to hell.’
I held her by the arms, willing her to feel my false calm. ‘Not while I’m here. Now go. You have to protect my baby.’
Her eyes narrowed before she turned and stumbled toward the trees, dragging a hand over the bark like a child finger-painting. The sight made me shudder.
‘Oh, Robert,’ I said, glancing down at his mutilated corpse. Ginny must not have believed his story of Elijah. The scent went away after I threw it at his damned head. ‘It serves you right.’
When I turned back to Larry, he hadn’t moved. He stood rooted to the spot, his fingers clenched against his stomach, staring at Robert.
What I had to do sickened me. As clear as the solution was, I knew it would haunt me forever.
He was my chance.
My baby’s only chance.
‘Larry,’ I said softly, stepping closer.
Confusion filled those big, soulful eyes of his. Such a sweet boy.
‘Do you know what Robert did?’ I whispered, as if conspiring with him.
Larry shook his head and wavered on the spot.
‘He hurt your rats,’ I said. ‘He strung them up with ribbons tied round their necks.’
As I told the lie, I began to think it wasn’t a lie at all. Robert would have had access to the ribbons. He enjoyed hurting Ginny. He must have been the one to torment her. The piece of shit.
Larry flinched.
‘No,’ he mumbled, his head shaking harder. ‘No. Not my friends.’
‘He laughed while they choked.’ I went on, my throat tightening. ‘He laughed, Larry.’
Larry clapped his hands over his ears. ‘No. Stop.’
But I didn’t.
I leaned closer, forcing the cruelty out in sharp whispers that tore me to pieces internally.
‘Their little bellies were split wide and filled with maggots. He cut them. Left them to rot. He wanted you to find them like that. Wanted to hurt you.’
Larry’s face crumpled as his big body swayed.
‘It’s true,’ I said. Each mean word was like glass shards in my mouth. ‘I saw it.’
The moment he broke had my heart shatter into a thousand pieces.
With a roar, he dropped to his knees and snatched the shears up from the ground. With unrestrained fury, he plunged them into Robert’s remaining eye. The sound was a sickeningly wet crunch.
‘Make him pay,’ I urged when Larry faltered, eye goop leaking between his fingers.
He howled and stabbed again. And again. The forest echoed with the animalistic sound of his grief. At some point he lost the shears and pressed his fingers into the flesh, ripping. I vomited as I watched him rip my husband apart.
When I saw a ribcage, I screamed, despite feeling numb. Screamed until someone heard.
Then came the shouts. The thundering footsteps.
And still, my sweet boy Larry pulled apart muscle and sinew and bone.
Orderlies crashed into the clearing, their boots snapping twigs and their voices sharp.
Larry didn’t fight them when they dragged him from Robert’s flesh mound. He just sobbed and pleaded for me. When I didn’t go to him, acting fearful, he bellowed and thrashed. Three of them pinned him down while another drove a syringe into his thick arm.
His roars turned to sobs as the drugs pulled him under.
And just before his eyes blinked closed, his gaze caught mine.
Not rage.
Not fury.
Just heartbreak.
I turned away, bile burning my throat.
I had damned him.
And the worst part was, I did it knowingly.
As someone touched my arm, I sobbed. Not for Robert, like they all would believe, but for me.
For what they’d put me through.