Epilogue
EPILOGUE
PAIGE
Wiping my eyes does nothing. The tears are endless.
Six hours, three minutes, and twelve seconds of footage.
It seemed longer while we were there, I remember now, and yet, when Ellis called and told us the video was six hours long—I couldn’t believe it. Only a half hour of it was spent filming the eleven-minute edited film I’ve held onto for seven years.
It’s amazingly tragic what your mind is capable of blocking out after years of shoving it down.
I wanted to watch this because I knew it would prove Linc’s innocence, but...it showed me I forgot a lot too. I forgot so much. I can’t be sure if it happened quickly or slowly, but clearly I forgot how long it went on, and I can’t remember anything past where the footage ended.
Just him, holding me.
A shiver runs down my spine as the footage continues to play through my mind. I forgot about the glaringly obvious attraction the Man had for Linc.
I forgot about the deep shame spiral I fell into multiple times after—trolling the internet for forums of people who had climaxed during an assault.
Thanks to a counselor at the free clinic, I learned it actually happens more than people think. It’s just not information survivors are exactly eager to share so the statistics aren’t very reliable.
Not that I ever believed Linc assaulted me—but the footage made it all the more obvious that absolutely nothing about what happened to us was consensual.
The only thing I always remembered was that Linc didn’t actually hurt me.
But the hollow depravity of that room —the hours of degradation— had all settled into a gray mass in my brain.
Even now, staring at the blank laptop screen, neither one of us are moving. The footage ended minutes ago, I think, and I feel stuck in that mass.
We’ve been sitting, hand-in-hand since the four-hour mark. But I haven’t been able to look at him.
Not since the part of the footage where I broke the cameras.
It was the first and only thing we skipped through a bit, but otherwise, we watched. I followed his lead. It was almost like he was afraid to stop it. Like he only had the strength to start it once.
Or maybe I’m projecting my own shit, but that’s why I didn’t stop it.
Linc’s stillness next to me keeps me from looking at him. The rage is pulsing off of him in palpable, heavy waves .
The last time I peeked over at him—a few hours ago—he barely looked like he was breathing. Almost like he didn’t recognize what we were watching at all.
But even that emotion feels . . . stale, so I decide to stay quiet. Give us each some time to process everything.
For years, all I had was an eleven-minute movie I knew was curated. Watching this now, I’m pretty sure the Man even took audio clips from the raw footage at certain parts to dub over us.
But with no witnesses and no fucking clue where Linc went, I was too scared to look for the Man without him.
The most heartbreaking thing of all, though, is somewhere in all of that time, I forgot how tenderly Linc looked at me through it all. How much affection he tried to show me inside that barbed-wire situation.
And Buffy bless, what a difference remembering that would have made to me seven years ago.
Somehow, in his absence, I’d forgotten all of that and the event was steamrolled by the disgust that passed across his face.
Watching the footage —watching what actually happened— allowed me to see the disgust was with himself. And the Man.
It makes me want to tell him,“I went to Chicago.”
Ope. So, I do, I guess.
Linc doesn’t say anything, but that doesn’t surprise me. After a second, I clear my throat. “After you left, I was a mess . . . I still used to go to your house. Watch Maisie.”
His hand tightens in mine, shaking, but I keep my eyes on the comforter, clean and white, dotting with wet spots from my tears. My lips shake, but I continue, “She told me she talked to you one day. That you were living near Wiggly Stadium in Chicago. So, I went. Ready to kill you.”
I huff a breath but it can’t quite find any humor. I really did have every intention of showing up and kicking his ass for leaving me.
I was so, so mad at him.
I swallow, pushing forward. “Even though I thought you left because of me, I went—I took a bus, and I shelter-hopped for two weeks. Walking everywhere—showing anyone and everyone your picture—asking if they’d seen you . . .”
I don’t need to finish the story.
Clearly, I never found him.
But after watching this, I just need him to know I looked for him. I never blamed him. I didn’t want to stop looking for him at all, but Gram’s health took a turn . . .
When he still doesn’t say anything, I ask, “Were you ever in Chicago?”
His pressure in my hand has been tight and steady for a while, but suddenly his quietness no longer feels like processing.
It feels like . . . the ring in your head from blunt force.
It’s that thought that finally pulls my eyes over to him, gasping when I see that his pupils are blown. His eyes nearly look black.
“Linc?” His name comes out as a gasp, but I’m suddenly terrified.
While there is plenty to be disturbed about after watching that, I mostly feel relieved. This proves Linc didn’t actually assault me. Maybe we can go to the police now.
But he looks . . . murderous. Unhinged.
“Linc,” I say again, my heart picking up speed.
His eyes snap to mine for only a second and I choke on my breath. It’s all it takes for me to see . . . he’s already gone.
Lights out.
Before I can even exhale, he’s standing and plowing toward the bedroom door.
“Hey, no—wait!” I call after him, but he’s already popped the door open and halfway down the hall by the time my shaking knees make it to the doorway.
I start after him, but he’s already walking down the entryway.
“Ellis!” I call out, then hiss when I stub my toe on this fucking floor that has craters in it.
Distantly, I hear keys jingling.
No.
“Linc, wait!” I cry out, just as the front door closes.
By the time I catch up, he’s already tearing out the driveway.
I run back inside and grab my keys off the counter just as Ellis comes running out. “What happened?”
Still moving toward the door, he follows me. “He left. We just finished. We were right. He was forced to do it. I thought we were just . . . taking a second, but when I looked up, he . . .”
My voice trails off as we reach my Cabrio, Ellis hops in the passenger seat, and we both quickly buckle up as he says, “Did he take his phone?”
I shake my head with a shrug. “I don’t know. I think so.” I tried to remember if I saw him take it out of his pocket when we got back from Venice.
I zip down the mountain, as Ellis says, “I installed an app on his phone with GPS.”
My eyebrows pinch, but I keep my eyes on the winding gravel path. After another moment, I finally ask, “Why?”
My fists tighten on the steering wheel, twisting as I await his response. Another second passes before he sighs. “There were a few times—a few years ago when he would . . . he’d wander off at night, wake up somewhere. It hasn’t happened since he first moved in, but he asked me to put the app on his phone just in case.”
Jesus. The thought twists in my chest. I’ve had my own share of strange behavior over the years, but . . . I never did that. “Where did you find him?”
“He’s heading toward the 101,” Ellis says and I get over a lane, ready to make a turn. I glance around to get my bearings. Another moment passes before he says, “The couple times it happened, it wasn’t far from the house. On the porch more often than not.” I hear him take a breath like he’s about to say something, but then he stops. A beat later, he clears his throat. “I watched some of the other tapes. I saw . . . I saw Harris.”
I swallow, nodding, unable to do anything but watch the road. I won’t feel okay until we get to Linc.
I can’t let him disappear again.
Why is he running?
I know this is overwhelming, but . . . I just can’t understand what’s happening. It still feels like I’m fucking missing something.
Keeping my eyes on the road, my foot steady on the gas, weaving through cars, Ellis speaks again, “Paige, I . . . I need to tell you something,”
My heart rate spikes, my eyes widening by the second just as I slam on the breaks at a red light.
“Shit!” he yells at the same time I yell, “What is it?”
This is not the time to test my patience, but the color draining from Ellis’s face tells me what he’s about to say is difficult. He’s not purposefully withholding, and I take a breath, trying to calm myself down.
“I didn’t tell you everything,” he says. “About when Linc and I reconnected.”
Yeah, no shit, I think to myself, but I’m impatient enough to keep it to myself as he explains, “Desmond got a call five years ago from the cops in Falmouth County—up in Maine . Some neighbors called about a possible trespassing situation.”
My eyebrows pinch, but no words surface. I try to give Ellis the time—patience. Swallowing hard, I merge the car onto the freeway when he finally says, “Linc . . . he was at the property. And he was . . .”
I am about to goddamn lose it.
He must feel it, and he finally rushes out with, “ He was there too. Harris . . . was there too.”
Blank. My mind is blank.
Much like the movie we were forced to make —in that room— my mind isn’t able to put it all together, despite everything right in front of me.
Like I’m tossing puzzle pieces as if they’re confetti.
How? Why?!
My mind feels like it’s being sucked through a tunnel as we fly down the highway, and my throat swells.
“Look,” Ellis says quickly. “I don’t know anything. Linc has been adamant that Harris was . . . helping him through a rough time. That I was gone, you guys had broken up, and he leaned on Harris. But he . . . “ His voice breaks, then croaks, “ God, Paige, he could barely fucking talk when I first saw him. And after those videos? Seeing what that fucker did—”
“Stop!” I practically scream, cutting him off, but if he keeps talking I’m going to drive us off the bridge we’re crossing over.
My eyes blink in measured beats as my foot instinctively presses harder on the gas. Outwardly, I don’t react at all—other than the stone-like expression I’ve had since Ellis’s reveal. All of the emotion is stuck —clogged in my eyes, my brain, my fucking heart —I just need to get to him.
I need to get to him now more than ever.
Because suddenly, I know. How I hadn’t even considered it before shows how much I really did suppress that night. Those six hours.
But everything I thought I knew about the fucked up workings of the world—every inch of skin I thought I’d grown to protect myself with comes crashing down like a wrecking ball.
Because like a proper horror show, the finale is the most heart-wrenching part.
My eyes fill, and I try to blink away the tears, but they’re furious and streaming—they can’t be stopped.
“Rage. Rage against the dying of the light.”
I’ve never felt so close to blowing away, but I hear her. Rallying my spirit. Holding me up. I’m thankful to have Ellis, but I need her right now. I need Linc right now.
Because despite Ellis’s disclaimer about whatever bullshit Linc has told him. I can also see that he knows better. Anything we told ourselves would be a denial of the truth.
The truth was . . .
Linc didn’t leave me.
Linc didn’t leave.
The Man fucking kept him.
TO BE CONTINUED . . .