Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
The sessions got easier once they became a routine. Emery still had trouble talking about his past, but he was opening up more and more as the days went. Inch by slow inch, I chipped at the walls of his mind while discovering more about the man behind the monster.
It started to disturb me how untroubled our conversations became. They were, dare I say, almost refreshing. And I didn’t use that word lightly. When I first met him, I was prepared to encounter a dimwitted, but vicious, personality. Emery was vicious, of course. But the way he talked about the world or the things that mattered to him, he was so passionate that sometimes it left me speechless. He drew me in, into his world.
If it weren’t for the bond we already held in blood and rage, I wouldn’t have hesitated forming something else entirely, even if it’s just an uncomplicated friendship.
But everything about our situation was complicated, whether he knew it or not. Yet, I could tell he was trying to make that connection too. Sometimes, I caught him just watching me, the heat of his gaze making me shiver. The need for something more than professional between us was there in the comments he made too, in those amused little quips and jabs that were innocent yet deeply inquisitive.
He wanted my attention, and mine alone. Dr. Langley or a nurse would stop by often to see how we were doing and he hardly ever looked their way; he didn’t respond to them either. I don’t know why he chose me, why he was willing to talk to me. I grew paranoid that he knew something, after all. That he knew who I really was and he was playing me. But there was no way he could since they had kept me out of the trial. Not to mention he hadn’t seen me that night. He had no access to information here either except for the fictional books they gave him. And through careful questioning, I concluded he really had no idea. That weirdly, he just liked talking to me.
Because of that, he let me in, let me see a real part of him. It was only when he tried to do the same with me, to get me to open up to him more than I cared to, that I cowered away. Every time he tried to get beyond the therapist and to see Eve, I could see the hope there. It was as if a shadow of him extended out, reaching for me, hoping I would accept the calloused hand he offered, only for me to turn away in fear and disgust. Only for that mere second would I see the hurt in his gaze before it was gone.
I knew he wanted more from me than I could give. He would test me, but he understood our sessions were as far as we could ever dare go. Just two people talking as if time stood still and everything that happened didn’t matter. Just in that moment. Only in that moment.
There, in that shadowy, decaying room, we were safe.
“Oh my god, you are so wrong,” I said, smacking my hand on the thin metal table between us. “Like what is wrong with your head right now? Alien Three was one of the worst they made! How can you put it over two? Two!” A few of the pieces on the checkerboard had moved, so I shifted them back into place. The red checkers were dominating the black, but I got a double jump on the next turn.
“Two isn’t even scary. Problem number one,” he argued. “And secondly, it's just an overblown action movie. The aliens are hardly a threat if one woman can take on their queen. Where is the dread? The hopelessness? I’ll tell you where—in three.”
I pressed my fingers to my temples. “No, screw that, they killed off everyone from two in the opening credits! It was bullshit, a slap in the face!”
“That’s what makes it good. The shock factor that sets up the atmosphere for the entire movie. No one is safe. As every Alien movie should be. Red piece—five down, three across—move up.”
I clicked my tongue, annoyed, as I slid his chip into place. There went my double jump. “Four was at least unique; three was just painful to watch.”
The chains slid across his chair as he tried to draw up his hand to point a finger at me like he was going to scold me. “Four was unrestrained garbage.” He seethed. “I had nightmares about that damn humanoid alien abomination for a week. And because it was so damn stupid looking. And don’t get me started on the clones.”
I had to laugh a little at that. I jumped over his red chip and took it off the board. Behind me, the rain pattered against the window softly. It was a dreary day, but I didn’t mind. The heat had finally kicked in and I had brought a sweater. And the nurses had offered me a coffee which I kept by me in a paper cup. Unfortunately for Emery, he wasn’t allowed any.
The games had been my idea. I wanted something to distract him while we talked. Just sitting there face to face was awkward, and he fidgeted a lot with his hands.
Most sessions in the last two weeks had gone like this. We sat, talked, maybe played a game. I learned something about him, even if small. And I let him ask questions too. There were only a few times that he closed up on me, or had one of those episodes where something set him off and he had to calm a little. But he never channeled his anger toward me. He never threatened me or made me uncomfortable.
We only had to cancel one session. He had been in the blackest mood imaginable and nobody knew what set him off. But something had. Badly. He couldn’t be contained, and it took the guards two hours to calm him. He was too dangerous for a sedative so they let him go off in his room, cracking the wall with his fists, trying to talk him down. I had begged Dr. Langley to let me see him but of course he refused.
“I don’t think he would have even heard you, Eve. He was trapped in his own mind. It can happen to the ones with extreme PTSD. Sometimes, the nightmares are so vivid they become a reality.”
“Is that why he still wears the mask?” I asked. “Is it something to do with the trauma?”
“I believe so,” Dr. Langley said honestly. “This is just a theory, but I think he uses the mask to hide himself from the things that haunt him. And Emery has many ghosts. When he was initially taken, they tried to pry it off him, but they only got it past his nose before he attacked one of the officers, almost biting their fingers off. He scared the rest so badly they didn’t dare try again.”
The next time I saw him after that, he was quieter but calmer.
“Sorry about that, Evee,” Emery had said.
“It’s alright.” I’d asked if he wanted to talk about it and wasn’t surprised when he refused, so we moved on.
I took a sip of my coffee. “I can agree at least Alien Four was the weirdest by far. I think my official ranking would be Alien , Alien Isolation , Aliens , Alien Three , then four.” I looked up to notice him watching me instead of the board.
“Isolation?” he asked.
“Oh, sorry, that’s one of the games, but it’s such a stellar addition I count it in the original franchise.”
“Interesting.”
“I watched my” —I almost said brother but quickly caught myself—“friend play it once. I didn’t play video games much myself.”
“I never have.”
“Really, not even as a child?”
I regretted it as soon as I said it, seeing his eyes darken.
“No,” he said quietly. “I didn’t get to…enjoy things as a child.”
Since I had already struck a chord, I decided to proceed with caution. “Your foster parents, they didn’t let you play with friends or anything?”
He tilted his head a little, letting that ghost whisper in his ear. “I didn’t have any. I just had—”
I had a feeling he was going to say his sister. But I didn’t dare mention that. “I’m sorry you didn’t have that chance,” I said sincerely.
Emery didn’t say a word for a long moment, and I chose to let him decide if he wanted to as we sat in silence and I played out the rest of the game for him.
“I wasn’t allowed out,” he said after a time.
I stilled, my hand on a chip. I gazed at him with shocked sadness. “Not at all?”
He shook his head. “Sometimes, I was placed in a room with a small window high above that I couldn’t reach. But that was only for a short while. My permanent room didn’t have a window. Just a vent that blew air.” He shifted in his seat, his eyes drifting down to the board. “No TV, no games, no toys. Just a magazine or two. Maybe a marker if I could steal one. Sometimes, those were all ripped from me too. So I just had the little mites and spiders to watch in my room.”
My throat tightened. “I’m sorry they did that to you. Was your…sister there too?”
“She was in the room beside mine. She had it the same as me. We communicated through the walls but we had to be quiet or we’d be punished.”
Such an abuse of a child was disgusting. I imagined that drugged up man coming home from his liquor store and his wife cooking and cleaning, neither caring about Emery and his sister being locked away. And for what? “What if you got sick?” I asked. “They didn't even take you out to see a doctor?”
His gaze was so sharp and cold, my blood chilled.
“He was my doctor,” he said icily.
That can’t be. The man who took him in was no doctor. “Do you mean like…he examined you thinking he knew how to diagnose you?”
“He knew,” Emery whispered. “He had every tool and machine at his disposal.”
“So he was actually a medical professional, not just pretending.”
Emery closed his eyes, and I could see he was on the verge of losing himself again.
“Hey.” I placed my hand gently on the table. “It’s okay.”
“He said I was sick…always so sick.” He bowed his head. “But he made me sick…Still, he had to make me better again. Had to fix what he’d done. So he gave me candy and forced me to eat them all. But they always made me so sick. So…sick.” His body trembled. “Nina. Nina got sick too. And she cried all night, pleading to make her belly stop hurting. Make the pain go away. Make the awful monsters stop coming.”
“Emery.” I tried to keep the panic out of my voice.
Without warning, Emery shot downward and hit the side of his head across the table with a loud crack, splintering one side of his mask. I leaped up and dragged the table away from him before he could do it again. “Emery!”
Blood streamed down the side of his head, along his ear. He blinked at me, shocked as well.
Out of some crazy impulse, I took a couple steps toward him and reached out as if thinking to touch the side of his head and examine the wound. Then I drew back, realizing my mistake. Emery noticed, blinking away his disappointment.
“Is it bad?” he asked.
I took another step this time toward the door. “John!” I yelled. John was at the door in a heartbeat along with a group of security. “Get a nurse. He’s hurt.”
John gave us a once-over, then shaking his head, he pressed his walkie to his mouth. “Code four.”
A few minutes later, a nurse and three security guards rushed into the room.
“Is this really necessary?” I hissed to John as the nurse and the guards examined Emery.
John gave me a look that said “yes”.
I glared at him anyway and returned to stand nearby. The guards moved the table away as the nurse—an older woman with frayed grayed hair tied in a knot—stood more than an arm’s length away, examining Emery’s head.
“It’s just a cut,” she concluded after eyeing the blood. “I’ll get a kit.” As she walked out, the guards drew closer, their hands close to the weapons at their belts, while John and another named Mick approached Emery.
“Alright, Emery, you know how this goes,” John said. “Sit up straight and no moving. We’ll get you cleaned up.”
As the nurse returned with a kit and John and Mick stood behind Emery’s chair, his eyes were locked on mine.
I kept his gaze, hoping his focus would stay on me and he wouldn’t notice the others. But then out of the corner of my eye I saw the nurse turn away, preparing a needle.
My expression must have given something away because Emery turned his head toward the nurse and caught the needle. He surged out of his seat. Or tried to. The metal chair groaned and the chains tying him snapped into place but didn’t break.
John and Mick moved quickly, grabbing his shoulders.
“Alright, big guy, settle down,” John said as he tried to keep Emery in place. Emery jerked, making John lunge forward with him. “Hey, none of that, come on, settle down.”
Still, he jerked and twisted in his seat despite how hard they tried to keep him still. The nurse came around with the needle, and Emery nearly threw John and Mick off him, making the chair slide back.
The nurse looked pale as she waited for them to get a hold on Emery.
My stomach twisted seeing Emery turn wild before my eyes. But it wasn’t fury in his eyes this time. It was fear.
“Stop,” I said, stepping closer. “Stop it!”
A guard tried to keep me back, but I shrugged him off.
John got a hold of Emery’s shoulder again. “Emery, if you don’t relax, we are going to do this the hard way.”
I rushed forward. “Why are you doing this? He doesn’t need to be drugged.”
“He won’t let us work on him otherwise,” John snapped. “We can’t trust him not to harm the nurses or doctors. Get back!”
I got in the nurse’s way as she inched closer. “No.”
“Ma’am, please move aside,” said the nurse as she tried to get around me and another guard tried to drag me out of the way.
I looked between them in a panic. “I’ll do it then. Let me!”
Emery stilled. The others looked at me like I was crazy.
“Let us do our job,” John said, gripping Emery’s shoulder.
“No,” came a low growl.
I looked at Emery in surprise.
“No,” he said again. “Let her.”
The guards exchanged skeptical glances as if that was the dumbest idea they ever heard.
John tried to pull Emery back against his seat but was unsuccessful. “Come on, Emery, you know I can’t risk you hurting her.”
Emery looked at me, eyes sharp and serious. “I won’t.” He gripped the side of his chair. “But if you let that nurse near me, I’ll hurt someone. You want me calm, then let Eve do it.”
John sighed, exasperated. He turned to me. “Your call then.”
I watched Emery, the tension setting in my shoulders, but he gave nothing away. I glanced at John. “I signed the forms. I understand the risk. Let me help him.”
“Abby, stay just in case,” John said to the nurse, who reluctantly stashed the needle away. He took a step back and Mick did the same. One guard mumbled some joke beside me and the others laughed, but I ignored them as I took the rag, antiseptic, and bandage that Abby offered.
I stepped over to Emery—closer than I’d ever been. My heart fluttered as I got close enough for him to—do what exactly I wasn’t sure. He couldn’t bite me with the mask on, but I was sure he could think of creative ways to harm me if he really wanted to. I tried to not think about it, or about the things I had seen and heard him do that night of my birthday. Tried to see him as just a man, a damaged man, and not a threat to my life.
Gently, I wiped away the blood on his neck, watching him closely. But all he did was watch me back, his eyes half-closed as if my touch brought the calm he so desperately needed. John and the others, though close, blurred, until it was just me and Emery.
I didn’t draw away in fear and disgust. I kept my mind clear and emotions in check, only treating him like a nurse might treat their patient, passive and distant. When I had wiped most of the blood away, I took the antiseptic and located the cut on the side of his head. Blood darkened his hair. I trailed my fingers across the free locks to brush them aside and carefully administered the gel along the cut. Emery closed his eyes, and I noticed his hands turning into fists at his sides, but he didn’t move. We were quiet, relaxed even, as if we’d gone through this many times, him hurting and me mending.
If only every wound was this easy to fix.
When I was through, I stepped away and returned the bloody rag and antiseptic to Nurse Abby, glad to see my hands only shook a little.
“I think we're gonna call it a day, Ms. Eve,” John said as the other guards closed in and Mick started to unchain Emery from his chair. I could still see the concern on his face for letting me get that close but also the shock that Emery had let me and hadn’t done a thing. “Have a good night, alright.”
I nodded, then glanced back at Emery who was watching me again. I gave him a small smile. “Good night.”
He didn’t say anything. Or fight when they made him lay across the ground to shackle his hands behind his back and connect chains at his feet. Head turned on its side, he looked up at me and the weary look fell away and changed to something I couldn’t bring myself to acknowledge.
So, I turned away and didn’t look back.