Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
EMERY
“This is it, Emery.”
The man’s words penetrated my skull, loud and clear.
Insistent, annoying.
They buzzed at me, trying to get my attention for so long. Finally, the waking nightmare pulled back its heavy curtain over my eyes and let me focus on what was happening around me.
The doctors looked at me, wide-eyed, pale-faced…nervous. They were faces melded together, always the same expression until they were twisted and unreal. Ghosts watching me.
I was so sick of ghosts.
“Do you hear me?” the man said, leaning forward. Not too much though, no, not too close, in case I attacked. Like an untrained dog.
“I’m afraid we have to move you now,” he said. “You’re just going to take a nice bus ride, okay? Should be very nice and quiet.”
I stared at him. I hated his face, so close to mine. They were all crowding around me, the doctors, and behind them, the security, watching and waiting. Ready to move when I did.
I didn’t wonder where they were taking me, it didn’t really matter at this point. My head was so crammed full of darkness and poison I could hardly speak. Hardly think. I was barely here at all. When I looked at them, it was like looking through a screen.
Tunnel vision.
Everything around them was black.
Maybe this wasn’t even real. Nothing was. I was a ghost myself, just a shapeless, broken-up blob of sick rage, and violent tendencies, like a walking storm cloud with a skull for a face and when I opened my mouth, I sucked everything in, tearing it apart.
Except I didn’t destroy everything I touched. Everything destroyed me, from the inside out.
When I didn’t respond, the men moved. The doctors backed away and the security closed in.
They put their hands on me, and unfortunately, that felt real enough to tell me this was no waking dream. I hated being touched by them—by anyone, everyone…except…
No, no, no…NO.
She wasn’t real either. She was a bad dream.
They cuffed my hands, chaining me. Leash the dog, he’s feral, after all. He’s got rabies.
They led me out, stuffed what little I had in a bag. I wished they could stuff me in there too.
I must have made a soft noise because a few of the guys near me flinched and looked at me, giving me a surprised look that reminded me of a squirrel or a rat that had set off a trap.
Jumpy and restless. Wonder why?
I walked like a sleeping man, a dead man. I heard the cries of others in their rooms. Lucky bastards. I wish I could cry. I wish I could feel anything at all. Anything but this fury in my gut, eating me away. Anything but this demon in my head. A rage that had been simmering in me ever since the bad dream. No, she couldn’t have been real, couldn’t have left me, couldn’t have betrayed me.
The demon laughed in my head. Don’t fucking fool yourself.
Rage burned. I was only a walking storm now.
It was still dark even though it was early morning. A cold and foggy morning that hardly chilled me as I lugged my way over to the big black bus, purring like a cat. Sammy. No, no. Stop it.
I had a taste of heaven—bright green eyes and a smile like summer—and now I would be tortured for an eternity, never to know of it again, sick with the knowledge that it had been a lie. A dirty cruel lie. She had done this to me, she had hurt me. Why?
You know why, idiot, the demon said, laughing. What? Can’t you put two of your last brain cells together to figure that out. You know why.
Martel.
The rage flamed my insides. Revenge was a cruel, sweet thing. Who knew I would feel its heavy blow like a hammer to the skull. What a big idiot you are, what a blind, heartsick asshole. You actually thought she liked you? Cared at all? Thought you had some kind of chance with her? You must be the most braindead sonofabitch on the whole island. You’re pathetic. She wanted you dead. She wanted you to suffer. Suffer for what you did.
They put me near the back of the bus and chained me to the seat which groaned underneath my weight, too small almost to fit me, my legs jammed underneath me. The men checked the bus, moving up and down. Then another patient like me was put toward the middle, mumbling to himself, on his way to suffer with me.
As the men talked and moved our bags below, I saw her at the corner of my eye, in the seat next to me. Her smile stretched to her ears, nasty crooked teeth showing. Her big eyes stared at me, unblinking. “Poor, poor, Emery,” she whispered. “You let her poison you.”
It was going to be a long-ass bus ride. I stared straight ahead, my hands in tight fists to keep myself from reaching out and trying to choke the bitch.
One of the men came aboard and walked slowly to me. John. He blocked her out of my sight which was nice.
“Hey, Emery,” he said. He went and sat in the seat next to me, making the smiling woman move back. He had something in his hand, and I recognized it instantly.
“I saw this stuffed in your mattress. I thought you might want it.” He offered the journal to me and set it carefully on my lap.
I didn’t move.
“She’s really sorry, you know,” John whispered. “I think she meant well, she really wanted to help you. It’s too bad.”
I didn’t respond.
“You take care of yourself, Emery, alright? Do your best. She’d want you to keep going, we all do. I don’t know what you're going to face, but you’re a strong guy. You’ll pull through. Good luck, Emery.”
He was gone and I sat there in silence feeling nothing. Slowly, I allowed myself to take hold of the leather-bound cover of the journal, gripping it in one hand. The smiling woman watched me.
“You stupid little cunt,” she hissed. “You filthy mutt. No one loves you, no one ever will. You should just die.”
I turned to look out my window, but the fog made it impossible to see. I heard a familiar voice outside the bus and my insides shriveled up. Of course she was here to see me off too.
I heard the clicking of her heels as she made her way down the aisle to me. She stood before me, and I didn’t bother to acknowledge her.
“You're a real disappointment,” Dr. Hannah said after a long pause. “But that’s no surprise. You’re a killer, after all, why should you try to make yourself better? Just because you had a sad childhood going from foster to foster that didn’t want you doesn’t mean you get to play the victim.” She paused again, waiting for me to say or do something. When I didn’t, she continued, “Honestly, I didn’t think you could get better, but I had to try. You're so sick in the head it was a surprise that crazy girl got you to do anything. All you had to do was take the medicine and you couldn’t even do that. But it’s because you really didn’t want help, did you? Because you liked what you did. You can fool everyone but not me.” She crouched, trying to catch my gaze. “You deserve to be locked up,” she said gently. “Rot in your cell. I tried to help, and you don’t want it. You’re a monster. So go ahead and be one and they can keep you in a cage where you belong.” Her nails tapped across the seat. “It's too bad we don’t lobotomize anymore,” she mumbled. “If I had my way…” She straightened, tilting her head. “At least I don’t have to deal with you any longer.”
What a nice goodbye.
The driver entered the bus and got in his seat. Dr. Hannah said something to him that I only caught part of.
“Just a ways…I’ll follow you down to Lansing…got business there.”
The driver nodded, and she disappeared. He shouted something out the window, before turning on the headlights.
Before the bus moved, two security men hopped inside. One slid into a seat at the front by the driver. The other came down my way and sat in front of me. He smiled at me, and I made my palm bleed from clenching it too tight. I remained still as he popped something into his mouth.
“You know they aren’t going to let you wear that where you're going, right?” he pointed to my face—the mask. “They won’t allow it.”
He grinned at my non-response.
The bus jolted and steadily made its way out of the lot, onto the road past the gate. The guard watched me with his black eyes.
I wanted to rip his throat out, but what did it matter now? My rage seemed reserved for only one. Not much room for another, even if I wanted to see this guy get bent, regretting that I hadn’t broken his legs when I had the chance. What a missed opportunity.
We were quiet until we made it past the bridge and on to a winding road through a tunnel of trees. Then he opened his mouth again. Really long-ass bus ride.
“It’s too bad about, Eve, huh?” he said. “Really messed up. It sucked having to tell you, but she was really toying with you. It wasn’t right to keep silent, you know?”
I didn’t answer and he continued yapping on.
“Between you and me?” He popped what looked like another piece of candy into his mouth, biting down hard with a crunch. “She was a real bitch, am I right?” He shook his head as if disappointed. “Kind of crazy herself, probably should have been locked up at St. Agnes too.”
No, he was wrong. She was as clearheaded as anyone I ever knew. Just cold and calculating. Brilliantly smart. A good little actress. A cruel little liar who deserves to be punished.
“Real shame,” he continued. “She was that way all her life, a little off.” He looked out the window as he sighed. “Always had a stick up her ass. Always uptight. Frigid as hell.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I think she just needed to get fucked if I were to be honest. Good and hard. Make her come a few times and maybe she’d calm down. They used to do that to women back in the day, you know? Doctors would shove a vibrator into their pussy and make them come until they were drooling like a retard and shaking like they were having a seizure. Took the bitchiness right out of them.”
He didn’t say much else for a while. A blessing to my ears.
The smiling woman unfortunately took that silence as her turn to speak.
“Monster. Bitch,” she repeated softly. “Fuck her, Emery. Fuck her hard.”
The bus halted to a stop. I heard a train screaming in the distance and the bell of the gate. I glanced out and saw, through the fog and the trees, the train rushing past.
“Bet you’d love to get your hands on her, wouldn’t you?”
He watched me closely, no longer smiling.
“I mean after what she did,” he said. “Playing you like that and then getting you to take those meds. Probably trying to poison you.”
“She tricked you…she’s laughing at you,” the smiling woman cooed. “She wanted you to suffer. She loves that you suffer.”
She did. She convinced me to take the medicine. To poison me with that shit. Just like her father had . She wanted to continue his work. Wanted to finish the job.
Like father, like daughter.
He leaned in. “No chick should ruin a guy this bad. Man, if I were you, I’d want to strangle her. I can’t even imagine the fucked-up shit you’d do to her.” He smiled. “Or maybe I can.”
For the first time, I locked eyes with him. He grinned. “Yeah, us guys gotta stick together. Need to help each other out, right? When it comes to crazy-ass women who need to be put in their place. You fucked up her family, sure, I’m not condoning that but…maybe there’s a good reason. Her dad was a real shithead, after all. Full of himself too. I can imagine wanting to kill him. And, Eve? Well…she’s really no better. You got it bad for her, so maybe I can help you out.” He jingled his keys on his belt. “She isn’t too far away to get what she deserves, am I right?”
I had no words. Was this dumb fuck serious?
But the demon in me smiled.
Yes, release me, you little shit. And I’ll make this world wish I had never been born.
Darkness took over me again, and I was my demon. The man must have seen the change in my eyes because he grew quiet, even a little pale.
“Shit…you really are a scary-ass guy.” He laughed nervously.
I felt a fuzzy sort of presence at my back, then the lightest feeling at my shoulder almost like a touch. My sister was there at my ear and so I turned to listen.
“Brother, you’re so close,” she said.
You lied , I replied in my head. The last bit of me to not let go just yet. You told me she was good. You told me she was perfect. That I could trust her.
“I’m sorry, Emery,” she said sadly. “I was fooled too. But you can take this chance. Find her, Emery, make her pay.” She started to cry, and all my rage erupted to the surface like a silent bomb.
Give her a taste of your medicine. Make her pay.
“Kill her,” whispered the smiling woman. “Kill her, Emery.”
“Kill her,” my sister repeated.
I lifted my hands, letting the man see. Letting him know I was ready. As the train roared by and the others’ attention was at the front, he came around and took hold of his keys, starting to unlock my hands and the chains from my seat.
As I waited to be free, I was already planning. I shoved my emotions down in order to think logically and clearly about what I was going to do. How I was going to get to Eve.
I would make her mine. Mine to do with as I liked. And I would make it slow.
Hunt her, Emery , they all cried. And kill anyone in your way.