Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I didn’t move on the couch where we now sat, my head lying across his lap. I was finally numb, uncaring. Even my fear vanished. He had held me through the storm of emotions that wrecked me. And when I’d finally calmed down, he had lifted me and brought me to sit before the monitor, at first cradling me against him with my head on his shoulder, then laying me across. I could feel his hand at the back of my head where he held a fist of my hair, just to feel through his fingers. My eyes were dry now—and probably red—as I stared at the monitor before us, watching a raccoon climb up a tree beside one of the cameras in the woods. In another, a bat flew by the gate.
I felt his hand move as he caressed my head, and I closed my eyes against the touch. He was so warm. His thigh, solid muscle under me, was tense.
I can warm you.
For just one brief moment, I imagined that we were far from here. That Emery was normal, his ghosts long gone, the trauma past us both. That we were a loving couple, that we’d never hurt each other or anyone else.
That we were happy.
I let the dream overtake me, let his touch comfort me. I turned in his lap, not yet opening my eyes, not yet looking up at him.
I turned and pressed my face close to his waist. Subconsciously, I started using the techniques I had once tried on him in our sessions. Only happy thoughts.
Emery on a beach. Emery with a kitten. Emery smiling—not creepily. Emery being sweet.
I sighed a little and then tensed when his hand lay against my ribs. His fingers traced along me and he whispered something so softly I almost didn’t catch it.
“Poor little rabbit.”
Shuddering, I opened my eyes. The fantasy slipped away and the dark flooded in.
My eyes were locked to his as I cautiously sat up. He felt distant from me even now, even though I swore for a moment I saw the icy glare slip, saw something there, saw a sliver of the Emery I thought I’d come to know. For a moment I had, when he held me as I cried, I was sure of it.
I had him. If only for a moment. It was the second time. The first in Lena’s kitchen. I had him again. His walls were cracking. He wanted me but he couldn’t choose between me and his sister who he believed still lived in his head. Who wanted vengeance. Who told him I couldn’t be trusted no matter what. That I was playing a dangerous game.
But I could make him give in to me. Make him let go.
I felt tired but also alert now that I felt so close to breaking that wall. Slowly, as if to not startle him, I slid onto his lap. There was a flicker in his gaze behind the ice and at the corner of my eye I saw his hands clenching as if he desperately wanted to touch again but was uncertain if he should.
I placed my hands on either side of his mask. His hands shot up to encircle my wrists as if expecting me to snatch the mask away. His grip was tight, almost painful, a warning, but I ignored it and leaned forward.
I caught his hiss of breath as my lips touched the surface of his mask, just between the two front teeth of the grinning skull. I held there even as my heart skipped a beat. I teased across the mask and down his jaw before I pulled away to tip my head back and look at him.
Yes, there he was again. The Emery I knew.
“Will you let me go?” I asked.
He studied my lips before meeting my gaze again. He started to tilt his head to the side as he did when listening to his sister or the smiling woman, but I jerked it back into place. His eyes narrowed, another warning.
“I want your answer, Emery,” I said. “Not theirs.”
He watched me for a second longer before taking his hands from my wrists. “No,” he said.
I searched his eyes and concluded that was his true answer and his alone. I dropped my hands from his face. “What are you going to do?”
He didn’t answer. So I continued with, “You can’t keep me here forever.”
His glare said otherwise. “Maybe not,” he said. “But I’ll keep you with me until…”
“Until what? Until someone finds us?”
A shadow passed over his gaze. “They won’t.”
“They will. You know they will.”
“They’ll be too late...”
That worried me. “What do you mean?”
He looked away, staring past me to the TV. I peered over but the video feeds were the same as before. I went to reach for him again, and he moved so quick I yelped. He took hold of me by the waist and raised me up, then turned me around and pulled me down on his lap once more, pressing my back against his chest. He gripped my jaw, forcing me to look at the monitor.
“You think I put those cameras up just to watch your boyfriend and his cop buddies come in here to take you from me?” he whispered harshly in my ear. “Oh no, sweetheart,” he purred. “Think again.”
I stared up at the screen, brows furrowed. I saw nothing at first. Then I looked closer. There, just out of the corner of one screen from one of the forest cameras, a line passed in the grass like a thin wire. I looked at the camera by the gate and saw a wire passing above the wrought iron.
“See them yet?” His hand that had been gripping my jaw dropped down to cup my throat. “I feel your pulse quickening.” I felt his mask graze against my shoulder. “No, they won’t get far. I doubt they’ll see anything coming, not in time. And those traps will maim if they don’t kill. And, boy, would I like to see that blond fucker get torn apart. I really, really would.” His hand squeezed a little, making me tip my head back, a small whimper escaping me. “You're so clever with your little words, Evee. You have a way of getting under my skin. I’ll give you that. You certainly know how to make my blood burn with something more than just murderous rage, you know that? You surprise me at every turn. It almost makes me want to give in, to fall right at your feet. You make it very hard. The thesis was good. The crying was even better. And then a kiss? Be still, my cold dead heart.” I struggled against him, but he kept me in place, kept me close, his mask pressed against the side of my face as he held my throat.
“But then a memory pops into my head, reminding me of why it might not be such a good idea to trust you,” he continued. “Yes, I did an awful thing. But I can’t let go that you never knew. That none of your family slipped what they were doing. Because every one of those fucks lived here with you, just you.” He let go of me abruptly, pulling me off him and throwing me down on the couch as he got up and went over to the desk. He took my laptop and set it on the coffee table in front of me, then brought up his folder on my hard drive. He brought up a photo of him, one that I had only briefly glanced over when I had first looked over his files.
In his early teens, he looked much younger, smaller, and clearly malnourished. He was sitting on the floor of the classroom with some kind of puzzle before him.
“Look close, do you see?” he said, standing practically over me. “Here, let me zoom in closer for you.” He focused in on his shoulders and face.
I looked over his face but still didn’t understand. He was wearing something around his neck. A beaded necklace clearly made by a child, likely his sister. At the end of it was a heart pendant with the letter E in the center.
I stared at the necklace and my blood turned cold as realization hit me.
“Look familiar?” Emery said, tilting his head.
I couldn’t speak.
“How about I reanimate your memory,” Emery said when I didn’t respond. He minimized the photo, then went into my pictures folder. He hovered over a file folder named Old Childhood Photos. Uncle Wes had sent them to me when I started my second year of college. Photos taken from my dad's old phone. He clicked on it and scrolled down. “Forgive me for stalking your photos. I had a lot to think about after reading your thesis and I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to see your life, how beautiful it was. It tugged at me, it really did. Then I saw this photo.” He clicked on one of me and my brother out on the deck by the river. My brother had draped his arms around me in a hug, both of us grinning at the camera.
I saw it right away. Emery’s necklace around my neck.
“So imagine my surprise,” he went on, “seeing the necklace my sister made me, made with her sweet little hands with such joy because a nurse took pity on her and let her play with something other than a fucking Rubik’s cube. It was torn off my neck by your brother when your father told me I couldn’t keep it. That it was a choking hazard.” He shook his head. “What a joke. I fought to keep it and I was beaten for it. Then your brother took it and tried to comfort me by saying he’d tell his sister—that being you—that it was for her. I forgot that part since getting slapped around kind of became the core focus of that memory, but the words came back real quick once I saw this.”
He was getting visibly angrier again. And I couldn’t blame him. Maybe a person with a sound mind would have tried to come to some sort of conclusion that it was a crazy coincidence. That my brother had just gifted me the necklace without telling me where it had come from—which was the honest truth.
But Emery wasn’t normal.
Just when I was sure I had that little hope of gaining some trust, it was dashed right away.
Still, I had no other argument. “My brother gave it to me,” I said with little confidence. “But I had no idea where it came from. He only said a patient of his made it.”
“Is that right?”
I glared at him. “Yes.”
“And where is it now, Evee?”
I opened my mouth to say I didn’t know. Then I closed it.
No…I did know where. It was here. But I couldn’t get to it. Not unless…
“Hmm? Don’t know? Well, guess it doesn’t matter, you probably threw it in the trash and forgot.” He shut my laptop then kneeled, getting close again. “Because that’s what you and your family do, take precious things, play with them for a while, then throw them in the trash. Your father took me and played around then threw me out when he was done. My sister, rest her fucking soul, would have been the same. Your brother threw out a lot of our things too. Your uncle and cousin tossed bodies. Animals and children into the same garbage pile. And you? I can guess. You throw out hearts. That Ethan guy was pretty messed up.” Emery started to laugh, covering his mask with his hand. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, he was a real loser. And I relished killing him, I really did. But man, did he have it out for you. It was him who let me go. He freed me so I could get to you.” He stood and came around behind me, his hand gripping the couch end close to me as he bent down and got close to my ear. “And that guy who came to your rescue. Yeah, you got him too. Making you promises. I’m sure he’s losing sleep just looking for you.”
Boy, suddenly I missed when he was silent. This ranting Emery was much more outwardly unhinged. I swallowed hard, knowing I shouldn’t bait him but I couldn’t help it. “And you,” I said. “I got you too?”
“Oh, yes.” I felt the fabric of the couch tear in his tight grip. “How I worshiped you. A little goddess, I thought, as I saw you step into the room that first time. I was trapped the moment you smiled at me. I would have done anything to just have you look at me like I was more than a freak. I would have killed for it.” He unlatched himself from the couch. “The moment you revealed who you were, I felt my heart shrivel up in my chest. I felt sick.”
I clenched my hands into fists on my lap. “I didn’t want you to know. I changed my mind, remember?” I whispered.
“Oh, right, because you started to feel sorry for me and took that as love,” he snarled. I heard something crash into the wall, making me jump to my feet. I turned to see a now broken remote slide across the kitchen. He backed away from me.
“Do you need to read my thesis again?” I snapped. “Or are you just going to keep creating this narrative in your head, a narrative the smiling woman or maybe your sister made up—”
“Don’t you dare—”
“They aren’t real! They’re just in your head!” I yelled. “She’s gone and dead, Emery, she’s not there, get over it!”
I froze, shocked at my own words. I expected him to lose it.
Instead, I saw the hurt in his eyes. Just for a split second I saw the vulnerable Emery, that little boy who was scared and uncertain. I think I even heard his sharp intake of breath.
Then in a blink it was gone, replaced with scary Emery again. He turned from me, refusing to respond.
I was so done making excuses for him. Yet, jabbing him like this was the worst thing I could do. As his therapist, it was unthinkable.
But I wasn’t that person for him anymore. Not when his illness made him act like a monster.
“They’re not there…” I repeated, apologetically. “And I didn’t know about the necklace.”
He bowed his head, his shoulders shaking. “Guess it doesn’t matter, does it? Come tomorrow…it won’t matter.”
He took my laptop and disappeared up the stairs.
Every step forward was two steps back.