50. Esperr #2
Michael reaches up slowly before his fingers find a strand of hair that’s fallen across my face, and he tucks it back. I wrench my head away, hard enough that pain spikes at the back of my skull, screaming at me.
But it’s useless; there’s nowhere to go, the chair doesn’t move, my hands don’t move, and he’s still right there, hand hovering over my ear. Close enough that I can feel his breath fanning over my face.
“I hate you,” I growl.
Something moves across his face, and then he stands up and turns back to Jessi.
“No—” The word rips me out of me. “No, stop! Don’t touch her?—”
He swings the pipe again, and Jessi screams, tears streaming down her face.
I open my mouth again to beg him to stop, but he suddenly drops the pipe, the metal clanking against the concrete floor, echoing off the walls.
Jessi whimpers, words that I can’t understand pouring out of her. I let out a breath, trying to come up with something to say that would make her feel better, but there’s nothing—there are no words that would ever make this feel better.
Michael crosses the room, going to the corner that I can barely see, crouching down before he moves something around. My brows furrow for a moment before he stands back up, and then every thought I’ve ever had leaves my body at once.
The nail gun hangs from his hand, and everything inside me tenses.
“No.” The words that come out of me are barely a sound. “No, no, no?—”
Jessi doesn’t understand yet, but her breath catches, and she’s still shaking, head bowed. But she doesn’t understand that that thing in his hand; she doesn’t know, she hasn’t seen what I’ve seen; she doesn’t carry what I carry every single night when I close my eyes and?—
“He eventually begged too,” Michael says, but it’s not to me; it’s to Jessi. “Her father… it took him a while to get there, but eventually… he did.”
“Don’t.” My voice comes out more stern than I thought, but I’m grateful I don’t sound weak. Though that goes out the window the moment I open my mouth and start begging. “Please, please… don’t do this. I’ll do whatever you want; I’ll give you whatever you want, just please, don’t?—”
“Oh, I know you will.” He glances at me over his shoulder, almost like he’s bored. “Eventually.”
Jessi’s head snaps up, and it's then that her gaze drops to the nail gun in his hand, and I watch the moment she understands and watch the color drain from her face completely.
“Esperr—” She whimpers, her voice cracking. “Esperr?—”
“I’m here.” It’s all I have, and it’s not enough. “Jessi, Jessi! Look at me, not at him; don’t look at him?—”
Suddenly Michael drops the gun to her hand, and it cracks through the silence like a thunderclap.
Jessi’s scream echoes off every wall in the basement, and I realize I’m screaming as well, pulling against the ties to break free.
“Stop!” The word tears out of me raw and broken; tears cloud my vision. “Stop! Please, just fucking stop?—”
He doesn’t look at me; he just moves around Jessi slowly, too thoughtful, like he’s considering my words, and then like his mask drops an inch; he’s seething.
“You used to laugh differently. Before all of this.” Another crack of the nail gun and Jessi screams. “You had this… it started quiet, and then it’s like that laugh just takes over.
” He pauses, tilting his head, smiling down at Jessi’s arm, like he’s admiring his work. “I haven't heard it in a long time.”
“You’re insane,” I spit, my voice shaking. “You’re completely insane.”
“I used to watch you when you went to the store.” He says it in a way that sounds like it’s normal, like it’s okay that he stalked me. “Did you feel my gaze? Did you know I was right there?” The nail gun fires again. “You should have looked behind you, Melody.”
Jessi is sobbing, her whole body shaking violently, and he continues, sending one nail into her hand. And almost lazily he backhands her across the face, her head snapping to the side.
“Don’t touch her?—”
He does it again, and she sobs, squeezing her eyes shut as her head falls to the side once more.
“I thought about you every single day,” he continues, like I hadn’t said anything, like I’m not even in the room, but he’s clearly talking to me, though his attention is on Jessi, and in the most horrible way—using her as a prop, as a canvas, as a way to get to me.
“Every day for those three years before you disappeared. And then after a while I found you again.” And with a slip of that mask again, his voice shifts.
“Do you know what that does to a person?”
“I don’t care?—”
“No.” He looks at me then, and there it is, the thing living underneath all that control—bottomless and rotting inside. “You don’t! That’s always been the problem.”
He sets the nail gun down, and for one horrible second I think it’s over, and the worst part of myself thinks good. I want this to be over, even if he kills her and me, because at least it’ll be over. That she doesn’t have to hurt anymore and that I can finally stop running.
Maybe I can see my parents.
And then his arm wraps around Jessi’s throat.
“No!” I lurch forward so hard the chair legs scrape across the concrete. “No, stop, let her go, let her go?—”
Jessi’s hands scrabble uselessly against the armrests, her legs jerking, and I scream at the top of my lungs.
“Stop!” My voice is breaking completely.
“Please! Please, stop! Michael! I’ll do whatever you want, anything; just let her go.
You want to leave, we’ll go; I’ll leave this place and never run. ”
Jessi’s legs go slack, her eyes drifting close. But Michael keeps hold for three more seconds—I count them, I don’t know why I count them—and then he lets go.
The basement goes quiet, except for my rasps, trying to suck in air, but I can’t—not with the sobs that are wrecking through my body. I can barely see Michael, but I can make out the shape of him standing and stepping forward to me.
Suddenly my head knocks back, a force I wasn’t prepared for—and then I feel something warm sliding from my nose down over my upper lip and then my bottom before it’s coating my chin. The copper taste of it hits my tongue and then the back of my throat.
The world tilts, and I don’t have time again before the second hit comes, catching me on the side of the head, and everything just—fractures.
The basement splits into pieces that don’t sit still; the light, my screaming, and the concrete floor rolls like water—I can’t feel which way is up for a long, horrible second.
There’s a ringing that swallows everything else.
I can feel my own heartbeat in my skull.
“—been so long!” Michael yells. I missed the beginning of what he said, as the sound of him comes from somewhere far away and close at the same time. His voice moves around me; I can’t locate where it starts. “I want you to understand that I didn’t want it to be this way.”
I blink and then again as the room slowly starts to reassemble itself, reluctantly.
Michael crouches in front of me again.
“Look at me,” he softly says.
I close my eyes, shaking my head.
“LOOK AT ME!” He screams, spit flying out of his mouth and hitting me in the face.
I flinch, a sob slipping out.
“LOOK AT ME. LOOK AT ME. LOOK AT ME!” Michael screams over and over again, just before his hand flies across my cheek, sending my face rearing to the side.
I’m sorry, Zyran.