Chapter 29
It’s funny.
I’ve never paid much attention to the clock on the dining room wall before. But now, as I sit in the darkness, it ticks so loudly I can’t imagine it not being heard from everywhere inside the house.
My heart jumps when the back door opens. Then, I’m perfectly still as Dad steps in, breaking the silence with the sound of his rain-soaked boots squeaking over the tile. He places his bag and his keys on the kitchen counter behind me. Next, he removes his coat and boots, then the floor creaks beneath the weight of his slow steps.
“I came as soon as I heard.”
He doesn’t elaborate, but we both know he’s speaking of Martinez’s death. The entire city has likely caught wind now that it’s spread to the news outlets, but I’ve known since morning, the second Mack called to see if I’d heard from Diego because he hadn’t shown up for work. Hadn’t called. I played it off during that conversation, but I knew.
I’ve gone over things a million times in my head, how differently things would’ve played out if I’d just gone to Chief Jude weeks ago when I received Damien’s first message. Or if I’d left The Jungle that night instead of waiting around for Martinez to show up. My path never would’ve crossed Damien’s, and things would be a lot more black and white right now because, as it stands… all I see is gray.
I lower my head, feeling the deepening thud inside my chest. I swear, my heart beats differently just at the thought of him. The monster I set free. The dog I mistakenly took off his leash, not once, but twice now. Only, this time is different. Unlike with the librarian, I knew exactly what I was doing when I brought up Martinez. And now, his blood is on my hands. I gave the all-clear for Damien to do this. Yes, I pulled back in the end, but I’ve come to learn that there’s no such thing as pumping the brakes with him. Not when it comes to me.
But while I don’t even think I could look Damien in his eyes right now… I also know I don’t want the last time I saw him to be the last time I’ll see him.
“How are you holding up?”
I shrug when Dad asks, but no words leave my mouth. There’s nothing to say. I don’t get to feel anything but guilt, knowing this is on me. I feel him staring as I pour myself another glass of wine. I don’t lift my eyes from the table when he comes into view, then pulls out a seat and joins me.
“I know you and Martinez had your differences,” he begins. “And no matter what happened last night… this isn’t your fault, sweetheart.”
With my thoughts racing, it takes a moment to process his words, then another moment to realize they don’t make sense.
He’s staring, his eyes filled with compassion when I meet his gaze with confusion.
“If anyone’s to blame, it’s me. I should’ve gotten you help years ago. Better help. But all I could think about was protecting you, shielding you from the world. But it’s true what they say about hindsight. It’s clear to me that by diminishing the reality of your illness, I’ve done you a disservice, and I can’t even begin to apologize enough for that. I—”
“Dad, what the hell are you talking about? You’re not making any sense.”
He pauses when I interrupt, but there are too many emotions swimming in his eyes to figure him out.
“You were upset last night after we talked. I saw you leave, Layla, and I have to ask… where did you go?”
I’m breathless as tension spreads across my brow. And as if the universe is responding to my growing rage, lightning flashes outside the bay window, followed by a deafening crash of thunder.
“Are you seriously…?” I catch myself, lowering my volume when I start again. “I went to blow off some steam. Is that not okay?”
He stares, and I swear I can see the disbelief in his eyes. It’s enough that I feel a sudden chill in the room as my posture stiffens.
“You think I did this.”
I don’t form this as a question, because it isn’t a question. It’s a statement of confirmation as I realize what his angle is.
He wants me to confess.
“This wasn’t me. I could never hurt anyone. Despite what you think, I’m not her. I’m not… Mom.”
He winces when I speak of her, as though it was only yesterday that she was taken from us.
I peer up when he stands, saying nothing as he leaves the room, headed toward the hallway. I hear him unlock the door to his office, then he rummages around inside for a moment before he comes this way again. And before I can make any sense of what’s happening, he tosses a stack of pictures onto the table.
Damien’s pictures.
My eyes focus through the darkness, seeing the disturbing images of torn flesh, blood red webs carved into the bodies of Damien’s victims.
Shit, he thinks these are trophies, evidence that tightens up his theory.
A deep sigh leaves me as I gather my thoughts. “Okay, I know I shouldn’t have these, but—”
“It all makes sense.”
A pleading breath quivers from my lungs when he cuts me off. And as badly as I want to continue explaining myself, I’m aware this could also make me look guiltier. So, I let him speak.
“Since you were a little girl, you’ve… you’ve always had this strange fixation on death,” he says. “At first, I figured it was just curiosity. Then, after your mom passed, and the fixation became more pronounced, I made the excuse that it was just a coping mechanism. But… it was less easy explaining away your obsession with the webs.”
My lips part, and I feel my brow tense with confusion.
“What do you mean?”
He takes a breath, then his eyes slip from mine. “You used to scribble those things everywhere. On the corners of your schoolwork, in your books, on windows, if there was dust on a shelf or the mantle. Everywhere. But it’s my fault, really. You were fragile, and I knew you had a predisposition toward violence because of your mother. I just… I should’ve known better.”
My heart’s racing, and that wild look in my father’s eyes only adds to the mounting stress as another bolt of lightning flashes.
“Should’ve known better than to what, Dad?” The question leaves me harshly, but I feel the gravity of this moment. Feel that everything is about to change.
He lifts his eyes, finally meeting my gaze. “I should’ve known better than to leave you alone with him. That monster’s son. It was only ever just an hour here and there, but… it was enough to infect you, poison your mind.”
My body slams against the back of my chair when his words knock the wind out of me. I’m searching my head for memories I no longer have access to. Memories locked behind the door in my mind that’s been sealed shut due to years of bad medical treatment. But what I do have are Damien’s words. The ones he spoke the night he was here. He made it clear that our connection ran deeper than what I’m aware of, and now, listening to my father, I think things are starting to make sense.
“Who are you talking about? I need a name,” I snap.
His eyes soften a bit as they fill with remorse. “Damien Webb.”
Another crash of thunder punctuates the moment he confirms what I already knew. Still, I needed to hear him say it.
Until now, I assumed that Damien himself had been one of Dad’s patients, but now I’m seeing things in a different light.
“Who was his father? Was Maxwell’s last name Webb? The man in your book? The one on all those tapes you used to obsess over?”
I swipe an angry tear from my face and hold his gaze, waiting for an answer.
He nods, admitting the truth. “Yes. In the beginning, he’d bring his son to wait during our sessions, and I was actually the one who suggested that you two keep one another company. But that was before I knew.”
“Knew what?”
Dad shakes his head, and his eyes seem to be focused on something far, far away. “Before I knew the darkness that truly existed within Maxwell’s heart. Before I knew the things he was capable of. If I’d been aware, there’s no way in hell I ever would’ve let you anywhere nearanyone even remotely connected to him.”
I’m silent, angered by the fact that I can’t remember. Angered by the fact that knowing these things might’ve shaped my actions differently over these past couple months. In the very least, I wouldn’t feel so blindsided right now.
I don’t remember Maxwell, but I’ve overheard the tapes on numerous occasions. Enough that I know of the darkness my father has just mentioned. He was Dad’s most challenging patient. Mostly because he was incredibly evasive, never quite confessing to what he’d done, never saying enough to land himself in any real trouble. And because he spoke in what were practically riddles, he was impossible to treat.
In one recording, I recall my father blowing up, ranting to Maxwell that he was beyond his help. Then, Dad asked why he was still showing up for sessions. A question to which Maxwell’s answer was simple.
“Don’t you understand, Cyrus? Darkness can’t exist without light. Therefore, by the law of nature… I need you.”
“There was never enough proof of what I knew he’d done,” Dad says, bringing me back to the present. “Not enough to go to the police for assistance, anyway. But before I could get any substantial information out of him, we… we lost Mom.”
He pauses, and it’s jarring to hear him summarize such a far-reaching nightmare down to that one simple phrase.
We lost Mom.
His posture straightens, and I watch as he gathers himself before continuing.
“I was on leave for quite some time after that. And during those months I was down, Maxwell’s health began to decline. So, once he knew he didn’t have much time left, he checked himself into a facility, then asked for me.”
Dad’s silhouette is sharp and contrasted in front of the window when lightning brightens the night sky, followed by another crash of thunder that shakes the house.
“I wasn’t fully healed yet, and doctors advised against it, but I visited Maxwell at the psychiatric hospital like he asked. It’d been nearly ten months since his last session, ten months since I’d laid eyes on him, but… that’s when he told me everything. Well, almost everything—the number of lives he’d taken, his reasons for each kill. But still not enough to officially get the police involved. No names, no dates, no locations. Besides, given Maxwell’s declined mental state, nothing he said would’ve been seriously considered. So, I just… held it all in.”
There’s a sense of the burden he’s carried all these years still being just as heavy today as it was all those years ago.
“I was allowed to record the entire confession. From start to finish. He considered it his gift to me for having been so vague in the past. He felt I deserved to know the full story. Only, the story was still incomplete. In so many ways. But it was enough, I suppose. Enough for me to at least know I wasn’t crazy for thinking there was more to this man—the most complex patient I’ve ever taken on.”
I let his words sit with me, piecing together the rest of the story in silence. What began as Maxwell’s rendition of a soul cleansing before his inevitable death, became my father’s idea for a debut novel. A tell-all narrative, written with intent to suggest that his patient may have been one of the nation’s most noteworthy serial killers. A man he’s likened to Jack the Ripper for his ability to not only evade capture, but police suspicion altogether.
“The one thing I couldn’t get him to confess was the existence of the cult.”
My eyes narrow in his direction. “Cult?”
“Madmen like him always seem to have their fair share of followers, but Maxwell… I believe there was an entire movement behind that man. He was charismatic and charming, the kind of guy people would easily follow, easily buy into whatever wicked nonsense fell from his mouth. I got the idea about the cult when he mentioned it in jest once or twice during our sessions. Like it was just this… abstract concept or something, but hearing the way he talked about it felt sort of… I don’t know… tangible. But every time I questioned it, he’d laugh, making it seem like I was ridiculous for even thinking such a thing was possible.”
“He never confirmed it?”
Dad shakes his head. “No, but during his final confession, he made another passing joke, teasing that—if this fictional group did exist—no one would ever find them. He went on to explain that this hypothetical community he fathered was possibly the most secretive, thriving congregation in North America. The roots of which run so far and so deep that they could never be pinned down.”
I’mbreathless, but there’s one more question I need answered.
“Was he here the night Mom died?”
“Was who here?”
“Maxwell’s son.”
Dad draws in a breath, then his eyes leave mine again. “He was.”
My head lowers as the pathways linking my life and my past to Damien begin to light up. And now, I can’t ignore the sudden sense of distrust that’s been awakened. I’m almost certain the threatening phone calls to my father were coming from Damien, but what’s still unclear is the role I play in all this.
If my father’s book is at the core of it all, what was Damien’s plan? Was finding his way back into my life all part of some scheme to stop my father from publishing?
My head spins, trying to make sense of it all, but it’s impossible with so many dark spots, so many holes in the collective story.
“It was… actually Maxwell who called the police that night,” he shares, and this is the first I’d heard of it. “He phoned me late, needing to discuss an issue that’d come up. I asked him to hold when your mother came into my study, and something he overheard must’ve tipped him off that she wasn’t quite right. The details are a bit blurry for me now, but I do know that Maxwell rushed over, and while he was enroute, he called the police. I don’t recall much after your mother… after she…”
He stops there. Or rather, the painful memory of her attempt on his life stops him. But I know the rest of the story quite well, because I’ve seen how it plays out at least once per week.
In my nightmares.
While Maxwell likely rushed toward the ambulance to check on Dad, Damien rushed toward me. It was his hand that held mine, his words that soothed my heart on the darkest night of my life.
Even way back then… he was trying to fix my problems.
“Did he—”
My sentence cuts off when light from outside filters in through the window.
Red and blue lights.
My eyes flit back toward my father, and I’m confused. “Dad?”
“Sweetheart, just relax.”
I glance toward the window again, feeling a knot forming in my stomach as I stand. “What the fuck did you do?”
“I… finally did the right thing, Layla.”
With the room too dark to see his expression, the quiver in his voice is the only indicator that he’s emotional.
The lights grow brighter out front as the vehicle pulls closer. It feels like what little air is left in my lungs is sucked out when the back door slams open, and the moment I turn, seeing four armed men in masks rushing into our home, a needle pricks my neck.
I spin again, this time facing my father as he lowers the syringe, feeling the sting of betrayal as our gazes lock.
“Dad, I—”
Words fail me. My eyelids and limbs grow heavy. If it weren’t for a set of arms catching me from behind, I would’ve hit the ground. This someone is strong, easily hoisting me over their shoulder.
“What should we do with him?” someone asks, then the next voice I hear is my father’s.
“Wait. Wait! What the hell is this? I thought you were officers.”
Half a second later, there’s a short scuffle, then the sound of a swatch of tape stretching and ripping. After that, Dad’s voice becomes small and muffled.
“Bring him,” the one holding me says as I drift off. “Knock him out if you have to. And grab those fucking pictures.”
A loud thud accompanies the pained groan that rumbles in my father’s throat, then he’s silent as I hear the photos being gathered from the table.
“We don’t have much time. They’re almost to the front door,” a voice calls out. It causes tension to tighten the shoulder pressed against my abdomen as I hang upside down, limp against his back.
Their steps move quickly across the kitchen tile, out through the back door, and then out into the rain as the edges of my vision go dark. I’m starting to slip into a deep, heavy sleep, but a whispered promise reaches my ears first. One that brings both confusion and comfort.
“You’re safe now. No one will ever hurt you again.”
* * *
Total darkness, a warm blanket over my shoulders, and a soft, familiar scent.
My head rests comfortably in someone’s lap as a vehicle bounces and sways over uneven terrain. The drugs in my system make it hard to move, but my mind is determined. I need to see where I am, see that I’m not in any immediate danger.
I lift my head only to have a gentle hand come down around me.
“Careful. Not too quickly,” a deep voice croons. A voice I recognize.
“Damien?”
“I’m here. I’ve got you.”
What the hell is happening?
The last thing I remember is the glow of red and blue lights flashing through the dining room window, along with my father making some half-assed excuse for why he thought it necessary to get the police involved. It stings, cuts deeper than any other betrayal I’ve felt. There wasn’t even a second thought that his assumption might be wrong or that throwing me to the wolves wasn’t the only way.
As if sensing that I’m in distress, Damien strokes my arm with his thumb, cradling me in his arms as the van cuts a hard left. I’m groggy, and it takes a moment to remember more, but then it all comes rushing back.
That Damien withheld large parts of his story.
That I’m likely little more than a means to an end for him.
He doesn’t seem to notice when my posture stiffens, suddenly feeling less at ease than I’d been a moment ago.
“Where are you taking me?”
My voice sounds strained and weak, and it’s triggering, reminding me of my past. A past spent sedated with heavy meds, so I’d be easier to control, easier to contain.
“Don’t worry. You’ll be safe. I’d never let anything happen to you.”
His answers are so evasive, but I’m unbothered. My head nor my heart seem to have caught up with my recent discovery. So, despite who and what I know he is… I still feel safe with him.
Considering the events that unfolded tonight, there’s even a chance I trust him more than my father.
The van comes to an abrupt stop, then the engine dies. I muster enough energy to lift my head, and I feel Damien’s eyes on me as I push myself upright from his lap. It’s difficult to see our surroundings through the darkness, but up ahead, in the glow of the headlights, I see bodies, people standing in the road.
A lot of people.
“What… is this place?”
As the driver and front passenger climb out of the van in silence, Damien slips past me and opens the double doors at the rear. My eyes are glued to him as he jumps down, stretching to full height now that his feet are on solid ground. Then, he faces me, offering his hand.
My heart’s racing, beating so wildly, it rivals the growl of the fading storm.
“You can trust me, Layla,” he croons, and damn me for believing him. Even with there being so many questions he’ll need to answer.
I stand, crouching as I make my way to him, and when my hand slips into the warmth of his, the anxiousness begins to subside.
“Watch your step,” he warns, taking my waist with his free hand as I drop down, feeling the soles of my shoes glide over the muddy road. He doesn’t let go as we round the back of the van, heading toward where I’d just spotted the crowd.
“Who are all those people?” I whisper, peering up just in time to see a slow smile cross his face as he answers.
“Family.”
My brow tenses as he leads the way, and when the crowd comes back into view, I can see the full scale of this oddly sinister welcome wagon. Mostly, they’re dressed in black, and no one’s said a word, but their clasped hands and slightly bowed heads allude to their reverence now that they’re standing in Damien’s presence. It only adds to the ominous chill in the air that their eyes are all focused on one target.
Me.
I lock eyes with a girl planted at the front of the group. Her fiery red hair makes her stand out from the others, but with the wicked intensity of her glare, I probably would’ve noticed her anyway. Her jaw tightens when she realizes she has my attention, and I can’t help but wonder if her unhappiness is an accurate representation of how everyone feels.
“Don’t be afraid,” Damien whispers, breaking my focus. I think he can feel me pulling back, but it can’t be helped. I can’t shake the sense that I shouldn’t be here.
Or, what’s more… they don’t seem to want me here.
Several sets of eyes are fixed on where Damien’s hand is linked to mine, and I’m sure they’re all wondering who I am. But they’re not the only ones with questions, because I’ve got a long list of my own.
Who are they?
And… who is Damien to them?
Damien’s steps halt, and we stand in the middle of the road, a few yards from the silent crowd.
“You asked where you are. You asked about them,” he adds, nodding toward the crowd with the darkness of the woods at their backs. “I’ve brought you to my home, Layla.”
Confusion fills me, and my head whips in his direction. “Your home?” My gaze lingers on him as another question leaves me. “Damien… who the fuck are you? What is this place?”
He smiles and a distant roll of thunder sends a shiver racing down my spine.
“Those are complicated questions. But if you promise to be open-minded… I’d like to show you.”
Staring at the chiseled outline of his face, I swallow deeply, keenly aware of having no place else to go. Thanks to my father’s betrayal. For better or worse, Damien’s home is my only place of refuge.
He nods toward the people… his people, and I square my shoulders, having no earthly idea what comes next.
“Welcome home,” he says. “Welcome to the flock.”