Chapter 31
I stared out the barred window, like he used to do at the cabin. I hugged the blanket tighter. It wasn’t prison, but I was still a prisoner—in this mental facility and in my mind.
It’d been a whole week since he had left me, but I was still as lost as that day. I refused to think about any of it. I refused to feel any of it.
My parents and Rachel had come for me the first day Agent Becket had brought me here.
But I had refused to see anyone again. The looks on their faces only reminded me of what I’d lost. Agent Becket, I couldn’t keep away.
He came around every day, still holding out hope that I would turn on them.
But he never dared mention any of it. I must have scared the shit out of him in that interrogation room.
So he talked about the weather, and the news and pretended not to notice how sickly I looked.
Another reason why I didn’t want my parents around.
I hated Becket’s visits, but I said nothing. It was thanks to him that my ass wasn’t in a prison cell. It was thanks to him that I’ve had a week of peace to lose my mind in. I had no idea how long his patience with me would last, so I kept my hate inside.
And it wasn’t just him I hated. I hated the way the orderlies spoke to me with too much cheer in their voices.
I hated the psychiatrist for trying to get me to talk about it.
I hated how they forced me to leave my room for an hour every day.
And I hated the sad excuse of a plant they’d brought into my room after speaking to my parents.
I hadn’t watered it. I was determined to watch it die with me.
My door swung open. “Well, well. What a surprise! You’re still standing right where I left you last night,” the orderly joked sarcastically. This girl was my least favourite of them all. She was even more jovial than the rest of them. And she reminded me of…
I clutched the blanket tighter, my knuckles going white.
“Will you try to eat again today? I hate hooking you up to those tubes. They’re not your colour, girl.”
I nodded to get her off my back. It would just come right back out. Maybe if I puked it all over her, she’ll stop asking.
“It’s time to see Doctor Aspen. She’s waiting for you.”
It didn’t help to refuse. Either I go to her, or she comes to my room and stays a little longer. So, I wandered listlessly through the corridors until I stood outside her door.
I walked in and plopped onto her couch. I didn’t bother to knock before I entered, and I didn’t bother with greetings. Manners had become so menial, so aggravatingly exhausting. I stared at my hands, waiting for her to begin her incessant nagging.
“Good morning to you too, Ava. Are you talking today, or just listening again?”
I gave her no answer. It would be a waste of breath. I had so little left in me.
“Then I will talk. And my gloves are coming off, young lady.” From the corner of my eye, I saw her shift to the edge of her seat.
She had a yellow blouse on that made her dark skin glow.
She always had some variation of yellow or gold on.
I used to like the colour. But Doctor Aspen ruined it for me.
I had started to dislike the colour as much as I disliked her.
“From what I’ve heard about you, you are a smart woman. You are strong and resilient.”
I wanted to laugh at her. I was clearly none of those things.
“It’s time for you to woman-up, Ava. It’s time for you to face some facts.”
My eyes slammed shut, hoping I could shut her voice out too.
“From the video they showed me, it was obvious that you and that girl became very close. And it’s obvious by Agent Becket’s account of your reaction to said video, that the dark-haired man meant a great deal to you.”
I clasped my hands over my ears. I couldn’t take it. She had to stop. I could feel it creeping up my spine; all the things I didn’t want to feel.
“You were lovers, weren’t you?”
“Shut up!” I yelled at her, at first shocked that I’d spoken to her that way. I had never told anyone to shut up before. But I couldn’t care. She had to stop, or I might die.
“What was his name?”
My head shook, willing the name to stay out. I’d gone this long without thinking it. It wasn’t allowed to slip in now.
“Ava, you have to face what happened. He used you.”
I sprang to my feet. “He loves me!” I didn’t recognise my own voice. I had never heard a voice so ragged. So dead. My fingers instinctively found the scars on my hip. I’ve traced them so many times these past few days that my skin felt sore and raw. Like my heart.
Doctor Aspen held my gaze, assessing, then nodded. “Maybe. Or maybe that’s precisely what he wanted you to believe. And maybe you wanted to believe it too, so your mind only saw what you wanted it to see. It’s called confirmation bias. The brain can be tricky like that.”
I shook my head. A heaviness settled into my limbs, making them shake with strain to keep me upright. “I want to go home.”
My home. My only home. Grayson.
I sagged onto the couch, slowly pulling my knees up to my chest.
“This is not hell, Princess. Hell comes later.”
Now I understood what he meant. It was a warning. Or maybe he was taunting me. But the fact was, I was chin deep in fucking hell. Right where he left me.
Doctor Aspen’s soft voice broke through my hurt. “Do you know what Stockholm Syndrome is, Ava?”
I didn’t deign her a response. She was going to tell me anyway.
She took a breath and eyed me, as if scared that I would run if she talked again.
She wasn’t wrong. “It’s a thing that sometimes happens to people who are held against their will.
It is a psychological defence mechanism of sorts, where the hostage begins to have…
positive feelings towards their captors. ”
My laugh startled even me, the sound harsh, bitter and dead. “That’s not it, Doctor. Try again,” I said sarcastically. If she thinks she can water down what was between me and Grayson, to some sort of syndrome, she was severely mistaken.
“Okay,” she said, nodding. “But would you humour me for a second?”
She mistook my silence as an invitation.
“You feel close to your captors, I understand. But it was… difficult at first, wasn’t it? You were scared of them.”
“Not Ge… not the girl. I was never scared of her.” I sounded like a petulant child, trying to prove her wrong, but only proved her point.
She nodded, a motion that was grinding on my nerves. She rubbed the underside of her chin, contemplating my words like they made perfect sense to her. “The third one, the other man. He wasn’t very involved with you. Your bond with him isn’t that strong, compared to the other two.”
I wasn’t about to tell her about mine and Hunter’s relationship, so I kept quiet. She was wrong anyway. I’d come to love Hunter. Maybe not as much as Grayson and Gemma, but that didn’t make him any less important.
She nodded at my silence as if I’d confirmed what she had stated. That made me bristle.
“But the dark-haired man. He was the frightening one. You were terrified of him, weren’t you? Would you like to talk about it, Ava? The bad days with him?” she questioned softly.
I just glared at her. I was done with this conversation. She was the crazy one.
She scooted back in her chair, backing away.
“That’s okay. You don’t have to.” She was quiet for a moment, lulling me into a false sense of safety, before continuing her onslaught.
“There was, of course, the turning point where your feelings started to shift. To something more positive. I cannot guess at the cause. Maybe it was just time. Maybe he did something nice for you. Maybe it was a positive act that made you look at him differently, an act of heroism or romanticism.”
My eyes shot to her.
She continued. “An intelligent woman like you, Ava, must have struggled with these new feelings. Knowing how strange it was for you to feel such things towards your captor. I’m sure there was a moment you questioned your own sanity.”
My mouth went dry. No. It wasn’t this Stockholm Syndrome. It was just common sense.
My patience had reached its limit.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but he was counting on you to develop feelings for him.
You would’ve never broken the law for him, if it was not the case.
You had to help him get another captive and kill all those people.
You would not have done that, if there weren’t immense feelings for him.
” She was quiet for a while. “He’s the clever one, isn’t he? The mastermind behind the group?”
I clenched my jaws together and stood. “I’ve had enough.” She knew nothing of us. She understood nothing. I turned and walked to the door.
“He got what he needed from you. And then he abandoned you. He left you to take the fall. All according to his plan.”
My feet stopped moving, my fury blinding me. “Don’t you say another fucking word,” I whispered through clenched teeth.
“I’m sorry, Ava. I do not wish to upset you, but time is of the essence. There is a man’s life at stake, and you are our only lead. You can still save his life. If only you face the truth.”
I spun to her. “The truth?” I laughed. “You want the real truth? That man is already dead, and he deserved to die. And Grayson and I? We loved each other. No, we worshipped each other. There was nothing truer than what I saw in his eyes when he looked at me. Nothing more real. This…” I waved my arms over the place.
“This isn’t real. What you’re saying isn’t real.
But whatever was between me and Grayson, I had never experienced anything truer than that. ”
Fuck. I had let his name slip.
“I am his and he’s everything to me,” I whispered to myself as my fingers found his scars again to remind myself. I shouldn’t let these people get in my head.
Doctor Aspen smoothed her already perfect grey hair back. So similar to how Grayson would pull his hand through his hair that I almost smiled. She sat up straighter when she looked at me again.
“He clearly made you feel loved. And maybe it wasn’t a lie.
But you’re a smart girl, Ava. Think about it.
Look at the facts. You’ve been here for seven days.
Agent Becket had been hunting these people for two years, but he could never find anything solid on them, because they are that good.
The FBI call them The Apparitions. In and out of maximum-security fortresses without leaving so much as a strand of hair behind.
Until a week ago, most agents didn’t even believe in their existence.
“So ask yourself, if he loved you that much, why hasn’t he come for you? This place would be nothing for them. Why isn’t he here?”
Her words sucker-punched the air out of me. It shattered my last pretences. It shattered that fantasy of hope I’d been feverishly clinging to.
I balled my fists against my eyes and wailed. Because I realised it’s what I’d been doing all these days, staying in my room, watching the grounds through the window.
I was waiting. I was waiting for him to come get me. I was searching for him behind every tree, every bush I could see. Waiting for him to saunter across the lawn, smirking up at me, in a manner that said, You didn’t think I’d really leave you, Princess?
But he hadn’t come.
Doctor Aspen was right. It would have been a piece of cake for him, but he hadn’t come back for me.
I was suddenly right back in the forest, sitting in front of that stream, listening to Grayson’s plan to fuck my life up.
I looked up to her, my mind in absolute pieces. “He’s not coming, is he?”
It was Grayson who had locked me in that vault. It was Grayson who left me there. And he wasn’t coming back for me.
There was pity in Doctor Aspen’s eyes too. Just like Agent Becket. “No, Ava. I don’t believe he is.”
Wherever Grayson was, he must’ve been thrilled. It had all gone according to his plan. A plan he had the balls to tell me about, then smugly watched na?ve little Ava play it out.
I sank back onto the couch and stared out the little window, letting it sink in. Taking in what I’d been desperate to deny. What I knew from the moment the vault clicked shut behind me but couldn’t face.
“Oh, you stupid fucking whore.”
That dead bastard had been right to laugh at me. Charles had been right. I was so fucking stupid. It was all a lie.
My mind spiralled out of control as my body became locked in place.
I could hear Doctor Aspen calling to me, but she was too far away, and she didn’t matter.
I was too busy replaying every single second with Grayson that was burned into my soul, trying to find the omens of his betrayal, finally seeing what I ignored and turned a blind eye to.
Finally paying mind to all the times that little voice had warned me, the dark feelings that had clawed at my ribs, everything in me coming to an abrupt stop at one specific memory.
The pomegranate wasn’t edible.
It wasn’t fucking edible.
A coldness burned in my chest, spreading through me, burning through all the memories, voices, feelings and my trusting innocence, until there was nothing left but calm, quiet, raging. Like the undercurrent of a frozen lake.
I snapped my gaze to Doctor Aspen, who was watching me with intense concern. It was dark outside. “I want to speak to Agent Becket.” My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, tasting like the ashes of hell.
Doctor Aspen pulled out her cell phone without a word, her eyes never leaving me. “Agent Becket? Ava would like to speak to you.” She handed me the phone.
“Ava?” I heard his voice coming through.
“I’ll do it.” Fuck the pinkie promise I’d made to him. He had left me. He had promised forever, then he left me. “Together or death,” he had sworn.
“You’ll take the plea deal? You’ll help me catch them?”
“On one condition.” My voice rang cold in my ears.
“I’m listening?”
“I want to rip everything from him, like he did to me.” I felt white-hot conviction burn through me, as if I’d swallowed a slab of dry ice, settling into the empty space where my soul had once been. “When we take him down, Agent Becket, we make it hurt.”