Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
The sun hadn’t come out in so long. Hours, in fact. Or maybe just minutes.
Claire could barely see. A sliver of unnatural light peeked out from somewhere in the room, but it was only enough for her to make out shadows. When had the world become so drab?
“It was hard, what I had to do,” someone was saying. A familiar voice. Daddy. “But it made me into the man I am. There’s a man in you too, Dillon. I wanna meet ’im.”
Right, Dillon.
She was going to marry him.
She’d agreed…
So why was she still here?
Why did her throat burn? Why did her stomach hurt? Why did her arms itch?
“Okay,” Dillon said, “but how can we do it? They’ll see the track marks. Another fire?”
“No, no matter which way it happens, he’ll never stop lookin’ at us. The Saints need to get things movin’ again, and I can’t do that with that punk sniffin’ around. Might be a two-birds-with-one-stone situation.”
“What’s that mean?” Dillon asked.
“It means the cop’s obsession might turn out to be a blessin’ in disguise, boys.
Trevor got us into this mess. Fuckin’ Trevor—I should’ve put a bullet in ’im a long time ago.
Anyway, I’ve taken some inspiration from that ugly past of his.
But we need Claire on board for a night. We need him to think she’s free.”
“How?” Marty. “It’ll never work.”
“Don’t worry. She’ll break.”
Claire tried to roll over. She was so sick. Filthy and rotting from the inside out. She was full of worms, burrowing tunnels through her organs. She closed her eyes.
If she were lucky, they’d never open again.
When Claire woke, the world was staticky gray.
A ringing sound pierced her ears and cut straight into her brain.
Everything—her head, her throat, her limbs—hurt.
She peeled off the cold metal floor and held herself up with her arms, but they buckled beneath her like plastic straws.
She readjusted so she was on her backside and managed to scoot until bars pressed into her aching spine.
“What’s going on?” she croaked out, but her voice sounded strange and her tongue tasted like bile. She was so itchy, but when she scratched her forearms, her skin felt raw. Her fingernails were wet. It wasn’t right. “Where am I?”
But she already knew.
The cage.
Maybe this was just a memory.
A light appeared. Shadows shapeshifted as a figure moved toward her, carrying an LED lantern. He looked like an alien. His torso was too tall. His limbs were too long. His face was nothing but a black splotch; a shadow man.
But she knew who he was.
The fear came on visceral and slow before it consumed her. She didn’t breathe.
Maybe if she didn’t move, he wouldn’t see her.
He wasn’t looking for her anyway. He moved toward the space beside her, beyond the bars.
The light spread enough to illuminate another figure in the small brick room.
They were slumped against the wall, unmoving.
Denim overalls and a blue knitted turtleneck.
Long hair, dark blonde, tangled and matted.
Their head fell to the side at an unnatural angle, like it wasn’t even connected to the neck. The light drew closer.
Two empty eye sockets gaped back at her. A bony jaw, devoid of all flesh, hung open to reveal a full set of teeth.
And the figure had no skin.
A scream raked against Claire’s throat. She screamed more, hysterical, a burst of adrenaline giving her enough energy to scramble back, but she only pressed deeper into the bars behind her. She tried to scream again, but this time, nothing came out.
“Guess I don’t need this anymore,” her dad said. She watched in horror as he clasped something around the skeleton’s neck. A silver necklace with a butterfly pendant on it. “There we go. Right where it belongs.”
Claire’s hand slapped over her mouth as she stifled her sob. “It’s my mom. Oh, God, why is it my mom?”
But she already knew.
Some awareness returned through the foggy window panes of her memory. She couldn’t recall exactly what happened to bring her here, but she remembered her mom’s death. She remembered thinking her dad killed her. She just couldn’t prove it. Seth couldn’t prove it either.
Seth.
Dark blue eyes flashed in her mind before nausea speared through her stomach, into her throat.
Somehow, she knew where to reach in the half-darkness, almost like she’d done this before.
She must’ve, because the stomach acid that burned her esophagus fell onto a bucket of sloshing bile, the smell acrid in her nostrils.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” her dad crooned. “You don’t like what you see?”
“You… kept her,” Claire uttered, shoving the bucket aside. Her body was so weak. She slumped against the bars of the cage, much like the skeleton slumped against the wall. “Oh God, you kept her.”
Her dad’s joints crackled as he crouched in front of the bars and held the lantern up to his face, shifting his monstrous features.
His irises were so light, they became ivory, blending with the whites of his eyes till he only had black, endless pupils.
“Of course I kept ’er. I told your mother when she was alive that she’s mine. Always has been, always will be.”
Claire wanted to throw up again, but she had nothing left. She let her head fall back. This wasn’t really happening. Her mind was a cruel place, constructing cruel images from memory.
“You’re mine too, baby girl. I brought you into this world. Raised you on my dime, on the back of my daddy’s legacy. Now I get to decide how this ends. You always knew that was true, didn’t you, Claire Bear?”
“No,” she murmured. “No, no, no, this isn’t happening. It’s not real.”
“So why,” her dad continued, “did you think you could pull the stunts you pulled, huh? That’s the part that baffles me. I thought you were smarter than that, but you’re the same weak, defiant, pathetic little girl you’ve always been, and that’s why you’re here. Yet again, you are here.”
She forced herself to look at him. The stunt she pulled? He meant trying to sell him out, trying to get the cops involved, trying to tell… him.
Seth.
“No, I protected you. I knew… but I still never said the whole truth… I still thought… maybe I was wrong about you…”
“You didn’t protect me, sweetheart, you’d just never seen the truth, ’cause I didn’t trust ya.
Rightfully so. I trusted your mother, and that turned into a big mess I had to contain too.
Still, I gave you way too much freedom.” He stood up and left the lantern on the floor.
The shadows danced over him, creating dark lines like the stripes of a tiger.
“You should’ve lied, sweetheart. Maybe then someone would’ve listened. ”
With a nod, her dad turned away.
“Go on, Dill,” he said, and only then did Claire notice the man tucked in the corner of the room. “Hit ’er again. The one thing Trevor was actually onto. It might just work.”
Dillon approached, awkwardly holding some tools.
The bars creaked. Claire pinched her eyes shut.
She wanted to run, to attack—she was sure she had before.
She’d tried to fight back, and that must’ve been why her wrists were so sore.
But she was too weak now. She felt her body being manipulated by familiar, callused hands.
Then, a pinprick around the inner part of her elbow, followed by a hot rush.
None of it mattered, because this wasn’t real.
It was a nightmare. She’d wake up soon.
The thought comforted her as the warm feeling flowed through her veins again. Ah, right. Everything was good.
She’d almost forgotten, for a moment, that she was made of liquid sunshine.
The next time Claire became aware of the world, she was floating in warm water.
It felt so nice as her eyes fluttered open to a calm, yellowy light, the type of warmth that reminded her of a porch on a summer night.
Homey and familiar. Someone was scrubbing her arm.
The smell of lavender soap reached her nose.
She let her head lull to the side and rested her eyes. That dark blue gaze appeared in her mind again, but when her eyelids fluttered back open, it was Dillon’s brown eyes that were staring at her. He looked angry. Don’t be angry.
They were in the bathroom. Her childhood bathroom in the farmhouse, upstairs, in the massive porcelain tub. She used to take baths in here when she was a little girl, but she was big now. Her body was long and naked.
“Why’d you have to drag me into this?” Dillon roughly scrubbed her with a loofah. “I hate you. You have no idea how much I hate you.”
As much as he scrubbed the other parts of her body, the itch on her forearms wouldn’t go away. “I’m still so itchy, Dillon…”
“Don’t scratch, you’ll get blood in the bath. You just stopped bleeding.”
She looked down. Her arms were covered in red stripes. “Why’d you scratch me?”
“I didn’t. You did it to yourself. Shut up and don’t get sick again. You need to be clean.”
Claire let her head roll back, her hair floating like seaweed in the frothy water.
It could’ve been minutes or days or hours or months. But as quickly as Claire had slipped into cosmic bliss, she’d plummeted back to a living hell that never seemed to end.
“Please, I need something.” She didn’t know if anyone was there to hear her; the room was pitch black.
She’d woken minutes or hours before to dead silence.
The metal floor of the cage was glacial beneath her.
She had clothes on, a top and shorts, but no socks.
Her feet were frozen, heavy. She stood on them anyway, fingering the bars to support herself.
“Dillon? Daddy? Someone… I’m ready to come out… I’ll be good…”
No one came for her.
Not for hours, or maybe just minutes.
There was a creaking sound, then footsteps, then the light from the lantern returned. Her dad ducked low to enter the room.
“Daddy.” She grabbed onto the bars of the cage. “I’m confused. Whatever I did, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Can I please come out now? I’ll be good, I promise.”
Her dad held the lantern up. The shadows darkened half his face, making it look like he was wearing a mask.
But he was her only salvation. The only one who could set her free.
“You don’t remember what you did, sweetheart?
I find that hard to believe. You were goin’ behind our backs and talkin’ to a detective. You remember now, right?”
A detective.
Blue eyes, a dimpled smile.
A fantasy.
Fantasies were trouble; she’d learned that before.
That was why she was here.
“Right. Him.”
“You told me all about him. All the things you told him. You remember now?”
Not really. She could vaguely remember being questioned, but she mostly remembered puking. That was why her throat was so sore. “Y-yes, I’m sorry. I told him I thought maybe you… maybe you sold drugs… maybe you killed Mom… but I was confused.”
Her dad’s smile was satisfied. “You were confused indeed. And who is that over there?” He held the lantern to her right, illuminating the clothed skeleton against the wall. It had scared her before, but looked more like a prop now.
Claire remembered, but she didn’t care. She’d say anything to get out and do anything to stay out.
“Mom.”
“Why’s she down here?”
“I don’t know.” She gripped the bars tighter.
“Are you gonna let me out, Daddy? If you’re not, can Dillon come back in?
I’m sick. I need to feel better.” Whatever they’d been giving her had been her only moments of relief; they felt so good, like bites of sticky caramel while chewing on mouthfuls of dirt.
But they never lasted long enough. And the taste of dirt was always too strong.
“Oh, there’ll be no more of that, sweetie. We’re gonna get you some proper nutrients and get you outside. You’d like that, right? Some fresh air? A nice view of the stars?”
The images brought a smile to her face and tears to her eyes. Could she really be free again? She’d be good this time. She’d never upset him again. “Yes. Yes, please.”
“Good.”
Claire’s heart leapt with hope when the keys jangled. Her dad pulled a keyring out, then unlocked the door to the cage. It creaked open. Claire remained inside, staring at him till he gave her a nod.
With his permission, she burst outside and wrapped her arms around his wide stomach. It was like hugging a tree. “Thank you, thank you.” She held him tighter, and he placed a hand on her back. Still gripping him, she looked up at his face. “I won’t act out again, I promise.”
“I know you won’t, sweetheart. I’ve got a real important job for you to do for me tonight.”
“Anything, Daddy. Anything.”
“Good. You stick to the script, and everything’ll turn out fine. You won’t have to come back to the cage, all right?”
“Okay. Yes. I promise I’ll be good.”
“I know you will.” He stroked her hair. “You and Detective Winslow are about to have a little lover’s quarrel.”