Chapter 48
The wine cellar, Kitty and Antoinette’s Airbnb, West Hollywood
So it’s not technically true that I have absolutely no one. There’s one person I can talk to right now. And there’s the added bonus that he can’t walk away from me. He can’t even answer me back if I leave the duct tape on his mouth.
I pull a robe over my pyjamas and head down the stairs, quietly, like I don’t want to be caught.
Aidan Ward is asleep when I creep into the cellar.
He startles like I’ve fired a gun when I flick the light on.
His eyes are saucer-wide and confused. Then the confusion morphs into fear.
He looks frantically at my hands, trying to figure out if I’ve brought a weapon down this time to finish him off.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘I’m not here to kill you. I’m just here to talk.’
His eyes get wider.
‘That’s what you do, isn’t it? Talk. Listen. Aren’t you a therapist? Somehow?’
He nods.
‘Will you behave if I take the tape off?’
He nods again so I go over and rip it off. He presses his lips together, licks them. It’s actually funny that my emergency contact is a man I’ve got tied up in my basement.
One I’m still planning on killing.
‘How are you?’ I say, backing away and sitting on the bottom step.
Aidan gives me a look that answers the question. His beard is getting bigger, but unevenly. There’s a yellowing bruise on the left side of his face from where I knocked him out. A crust has formed in the corners of his mouth. I can smell his breath from here.
‘Couldn’t sleep?’ he asks. The words come out in a croak.
‘Well, it’s obvious your education hasn’t been wasted.’
He squints at me a little, his eyes still adjusting to the light from the single naked bulb. ‘You don’t look great, Kitty,’ he says.
‘You’re not going to endear yourself to me with comments like that.’
He thinks about this for a moment. ‘I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t lie to people I work with.’
‘I think Tor might disagree with that,’ I say. This was a bad idea. What was I thinking? I stand up and get ready to leave but Aidan calls out to me.
‘Wait,’ he says. ‘You’ve been crying.’
I turn back around and stare at him. ‘I haven’t,’ I say.
He frowns slightly. ‘The honesty thing has to work both ways, Kitty. Why have you come to talk to me? Your hostage?’
I sit back down on my step.
‘What’s happened? Is it your sister? Have you found her?’
I stare at him. ‘How do you know about that?’
He tilts his head and stares back at me. ‘This place isn’t soundproof.’
I look at my hands clasped together in my lap and nod. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘She’s still missing. And I made the mistake of going online. I think, I know, she’s been taken by someone. Someone who wants to hurt her.’
The crease between his eyebrows deepens. ‘You must be very worried.’
‘I am.’
‘And you can’t call the police because …’ He does a funny little jig with his head indicating himself, his predicament.
‘Obviously not,’ I say.
‘So you think she’s been taken? By someone who wants to hurt her. That must feel bad?’
‘It does,’ I admit. ‘Because it’s my fault.’
He nods. ‘It’s very common to blame oneself when something bad happens to someone we care about.’ He frowns at me for a moment, like he’s trying to work something about me out. ‘I think it’s a pattern with you.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You blamed yourself for Tor as well, didn’t you? After the attack. You felt like it was your fault because you didn’t protect her.’
I stare at him, my mouth open. ‘That was my fault too. I should’ve protected her from you. I knew you were bad news. I felt it. And I ignored that feeling. I’ll never forgive myself for that.’
He spends a moment or two just looking at me, still assessing me.
‘You have a saviour complex, Kitty,’ he says finally. ‘Has anyone said that to you before?’
I shrug.
‘You have to realise that you’re not responsible for every woman. How can you be when there’s only one of you? How can you expect to save them all?’
‘I don’t,’ I say. ‘But I should be able to help those close to me. The women I love.’
He stares at me again, like he’s still figuring me out. ‘This is because of what happened to your mother, what you saw when you were young.’
Aidan knows a bit about my childhood. When I was checking him out on Tor’s behalf I pretended to be a patient.
I told him about how my father had been violent towards my mother for most of my childhood.
And how I blamed myself for never stepping in to help her.
I should’ve made up a cover story. I should’ve known that would come back to bite me.
‘That need to protect, Kitty, it comes from fear. Not from strength. You’re scared that if you lose control, even for one minute, everything will fall apart. You’re scared that it will mean you’ve failed.’
He watches my face in silence for a moment or two.
Is he right?
‘We’re all scared though, aren’t we?’ I say. ‘Of losing something.’
‘But you haven’t failed, Kitty. You’ve attached yourself to a responsibility that was never yours to carry. You’ve made it your whole existence.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘You’re wrong. I was supposed to protect them. These are the women who mean more to me than anything. My mother, my best friend, my sister. I’ve let them all down.’
Aidan tilts his head. ‘That’s just not true. You were a child. Then you were a friend. And then you were a sister. You’re human. You’re not a shield.’
I don’t say anything. I just continue looking at my hands.
‘Kitty, you inherited guilt. Guilt that doesn’t belong to you.
And you’ve built your entire personality around it.
’ He pauses for a moment, still looking at me, still trying to get me to make eye contact with him.
‘Kitty, you’re not trying to save people because you care or because you’re selfless or because you’ve got this warped idea that it’s your calling.
You’re trying to save them because you’re scared of what it says about you if you don’t. ’
Is he right?
Am I?
He can’t be right.
‘You’re wrong,’ I say, finally lifting my head and looking him in the eyes.
‘I do this because I care. Because I see justice screwing women over again and again. Because men go around saying things like ‘your body my choice’. Because they think they’re entitled to women’s bodies.
Because the law lets them do that. Because patriarchy lets them do that.
Because everywhere, all over the world, men hurt women without consequence. They get away with it. Over and over.’
He smiles sadly at me. It’s patronising.
And it makes the hot rage in my chest begin to bubble and spit.
‘You’re not a god, Kitty. If Antoinette’s in trouble, it’s because bad stuff happens in this city.
In this world. Stop trying to take responsibility for the universe. It’s not a battle you can ever win.’
‘You’re wrong,’ I say. ‘And I’ve heard enough from you.’
I slap some fresh duct tape over his mouth.
‘You’re wrong,’ I say again before flicking the light off and leaving him alone in the darkness.