by Mary Stone
I should have said a lot of words to our mother.
But I hadn’t, and there was only one way to make everything right now.
Justice.
I shook my head, forcing myself to answer the doctor. “She did. She ordered the damn thing right off the internet. But she didn’t use gas.”
The redhead’s frown deepened. “Sedatives?”
Dr. Autumn Trent’s deductive powers were strong, and for a moment, I thought I might puke. My stomach churned, and I turned just as a flicker of movement caught my eye.
It was her. Colleen. She was here. My precious sister was standing near the front doorway…crying.
Seeing her like that was comforting in its own way. It’s one of the ways I most remembered her. My sister had always been crying toward the end. She didn’t seem to know how to stop.
“Her toxicology report came back clean.” A deep, broken voice said the words, but I wasn’t certain that the voice was mine, even though I knew it was. “She didn’t use anything. She wanted to suffer.”
When I looked back at my captive, Dr. Trent appeared to have actual tears in her eyes. She was sad for me…for Colleen. She probably would have done a better job at keeping my sister alive than the smarmy dickhead still writhing on the floor, but none of that mattered now.
Dead. Colleen, my mother, and soon, the compassionate-faced woman tied up on an exquisite pinewood chair. It was the doctor’s fault. My fault too. Not that the blame really mattered, I guessed. In our own separate ways, Philip and I were already dead.
I glanced at Colleen one last time. “I’m going to make you smile again,” I called out to her. She couldn’t understand me, but she would. She’d understand everything soon.
There was only one way to rid my sister of that abominable shadow forever, and the time had come to act.
Forcing the bag over Dr. Trent’s head was easier than I’d predicted. Of course, she struggled, but with her hands tied behind her back, she could do little more than thrash like a doomed fish out of water. I was strong enough to hold her down, and without the use of her arms, she couldn’t fight all that hard.
“Stop!” Philip Baldwin squalled like a newborn baby behind us. “You h-have to stop this, Albert. She’s innocent. Me! I’m the one you hate. Kill me!”
He was watching, just as I had wanted him to. Excellent. I thought I might have to tape his eyelids open, but it seemed the doctor would be saving me the hassle.
I didn’t relish ending human life, and in a perfect world, I wouldn’t harm a hair on this woman’s head. She’d done nothing wrong, aside from talking entirely too much and causing an unintentional interference with Evelyn Walker’s body discovery. That had been a bitter annoyance, but I’d managed to work around the obstacle.
I always did.
Saving Dr. Trent from that elevator shaft only to have her end up as collateral damage now was a shame. But a very necessary shame.
Philip deserved worse than death. Killing him now would end his suffering. That wouldn’t do. I intended for this day to be only the beginning of hell on earth for Dr. Philip Baldwin.
The FBI would show no mercy to him this time. Not after he’d murdered one of theirs. Everyone in the hospital knew how much Baldwin despised Dr. Trent. They wouldn’t be asking if he would do such a thing…they’d be typing out an endless list of official reasons why he was, unquestionably, the killer.
The redhead gave a particularly violent jerk, attempting to topple the chair, but I held her steady. She was losing most of her air, and the panic was kicking in.
Oh, how the human body desired oxygen.
I trained my gaze on Dr. Trent’s face, knowing we were entering the final stages of her impending death. My job would be completed soon. Over.
Her eyes had undergone considerable enlargement, giving her a somewhat cartoonish quality. Jet-black pupils dilated to a size that nearly overtook the bright green irises. A few blood vessels had already hemorrhaged, reminding me of Evelyn and Paula.
They’d taken on a similar semblance in their final moments. The difference being that Dr. Trent was much prettier. Smarter. Relatively innocent.
She was going places.
No…she had been going places.
Just as my sister had been.
Colleen.
So sweet and innocent and…
For a moment I was overcome by a manic fear that this wasn’t Dr. Trent at all. Colleen…Colleen was on this chair, in this bag, and I was killing her.
“I have to tell you something, but you promise me first that you won’t say a word to Mom.”
I had been the one who killed my sister, hadn’t I?
I could have stopped the train. Hit the brakes. Averted the situation altogether.
She would have hated me for a while, but she’d have forgiven me eventually. We were siblings. Close. We loved each other.
And even if she hadn’t forgiven me…Colleen could have hated me for all eternity, and that would have been okay.
Because she’d be alive.
Not some ghost come back to haunt me with my failure.
Heart threatening to beat out of my chest, I glanced at the doorway of Baldwin’s giant house, hoping she’d gone away. I couldn’t bear to look at her knowing I was her murderer. I had ended her life by the mere act of not protecting my sister.
Instead of empty space, Colleen stared back at me, eyes sparkling blue the way they used to, but she was still crying. And worse, she’d figured out the truth.
She lifted one skinny arm, pointing a tiny finger toward me. Her downturned lips parted, and she mouthed a single word. “You.”
“No!” An excruciating pain seized my body as the truth seared through my core. My bones seemed to shatter in a cascade of vile collapse.
I had killed her. I had killed my sister. She said so herself. She pointed at me.
“No!” I whirled toward Philip Baldwin, who was lying in a pathetic heap on the floor of his own house. “You! You, you, you! You did this!”
He had to pay. Turning back to Dr. Trent, I watched her struggle and fight with feral enthusiasm. She began to kick at me and flail in such a way that her chair threatened to turn over.
She sucked the bag into her mouth and chewed. Chewed. Like a dog.
A dog who was desperate to live.
“Was this how it went for you, Colleen?” I spoke to the form at the doorway but refused to peek at her. She’d only remind me that this was my fault. Her blood was on my hands.
And she was wrong.
That asshole moaning behind me, he was to blame. And this redheaded, meddling bitch—she was going to guarantee that Philip Baldwin paid his dues.
Finally.
“Did you regret your decision in the end, Colleen? Did you fight like this? Or did you let the darkness wash over you like a palliative wave? Did you welcome Death?”
I still declined to glance at my sister. Her ghost was confused. Confused and sad. But after this, all would be well. Clear.
Just a few more minutes.
One…
Two…
Dr. Trent was growing weaker. Her kicks and flounders were becoming less frequent. Pitiful, even.
“The desire to live is so strong, isn’t it, Doctor? I wonder if it’s the strongest instinct we humans have.” I studied her once pretty features. “You probably know. Studied all that in college, didn’t you? I bet you were the top of your class.”
Her greens struggled to focus on my face. Even now as they bulged out like a stepped-on frog, I couldn’t deny her beauty and the shame of wasting her promising life. Bright eyes, bright hair, bright future. But the woman was dying.
That was how things happened sometimes.
“Colleen was in college. She was going places. But I guess you know how that all resulted.” I leaned in until our noses were millimeters apart. “We want to live so badly, but in the end, something as insignificant as a thin piece of plastic can take us out.”
Her eyes began to
close, then pop open, then close again. She was on her way, close to stepping through the last exit door. The door that answered that forever burning question burdening the hearts of all mankind.
What comes next?
No one knew, because the living couldn’t see past death, and the dead couldn’t speak to the living.
They could just stand and point.
My fault.
My fault.
My fault.
Philip groaned for the millionth time behind me, pulling me from the trance of responsibility. That bastard. Just look at what he’d done. He’d taken all these innocent lives.
“Tell Colleen I love her, and I fixed things, if you run into her. I don’t really know how it all goes after this, Pippi. You might not even end up in the same place as my sister, but—”
Another grunt from Baldwin had me slamming my hands on my ears, not wanting a distraction. The timing of that man. He could wait. I’d deal with him, but not now.
I wanted to witness Dr. Trent’s last breath, witness her eyes glaze over. I needed to behold the crossover from suffering to peace. To wherever Colleen was.
More sounds from Baldwin. My irritation momentarily overtook my attention, and I began to turn toward the evil, cursed son of a bitch. I’d shut that asshole up with a good punch to the—
Philip’s body crashed into me with the violent force of Hades.
32
Oxygen didn’t receive nearly the amount of appreciation it deserved. Parties, parades, a national freaking holiday…
In this moment of truth, tied to a chair in Philip Baldwin’s countryside home and unable to inhale even a puff of the precious commodity, Autumn understood how petty everything else in the world was.
Air. Breathing air. That was all that mattered. That was a miracle worth celebrating.
The problem being, of course, that she’d been deprived of the invisible element altogether. The plastic bag had leached itself onto her features like a mask.
This is your new face, Dr. Trent. This is how they will find you…beneath an unforgiving sheen of plastic hell.
Albert hovered over her, focused with apt attention. His fascination was evident, and she could tell through the blur of the plastic that he didn’t want to miss a second of her struggle.
She’d watched death, studied death, faced death numerous times. But not once had she pictured leaving this world in such a way. And despite knowing the cycle of life made exceptions for no one, she felt this ending to be dreadful and unfair.
No warning, no prep time.
She had things to do.
Who would care for Peach and Toad? Who would find Sarah and set her on a clean path? Who would deal with Justin Black and all his manipulative madness?
Who would break the news to the people who loved her?
And who would say all the many words she’d left unsaid?
She deeply regretted her argument with Winter. Her friend hadn’t deserved the callous tough love treatment that day. Winter just needed someone who understood.
Autumn did.
And now she was here. Suffocating. Trying with all her might to hold her breath so that the meager bit of oxygen inside the bag would last a little longer.
She couldn’t tell Winter she was sorry. She couldn’t even say goodbye to any of her friends. Noah. Aiden.
All she could do was witness her own demise as the darkness and dizziness overwhelmed her.
In her fading peripheral vision, Philip barreled into Albert, knocking him aside with unexpected, vicious force. The fleeting hope that she might not be doomed after all assailed her just as her world began to flash in and out of blackness.
Philip approached Albert, taking full advantage of his surprise attack, and punched him in the ribs with a strength Autumn hadn’t imagined the doctor possessed. Albert reeled toward the floor, stumbling across the foyer in obvious confusion.
Fighting the thin strips of plastic holding her wrists together, Autumn perceived the rage exuding from his face as he recovered his footing. He charged toward Philip, knocking him into the nearest wall. Three peaceful forest scenes jarred from their places on the shiplap, glass shattering into a sea of shards around Dr. Baldwin’s form.
Philip winced, no doubt receiving multiple pierce wounds from his devastated art collection. He struggled to rebalance while Albert paced toward him, gun in hand.
“The time has come to end this,” the orderly growled. “You will pay for your crimes.”
Slipping over the verge of unconsciousness, Autumn yanked with all her remaining strength at the binding encasing her wrists. The effort was futile, as she had known it would be.
The lack of oxygen rendered her feeble. Incapacitated.
Yet there had to be a way to escape this madness.
Growing steadily weaker, she watched through her plastic cling window as Albert regained the upper hand in the brawl. He trained his pistol on Baldwin, and Autumn braced for the impending gunfire. Even if Philip wasn’t fatally wounded, he was sure to obtain a serious injury. The fight he’d displayed would naturally diminish.
She had to break free of these binds. The fates of Philip and herself could very well lay solely in her hands. Staying tethered to this chair was not an option.
Philip, however, wasn’t done for yet. He attacked Albert just as the orderly shot. The pistol flew from Albert’s hands and the bullet meant for Dr. Baldwin lodged into the foyer wall.
Albert scrambled toward the gun, but Philip leapt, tackling him to the floor with a passionate yell of fury.
“I never hurt your sister! I never hurt your sister!” Philip’s scream echoed off the walls.
Autumn thrashed in her chair, a final wave of adrenaline kicking in.
You will break free. You will not die in this chair, regardless of what happens between these two men. You. Will. Break. Free.
But her fiery efforts to break loose made breathing even more difficult and caused an immediate wave of exhaustion that sent Autumn’s blurry world spinning. The past and the present melded together in a giant tilt-a-whirl of moving imagery…
“She is your sister now, and you should never hurt your sister! Do you understand me? Answer!” Mrs. Wright’s ample chins smushed together as she leaned toward Autumn and Cricket.
“Yes, Mrs. Wright,” they answered in unison.
Autumn was only twelve, but she’d figured out how the foster kid game worked all too well. No matter what happened, you didn’t argue with your foster parents. It was a very bad move.
Even if you were getting into big trouble for something you didn’t do…
Even if you knew the next week would consist of repentant, hard labor in your foster mother’s garden under the burning summer sun…
No arguing.
Cricket was only nine and new to the foster system, but he’d followed Autumn’s lead ever since arriving at the Wright’s home a week earlier. His name wasn’t really Cricket, but he’d asked her in confidence to please call him by the moniker.
That had been his nickname back home.
Autumn had wanted to explain to him that the sooner he separated himself from “the way it used to be,” the better. Home didn’t matter anymore, and holding onto home would only cause him to suffer.
It was better to let go.
Cricket hadn’t meant to trip Emily, and Autumn hadn’t meant to step on the five-year-old’s tiny foot as the three of them collided in the backyard. But that didn’t matter. Mrs. Wright favored Emily. The girl was younger and cuter…easier to love, Autumn figured.
If Mrs. Wright said they’d hurt Emily, then they’d have to accept that they’d hurt Emily. And while this infuriated her young heart, she tempered the feeling with memories of past foster care punishments incurred from her attempts to stick up for herself.
No arguing.
It was better to let go.
Cricket followed her out the back door and toward Mrs. Wright’s strawberry patch. They’d earned just three hours of labo
r today, but only because the afternoon was nearly over. The next few days would be much longer.
Autumn stiffened as Cricket grabbed her hand with his chubby ebony fist.
Unwanted knowledge flowed through her mind.
The boy thought he was going home. Soon. He was pretending Mrs. Wright was his aunt.
She pulled her hand away, resenting the wave of emotion that had drenched her with its disparity. She tried very hard not to wallow in her own pain. Now she had to process Cricket’s.
“You don’t like me, do you?” he asked quietly, big brown eyes searching her face for softness. She knew all the boy wanted was affection. Someone to trust in this brave, new world.
But Cricket didn’t understand that this was all temporary. One of them, or both of them, would be leaving eventually. And neither of them would be “going home.”
She put a hand in his black curls and mussed his hair a bit. “I think you’re awesome, bud.” Three years of age between them, but she spoke to him as though she were a full-grown adult and he a toddler.
“I have a sister. I have two sisters. When I get home, I’ll tell them about you. You’re my sister now too, right?” Cricket tugged at her t-shirt, wanting an answer.
Autumn swallowed the lump in her throat. She was being stupid and way too nice to Cricket. If she kept being kind, they’d bond, and she would miss him when they were inevitably parted.
Missing people was awful.
Her real sister, Sarah, was out there somewhere. She missed Sarah terribly, and she knew Sarah’s dad wasn’t coming back to retrieve her. Maybe he hadn’t been lying at the time, but he hadn’t followed through.
He wasn’t going to.
But when she was old enough, she’d find Sarah. Eighteen wasn’t so far away, and surely Sarah would be looking for her too.
Cricket might not ever be going home, but he might see his sisters again, if he was lucky.
Maybe they were both lucky. Maybe that’s how they’d ended up here and found each other. And some day they’d find their real families.
Because they were lucky.
Autumn wanted to harden her heart but didn’t know how. Cricket’s pudgy little cheeks were damp with sweat, and the two of them hadn’t even started weeding yet. He was gonna have a pretty rough week living out his first official Mrs. Wright punishment.
