by Trisha Wolfe
On some level, that’s a likely probability. As a master manipulator, Grayson figured out my weaknesses and used them to achieve his desired outcome. And I’m the vain psychologist that tried to control a volatile relationship with my patient.
I failed.
“This isn’t what I wanted.”
“It’s what you need,” he says. “You’ve been screaming into the void, demanding your answer, and the void heard you. This is predestined.”
“You are absolutely, fucking psychotic,” I say.
We turn off from the highway. After a few miles, the car bumps along a dirt road, and my anxiety grows. I try to free myself of the handcuffs again, but too soon we’re pulling into a darkened driveway.
He puts the car in Park. “We’re here.” He looks at me then.
I duck my head to see past the visor. Wooded scenery engulfs us. And in the middle of the dense trees, a large, contemporary style house graces the night skyline.
If he’s brought me to a house, then no one knows it exists. Most of my patients had furtive locations. Second homes. Trailers. Storage units. It was their kill spot. Their secret place to take their victims.
Panic ices my veins. Real panic. As the reality of my situation sinks in.
Grayson has taken me to his kill spot.
What have I done.
My breathing labors as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a set of keys. “Remember during our session when I told you how much I enjoy puzzles. There’s just something satisfying about putting the pieces together. I’ve been putting them together my whole life, searching for the one to end my suffering. You were a puzzle, London. And once the puzzle presented itself, I couldn’t not put the pieces together. You created an unknown variable in my life that I had to decipher. You were the key.”
“The key to what?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he moves in close to unlock the handcuffs.
“The key to what, Grayson? God, do you know how insane you sound? I never would’ve diagnosed you as delusional, but you’re making me question my integrity as a psychologist.”
He holds my wrists together. My skin stings, his tight grasp a pulsing pressure locked around my arms. He eats the distance between us, his face so close to mine I hold my breath.
“You forget I’ve tasted you,” he says, his words a hot whisper against my lips. “I’ve been inside you. I’ve felt your desperation and your longing. The pain you carry isn’t physical. You’re dying for the punishment you never got, but know you deserve.”
I blink hard. My heart constricts in my chest. “I want to leave. Now. Right now, Grayson. Let me go.”
He rests his palm on my cheek. “God, you’re beautiful.” Then his lips taste mine. Slow and tentative at first, he kisses me deeply, and I welcome it. Our movements become frenzied as I put every emotion into the kiss, begging him. When he breaks away, I say again, “Please, release me.”
He licks his lips as his gaze drags over my face. “Not happening, doc. You’ve been a very, very bad girl.”
He pulls me across the console. My bare feet kick at the door as I struggle against him. My screams tear into the night.
As he hauls me out of the car, the only sound is my frantic pleas cracking against the pines.
21
Test
Grayson
It’s the fear of the unknown that plagues most of us. Even London, with her knowledge and skills to defy the mind, is afflicted with the terror of not knowing what awaits her on the other side. Her body trembles in my arms. Her adrenaline careens through her system. My touch a malicious act instead of a comfort to her.
I run my finger through her hair, attempting to soothe her. She needs to be calm for this next part.
The earthy smell of the woods mixes with her faint scent of lilac, and it feels right. Like she belongs. Like she’s home. “I have to chain you up now,” I tell her.
She attempts to struggle, but her muscles are fatigued. Her energy all but gone. Her body starved and drained. This could be her breaking point, if she’d allow it.
She relaxes against me. “Grayson, please. I just want to go inside. I’m dehydrated and hungry. I’m dirty. I know this isn’t what you want to do. You can fight the compulsion. You don’t want to hurt me.”
I press my lips to the top of her head. “This isn’t just about your punishment.” It’s also mine. “Why do you think it is that the one person I develop these impossible feelings for happens to be a narcissistic sociopath?”
“Please,” she whispers.
I shake my head as I lift her off my chest. “We both have some things to figure out, London. Only one way to do that.”
Her wrists are grimy and bruised. Dark-red rings of dried blood mark her skin beneath the chains. I haul her toward a thin pine tree and link the chain around the trunk. Her whimpers are starting to agitate me.
“You’re not some weak, unfortunate victim. You know why you’re here.”
She releases a scream. It’s a cry of frustration, not fear. She wipes her matted bangs off her forehead with her shoulder. “When I get free…” she trails off, the threat evident in her callous tone.
I pick up the shovel and face her. “I’ll be waiting for you.” I push the shovel into the earth.
“I don’t have everything that I wanted here,” I tell her as I toss dirt on the pile. “I had to catalogue most things mentally. Some exceptions had to be made. But I built this beautiful, three-dimensional model for you. Your own puzzle. Your very own trap, London.” I glance at her. She’s shivering against the bark, knees pulled to her chest. “I can’t wait for you to experience it.”
“You can’t go through with this,” she says. “You’re doing it out of order. There’s no camera. I know who you are. Where’s the fear, Grayson? Where are the pictures of my victims?” Her voice rises in anger. “There are none. You can’t go through with this because it defies your beliefs and system.”
I pause to look into the night sky. “Like I said, some exceptions had to be made.” I toss another scoop, loving the feel of the wood splintering against my palms. “You have a long trail of victims, London. I’ll let you recall their faces on your own.”
“You sadistic fuck, there are no victims!”
By the time the hole is finished, the sun is starting to peek through the trees. The crickets have gone quiet. The woods are still and scented with the crisp note of morning. I toss the shovel down and haul the wooden crate into the fresh-dug earth. The shipping container will have to do. It’s not a coffin in its own right, but it will suffice.
I nail together a few more planks on the sides to cover the gaps, then I climb out and kneel before London. She’s taxed. Her clothes covered in filth, her skin rippled with shivers. Her head hangs down, and I brace my hands on either side of her face to lift her eyes to me.
“You can end our pain,” I say. I rub my thumbs over her cheeks, clearing away the dried tear tracks. “Confess, London. Unburden yourself. Admit the truth of who you are and what you’ve done, and this all ends.”
Her eyes focus on me. Then she spits in my face. “You’re not my fucking priest.”
“Fine.” I unshackle her wrists and haul her to her feet. “See you in hell, baby.”
Her shrieks increase as she gains a second wind. I drag her to the crate. “London Grace Noble, you’re guilty of harboring a murderer. You desecrated your father’s victims by burying the last girl and keeping the remains of all victims a secret. You hid behind the law, using it as a shield. As such, you’re to receive the same fate as your father’s victims.”
“You bastard!” She yanks away from me. “You’re a deluded hypocrite. You killed people and buried them. Just like he did.”
“No. Those were not people; they were monsters. The girls that your father so arrogantly took from this world were innocents. Girls that hadn’t lived long enough to wrong anyone. And you’ve kept them a dirty secret this whole time. For that alone, you’ve earned your punis
hment. You should be buried and forgotten about, just like they were.”
I swoop down and capture her around the waist, throwing her over my shoulder. She beats her fists against my back as I jump down in the hole. Her petite body is easy enough to wrangle inside the box, and I slam the lid closed.
“Fuck you—” she shouts. “You tricked me. You lied to me. Let me out! Please. God, Grayson…don’t do this.”
My hands shake as I drive the first nail home, sealing her inside. “I’m not the liar, London. I told you that on day one. It’s time for you to meet and embrace your true self, the liar you’ve always been.”
The bangs turn into muffled thumps as I cover the crate with dirt. I fill the hole more than a quarter of the way. Enough weight to keep her sealed below. Her cries are buried, and when I toss the last shovel-full of earth over her grave, I lie down along the fresh dirt.
And wait.
22
Grave
London
I’ve been buried alive.
Panic is a living being inside this tomb with me—the only thing telling me that I’m still alive in the pitch-black. I press my palms to the wood. My breaths bounce back at me from the lid, my chest on fire as the air is sucked away.
Splinters snag my skin. The pain sharpens my senses.
He can’t let me die.
But I’ve watched the videos. I’ve witnessed the lengths Grayson has gone to in order to deliver his punishments.
Dread rises within me anew, and I bang against the wood, desperate to taste fresh air. “Help!”
A creek from the wood sends dirt into my mouth and eyes. I wipe at my face in a panic. My elbows knock the sides of the crate. I feel those sides closing in. The box is shrinking, swallowing me. Shit. I push harder against the lid, my forearms burning from the strain.
More dirt rains down. I taste the grit between my teeth and turn my head to spit. Between anxious breaths, I hear the sound of things crawling alongside the box. Moving through the loose dirt, trying to find a way in. Waiting for their food to rot.
Oh, God. I can’t die like this.
The burden of an unfinished life is a dense weight bearing down on my chest. The painful compression heightens my anxiety until I’m hyperventilating.
Each rapid, labored breath is drawn with the knowledge that it could be my last. Every gasp is laced with less and less of the vital oxygen my lungs crave.
Calm down.
I chant this in my head as I hold a breath, forcing myself to relax—to still every muscle and organ clamoring for air.
Breathe.
I take in a shallow breath. Slow and steady, my lips trembling. Tears leak out the corners of my eyes, and my body tingles, adrenaline flooding my system. The lightheadedness transitions into a euphoric tranquility.
I linger this way for a while. Listening to my slow breaths. The blackness a thick and disembodying nightmare. Gauzy cotton webs my mind, detached. For what feels like hours, I alter between two stages. Panic and docile acceptance.
As my thoughts drift, all the things I’ve put off doing rush forward. Unfulfilled goals. Dreams. Happiness.
A weak laugh slips free. I coached my patients not to reach for something so flimsy and meaningless as happiness—it’s an idea, not a goal. And yet here I am, staring death in the face, wishing I’d been a little more frivolous and happy.
But there was never any answer to that question, either. The one everyone asks themselves: what will make me happy? A husband? A child? I scoff at myself. I don’t regret either, not really. I never could have shared myself or my time with something so demanding as motherhood.
Still, the fact that chance is being stolen away rocks through me, a vicious reminder that I chose Grayson. I chose this fate.
I draw in a breath to fill my lungs and blink against the darkness. Regret is a weakness. I can’t afford to be weak.
Besides, there are more frightening realities to contend with than my shallow regrets.
The buried bodies in the backyard of the land in my name, that I always planned to move, to dispose of…and now that, too, is being decided for me. The girls will be found. Someone will purchase my family home and tear it down. Rebuild. They’ll dig that dead garden up and my legacy will be remembered as a horror story, rather than the work I’ve devoted my short and vain life to.
With that realization comes a panic attack that consumes every sense. The blackness closes in, scrapes and sounds magnified, the feel of bugs crawling under my skin retches a fiery scream from my throat.
The calm waters of my acceptance rebels. A storm thunders through me as I crash against the boards. My arms flail, my feet thrash. My fingers claw at the wooden deathtrap, raking up splinters beneath my nails. I can almost scent the metallic tang of blood in the thin, musty air, and I become a rabid animal fighting for freedom.
Determined, I fight against my prison, and my foot kicks an object. It doesn’t register right away, my panic too far gone, gripping my body and mind in a constricting vise. I turn onto my side and brace my shoulder against the lid, then I stop moving. I listen to the sound of my breathing, amplified in the confined space. Think. Think. Think.
I’ve analyzed Grayson for months. I’ve gotten inside his head. I understand him. I have an advantage over the rest of his victims. He has rules, and his disorder demands that he abide by them.
With three deep breaths, I quell the dread and slow my breathing. Reserve oxygen. Then I calmly use my foot to push the small object upward. Once it’s near my knee, I reach down and grab it.
A phone.
Oh, my God. Relief pushes through my anxiety. I flip the device open, and the screen illuminates the inside of the box. I quickly use the light to look around, searching for a latch or loose nail or anything—a way out. “Dammit.”
I’m not clawing my way out of the earth. Even if I could, what then?
With shaky hands, I punch in 9-1-1 and hit Send.
Three long beeps answer me back.
“Shit—” The top of the screen flashes no service.
He’s toying with me. But no, it’s more than that. There has to be something…here. Grayson records his victims. He watches them. He gives them choices, dammit. Where are mine?
Static erupts from the device. Then: “You once said you disliked people because they’re selfish. I wonder if it’s more that their selfishness is a reflection of what you dislike in yourself.” Grayson’s voice fills the humid darkness. “Something you wish you could change but can’t. That’s a conundrum, an enigma. You’re full of these little puzzle pieces, London.”
I search the phone. It’s a radio phone with a button on the side. I depress the button. “The only thing I want to change is my view.” I swallow a weighty breath. “If you do this, Grayson…if you kill me, you won’t ever be satisfied. You know that it will torture you.”
A long pause follows, where I wait for his response. I squeeze my eyes closed. Grayson is too intelligent to be deceived so easily. He’s studied me these past few months just as I’ve studied him. He knows my tells, my lies. My truth. He wants me to play his game, but there’s some bigger part of him that wants me to win.
Where all his other victims failed, I have to succeed.
“You said you’d give me answers,” I try again. “I followed you here. I left everything behind to be with you. To get those answers. You can’t let me go without—”
“You wanted to see how far the rabbit hole went,” he says. “Did Alice enjoy her Wonderland adventure? No, she was terrified. And to think, it was all in her mind. The most frightening things in this world usually are.”
“Grayson, please help me…”
“I don’t have your answers, London. Just like Alice, it’s all in your mind. I’m simply giving you the means, the tools, to unearth them.”
Unearth…
I repeat his words, looking for the clue—the piece of the puzzle Grayson is feeding me. Unearth…unearth…unearth.
Dig.
> I hold down the button. “Dig,” I whisper.
He waits for me to make the connection.
A tear rolls across my face. Adrenaline courses thick and hot through my veins. “Dig them up.” I beat on the lid. “Dig them up!” He wants me to free the girls.
Silence stretches. The dank air sticks to my skin, snuffing out my life. The meager light of the phone fades. The faces of the victims taunt me, mocking me for becoming just like them.
Then I hear scratching. The faint sound grows louder, pulling at the seems of my sanity, until a hollow thump detonates.
The lid opens. Dirt falls on top of me, but there’s a hand to pull me out.
Grayson wipes the dirt from my face as I gasp in clean air, starving for oxygen. “You bastard,” I swear. My hand flies toward his face. He stops it from making contact.
His hand circles my wrist, holding my hand outstretched. “Save your energy. The first test is always the easiest.”
First test.
Dehydration and sleep deprivation finally take their toll. My weak body gives in and I fall.
23
Master Our Passion
London
Light flickers against my eyelids. The cool press of a damp cloth against my face pulls me from the shadows.
My lids are heavy, like I’ve slept too long, suffering a morbid hangover. When I’m able to pry my eyes open, Grayson is close. I flinch away. In the dim lighting, I notice he’s clean and shaven. The scent of fresh shampoo and soap pervades my senses, a welcoming comfort, before my internal alarm snaps me fully awake.
“Where am I?” I demand.
But one look around the bathroom clues me in. Lit candles illuminate the small room, making it feel cozy. Romantic, even. My stomach pitches.
“I’ll power up the generator soon,” Grayson answers my unspoken question about the candles.
