by Trisha Wolfe
I lower into a crouch and slide a plate of food under the bar. Spaghetti and two pain pills. “Take them sparingly.” It’s not the freshest meal, but not too much else can be kept for long without spoiling.
“Answer me.”
“Believe it or not, London. Not everything is a conspiracy against you. That’s the paranoia kicking in.” I tap my temple. “I welded this jail because I’m a welder. It’s what I do. I spent time here myself, staring at the bars, getting accustomed to them.” I run my hand along the cold iron. “I spent a year incarcerated in solitary confinement. I can be a very patient man. I’ll wait for you for as long as it takes.”
She sits up, brushes her hair out of her face. “Can you at least tell me where we are.”
“That’s not what you’re really asking. Our location serves you no purpose.” I sit, making myself comfortable across from her. “You’re asking how likely is the chance that the authorities will find you. This house isn’t in my name. Technically, it doesn’t belong to me or anyone that can be connected to me. It will be a while before you’re found.”
A spark of hope ignites in her dark eyes.
I’ve given her just enough to keep going. She’ll need that tiny flicker of hope to survive her dungeon.
“I have to get rid of the car.” I stand and brush down my jeans. It’s liberating to be out of the orange jumpsuit. “I can’t risk it being spotted. That would be irresponsible.”
“Don’t leave me.”
Her voice is small and fragile. She looks almost helpless on the floor, surrounded by wrought-iron bars. She looks lost.
Another of her sins: deceit. She’s mastered the art of duplicity. In order to fool others, she has to live the lies. As a narcissist, she even believes them. The structure of her world depends on her falsehoods. When London's truly at her breaking point, only then will the dam give, and the truth rush free.
I don’t have an infinite amount of time with her, however. I’m not deluded enough to think that this won’t fail absolutely. Her mind is her strongest attribute. And again, that’s her specialty, not mine. She needs a push.
Bracing my hands on the bars, I say, “It’s strange what impacts us. What defines us. People don’t remember the good. They remember what guts them.”
She gets to her knees. Keeping herself beneath me, giving me the assumption of power. She’s an expert. I smile.
“I’ve been gutted, Grayson. My life is no fairytale. The punishment you’re inflicting on me…I’ve already suffered. Any sins I may have committed throughout my life, I have paid for them already.”
“Have you.”
She squints at me. “You know I have.”
I press my forehead to the bars. “Your patients suffered, too. Granted, they were sick individuals. Where we’ve been able to channel our sickness, control our compulsions and hide in plain sight, they’re not as talented. They lack impulse control. But that’s where the good doctor comes in.” I smile at her. “You are the best in your field.”
She gets to her feet. “Go to hell.”
I laugh. “Which one?”
A disgusted expression tugs her features into a scowl. “I strove to help my patients despite a world that would see them executed, exterminated. Like vermin.” She clears her hair from her eyes. “As rehabilitation became more and more unlikely, I still fought for my patients.”
“You have a bit of Florence Nightingale about you, don’t you? You fall a little in love with all your patients—that give and take, sacrifice and consume, like a lovesick couple. Except for you, it’s all about the take.”
She regards me cautiously. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re an artist, London. Your practice is like a dance. A bloody ballet where you warp and break the minds of your patients like a dancer’s body. You devour their gifts, and when they’re used up and broken, you discard them to the nearest insane asylum.”
She stands still, her eyes gauging me. She’s not the prey; she’s the hunter. “You’ve fabricated a very rich story for me, Grayson. None of which is real.”
I cock my head. “When did the headaches start?”
The confused draw of her eyebrows is her only response.
“I bet they’ve been happening more frequently lately. Becoming more painful, lasting longer.”
“I’ve worked harder this year than at any other point in my career. Of course I’m going to suffer physically for that.”
“You sure have been working hard. What about Thom Mercer?”
She shakes her head. “What about Thom?”
“Being inside prison, you meet a lot of unsavory types. A lot of whom were your patients. Thom was a very disturbed individual. The things he said…” I tsk. “If you hadn’t already destroyed him, he may’ve ended up as one of mine.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Thom Mercer was committed to Cotsworth’s psychiatric ward as a functionally medicated schizophrenic. He was one of my most acclaimed case studies.”
“Who hung himself with his bed sheet.”
Her face pales in shock. “Why are you doing this. Why are you lying?”
“Come on. Is lying a part of my disorder?”
She looks away, paces the cell. “No, but creating an elaborate disaster is. I won’t fall victim to this. I won’t become your next disaster.”
“Oh, London.” I love the way her name tastes; like fresh lilacs. “Why do you think I was so tempted from the start? You came to me as a beautiful disaster already.”
She rushes the cage. Like a wild animal, she grips the bars and throws her body into a violent fit to rattle her prison. I stand unmoved on the other side. The bars don’t give. “Fuck you. Fuck you—” She says it over and over, a breathy chant falling from her lips.
Breathing heavy, she sags against the iron, her grasp on the bars barely keeping her upright. I rest my hands over hers. “There’s only one way out,” I say. “You’re smart enough to figure out how.”
Her gaze latches on to me. “Did before—between us—mean anything to you?”
I press my mouth to her fingers, inhale her scent. “It meant everything.”
“Then you can’t do this, Grayson. You’re confused…you think this is love? Disempathetic types don’t torture their loved ones. You should be protecting me from your illness, not inflicting it on me.”
A laugh bursts free. “But that’s a myth, right?”
Her brows crease together. “And I’m a liar, right?”
I reach through the bars and grasp the back of her head, dragging her to me so I can taste her. I linger there, just feeling her breaths pulse against me, before I release her. “Because I do love you, I’ll give you what I’ve never given anyone before.” Her eyes widen as I back away from the cage. She clings to her hope, waiting to hear the word freedom. But I can’t grant her that. It’s solely within her power to be set free.
“Here’s your one hint, London,” I say, and pick up the candle. “Think of this as your confessional. What Dr. Mary Jenkins was too proud, too vain to admit, you can divulge in secret. Only the cage to hear your whispers.”
A hysterical laugh springs from her mouth. “And a camcorder, right?” Through with pacing, she settles next to her dish and stares at the food. “I’m not like Dr. Jenkins. I didn’t lobotomize my patients.”
“No, you didn’t. That would’ve been too obvious. You’re smarter than that. Better at impulse control. But yet, here you are, just like the others, caught in a web of your own design.” I move toward the door. “Time to admit to your sins, London. You tortured your patients. You shredded their minds. You played God, trying to find a cure for yourself. Once you can admit that, then the cell door will open.”
She looks up from the plate. “This is what you want me to confess?”
“Yes.”
She lifts her hands in surrender. “Fine. I confess it. Now open the fucking door.”
I pause in the doorway. “You know it’s not that simple, love.�
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It’s fleeting, but for a second, panic slips across her face. She’s about to be abandoned. In a cage like her father kept his girls. She claws at her clothes, searching for a loose thread, her hair in tumbled disarray. Wild and frantic. “I want to see Thom Mercer’s file,” she says.
I rub the back of my neck. “That’s a hard demand to meet out here—”
“I want to see it,” she snaps.
I exhale heavily. “I’ll make it happen.” Then I turn to leave.
“No,” she says, halting me just outside the door. “My father didn’t allow light in his basement. He held them in the dark.”
I keep her gaze. I promised to set her free, and I will. Set her free of the pain, and her crippling humanity. But first she has to face the dark. Even she knows this.
From the very beginning, people have divided good and evil. Two beings fighting for dominance. I don’t believe in divine beings. Life is simpler than that. We’re our own gods and devils. Capable of the vilest evil and of the holiest righteousness. We make our own rules, and create our own heavens and hells.
We choose them every day.
I douse the flame and close the door, shutting out the light. Leaving London to war with her demons in her personal hell.
25
Asylum
London
I once counseled a woman who was afraid to be alone. Her husband had left her for a younger woman, her daughter had fled home for college, and she found herself uneasy all the time. Unable to sleep, unable to cope. She suffered daily panic attacks.
The house is too quiet, too still, she said during one of our sessions. I hate the silence.
It was this patient in my early career that propelled me toward my passion and away from the bored housewives and midlife crises husbands. I remember how much I loathed her as I sat across from the hand-wringing woman. I couldn’t sympathize with her; I had never hated the silence. Nor had I ever had that anxious need to be surrounded by people.
Solitude is a test, I told her.
Solitude reveals who we are. Isolation is not loneliness; it’s the absence of noise and distraction. It forces you to acknowledge your worth. If you must surround yourself with people, you invite distractions from the one person deserving of your time: you.
Truthfully, I believed she was an empty, worthless woman who might as well be knitting doilies in front of daytime TV. She was wasting my valuable time with her pathetic existence, simply because she couldn’t bear to be alone with herself. She was selfish. She didn’t like who she was, so she was going to subject me to her monotony, too.
That was my last session as a general psychologist.
Past sessions tend to creep up when the silence gets too loud. When I’m given too much time to think. Like now, the quiet is damn near tangible, the blackness muting the world.
Solitude is a test.
I’ve always savored my alone time, never fearing being truly isolated—but maybe I was too harsh on my patient. Maybe this is the kind of alone she felt. The absolute deprivation of all senses.
I would compare it in part to death, if I hadn’t already experienced being buried alive.
I reach my hand outside the cage, toward a sliver of light bleeding through the blacked-out window. I have no concept of time, but it must be day. I’ve spent what feels like hours in this dark room, in the cage, huddled in a corner, trying to wait Grayson out. But time is relevant, right? For Grayson, maybe it’s only been minutes.
He’s testing me. This is a test that I can’t fail.
That blade of daylight is just out of reach, but I still reach for it, imagining its warmth touching my fingers. It’s a strange comfort.
I pull my hand back. Somewhere in this room is a camera. Grayson’s watching me the same way he watched his victims before. If it was anyone else, I’d offer them money. I have plenty of money. I might even offer my body. I have very little shame or emotional connection to physical touch and sex. A breathy laugh escapes. Except when it comes to Grayson, apparently. I admit that much; being with him…that fire so tempting…I crave that bad thing. I hunger for him.
It’s like a drug habit you can’t shake. I tug his shirt up and inhale his scent on the fabric. It’s like the craving between fixes. Your hands get shaky, skin clammy, awaiting the next taste. So, so bad for you—but absolutely satisfying when you get that first hit.
I drop the shirt. Grayson can’t be bought or bribed. He has his own cravings to feed, and I have to satisfy his deviant desires if I’m going to make it out of here alive. I have to find a way to give him what he wants without sacrificing too much.
The smell of the spaghetti gnaws at my stomach. I’ve tried to ignore it, even push it out of the cell. It could be laced with something. However, if taking the chance gets me one step closer out of this hellhole…
I bring the food closer and pick a pill off the plate. I break it in two and swallow half, then pocket the rest. I eat the noodles and tomato sauce with my hands instead of the fork, grinning as I’m reminded of when a woman doused me in pig’s blood and called me an animal. I lick the plate just like the caged animal I’ve become.
Then I slide the dish toward the cell door. It hits the corner bar with a disruptive clank. “Satisfied now?” I ask. Too famished to care, I inhaled every noodle, disregarding the fact that it’s probably drugged. Likely with a hallucinogen to enhance my experience. I laugh out loud at the thought. Grayson’s traps are never so simple as to only lock one of his victims in a cell. I’ve watched hours of torture, the elaborate traps always having a gruesome twist. I suspect I’ll start hallucinating soon, a frantic meltdown where this cage becomes my father’s basement.
Because that’s what he wants, right? Just like the grave, I’m to suffer as my father’s victims suffered. I’m to be punished in the Hollows Reaper’s place for his crimes.
Only as the seconds tick by, nothing happens. “I’m disappointed in you, Grayson. You missed a prime opportunity. This could’ve been your best trap yet.”
But the thought sticks. My home basement manifests from my mind, as if I gave life to the memory by simply thinking it into existence. It wiggles around in my head, slithering from the dark corners. The seams of the cell bend and warp. The shadows play tricks.
I squeeze my eyes closed against the darkness. Curse that meager ray of light. I wonder if Grayson allowed it in here on purpose to fuck with me.
Once the seed is planted, I can’t uproot it. I pace the length of the cell. Back and forth. Trying to tear the thought out of my head, or tire myself out.
Maybe I never made it out of my father’s basement. Maybe I’ve lived an entire lifetime inside a delusion, and in reality, he’s had me trapped in that dank prison all this time.
“Fuck this.” I crouch in the corner and wrap my arms around my legs. I can wait him out. He can’t just keep me here. I have to eat. I have to use the bathroom. With a sudden flash of fear, I recall spotting something on the other side of the cell.
I crawl my way there, feeling my hands out before me, until I find it. I circle my hands around the rim. A bucket. “Oh, my God.”
I bound to my feet and scream. I yell until my lungs catch fire and my stomach aches from overuse of muscles. I shout through the angry tears, and when my voice cracks and gives, I curse Grayson with heated whispers.
He has no answers.
The silence builds until my ears ring from the loss of sound.
I change positions. I pace. I do my routine exercise to alleviate the tenderness in my back. I try not to take the other half of the pill. I fail and take it anyway. Then I take the second one. I try to sleep, and I try to count. I sip at the one water bottle he left me. I hold my bladder, refusing to use the fucking bucket.
I do these things repeatedly. I change the order, doing them at random, trying to trigger something…a change.
How far is Grayson going to dispose of the car? An hour…a day…days? The silence grows thick and heavy, weighing on me in the
dark. I’m becoming disoriented. My senses confused. With what’s left of the light, I try to see my hands. A cold wetness covers them—that same sensation I felt that day. I remember the thick red…how it coated my flesh, seeped into every crevice of my skin. Blood stains down to the bone.
Wiping my hands through my hair, I attempt to clean them. Get rid of the feeling. The image comes to me too clearly now. The girl in the mirror with blood-streaked hair and dirt-caked clothes. I throw the water bottle at the image, waiting to hear the glass shatter.
But the only sound to follow the thud of the bottle hitting the ground is the crash of thunder. I whip my head around. The light is gone.
“Damn this to hell.”
I jump and reach for the top bars. My fingers skim them, and I come down with a lancing pain to my back. Doubled over, I take in measured breaths, mentally steeling myself. Then I try again. With a groan, I grab hold of the bars. My arms burn, but I cling and start to swing my legs. Building momentum, I rock back and forth, talking myself into it, before I slam my bare feet into the cell door.
Pain webs through my body. I hit the floor, breath knocked from my lungs. Acute nausea grips me before I can cry out, and I hurl myself onto my side. I try for the bucket, but it’s too far. I lose my stomach right here on the floor.
I wretch until my stomach is as empty as the room, and there’s nothing left but bile. Flames lick my throat, and I mentally curse myself for throwing the water. When I roll onto my back, the pain is a living, breathing demon within me. It rages, working its way to my shoulder blades. My breath saws in and out. I blink back tears against the sudden flickering that covers my vision.
The flashes intensify, and I can’t be sure if it’s from the pain or the storm. A roll of thunder booms in time with each flip of the light. Light and dark. My heart picks up the beat, my blood pulsing painfully in rhythm, syncing with the flickering. Like an 8mm film reel, scratchy images bleed through the haze of pain. My mind is losing the battle.
