by Trisha Wolfe
“Insurance policy?” She cranes an eyebrow.
I huff a humorless laugh. “Not the way you think. I was protecting you.”
“From whom?”
“From yourself,” I say. “From Lydia, apparently. We’re human, London. We waver. We doubt ourselves. I couldn’t risk losing you.”
She nods harshly. “You couldn’t risk losing your investment. After all, you put in over a year of hard work. What good would Dr. Noble be to your cause if she was broken?”
I run my fingers up the bar, wishing I could touch her. She’s fire right now.
At my silence, she looks down the corridor. The guard is surfing his phone. London lowers her voice. “Manipulation is like foreplay to you.”
I chuckle. “I’m sorry. Next time I’ll give you flowers.”
Her eyes spear me. “Next time?”
The way she says it, so incredulously, sends a current of livid heat whipping across my skin. “Why are you here?”
She doesn’t answer right away. The question hovers between us, a livewire that, if severed, will detonate our suddenly fragile connection. “Because I saw your home, Grayson.” Her eyes glisten, forcing me to drop my gaze. “I saw where you were raised…how you were raised. Since the moment you designed your first trap, setting yourself free, you’ve been seeking an answer. I understand what my initial purpose was to you. Fear of your mother’s illness, of losing your mind, made you cling to the hope that I could treat you. But there’s something else. What are you searching for?”
I move back from the bars, putting more distance between us. It’s a physical pain that I still have yet to comprehend when she’s too far away. The pain feels real. Tangible. I use it.
“Five minutes!” the guard shouts.
“Maybe it’s a curse,” I say, voice low, searching. “Maybe it’s my punishment. Maybe it’s fate. Maybe it’s chaos theory, and nothing has any rhyme or reason at all. But whatever the purpose of this insanity, it’s the design for my life. And I have spent a lifetime reworking that design. Remastering the puzzle…and the only answer I’ve ever been given is you.” I step closer. “You’re the closest thing to freedom I’ve ever tasted.”
“You’ll never be free. You’re doomed to repeat this self-inflicted cycle forever. The madness won’t take you—these bars will. You keep putting yourself here again and again, trying to escape, but you’re still locked in that dark room.”
“Get the fuck out of my head, doc.”
She studies me, undeterred. “If you fear it enough, you’ll manifest it. You’re mind will make sure of that.” She takes her glasses off, letting me see her eyes. “And when that day comes, I’m not sure I can help you.”
“You have to.”
“Because you helped me?”
“Yes. It’s the price. The tradeoff.” I tilt my head. “Are you not grateful for everything I’ve shown you? If you could take it all back, would you?”
She shakes her head. “No. I wouldn’t, but I don’t know how—”
“You will.” My hands clench into fists. “If the day comes where you have to kill me, you will.”
A horrified expression crosses her face, but it’s gone just as quickly. She’s thought of this before. She’s had to. We’re as much of a threat to each other as we are each other’s sick salvation.
Even if my mother’s illness doesn’t claim me, my love for London might.
Love is madness.
“If you can’t help me, then you have no choice but to end me, London. Promise me that now.”
“Maybe I couldn’t…” She trails off, lost in thought. “But Lydia could.”
A slow smile curls my lips. “Then I guess we should keep her around, after all.”
“Lydia Prescott is just as important as the boy who’s still locked in that dark room under a greenhouse.” She swallows hard, wincing. “As your doctor, as the woman who loves you, I’m telling you to embrace him. He’s not your enemy. Stop trying to escape, Grayson.”
My nostrils flare. Heat creeps up my spine. Resentment singes the edges of my vision in vibrating waves of red. “Strip all the layers away,” I say. “I suppose it’s only fair. Seems these bars just brings out the honesty in us, baby.”
She nods, as if recalling her experience in the cage where I locked her up, forcing her to remember the past she tried to keep buried. “A lock and a key,” she says. “We are an inevitability.”
My smile stretches. “Till death?”
She answers by removing the scarf. I notice every nuance, slide of hand, and when she slips her hand under the material to free if from around her neck, she retrieves an object from the gaudy locket beneath.
The guard at the end of the hall missed the action, but I didn’t. Only I can’t focus on what she’s wrapping in the scarf. I can only see the welts, the bruises—the dark fingerprints marking her neck.
I grip the bars so hard my fingers ache.
I will kill him.
I know this as clearly as I know the sky is fucking blue.
London reads the tension thrumming through me and says, “No. We still need him.” She glances at the guard. He’s watching us. “It’s my choice. Mine.”
Rage lashes at my insides. “Then you better get to him first.”
Despite my attempts to be more than—better than—mortal, I’m no god. I’m blood and bone and London is steeped in my marrow. So deep I can feel her becoming a part of me. The pain won’t ever stop. The compulsions won’t ever stop. I’m human and I’m weak, and she’s still my only chance at freedom. My need for her won’t stop.
The guard stands.
I release the bars, my hands burning. “Give me the scarf.”
Her throat bruised and swollen, London takes a shallow breath. “Did you plan this?” she asks. “Back then. Before. Did you plan all this out in such meticulous detail that every possible outcome had its own contingency? Or are we that fated?”
“Like a bad Shakespearean tragedy,” I tell her. I have over a hundred different locks memorized. The second I saw the tattooed key on her hand, I knew exactly which lock manufacturer it belonged to. From there, it was only a matter of obtaining blueprints. Getting a record of which jails and holding cells in Maine used the same manufacturer. “I chose Rockland for more than its scenic beauty,” is all I say aloud to her.
Her soft lips part. Her gaze shifts to the bars of the cell, her eyes following the iron all the way up. The cell in her basement is made by the same company who installed the cells in her father’s police station all those years ago. I know this, too, because I made sure I knew it. And that jail cell manufacturer is the same one who installed the cell I’m in right now.
She smiles knowingly. “We’re a fucked-up kind of inevitability. Not fated. Doomed.”
She’s probably right. Good things don’t emerge from basements and cellars… Dark things do. Demons burned by the light.
“You’re still beautiful,” I say, my voice thick with the accent I try to conceal. “My dark angel.”
Her gaze comes into focus on me. “How did you know I would connect it?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t. That’s the fated part, London. The variable between us I’ve never been able to break down and analyze. We’re inexorable. Inescapable. The one prison I don’t want to escape.”
She looks at the scarf in her hand, staring past the material to the key she’s hidden within. “It may not work.”
No. It might not. It probably shouldn’t. The chances that the key used to open her childhood cage would be a match to this cell is highly unlikely. I’ve already done the math. Calculated the odds. But like us, it can be warped and twisted into something perfect.
With a couple of crude modifications, London’s key will be an exact fit.
“We’re connected on some deeper level,” I say to her. “Through bars and cages and prisons…in the physical sense and the mind. That’s why you could never be expendable to me. You’re my match.”
Does sh
e believe me? Some things can’t be manipulated. What I feel for her is real.
“I’m not the hero, London,” I say. “But I’m not the villain, either.”
“Times up, doctor,” the guard calls out.
London moves quickly. She rushes the cell and thrusts the scarf through the bars. “He’s going to take me,” she whispers. “Let him take me.”
I grasp the scarf and try to touch her hand, desperation clawing painfully to the surface, before she’s snatched away.
“Get her back!”
Two guards push London flush against the wall, giving me only enough time to slip the key between my fingers—like a cheap magic trick.
“Drop it, Sullivan,” the officer orders.
I let the thin material go. The scarf drifts to the cement floor soundlessly.
“Step back,” he instructs me.
As the guards escort London out, I keep sight of her for as long as I can. Until she disappears down the corridor. I move to the back wall of my cell as the cop unlocks the barred door and retrieves the scarf.
“Fucking groupies,” he mutters as he inspects it. He gives it a sniff. “Smells good, though. You got one hot doctor, Sullivan. I’m keeping this.” He sneers at me, and I let him.
Once they leave, I settle in the corner. I run the pad of my thumb along the teeth of the key. Anticipation twists my mouth into a smile. I wait until the jailhouse goes still to start making the alterations to the key, using the edge of the steel sink to file down the teeth.
In less than two hours, an armored truck will arrive with a small army to escort me to prison. They’re taking their time, making the adequate preparations. Making sure I have no chance of escape.
And Nelson is going to take her.
London’s only chance is if Nelson is terrified to touch her.
I work at the key, sweat leaking into my eyes. The burn satisfying.
When it’s time, I go. And I make sure I do enough damage on my way out that Nelson knows I’m coming for blood.
22
The Between
London: A month later
The rules of psychological warfare are different for everyone. How far someone will go to demoralize and dominate their opponent is dependent on their level of commitment. Their desire and need to win—to make their enemy suffer.
When violence runs in your blood, the compulsion to kill is an inherent part of you. It’s intimate and unruly; a lover possessed with only one feeling, one yearning, stopping at nothing to obtain the lead.
For Grayson and I, those lines are blurred more than usual. We can just as easily commit murder as we can make love. Both give us a climactic satisfaction and completion in possessing the other.
Love and murder. The same innate emotion fuels both.
“Dr. Noble? Did you hear me?”
I look up and tuck a loose wisp of hair behind my ear. Warden Marks stands before me in all his lanky, scarecrow glory. “Yes. I’m sorry. I was just thinking we’ve come full circle.”
His smile is sardonic. “We have. Thank you for this.” He holds up the file that contains my final patient evaluation for Cotsworth Correctional Facility. “I know saying these past few months haven’t been easy for you is a gross understatement—”
A tight smile rims my mouth.
“—but you’ve fulfilled your obligation to the facility in my book,” he says. “I’m happy to sign-off on the early release.” He takes a step toward the elevator and pauses. “Where are you planning to go, by the way?”
I glance around the floor at all the partially packed boxes. “I’m taking a few weeks off, then I have arrangements on the west coast.”
The warden nods solemnly. “A change of scenery could be good. Well, good luck, London.”
I see Warden Marks out, then give Lacy the rest of the day off. With the commitment to Cotsworth fulfilled, and my clients referred to another psychologist, there’s nothing left to do but pack.
“Are you sure you don’t want any help?” Lacy asks as she grabs her bag.
I shake my head with a sigh. “I can handle the last bit. You should get a jump on your paper. No excuses.” I eye her severely, then smile.
Once the floor is empty, I relish the silence, taking my time packing up my office.
Any normal, sane person may feel apprehensive about being left alone in the place where she was previously attacked by a deranged FBI agent—but my questionable sanity isn’t the reason why I’m daring the fates.
It’s monotony.
Nearly four weeks have passed since I last set eyes on Agent Nelson, and every day I wonder if it’s going to be the day that he comes for me. The waiting…the not knowing…it’s insufferable.
I’d rather he jump out at me from a dark corner than continue in this morbid limbo.
I toss a box on top of my desk and start clearing off my bookshelf.
The announcement of my practice officially closing released this morning. So if the agent has been lurking on the sidelines, now is the time to strike.
Only the doubt that he’ll make any attempt weighs heavily in my steps as I move around the office, the room becoming bare, empty. The job not taking nearly as long as I thought.
I seal up the last box, the harsh sound of tape stretching away from the roll a final note in my life here. I tear the tape and smooth it along the edges of the box, lost in thought.
Grayson has yet to make contact.
After his violent escape from police custody, he apparently fled Maine. I can only speculate as to how it happened, the reports biased and muddled and not having near enough facts. Three officers were injured during the escape, but only superficially—and with the state I left Grayson in, I’m truly surprised there were no fatalities.
I can envision Grayson using my key to unlock the holding cell. Alarmed cops rushing the hall. Shots fired. Batons and Tasers confiscated and used against the officers. A bloody trail in Grayson’s wrathful wake.
He’s never been capable of extreme emotional outbursts before, but then, I’m not sure if it was reactive or deliberate. Meant to intimidate Nelson.
Which, to be honest, seems to have worked.
When the manhunt for Grayson took authorities toward the south, I was approached by Nelson’s superiors and questioned on his whereabouts. I was the last to have seen the agent, to have talked to him. According to the FBI, Nelson was already a loose cannon, having pushed his way onto Grayson’s case against their discretion.
Nelson was under investigation at the time, his stellar capture rate not earning him any favors where the FBI was concerned. Although he received a slight pardon for his behavior after the death of his wife and child the previous year, he was required to pass a psych eval before returning full-time.
All the time I spent with Agent Nelson and he never once mentioned the accident that took his family. Then again, revealing a major stressor to a criminal psychologist would not have been an ideal move on his part. To wit, the FBI are the best secret keepers.
Well, almost the best.
I stack the boxes outside my office for the moving crew tomorrow, then I go to turn off the light. A moment of nostalgia grabs me, and I look at the saltwater tank, now devoid of fish, and say a silent goodbye to my practice.
After I lock up for the last time, I set the key on the receptionist desk and decide to walk the scenic route to my apartment. I’m keeping the lease on the townhouse, as Maine will always be my home. I’m just not sure about reopening a practice here. At least, not in the near future.
Time is needed.
Time and distance.
The aviary is beautiful at sunset. Whenever I had a particularly bad day, a detour onto the winding paths through lush greenery always soothed me. I don’t even particularly like birds… I come here for the gardens and trails. The ponds that line the boardwalk.
I never really thought about why I might find this place so tranquil. I can’t help but wonder if I’m relating to the giant birdcage on a subcon
scious level. Feeling some measure of comfort in the iron bars. I stuff my hands in my pockets and mentally laugh at myself, mocking my over analytical nature.
This is the first time I’ve been here since Detective Foster followed me into the gardens. I half expect to see him as I turn the corner. With his hovering cloud of cigarette smoke and derisive expression, ready to scold me for walking home alone.
Over the past few weeks, the ornery detective and I have gotten closer. Oddly enough, Foster has proven to be rather heroic, swooping in to help me evade the press after Grayson’s escape when Young couldn’t be present.
I even gave him the evidence of Nelson’s attack on me—the epithelial cells I recovered from beneath my nails after having scratched the agent. I believe it was that trust I supplied in him, touting a conspiracy to protect Agent Nelson on the FBI’s part, which solidified his belief in my having no hand in Grayson’s latest getaway.
Before I arrived at the Rockland jailhouse, I called Foster from the taxi, securing a measure of protection against any future attacks from the deranged agent, and insurance for Grayson. If something happened to me, I wanted at least one person to suspect it might not be Grayson.
I kept the truth of Nelson’s copycat murders hidden, knowing that, without proof, it would be an empty accusation—one the Feds would hardly be willing to believe or investigate. But I could use Nelson’s attack on me to prove his devolving mental state. For now, that’s enough.
I’m still pretty good at reading people. And as far as Foster is concerned, Grayson is a threat to the both of us. Joining us together in some morbid effort to protect each other, as no one else has suffered as we have.
By now, the detective should’ve returned to New Castle. Yet he’s stated that, with the loss of his career, there’s nothing there for him to return to. He’s taken a job here as a private investigator, claiming he’s enjoying the freedom of selecting his own investigations. But I believe, like me, he’s waiting.
A feeling of déjà vu assaults my senses, and I stop. Footsteps reach my ears. I whirl around, Taser already in hand.
