I still haven't replied. The unease has become nausea, a greasy roiling in my stomach. He's not wrong. I would think about it. Hillstead's made the stakes horrible but bearable. As with any gamble, I could lose, but the prize if I won . . . worth rolling the dice?
Probably, yeah.
No, no, no! the dragon cries. Crunch his bones!
Shut up, I say.
The other voice remains quiet. It's still there, it's just silent. Waiting.
"Are you making that offer, Peter?" I ask.
"Of course I am. There's a knife between the cushion and arm of the chair."
I transfer the gun to my lap and reach with my fingers along the side of the cushion. I feel it. Cold steel. I fumble until I find the handle, grab it, and draw the knife out.
"Look at it."
I do. It's a hunting knife. Made to cut flesh.
"Scars," Hillstead murmurs. "Reminders. Like . . . rings on a tree, marking times gone by." One eye peeks out from behind Bonnie's head and fixes on me. I see it moving, can almost feel it on my face. Like soft hands tracing my scars. Loving them, in a way, I realize. "I want to put my mark on you, my Abberline. I want you to see me when you look in the mirror. Forever."
"And if I do?"
"Then I will let you use that knife to cut Elaina free. Whatever else happens, she will walk out of here, alive and well."
Elaina is trying to talk through her gag. I look over at her. She is shaking her head. No, her eyes are saying. No, no, no . . . I look at the knife. Think about my face, the road map of pain it's become. It's meant the loss of everything. That's what my scars have been reminders of. Perhaps the scar he wants will be a reminder of saving Elaina. Perhaps it will just be another scar. Perhaps we'll all die here and I'll be buried with it as an unhealed wound.
Perhaps I'll put the gun to my own head and pull the trigger. Would my hand shake then? If it was me I was shooting at?
The world spins, Bonnie becomes Alexa, Alexa becomes Bonnie, and oceans roar inside my head. I feel both peaceful and terrified. Losing my mind, yes, sir. No bout adout it.
I turn away from Elaina's eyes.
"Where?" I ask.
That peeking eye widens. I see the edge of it crinkle. He's smiling.
"A simple request, Smoky-mine. We'll keep the one side free of scars. I like to think of you as beauty in one profile, beast in the other. So, on the left. One single line, from below your eye to the corner of that beautiful mouth."
"And if I do this, then I get to cut Elaina free?"
"So I've said." He shrugs. "I could be lying, of course."
I hesitate, and then I bring up the knife. There was never any question. Why delay?
Don't delay, do it today! the crazy-me cackles. Cut yourself now, and we'll throw in an Easy-Bake oven--free!
I put the tip under my left eye, feel its coldness. Funny, I think. Nothing feels quite as cold, quite as unfeeling as a knife when its edge is against your flesh. A knife is the ultimate soldier, it will follow any order and doesn't care what use it's put to so long as it gets to cut.
"Make sure it's deep," Hillstead says. "I want to see bone when you're done."
Joseph Sands wanted me to touch his face. Peter Hillstead wants me to touch my own, and I am, I am cutting, deep and decisive. The pain is exquisite. The blade is razor-sharp; it slices me open with a yawn, bored, no heavy lifting involved. The line is long and there is blood, lots of it, running down my face. A rivulet runs over my lips. I taste the fine wine of me. The dragon screams.
Hillstead is captivated. That one eye is wide. Taking it all in, drink ing it down. Feeding his needs. I give him a moment to appreciate it.
I point the knife at him. "So? Can I cut Elaina loose?"
His eye is still wide. Blood drips from my chin and the eye follows it.
"So beautiful . . ." he breathes.
Drip, drip, drip. He's captivated by my blood-brook.
"Peter." The eye pulls itself away from my gore, reluctant. "Can I cut her loose?"
A crinkle. He's smiling again. "Well . . ." he says, drawing it out. "No. I don't think so. No."
I fill with despair and contempt at the same time. "So predictable," I say. "If you were going to be original, you would have let Elaina go. Not doing it--that's what I'd expect."
He shrugs. "Can't please everyone."
"You can still please me."
"How?"
"By dying, Peter. By dying."
Bold words, I think, but I'm still afraid of my gun. He laughs. "Fair enough, Smoky. Now we will truly get down to it."
One hand grips the back of Bonnie's neck. The other has the knife, still at her throat. "You gave me what I wanted. Time to end this."
I drop the knife. He follows it as it falls to the floor, clattering. I follow it too, mesmerized by the shine of it, by the slick of my blood on its oh-so-keen edge.
I squint. Cock my head. The voice in my head is back, and it's nearer. I don't look at him as I answer. "How is this going to end, Peter?"
"Why, the only way it can, Smoky. One way, or the other."
I glance at him. I exist on two levels. One part of me looks at Hillstead, listens to him, responds. The other strains, strains, strains to hear the voice.
"What does that mean, 'One way, or the other'?"
The eye crinkles.
"I'm going to cut Bonnie's throat, Smoky. I'm going to count to ten, and then I'm going to slice her from ear to ear, give her a wide, wet, weeping grin. Unless you kill me first, of course." The knife wiggles.
"Whatever happens, in the end, I feel certain you'll shoot me and I will die. So, 'one way'? You shoot me before I get to ten, Bonnie lives. 'Or the other' ?" He glances at my gun hand. "Alexa all over again. Bonnie dies, another daughter lost. You still kill me . . . but too late, too late."
And now I hear the voice.
Mommy.
"All you have to do, Smoky-mine . . ." His head appears. He's grinning. "Is let me help you one last time."
Listen to me, Mommy. You can do it. It's okay. I am emptying out inside. Becoming still, still, still.
"Fuck you."
"I don't think so." He smiles even wider. "Make no mistake about it, Smoky. I'm going to give you ten seconds, and then I'm going to kill her. I'm going to take my knife and slice her pretty little throat wide open. The only chance she has is you taking your shot. Of course, you might miss and kill her, just as you did with Alexa. You might murder another child with your gun."
Blood drips from my face. Bonnie's eyes fill my mind. But it's Alexa who fills my soul.
Everything beautiful about her comes to me. All at once. Every mo ment of seeing her smile, holding her close, smelling her hair. Every tear I ever wiped away, every angel kiss she ever gave me. Memories of her have been coming back to me lately, it's true. But these are ten thousand times more vivid. Ten million times stronger. All gone, gone forever.
"Come on, Special Agent Barrett. I'm counting the seconds down now."
I am swimming in an ocean of tears, and it has no horizon. So, the question once again: Will my hand shake if I point the gun at myself? I could end it that way. Quick. Easy.
An end to the memories. I want that more than anything--to unknow my past.
"You were my Abberline, Smoky. You should be happy--you are the best of the best. No one has caught any of us, dating all the way back to my ancestor. I applaud your ploy with the flesh in the jar. An obvious lie, but I will admit--you made me angry. And catching Robert, well . . . he was sloppy, so I won't call it genius on your part. But you are gifted, Smoky-mine. So very gifted."
I can barely hear him. There is a roaring in my ears, threatening to drown out the world. It's me, pounding my fists against myself until they're bloody. Me, screaming forever. Me, howling and crusing and dying and--
Mommy!
The roaring stops.
Silence.
I see her out of the corner of my eye. But I cannot look at her. No. I'm too ashamed.
/> It's okay, Mommy. It's okay. You just need to remember the important thing. What? That I failed you? That I killed you? That I lived and you didn't? That--worst of all--life went on?
Shame fills me, roots its snout into every part of me. Burrows down into the depths of me.
This is pain, absolute and infinite.
Here we are, I think. Finality. The place where I lose for good. Fade to black.
I begin to pass out.
Before I can, Alexa smiles.
It is a blazing sun. A golden juggernaut of light. No, Mommy. Remember the love.
It's as if someone hit a pause button. All the pain, all the shame, stops. Suspends.
Now there is stillness.
A moment of time is passing, and I'm watching it go by. Lub, my heart begins to say, and then, a dub, it finishes, a single beat. Standing there, right in front of me, is Alexa. No longer blurred, a shadow, or a brief moment in a dream.
My beautiful Alexa, shimmering.
"Hi, Mommy," she says.
"Hi, baby," I whisper.
I know she is not really there. I also know she is as there as there can be.
"You have to choose, Mommy," she says, her voice soft. "Once and for all."
"What do you mean, sweetheart?"
She leans forward and grabs my hands in hers. Tenderness washes off her, rolls over me. So beautiful it makes me wince.
"To live, Mommy."
Truth, in my experience, arrives without fanfare, but it arrives in an instant and changes everything forever. Real truth is always simple. This truth is no different.
A choice between life or death is a choice between Alexa and Hillstead. Between Matt and Sands.
Alexa smiles, nods . . . and disappears.
And just like that, from one heartbeat to the next, I'm sane. With that truth, my madness leaves me.
Time begins again.
Hillstead is still jabbering away, but I can't hear what he's saying. I feel as though I am in a chamber of silence. A world where everything else moves at its regular rate but my own thoughts are dreamy, like doing tai chi at the bottom of a swimming pool. Bonnie's eyes have not left mine from the moment I entered the room. Full of terror, full of trust. I look at her now, now that I am sane. I really see her.
She's beautiful, Mommy.
"Yes, she is, honey," I murmur.
Hillstead's eyes narrow. This time I can hear him. "Who are you talking to, Smoky-mine? Losing it for good now? Better pull it together. Just three more seconds before little Bonnie starts smiling below the chin."
This shot I must make to save her, it will be difficult. Approximately one quarter of Hillstead's head is visible. The rest is hidden behind Bonnie. The calculations begin whirring away inside me, spinning slow at first, then picking up speed.
The dragon senses her time is coming and she purrs. The voice of Alexa comes to me again, fitting the rhythm of the whirring like wind fits a rainstorm. Don't worry, Mommy. Just feel it. It's in you, you just have to trust in it.
"I don't know, Alexa," I tell her. "Two inches, an inch and a half. I just don't know. I could kill her."
I feel her ghost arms wrap around my waist from behind. One hand reaches up to touch my heart. It's there, Mommy. You stopped trusting it, but she needs you now. And I don't mind that you need her. You asked me that in your dream, but you woke up before I could answer you. Love her, Mommy. I don't mind. Alexa's face appears in my mind; Matt's brown eyes, pixie smile, mailman's dimples. I'm not afraid to look at her now. The hands pull away and I feel her receding behind me. Before she goes, she whispers one final thing: Don't you understand, Mommy? You're not perfect. Do what you feel, and it'll be the best you can do. Your best is all you'll ever have to give. The dragon snarls, and the whirring becomes a scream, building in me like a hummingbird aflame, growing into a hawk, and then an eagle, and--
My hand stops shaking.
I raise the gun and pull the trigger without thinking about doing it. I don't hear the crack of the shot. It is all visual for me. I see Bonnie's face jerk back as Hillstead's head explodes and the knife falls from his hands, and I know that I have killed her with him. I feel a scream begin to build in me, my hands go to my head, but then Bonnie is moving toward me, hobbling with her bound feet. She turns her left cheek to me and I see Hillstead on the floor, a bullet hole through one eye, and I understand. I had made the shot. It was close, my bullet had grazed Bonnie's cheek, but it had found its mark. She was fine. He was dead. My hand is trembling as I holster my weapon. James and Alan come rushing up the stairs, followed by Tommy. Alan is weeping as he unties Elaina and gets a blanket around her, while James and Tommy ask me if I am hurt. I don't reply.
I look down at him, dead on the floor. The man who provided Sands with access to my home, who was ultimately responsible for the death of my family, the scars on my face. I think about the swath of destruction his actions left behind him. In the end, he proved his own point.
Death is always just a step away.
But then again, so is life, and all of its champions.
57
C ALLIE ASKED THAT three people be here for this. Me, Marilyn, and Elaina. Bonnie is here by default, which seems fine with Callie. Two days after Peter Hillstead died, Callie woke up. It's been another two days since that, and the doctor is preparing to test her feet for sensitivity. Callie is doing her best to cover it, but I can tell that she is terrified. She looks terrible. Pale, tired. But she is alive. Now we'll find out if she's going to walk again.
The doctor holds one of those instruments everyone has seen but can't name--like a revolving spur on the end of a handle. He is poised to run those sharp points across the bottom of her feet, and he looks up at Callie. "Ready?"
Elaina grips her hand on one side of the bed, I on the other. Marilyn stands to Elaina's left. Bonnie looks on, a worried expression on her face.
"Tickle me, honey-love."
He runs the spur across the sole of her left foot. Looks at her. "Did you feel that?"
Her eyes widen with fear. Her voice is small. "No."
"Don't panic," he tries to reassure her. I can tell this is not working, because her hand is crushing mine. "Let's try the other foot." He runs the spur across it, we wait . . .
And then a twitch. The big toe moves. Callie holds her breath.
"Did you feel that?" he asks again.
"I'm not sure . . ."
"That's okay. The toe moving is an excellent sign. Let's try it again."
He runs the spur across the bottom of her foot. This time, the toe twitches immediately.
"I--I felt it!" Callie exclaims. "Not a lot--but I did."
"That's very, very, very good, Callie," the doctor says, soothing.
"Now I want you to try something else for me. I want you to try and move that toe for me, the one that twitched."
Callie's hands are sweating. I can feel the smallest tremble.
"Come on," Elaina soothes. "Try it. You can do it."
Callie is looking down at her big toe, an intensity of concentration that an Olympic runner couldn't match. I can feel her mental strain as something palpable.
The toe moves.
"I felt something that time!" Callie says, excited. "More of a . . . connectedness. Does that make sense?"
The doctor smiles. It is a big smile, a huge smile. None of us have allowed ourselves to relax into relief yet, but I can feel the possibility building. We need to hear the words from his mouth. "Yes. That makes a lot of sense. And it is very good news. There is only a five percent chance that you'll experience some impairment. Nothing that physical therapy can't handle, but I don't want you to worry if it happens. If that occurs, it'll be a matter of retraining your body to accept the messages between brain and legs." He pauses. "But I feel confident in saying this: You are not going to be paralyzed."
Callie's head goes back against her pillow and she closes her eyes, the room is filled with a chorus of "Thank God"s; it's a hurricane of relief. Then we al
l stop.
Because we hear the wail.
It is the sound of someone releasing something crippling and huge and awful, a keening, and we all turn to see where it is coming from. Bonnie. Little Bonnie is against the door of Callie's room, face red, tears practically bursting from her eyes, fist against her mouth. Trying to hold in a volcano of grief that is demanding release. I am shocked into speechlessness. I feel as though someone has cut my heart in half with a straight razor.
Of us all, it is Bonnie who feared for Callie the most, and the sheer unexpectedness of this makes her grief all the more overwhelming. That, and my understanding of it. If Callie had been crippled, he would have won, in Bonnie's eyes. She is wailing for her mother, for me, for Elaina, for Callie, and for herself.
Callie's voice cuts through the air, a soft arrow. "Come here, honeylove," she says, with a gentleness that makes me want to stagger. Bonnie rushes over to her bedside. She takes Callie's hand and closes her eyes and weeps against it as she rubs her cheek across the knuckles, over and over and over. Cherishing Callie's life and crying for her own world, all at the same time.
Callie murmurs to her, wordless, while the rest of us remain mute. We couldn't speak if we wanted to.
Callie had asked to see me alone, for just a few moments.
"So," Callie says, after a space of silence. "I suppose just everyone knows about me and Marilyn now?"
I grin. "Pretty much."
She sighs, but it doesn't sound like a sigh of regret. "Ah, well." She's quiet for a moment. "She loves me, you know."
"I know."
"But that's not why I asked you to stay in here with me," she says.
"No? Then why?"
"There's something I need to do, and . . . well, I'm not quite ready to do it with Marilyn yet. Maybe never."
I look at her, puzzled. "What?"
She motions me closer. I sit on the edge of the bed. "Scoot in a little bit closer."
I do. She reaches out with her hands and gently grabs the sides of my arms, pulling me into her, until she is hugging me. It takes me a moment to get it, and then I do, and I close my eyes and hug her tight.
She's sobbing. Silent and wordless, but with everything she has. So I hug her and let her cry, and I don't feel sad. These aren't those kind of tears.
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