Vengeance Bound

by Justina Ireland

  We dig into the food, laughing and talking about the reality TV show Niko turns on. I’m polishing off my fourth piece of chicken when Niko sits back with a sigh, muting the television. My eyes meet his, and I stop eating. “What?”

  “I hate to miss the end of this”—he gestures toward the TV, sarcasm dripping off every word—“but I want to hear your story. How you ended up . . . possessed.”

  The memory of my promise saps my appetite, and I set down the mostly naked chicken leg after tearing off the last few pieces of meat and giving them to Odie. I wipe my greasy fingers on a napkin, staring at the cheap paper. “It’s not a very interesting story,” I say, avoiding his question.

  Niko sits up and takes my hands in his. I stare at the strength in his long fingers, at the way his hands are so much larger than mine. He raises my hands to his mouth and kisses the backs of my knuckles. My stomach lurches, but They are still suspiciously silent, and the lack of objection lets me enjoy how endearing the simple act is. My reluctance melts away. I can trust Niko.

  I clear my throat. “I grew up not too far from here, outside of Philly in West Chester. My mom worked for a medical firm, testing experimental vaccines. My dad was a trust fund kid. My grandparents were loaded, and Dad was a bit of a Renaissance man. He taught archeology at a nearby college, not for the money but just for something to do.”

  Every morning he would get up and sing songs from musicals. He would chase me around the house belting out tunes like “Oklahoma!” or “If I Were a Rich Man” while I got dressed for school. Mom would always scold him for making me late, but she would never frown at him. I think she loved his singing as much as I did.

  The happy memory makes me ache for my parents.

  Niko says nothing, just looks at me with those deep ocean eyes, and I continue. “Everything sort of fell apart when I was twelve, almost thirteen.” I swallow, searching for the words to tell him what happened. I open my mouth, but all I can do is listen to my heart pounding in my ears.

  Hi, sweetheart. Do you need a ride?

  Niko’s hands tighten around mine, and the contact breaks through the spell. His lips thin as he studies me. “What happened?”

  I take a deep breath. “I was kidnapped. On the way home from school, my friend Steph and I had a fight. She wanted to go to a friend’s house, and I wanted to go home. We split up, and a block later someone pulled me into a car. It was four months before I saw my family again.”

  Horror transforms Niko’s face, and I forge ahead before he can say anything. “I don’t remember much of it. The psychologists I went to after I came back said I blocked out most of it. I guess it’s a pretty common thing. The truth is, They took the memories away from me when I called for Their help. For the Furies’ help.” I remember when I first felt them. I lay on the floor of the basement where he kept me, cold and hungry and hurting. I could hear him moving around upstairs, heavy footsteps that echoed throughout the dark. Please, someone find me, I prayed, and not for the first time. But this time I wasn’t praying out of fear as much as rage. I was angry that I was so powerless. It wasn’t fair.

  Please, anyone. I’ll do anything to hurt him like he hurt me.

  From out of the darkness a glimmer of awareness prickled my mind. I could feel Their divine anger, Their rage. It warmed me in the cold dark of my prison. Anything? They asked.

  I thought I was going crazy, that my mind had finally snapped. What did it matter? I knew Roland Thomas would kill me anyway. “Oh, yes,” I sobbed in answer to Their question, hope a painful thing after all I’d been through. “I will do anything.”

  At the time I didn’t know what I was getting into, but desperation robbed me of any real choice. I could live on Their terms, or die, another of Roland Thomas’s victims.

  “Why you?” Niko asks. He’s watching me with a mixture of fascination and pain, and I place a kiss in his palm. His fingers twine with mine, and I search for the words to answer his question. There’s nothing to do but answer him truthfully.

  “I didn’t know at first, but over the past few years I’ve figured out why. I had an older cousin, and we were at a barbecue when I jumped into the nearby lake. I was really little, not even in school yet. She screamed, and raced after me, my dad and uncle right behind her. She jumped into the water and dove under, but my dad found me first, and gave me CPR. I was okay, and it took a while for everyone to realize that Melissa never surfaced. By the time they found her, she was gone. From the stories I heard, they think she got disoriented under the water and couldn’t make it back to the surface. It was a quarry lake, and really deep.”

  Niko shakes his head. “I don’t get it. So what?”

  “I killed my cousin, Niko.”

  “That’s stupid. You were a little kid.”

  “Maybe, but I was still responsible for her death. That stain on my soul is what the Furies needed to enter me.”

  He nods very slowly, and sinks farther into the cushions of the couch. “So how did you get away from the guy who had you?”

  I meet Niko’s steady gaze. “The first thing I did once They joined me was kill him. I got to him before he could get to me.” The basement door gave way like paper when I slammed my shoulder into it. Later the police would wonder out loud to my parents how a half-starved girl suffering from dehydration and a badly healed broken left arm could have knocked the door down, let alone done the damage that I had to Roland Thomas. I didn’t know either. I’m lucky that I don’t remember. There was so much blood, I had nightmares about it for months.

  “The police found his DNA attached to ten other cases. I wasn’t the first girl he’d grabbed, and the police actually found a couple of other bodies in the backyard of the house.” My parents discussed the case in agonized whispers when they thought I wasn’t listening, the same way they’d discussed me.

  It’s something I try not to think about.

  “I was back home for less than a week before my parents sent me to a psychologist to help me deal with the trauma. The Furies were in my head but mostly quiet. A whisper every now and then, but nothing I couldn’t ignore. The first couple of doctors weren’t so bad, mostly because they were more interested in getting paid than fixing me. But then . . .” Tears overflow my eyes at the memory, and I dash them away. “They sent me to a new doctor, and he had me committed.”

  I open my mouth to continue the story, to tell Niko the rest, but a sob tears out of me instead. I cover my face in shame and surprise, and Niko wraps his arms around me. He holds me while I cry. The pain of the memory is as sharp as it was on the day my parents told me.

  After a couple of minutes of blubbering, I take a deep breath and calm down enough to finish my story. The tears are unexpected, but I feel better now that they’re out. I can’t remember the last time I cried. And it’s easier to tell the story wrapped in the warm strength of Niko’s embrace.

  “Living with Them in my head was hard, and I began to lose sleep. The Furies wanted me to do certain things, but I refused. It began to kill me a little inside. My parents saw the toll it was taking on me and thought it was because of the kidnapping. When they found me a new shrink, I was unlucky enough for it to be Dr. Goodhart.”

  Niko snickers. “Dr. Goodhart? That was seriously the man’s name?” I tilt my head back to look at him. He frowns, his dark brows kitting together in an adorable way. My breath catches at the sight, and I want to stop telling my story and kiss him until I can’t breathe. But I continue with a sigh.

  “Yeah. He worked for a local program that had this state-of-the-art treatment regimen. Brighter Day, it was called. The kind of place where rich people send their teenagers to have them ‘fixed.’ Drug and alcohol treatment, depression counseling. There was even a special area for kids with eating disorders. Dr. Goodhart had an eighty-eight percent success rate.

  “At first it wasn’t so bad. Dr. Goodhart was nice, and the other kids were pretty normal compared to me. I learned a lot there, and even made some friends. It was supposed t
o be for six months. But then I let it slip that the Furies sometimes told me what to do. Pretty soon he had the whole story out of me. He decided to try an experimental treatment. My parents found out and freaked. On the way to have me discharged, they got into a car accident. It took my grandmother a month to get me out, and when she did, I was little more than a vegetable.”

  I remember the way I would sometimes wake up and not know where I was, or even who I was. Sometimes I would think I was trapped in Roland Thomas’s basement again, and start screaming. All the while They would be in my head, whispering to me, urging me to hurt the men in the building. I would dig my nails into my arm, hoping the pain could drive away the fuzziness surrounding my brain. When I drew blood, the orderlies would inject me with something, and Dr. Goodhart’s face would swim above mine, his lips twisted with disgust. “I’m here to save you from yourself, Amelie.”

  I shake my head to clear away the memory. “All of the paperwork that my parents had was in the car, and when Grandma realized they’d basically had me committed, she filed to have me pulled out of the program. I moved with her to Savannah. She was a smart woman, and she didn’t trust shrinks. But Dr. Goodhart was obsessed, and eventually followed me to the South.”

  Niko shakes his head in disbelief. “Why would he do that? I’m sure there are enough messed-up kids that he didn’t need you.”

  “You’re right. There were two reasons. While I was at Brighter Day, I used Their abilities to look into his memories. I found out that he was getting money from drug companies to try out experimental treatments on his patients, usually without their knowledge. He used me as one of his lab rats. More important, though, is that he thought I had multiple personality disorder. It’s like the Holy Grail of crazy, despite what they show on TV. He thought I was the case that would make his career.” Publishing a case study on me would have made him famous, and would’ve made it easier for him to dope up future patients with experimental drugs.

  “Goodhart began contacting my grandmother, trying to convince her that something was off about me. She pretty much thought him a quack until I lost control one weekend. She saw me acting weird, and called him for advice.” I bite my tongue as I consider my words.

  I won’t mention that I was arrested a week later after an eyewitness saw me standing over the body of one of the guilty. I should tell Niko, let him know what kind of monster I am, but I’m a coward.

  Funny as it sounds, it’s more than fear of what he’ll think about me being a killer. I’m still not comfortable with letting him know about my shaky handle on humanity, and I’m afraid of what he’ll do if he knows how little of my compassion remains. Maybe I am too much like Them. Maybe They are close to being in control.

  I push the notion aside and rub my temples. I’ll let Niko in on the ugly truth of my past at some point. Just not now. Later, when the time is right.

  I’m very good at lying to myself.

  I watch Niko while I gather my thoughts. His gaze is steady, and although his lips have thinned into a grim line, he seems to be taking it all in stride, like I’m telling him what I did over my summer vacation. What did They tell him while I was out? What did he see that makes my story seem tame? I’m afraid to ask.

  “My grandmother died from a heart attack shortly after I moved in with her.” I leave out the part about my arrest causing the heart attack. “I became a ward of the state, and Dr. Goodhart spoke with my caseworker and convinced her to sign my care over to him. She agreed. I was sent to Saint Dymphna’s in Savannah for observation. The next year was pure hell. Once he had me under his care again, he started injecting me with different drugs in the hopes that he could fix me. I was going to make his career. Eventually he found a combination that he thought worked.” It wasn’t until the night I left that I finally realized. The doctor was crazier than me.

  Something in my expression makes Niko pull me closer, adjusting so that I lean back against his chest. He pulls my hair down from its ponytail, burying his face in it and inhaling deeply. I can feel him tremble, and his response to my story causes something vital to shift in my chest.

  “So what happened?” he asks, his voice hoarse.

  I manage a smile. “The Furies were stronger than he thought. I ran. A few weeks later I went back to Savannah to get some of my stuff. I’ve been running for the past two years, waiting for the opportunity to hurt Dr. Goodhart for what he did to me.”

  Niko rubs his cheek against mine, the stubble on his face scratchy and utterly appealing. “Why?” he asks, his mouth next to my ear.

  “My parents died on the way to Brighter Day. They were coming because of Dr. Goodhart, because he put me under that experimental therapy. My grandmother had a heart attack because of me. She couldn’t handle raising me. But that stress was because my parents were gone. His recklessness took my family from me. And now I’m all alone.”

  I slump back against the couch, feeling utterly hopeless. Now that I’ve actually let myself think about my plans, I realize how pointless it was to tell Niko any of this. Even leaving out a great big chunk of the truth, it’s still pretty obvious that I’m a killer. How many girls plan to kill their doctors?

  I push the heels of my hands against my eyes until bright spots appear. The apartment is completely silent. The only sounds are Niko’s and my breathing.

  Neither of us moves, and I finally drop my hands back into my lap. “You can leave if you want. This is the point where you realize I’m batshit crazy and head for the hills. Really, I don’t mind.”

  Niko wraps his arms around me, smoothing back a few tendrils of hair. I remain stiff for a few moments, but when he presses a soft kiss to my forehead, my resolve melts away. I curl into him, savoring his strength. I don’t deserve his compassion, but I’ll take it anyway. His heartbeats are steady and strong under my cheek, and my fear fades away as I listen to his even breathing. “I don’t think you’re crazy. Maybe I would have if I hadn’t spent the past couple of days with you. I don’t know. But I saw something while you were . . . occupied.” I adjust within the safety of Niko’s arms, leaning my head back to study his expression. His eyes are closed, his lashes casting dark crescents on his cheekbones. Again I want to ask him what happened while I was unconscious, but there’s a tension around his mouth that warns me off. I say nothing, and instead lay my head back against his chest.

  I close my eyes with a sigh, and Niko kisses the top of my head. He squeezes me tight, and I squeeze back. “We can figure out how to deal with this. You can just forget about finding this doctor, and we’ll do an exorcism or take up voodoo, or whatever we need to do to keep Them away. I won’t lose you, not when I’ve just found you. You make me feel alive, and something else. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because you’re so different from everyone else. You make me want to try, and I’m not willing to give that up.”

  I want to tell him that it won’t work, that I’ve tried fighting Them before, with disastrous consequences. Even Alekto hasn’t been able to help me do more than control Them, delaying the inevitable craving for justice. But I can’t find the words. I’m too selfish. The last thing I want to do is burst the bubble of happiness that’s surrounding my heart.

  So instead I tilt my head back so I can kiss the underside of his chin. He angles his head so his lips can meet mine, and I sink into the kiss with a sigh. I tangle my fingers in the hair at the back of his neck, and swallow the words I should say.

  There will be plenty of time for reality later.

  MY HAPPINESS

  The next few days pass in an amazing blur.

  Niko and I spend every waking moment together. We go to breakfast at the town’s diner, and wax poetic over beloved childhood cartoons. We drive to King of Prussia to loiter in the mall. There Niko talks about his life before his father died, and I try to remember the happy times with my parents and grandma.

  We drive up to the mountain in the middle of the afternoon and go sledding on the last of the icy snow. It’s a lot more fun with just the
two of us, and we spend as much time kissing as we do sliding down the hill. Afterward we huddle next to each other in front of a fire, toasting marshmallows on wire hangers. I share anecdotes of the places I stayed during my trek from Savannah, carefully omitting my hunt for Goodhart in Charlotte. Niko talks about the places he wants to go, which is anywhere but West County, PA.

  Through it all They are suspiciously quiet.

  We even use a couple of days looking for information on Them. Niko finds quite a few Internet articles on the Furies, and he reads them out loud from the screen of my laptop. None of the information we find is helpful. The myths only vaguely resemble the story Alekto told me, and there are no hints about eliminating Them. There is nothing about Them possessing people to carry out justice, only tales of how They are relentless in Their pursuit of the guilty.

  Does this mean I am the first person They’ve actually possessed? I doubt it. I want to ask Them, and I wonder once again why Alekto abandoned Them.

  More important, what happens if I let Them have Their way again? What happens to me if They take over my body? At some point I’d really like to have a clear idea of what I’m dealing with.

  Not knowing the answers to these questions makes me anxious, but I can’t exactly ask Them about it. Not only have I not heard Them in my head, but if my guesses are correct, They don’t exactly have a reason to tell me the truth.

  So I wait for Their next move. Or for Alekto to visit.

  I spend my time with Niko on pins and needles, expecting him to say something about my past, to attempt to pry into my memories of the months in Roland Thomas’s basement. He hasn’t asked me about the newspaper articles in my room, or the fake IDs and slutty outfits. Is he really that clueless, or is he giving me time to tell him the truth, the whole truth, on my own?

  And how long can I avoid what is sure to be a painful conversation?

  He doesn’t ask me about any of it. Instead he just acts like we’re a completely normal couple. The only hint I have that he thinks about it are the moments when he thinks I’m not looking. Then he watches me with a pensive frown, as though he’s trying to reconcile my manufactured Barbie exterior with the Internet images of a trio of women tearing people to pieces.