Creeping Beautiful

by JA Huss

  “OK. Hold on.” I put a hand up to stop Donovan. “We need to know that, but first… I need to know if you remember what happened on your twentieth birthday, Indie. I need Adam here for this and he can’t come home until you remember what happened that day.”

  She opens her eyes to look at me. “Why can’t he come home?”

  “Don’t you remember? Yesterday you wanted to kill him, Indie. He doesn’t trust you.”

  She starts shaking her head. “No. I didn’t say that. Did I say that? Why would I say that? Oh, my God. My head hurts so bad.”

  Donovan stands back up. “OK. That’s enough. You need to rest for a little bit, Indie.”

  “Rest?” I can’t believe he just said that. “No. We’re so fucking close, Donovan! We can’t stop—”

  “She’s tired, McKay.” Donovan’s voice is low and serious. “And her head hurts. We need to let her relax.” He turns to Indie. “It’s a lot to process, Indie. I just want you to close your eyes and try to sleep.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Just try, OK? If you wake up in a few hours, we can try again. And there’s always tomorrow.”

  “But he thinks—”

  Donovan cuts her off. “It doesn’t matter what Adam thinks. You’re here now. You’re home. And you’re with us. We’re gonna figure it out. OK?”

  He pauses to let her agree but it takes her more than a few seconds to even manage a half-hearted nod.

  “OK. Good. McKay and I will be right out in the kitchen. If you need anything, just come find us.”

  “OK.” Indie’s voice is small and for a moment she sounds like little Indie again. The little girl I knew before we turned her into… this.

  Donovan grabs me by the arm and turns me towards the door. I leave the office and walk down the hallway into the kitchen. Sit on a bar stool and prop my elbows on the granite island so I can hold my head in my hands.

  It’s pounding too. Like it was that day everything happened.

  Then I have this sudden, irrational fear that someone got to me too.

  No. That’s not even possible. I was never one of the kids like Indie.

  But Adam could’ve been. I say ‘could’ve been’ and not ‘might be’ because I know he’s not like Indie. If the Company got inside your head, you don’t make it to thirty-seven without knowing that. They trigger them young. And if these kids don’t have people like Adam on their side, they get used up and thrown away by the time they’re twenty.

  Ironic then. Isn’t it? That we thought we did everything right for our girl and on her twentieth birthday all that hard work was gone in an instant.

  “Well.” Donovan sighs.

  “Yeah. At least now we know where it all went wrong, I guess.”

  “It’s not gonna help us much though.”

  “Do you…” God I don’t even want to ask this question. “Do you think that Indie’s been with this Carter guy for the past four years?”

  Donovan doesn’t answer right away and that gives my stomach plenty of time to roil with the thought of someone controlling her like that.

  “I don’t know, McKay. But the most important thing is that she’s here with us now. And we need to make sure she doesn’t leave.”

  “How do we do that? I mean… if she wants to leave…” I don’t finish. Just let the obvious hang there in the moment.

  When I look up at Donovan, he’s chewing his thumbnail, his lips forming a deep frown as he thinks. “We need to tell her.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “No. She doesn’t even remember Maggie, Donovan. How are we gonna tell her? And she looked right over at the empty space across the lake where Nathan St. James used to live and didn’t even comment that the fucking house isn’t there anymore!”

  “I don’t even know what happened to that fucking house, McKay.”

  “I bought the land. After… you know. And then I had the house razed.”

  “What?” Donovan looks at me. And for a moment I think… he’s gonna figure it out. That genius brain of his is gonna put two and two together and come up with the square root of something I barely understand.

  And then he’ll know the truth. He’ll know what else I did four years ago.

  But he just lets out a long breath. “That was a good idea. I don’t think I would’ve thought of it. So… you? You handled all the… details after?”

  I nod. Hesitantly.

  “OK. Well… that’s good to know. But Indie can’t move forward until she remembers what happened that day. She needs to know, McKay. We’ve come this far. Just… we have to fuckin fix this.”

  “She will lose her mind all over again. I think we should just concentrate on where she’s been and who this Carter guy is. He’s the threat, not her. Forget the fuckin’ past. It’s over now.”

  “And how do you suppose we do that? Hmm? We can’t put her under again. I know this Carter guy, McKay. He’s very good at his job. He went off the rails fifteen years ago and now that the Company is gone, there is no way to reel him in.”

  “You know him?”

  The response I get from Donovan is something in between a nod and a shake of his head.

  “How do you know him? From where? Who is he? What is he? Is he PSYOPS? Is he a Zero?”

  Donovan sighs. “Both, I think. Or maybe neither. I’m not sure it matters. What matters is… what matters is that he took her mind, McKay. He’s got it. And there’s no real way for us to get it back without his permission.”

  I stew in that for a while, thinking. There has to be a way. I never thought I’d wish that the Company was still around. The whole time they were in charge all we wanted was out. But if they were here Adam or Donovan could go to… someone. Ask for a favor. Get a face to go with that name. And then we could hunt him down and end this shit for good.

  “Hold up,” I say, because I just had a thought. “How did Indie get to my house?”

  “That’s… rhetorical, I assume?”

  “I mean, she got to my house somehow. And this Carter guy wasn’t a part of that.”

  Donovan pauses. It’s a long pause too. “For all we know he sent her to you. He knew you’d call me and then we’d bring her here. He could be out there in the woods somewhere just waiting for us to leave her alone for a moment so he can trigger her again. Finish what he started. He was after us, right?”

  “Was he? Do we really know that?”

  “Well… she did drug us, McKay. I can only assume she did that with the explicit intention of finishing the job. And if Nathan hadn’t come and interfered, I’m sure we’d be dead right now.”

  “I think she got away. And that means she got to my house somehow. And she had to be staying somewhere. I mean, she told me she was watching me for ten days. She came alone, Donovan.”

  I get up from my stool, grab my jacket, and head down the hallway, grabbing my keys from the little dish on the table by the front door.

  Donovan follows me. “Where are you going?”

  “Home. I’m gonna go see if I can figure this out. We need answers and if you’re not gonna put her under again, we’re not gonna find them here.”

  The drive back to my shop takes almost two hours. I pull into the driveway and the familiar sound of gravel under the tires of my truck is soothing for some reason. After I turn the truck off, I just sit there for a while, looking at the front of the shop in the dark. It’s starting to rain again. Figures. It’s always fucking raining when shit goes wrong.

  I have a little shed at the end of the driveway, just off to the right of my shop. That would’ve been my first guess about where she was staying if I didn’t have it locked up so tight. It’s where I keep my motorcycle and this neighborhood doesn’t have the lowest crime statistics.

  I get out, shove my hands into my jacket pocket, and shrug my shoulders up like this might defend me from the thick drizzle. Then I turn and look down the driveway and start walking out of instinct.

  She would be somewhere close, but not here.
>
  I’m only walking for a few minutes when I see it.

  Her truck. Black, like Adam’s. But it’s old now. And it looks like it’s been through hell. I circle it first, warily glancing around to see if anyone’s watching me. It’s nearly nine at night, but this neighborhood is mostly industrial. So people come here for work, then go somewhere else at night. So there’s no one that I can see.

  There’s a dent in the passenger door and her tailgate is being held up with a bungee cord. But it’s not locked. I slide into the driver’s side and close the door, even though the dome light overhead doesn’t work or is set to the off position.

  There are clothes on the passenger seat. A pair of jeans and another flannel—holes in the wrists for her thumbs. That makes me smile. And there’s a dried-up magnolia flower hanging from her rearview mirror.

  I start searching. I’m unsure of what I’ll find, but I need to go through every inch of this truck. Every piece of garbage is a clue.

  A receipt from McDonalds. She paid cash with a fifty-dollar bill. So she’s not broke.

  Mud on the floormats. Which could mean she’s been in the woods. But then again, there’s lots of gravel driveways around here.

  Lots of spare change. One of the coins is a British pound. I close my eyes and feel sad about that for a moment. Because however she got to the UK, and whatever she was doing there, none of it was good.

  What I don’t find is any ID. No passport, either.

  And after I climb into the back cab and don’t find anything more useful, I’m just about to give up when I get an idea.

  I lean forward and pull down the hidden arm rest between the seats.

  Then I hold my breath for nearly an entire minute because I can’t believe my own eyes.

  I find a journal.

  I just stare at it because I want the answers to be in there so bad and once I open it up and look, I’ll know either way if they are.

  Indie was always writing in journals. Donovan made her do that. He wanted her to have a place to put her thoughts where she knew they were safe.

  I pick it up and stuff it under my jacket, get out of the truck, jog back to my place, and go inside. I don’t even bother going upstairs, even though the shop is frigid. I just turn on a light, sit down at my little work table, open it up and start reading…

  3/3

  Keep Out.

  These are my thoughts.

  This is my mind.

  And YOU do not belong here.

  I get it baby girl. I really do. But I’m sorry, sweets. I do belong here.

  So I turn the page and keep going.

  Nathan St. James was the boy next door…

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - DONOVAN

  PRESENT DAY

  I sit in the kitchen for a long while after McKay leaves, just leaning my forearms on the island with my head in my hands. Thinking, thinking, thinking.

  Trying to force the past twenty years make sense.

  I made promises to Indie when she was ten.

  I promised her Adam and McKay. I promised her a home. I promised her I’d be there. That we would all be there and she would never be alone again.

  But I was a kid. Am I really still responsible for a promise I made when I was fifteen years old?

  Haven’t I done my best? Didn’t I come when they called? Didn’t I fix her?

  A little, at least?

  I want to believe that my influence helped her. It had to have helped.

  But if I take a good long look at how this whole thing has played out, I would have to admit that Indie was never fixable.

  She was someone’s plan.

  I was not the chosen one, Carter was. Our father made this clear the year we turned eight. I was the copy. I was the disposable twin. I was the backup.

  Carter was the only one who mattered.

  Until he didn’t.

  Until he started to scare people.

  Until he needed to be dealt with.

  Did Carter do this to Indie? Did he escape and then come back for revenge? Is this some elaborate plan to get even with me for taking his place when it should’ve been the other way around?

  Or was Indie his girl from the very beginning?

  She never said his name when I questioned her. She never said, Carter did this to me. But I have always suspected. I could feel him in there. In her mind. It was like he left fingerprints.

  PSYOPS was done with Indie by the time she arrived on the island. Not as in her mind control was complete. But as in she was not a suitable candidate the way they had hoped. She was rebellious and tough and those were always necessary traits when you train up a Company child to kill people. But she was also… wrong. There was something wrong with her. Everything they did to her—she wasn’t ever scared. And it wasn’t a ploy, either. She just doesn’t understand fear the way most people do.

  She doesn’t feel things the way most people do.

  My grandfather didn’t think she’d sell at the auction. But not only did she sell, she was the highest-priced girl that whole night. People were calling in proxy bids from all over the globe to bid on Indie Anna Accorsi. What all those other men were planning on doing with her, I didn’t know. Nor did I care.

  But I should’ve cared.

  That should’ve been my first clue that everything about this girl—from her appearance, to her attitude, to the secrets she was keeping in that little vault inside her mind—they all pointed to Carter.

  Because I see it so clearly now. I see what happened that night we were pulled apart wasn’t the end of Carter Couture.

  It was the beginning.

  And everyone who bid on Indie that night knew it before I did.

  I truly did think I could save her.

  But I see my mistake now.

  I understand what it takes to save a Company killer like Indie.

  It takes more than I ever gave her.

  I look up and find the clock, realize several hours have gone by since McKay left and decide to go check on Indie and see if she needs anything.

  It’s the least I can do after failing her so miserably.

  I didn’t close the door to the office when I left her in there. But it’s closed now.

  My heart actually skips. A hard, thump inside my chest. Then nothing. Like I am dead. Then another hard thump.

  I open the door and switch on the light.

  “Indie?”

  She’s gone.

  Holy fucking shit. She’s gone.

  I walk around the house, calling her name—“Indie!”—throwing open doors and peeking into all the rooms.

  Nothing.

  She is gone.

  I go outside and call her, the way McKay used to call her when she was small. “Indie! Indie Anna Accorsi! You come home right now!”

  Nothing.

  She’s gone.

  I go back in, pacing the hallway, then look up the stairs. Take them three at a time. Practically run down the hallway to her room. Throw open the door and flick on the light.

  Empty.

  I whirl around, open McKay’s door.

  Empty.

  I go to Adam’s door and find it already open. But dark inside.

  When I flick on the light she’s there.

  In his bed. Sleeping with her face pressed into his pillow and under his covers like this is where she belongs.

  I lean against the wall and close my eyes, trying to get my heart to slow down. I try not to imagine all the ways this could’ve turned out differently. Then force myself to stop and just be thankful that this time, this one time, everything is OK.

  I turn the light off, walk across the hall to my bedroom, and position a chair so I can see into Adam’s room.

  Then I grab the bag I brought with me from California and I pull out the ancient tape player.

  I grab tapes at random. Does it really matter which one I listen to?

  At first, I think it does. But after I’m done listening to the seventh one, I realize something.

&
nbsp; They all say the same thing.

  They are all Indie, in her own words and her own voice, begging me for just one thing.

  The truth.

  Every single time she asks me to tell her some truth.

  And every single time—while I do not lie—I hide that truth from her.

  I sit there in the dark and ask myself the same question over and over again.

  How?

  How the fuck do I live with myself?

  I can’t do it anymore. I know she’s fragile. I know I was the one saying we should not tell her too much all these years.

  But I can’t do it anymore.

  So I grab one tape.

  Just one.

  It’s the only one that matters. I put it inside the little machine. And then I take it down to her room and place it on her pillow.

  Then I close the door and go back to my room.

  And I wait.

  A little while later I hear the familiar sound of truck tires on the driveway outside.

  McKay is back.

  A long breath comes out of me and I feel like I’ve been holding it in since he left. And when the front door opens and closes, I get up, walk to the top of the stairs, and look down so I can force him to hear me. He has to hear me.

  It’s time to give her the truth.

  But it’s not McKay looking back up at me from the bottom of the stairs.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - ADAM

  PRESENT DAY

  I want to believe that people are good. I want to cling hard to the idea that trust, and loyalty, and love are all that matter. I want to have faith in the life we created with Indie and the way we raised and supported her.

  I want her to be strong, and resilient, and safe.

  And if you had asked me the day after her twentieth birthday if I still believed all that stuff, I would’ve said yes.