A Night at the Asylum (12 page)

“Are you okay?” I asked cautiously. He didn’t
look okay. He was shaking like someone coming down off of a bad
trip. “How did you get here, Emmett? Do you need help? My dad will
be here soon…customers…I should…” I trailed off, not even able to
describe the comparably menial duties of the restaurant routine,
even if only as an excuse.

“I walked,” he responded slowly, answering
only one of my questions. Every word he uttered seemed to take an
enormous effort and dripped with exhaustion, defeat. “That’s…that’s
why I have the gun. I’m sorry about that. And the knife…you
know…earlier. I just…” his eyes were half-closed as he leaned his
head against the back of the booth. “I was just trying to defend
myself.”

“Against who?” I asked breathlessly.

“My brother. He injected me with insulin last
night. He tried to kill me.” Emmett’s voice was emotionless, a
testament to his enervation. “If he sees me again, he’ll finish the
job.”

What. The fuck.

My heart convulsed. Could what I suspected
really be true? I struggled to remember what I’d heard Brad say in
that room down the hall at the station. He’d used almost the exact
same sentence.
“At least be a man and finish the job.”
What
would have happened to Emmett if Jamie hadn’t called the
ambulance?

“Did he do that to your face?” I asked,
unnerved by the contrast between his angelic features and the
damage done. “After you fell?”

Emmett’s laugh was sharp, mirthless. One of
those dimples I remembered so well appeared briefly at the corner
of his mouth. “The one time I’m lucky my dad got to me first.”

“Jesus.” I felt myself sinking, and closed my
eyes. What a sick, twisted world. I needed sleep. I needed a
lobotomy. Despite my remaining fear of the gun, I tried to get up,
but Emmett’s too-warm hand came down quickly on mine. Not
threatening. Desperate.

“Please. Don’t go,” he whispered.

Every cell in my body responded to his touch,
as if he was the world’s most powerful magnet and I was made of
metal fibers, all pulling toward him.

I could barely speak. I was nowhere near
prepared for the intensity of my own feelings, the conflict between
my fear and this thing – whatever it was – that were now both
playing hell with my heartbeat. “Okkkay,” I stammered, dropping
back into my seat with wobbling legs.

Emmett was silent for a moment, and I
wondered what he was thinking. “He tells us to fight it out,
whoever wins deserves it,” he finally murmured disjointedly, and I
realized he must be referring to Brad. “Ever since we were kids…he
knows I won’t win. I’m…weak…I won’t fight…” There was a sheen of
sweat across his forehead, the undertone of his skin slightly grey.
I thought how terrible it must be for him, his mother gone, his
father a complete waste of space. He was looking down at our
entwined fingers now, and I felt the uncomfortable knowledge that
neither of us wanted to let go.

Another minute passed as I waited for him to
continue. Instead he grew quieter, resting his head on the back of
the booth again, looking sick.

“Emmett?” I called softly. I was afraid he
was going to pass out.

His eyelids fluttered. “I just need to talk
to you…then I’ll go, I promise. I just…” his head lolled to one
side. “Just let me rest for a second. I’m just…so tired…”

“Emmett!” I moved quickly, squeezing his arm.
Even through the thick material of his sweatshirt I could feel how
unnaturally warm his skin was. “Wake up! Jesus, don’t die on me.”
He opened his eyes, and they were hazy, unfocused. I shook him.
Panic rose inside me like a flood.

And through the clamor in my head broke the
image of a faceless girl with long dark ringlet curls, dressed in
white, beckoning to me from my dream.

Give him sugar.

I didn’t question it. I got up and grabbed a
glass, hitting the soda fountain. I was back in half a second,
moving with a swiftness uncharacteristic for me this early in the
morning.

“Drink it,” I barked, though I wasn’t sure he
could hear me. Then he shoved at the glass, coughing.

“Get that away from me,” he gasped, turning
his head.

“No, Emmett. The insulin’s obviously still in
your blood. You have to counteract it. Drink it. Please.” I wasn’t
sure what to do if he did lose consciousness; I hadn’t received a
crazy psychic dream message about that. God, these last several
hours had been bizarre. I practically forced the glass to his
mouth, praying it would help. His face was full of disgust. He
fought me weakly, but I won. He drank the soda.

Sitting across from him in the booth again, I
watched him with rapt attention. I was careful not to touch him. I
needed to focus. “Why did you leave the hospital?” I asked him with
a sigh. “You shouldn’t have done that.” It was obvious the long
walk here had depleted what little energy his short treatment had
afforded him.

“I don’t care what happens to me. I needed to
get here…to tell you, Sara…” He looked at me, his face full of
concession, “just…this one…last…thing.”

It took a moment to get it. The torment in
his voice, the hopelessness he carried…it turned my bones to ice.
He wasn’t expecting to make it through this. If I had to guess, I’d
have said he didn’t care to, either. That strange tug in my chest
assailed me again, too strong to deny. His knee touched mine under
the table, and my resolve wavered. Slowly, I reached out, and
unexpectedly, he responded by lacing his fingers through mine once
more.

I wanted to cry. I felt his resignation, his
defeat, as if our hands were a channel between us. I had dealt with
a modicum of that pain in my own heart since the casket lid had
closed on my brother. “Let me help you, Emmett.” It was strange
saying those words in that order. I’d never offered to help anyone
in my life; I couldn’t even help myself. But I had to do what I
could to make things better for him. What choice did I have? I
couldn’t escape from him, in the literal or the figurative
sense.

“Last night,” he explained, “I was coming to
your house to find you…after what Ead did to me…I had no sense of
time. I was totally out of it…”

“Last night?” I gasped. “You were coming to
my house?”

So he
had
searched me out, even
before, in the road. There was nothing random about meeting him
there at all. If it weren’t for my moonlight stroll, who knows what
would have happened to him? And he’d come here this morning knowing
I was usually the one who opened the place.

“I know you have no reason to believe me,” he
continued slowly, apologetically, “because we’ve never
really…talked…but I found something out last night that you need to
know. And since then I’ve just been trying to get to you. And I’m
sorry…I’m sorry that I didn’t understand before.”

“You’re not making any sense. Please.” What
weighed so heavily on his conscience, elicited this profound
torture so apparent in his eyes? I was torn between the hope and
fear of a customer arriving to interrupt our conversation. There
was no choice for me but to listen…and for him to have risked his
life to hunt me down, more than once…I dreaded with every cell of
my being what he was about to confess.

“It’s my fault your brother is dead,” he
said.

I sucked in my breath.

Hadn’t seen that one coming.

“What are you talking about?” I spoke gently,
my voice weak, realizing he must be very confused. He seemed more
lucid now than when he came through the door, but he wasn’t making
any sense. “Tommy died in a motorcycle accident. You know that,
Emmett.” Everyone in this town knew it.

Emmett raked a hand through his hair in pure
frustration, shaking his head. “Please just listen to me. The night
your brother died, I saw him. Ead’s car was parked at the
asylum…”

“The asylum?”

“Yes. Ead was inside doing…whatever…and
Tommy…he was getting in the car. He was…I don’t know…he was looking
for something.”

“What do you think he was looking for?” My
questions were just wisps, a lilt on a breeze. My bones felt
gelatinous.

Emmett shook his head. “I was too far away…I
didn’t talk to him, I just saw him.” He paused for a moment. “Do
you know?”

Necklasincar.

“It’s…hard to say.”

He stared down at the table. My hands had
gone cold in his. “I told Ead about it after that. You know, I saw
someone messing around with my brother’s car, so I told him. It was
just one of those things. I didn’t even think about it. Later…I
heard about the accident.”

My limbs were heavy. There were so many
thoughts pulsing against my skull, at war with each other. “Tommy
wasn’t wearing his helmet that night. He never wore it. So when he
hit that tree...it wasn’t anybody’s fault…except his own,
really.”

Emmett nodded. “That’s what my father told
me. He was the first one on the scene. That’s what he told
everybody. He was covering up for Ead, just like he always does.
Just like with Jenny Allison.”

My whole body shook with the mention of
Jenny’s name. I gripped the side of the booth and the sounds in my
head, those dark things at war, grew louder. I had thought Emmett
was confused, crazy. This was just sick. “What are you saying?
Are…are you saying you know what he did to Jenny? I mean…you know
for sure?” My voice cracked.

Emmett pressed his fist into his teeth, and
there was so much pain on his face, he looked as if he might
shatter. His eyes swam with unshed tears. The window fogged with
his deliberately slow breaths, and it was a long time before he
spoke again. When he did he sounded weaker than before, if that was
even possible. “I didn’t want to believe it. He’s my brother. I
know what he’s like…but a murderer? Then the evidence…it was
there…she led me right to it…and I had to believe the rest. He was
stalking her. He took her. He…killed her.”

I froze.
She.
“Who led you to it? Who
is “she”?” In my memory flashed the face of a girl with
frighteningly cold blue eyes, lying beside me in a deep dark
hole.

Murderd.

It had been a slip of the tongue. He hadn’t
realized he’d said it. Now he looked at me regretfully. “You’re
going to think I’m crazy.” He was watching me, gauging my reaction.
“Maybe I am.”

“Tell me.”

He hesitated, stared down at the table again.
“Well…” he cleared his throat, “About a year ago now I
guess…I…started having these dreams…nightmares really. About a
girl…she was wearing this…long white dress. She would try to talk
to me but…” he shook his head. “I never thought it was real.”

“Do you know who she is?” I whispered, terror
wracking my body.

His eyes were woeful. Clearly, he didn’t want
to tell me any of this. “I do now. Your friend. Jamie. Isn’t that
her name?”

I was confused. “What do you mean? What about
her?”

“I mean, it was her.
She
came to
me.”

My throat contracted, threatening to close my
airway. “What?”
Why
would she? How?

“She said it was a message from someone else,
and that she had the proof. She told me where to find it, and it
was right where she said it’d be.”

“And you believe these dreams are real?”

His voice dipped very low, almost inaudible.
“Tonight…I had a dream about you.”

My mind reeled as I remembered the nightmare
in which I was called to the police station. Emmett’s words in the
dream had been strangely similar to this very conversation.
Your
brother’s here, because I told Ead what I saw.
“You didn’t
answer my question,” I whispered, my brain rejecting everything
that was happening.

“I told you…she showed me the proof.”

“What proof?” I asked him.

“The helmet.”

All the air I had left in my lungs was
expelled, as if I’d been punched in the stomach. How I wanted him
to be confused, sick, lying. It seemed impossible now. “How do you
know about that?” I swallowed, had to force myself to breathe. Each
breath was slow, agonizing, like trying to inhale glass.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,
Sara.” Emmett’s face was dark, shadowed, like a ghost walking over
my grave.

“We couldn’t find it after Tommy died.” I
murmured disconnectedly, nausea washing over me in waves. “He never
wore it, but after the accident…it disappeared.”

Emmett clasped my hands now, an anchor in a
sea of insanity. He stared into my eyes, willed me to pay him close
attention. As if I could look away. As if I had a choice. “Sara,
listen
to me,” he said darkly, his words slow and
deliberate. “What happened to Tommy
wasn’t an accident.”

The walls warped around me, but Emmett held
me upright. “No.” I couldn’t say anything else. “No.”

“He was wearing his helmet that night. I saw
him myself. And I told Ead he’d been in his car, searching for
something. Last night I found the helmet he supposedly wasn’t
wearing. Ead hid it. In the asylum. I can take you right to
it.”

“No. No.”

“Will you go with me?”

The rushing in my ears grew so loud I feared
my head would explode. What was he asking me? What did he want? My
fractured mind couldn’t comprehend it. “I have to wait till my dad
gets here…I have to…the eggs…”

“Sara? Are you okay?” Emmett asked.

I was so fucking far from okay.

There was a loud tapping on the window next
to me. I had forgotten where I was again, the blessed order of
routine. I looked over and saw Ira Banks, often our first customer
of the morning, staring in the window at me with his hands cupped
around his eyes. Slowly, I detached myself from Emmett’s hand. I
stood up and numbly let Ira in. He sat at the counter, and in my
stupor, I didn’t even take his order or say hello. I sat back down
in the booth.

“I have to go.” Emmett stood abruptly,
teetering a bit. He clutched the back of the seat for support.