The Lonely (17 page)

I
shake my head, "I'm too tired. If you're going to kill me, just do it. I
don’t care anymore. I'm done."

"You're
prepared to die?"

I
nod and swallow, "I am dead. You have killed everything inside of
me."

"Have
you ever feared I would kill you?"

I
shake my head, "No." I'm too tired to lie, but I manage to squeak
that one out.

"Liar."

I
smile and think about Sebastian. I would die a thousand deaths to be in his
arms, in his penthouse, eating that damned meal the chef prepared. If I ever
get out, I'm hunting his ass down and forcing him to repeat that night. I need
a do-over.

Eli
lies beside me and sighs, "If you had one wish what would it be?"

"I
don’t know. To be normal I guess." There is no guess. It's been my wish
since I was tiny.

He
kisses the top of my head, "You wanted to know why I cared what your name
was?"

I
nod against his soft lips pressed against my forehead. I'm too tired to freak
out but my inner alarms are losing it.

"My
sister was named Emalyn. The Spicers were the couple that kidnapped us
both."

I
close my eyes. The silent tears burst from my eyes no matter how hard I press
them shut. I break my vow to never cry for him again.

The
memories start slowly. "You are the boy in the hole." I whisper
terrified. "From the house. Eli? That was your name?"

He
nods. I can feel a tremble coming off of him.

"You
saved me." I whisper again. I feel like we are in my dark cell, both of us
trapped there. "I killed your sister."

The
words force the curtain down. The floodgates burst, bringing everything with
it. Every memory is running forwards and backwards until I am stuck with only
one image-him standing in the room with the dead girl, holding his hand out to
me. It was the first time he had ever done that to me. I curl into myself and
cry until I sleep.

My
eyes flutter a bit. The warmth of him is there still. I'm frozen. Not in The
darkness but in genuine fear. The tables have turned on me. I am the one who
wronged him. I am the one who owes him. I am the one who broke him. I deserved
every injury he has inflicted upon me. I deserve so much more than what he has
done to me.

I
murdered his sister. His name is Eli and he saved me, after I murdered his
sister. He held his hand out and took mine in it. He pulled me to safety.

I
glance up. His face is so beautiful. In his sleep I see the face of the boy so
clearly, I can't believe I missed it. My hero. He blinks and looks down on me.
He smiles and breaks my heart. My nose wrinkles involuntarily.

He
laughs softly and squeezes me. The dimple. Of course I remember the dimple. The
dimple, the icy-blue eyes, the dark hair, the hand reaching for me.

He
moans, "We haven’t slept beside each other in fourteen years and it still
feels the same." He says it so softly and sweetly.

I
hate myself in a thousand different ways.

He
kisses my forehead. Slowly he works his way down to my cheek. He kisses and
moves on to my nose. I close my eyes making a single tear creep down my cheek.
He kisses my tear. "You're safe now. You remember it all. You're
safe." He whispers.

I
don’t know what that means. I can't speak.

"I
never blamed you. I saw what was happening. I saw you make the choice to try to
save her."

I
shake my head. I'm so ashamed. "I can't do this." I mutter and curl
into him, trying desperately to hide. I'm craving darkness and being alone.
"Put me back in the cell." I say quietly.

He
holds me to him, "No. You need to tell me the things you remember. I know
you remember them now."

I'm
aching in every place I can. "The Grande Canyon." I whisper.

My
tears are leaving dark spots on his dress shirt.

"What
else?"

"The
dirty house."

"What
else?"

I
squeeze my eyes shut, "My name."

He
holds me tight to him. We are almost one person we are so close.

"Do
you see why I brought you here?"

I
sob.

"Why?"
He demands.

Heaving
sobs leave my lips, "To punish me for helping them. For killing her. For
stealing her name and pretending to be her."

He
grabs my face and lifts it, "No. No you're missing the point." He
climbs off the bed, he looks savagely angry. He paces like a madman. He looks
at me and shakes his head, bewildered. I don’t know what I've done wrong this
time, unless the anger is left over from everything else. Then it's justified.

"Don’t
you see? All of it was so obvious?"

I
shake my head. He grabs the footboard and shakes the bed, "GOD DAMMIT! I'M
TRYING TO SAVE YOU! I'M TRYING TO FREE YOU!" He takes a breath and calms
himself, "All of this has been planned to free you. You were never going
to get better."

My
breath has reached a new level of ragged despair.

"You
were always trapped in that house. You never left it. You took her life and
never lived it. She would have wanted you to live, Sarah. You've hidden it all
away and punished yourself for something that was never your fault. Don't you
see that?"

My
name hurts me. I pull the blankets up to my lips. The kaleidoscopes in my eyes
make angles and sharp points in the bright light of the room and the severe
look on his face. I realize he has never said my name before. He has never ever
called me Emalyn. All along he knew I wasn’t Emalyn. This is the first time he
has addressed me by a name. Confusion and darkness make my heart beat in my
throat and my stomach threaten to spill.

He
points at me, "You will tell me the story. Now you choose how you want it.
By the fire or in the dark cell or in the tub or in the bed." His voice is
demanding and desperate.

"The
dark." I whisper.

He
nods and holds a hand out. I climb from the bed and stumble to his hand. He
grips me tightly and drags me to the door. He pulls and jerks my hand until we
reach the cell. He flings open the door and drags me inside. He slams the door shut,
making an echo in the dark.

I
creep to my corner and sit. Stuart doesn’t try to talk to me. I press my back
into the corner and slip down the wall. I'm scared where he is. Eli is insane.
Not that he doesn’t have a reason. Now I'm the one making excuses, giving him
the 'doing well Band-Aid' and pity.

I
can hear his feet on the floor. He's pacing still. His breath is ragged.

I
close my eyes and see it all. The sunshine and the way it made her blonde hair
glisten. The smile on her sweet face. I feel sick. I'm crippled by guilt and
pain and sorrow. I look down and feel the tears drip onto my hands. My hands
that I have tried so hard to clean and yet here they are, still covered in her
blood.

My
voice is blank when I speak, "I think they had been doing it a long time.
I don’t know if I was their kid or if they took me. I don’t have very many
memories before you came. I remember other kids at the house though. They would
stay for a short time and then be gone and Randy would start to get edgy and
angry. I was in the hole before we met you and Emalyn."

I
can see the picture so clearly. I know he knows what the hole is. I remember
seeing his bright blue eyes looking at me through the gap between the board and
the ground. His desperate blue eyes. I'm grateful I can't see him now.

I
continue, "She pulled back the lid and dragged me out. Said we were going
for a car ride." My voice breaks with sickening guilt and harsh pain. I'm
dying inside. My brain is working against me, changing the memories. It is my
own desperate attempt to push it all away and make everything tidy again.

"We
got to the Grande Canyon the next day, but I never got to see anything. They
dragged me around the whole time. Pulling me after them. He picked her. He
asked me if I wanted her too. I did. I said I did. I didn’t want to be alone
anymore. I never saw you, just her. She was shiny and pretty. Then they dragged
me back to the car. Laura took me home and Randy stayed at the Grande Canyon.
The next day you guys were there, with me at the dirty house. She was allowed
to play with me for a couple days. I shared my bed with her and my dolls but
she didn’t want them. She cried. She cried all the time." My throat gets
thick. I can't say anymore. I just can't. I want to retch. I would cut out my
tongue before I would say any more.

I
twitch from the horror crawling around on my skin, like the bugs in the hole.

His
voice breaks the silence and he continues my story. He is the only other person
who could know it. "They put me in the hole. He kissed Em and made her
cry. I remember you. You played alone and quiet in the corner. Always in
corners. You acted like you didn’t hear the screaming or the crying, but I saw
you. The panic and the denial. It was all over you. Emalyn wouldn’t stop
screaming. You put the toys down and I saw you go inside. I heard the shot and
the screams. I couldn’t get out of the hole and you were screaming. Laura was
screaming. I finally got the board off and scrambled out of the hole. When I
got inside, Randy was hitting you and Emalyn was dead on the bed."

I
can't cry. I'm stuck in the moment. My voice wavers, "I missed. He was so
big and fat and I missed. Somehow I hit her. She was so little compared to
him." I can see her face looking at me from the bed, the way I see it
every time I look in the mirror.

"I
grabbed the gun from the floor and fired the shot you had meant to. I turned
and fired another shot. Laura dropped to the floor. I dropped the gun."
His voice is soft and scared like mine.

I
whisper, "You saved me. I tried so hard to save her and I couldn’t."

I
hear him cross the floor. He drops to his knees in front of me. He grabs my
hands and holds them tight, "But don’t you see, you did. The thing he was
going to do to her would have been worse. He would have killed her anyway. He
killed all the others, Sarah. All of them. We lived. We made it out."

I
cry and pull my hands from him. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry." I cover my
face and cry harder than I ever had.

He
wraps himself around me and tries to shelter me from it all. All the memories.

He
kisses my head, "We ran and hid. We stayed together in that barn for all
those days remember?"

"I
went to sleep and you were gone. Where did you go?" I ask softly. I'm out
of tears and lost in the sickness of the things I have done to survive.

"I
went for the police. I told them everything. I tried to come back for you. I
tried to find you. But you were gone." His voice is dull.

"Did
you tell them about how I shot her?"

He
nods, "I told them what you were doing and what was happening. They saw it
all. The other bodies. The hole. Everything."

I
feared the prison cell they would put me in more than anything. "I have to
turn myself in." I whisper. I no longer fear cells. I no longer fear
anything.

He
shakes his head, "They know who you are, Sarah. You're the only one who
doesn’t."

I
start to freeze up. The dark isn’t as comfortable with that statement hiding in
here with me.

"Who
am I?" I'm not sure I want to know.

He
grabs my hands and pulls me up. He walks toward the door. He pulls me through
and in the light I see him differently. He is the boy. My hero.

I
tug on his hands and stop him. He turns and looks down on me, "Eli. I am
so sorry I stole her name. I didn’t want the police to know who I was."

He
puts a finger on my lips. I almost pull away but I don’t. "You were a
six-year old. You were barely alive when I met you." He kisses the top of
my head and turns, pulling me down the hallway. I don't know him anymore. He's
so different, again.

Seeing
him now is weird. He's so strong and amazing. I want to be him. I want to be
whole again, or for the first time. But I see the truth in it all now. I will
never be whole. Not like him. Not past it the way he is.

He
pulls me down a hall I've never seen. He opens a tall thin door. It leads to an
office. A cluttered office with papers and books everywhere.

He
moves some papers and turns a large leather chair for me and pats it. I grip my
robe and sit down. I'm shaking and scared.

He
walks around to the other side of the desk and sits. He rifles through some
things.

He
wriggles his lips and then his eyes brighten up. He grabs a paper and holds it
for me to see.

I
glance at the headline.

"Two-year
old Sarah Mastermen missing from Chicago Hospital."

I
frown, "Me? I always assumed I was a Spicer like them."