The room was freezing, and I was completely naked. A small stack of computers hummed in the corner, and the blinking red and blue lights were the only illumination. The stack was the size of three pizza boxes piled atop one another. That was it. The whole world in that tiny little stack.
My catheter came out next, followed by the tube that was stuck up my ass. Diodes covered my body. I pulled them all off, tossed them to the floor. As I made the motion, I saw my hands. My human hands. I flexed my fingers, and it burned.
Finally, gingerly, I stood.
A light snapped on in the room. A motion detector. My eyes screamed with pain, but again, it was duller than normal. A minor inconvenience. It wouldn’t even knock my health down. Then I remembered I didn’t have a health bar anymore.
I took three, tentative steps toward the second rig. My stiff legs were purple and covered with welts. My stomach screamed with pain, and my head swirled.
I looked down upon the awakening form of Clara.
That’s not Clara, I first thought as I saw the thirty-something, frail, emaciated woman in the coffin. The bright, sterile light highlighted her naked, paper-like skin. Shades of yellow, green, and purple bruises dotted her dry and flaking skin. Her brown hair was a tangled jumble. Her unkempt legs, crotch, and underarms were a mess.
Samantha Dillon. That was her name. She was awake, and she struggled to pull the tube from her mouth. I reached forward to help her.
And then, as I pulled the tube from her throat, I did recognize her. Through the hair and grime and sores and bruises, I recognized.
They had said she’d been a teacher. A fifth-grade teacher. She’d taught abroad a while, too. I’d forgotten that part. She’d lived in Korea for years before moving to Seattle.
I’d never spoken with her before. I could barely look at her that last time I’d seen her. But she was there the day Ruth had been sentenced. She was going to be a witness at the trial, before Ruth made a plea deal.
She’d been the other driver. She was there when Chris had died.
I remembered what she said to me, then. Just an hour earlier.
If I could take it back, I would. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was going down the road, and I saw them there. Just stopped. And I did it. I did it. I did it. It wasn’t an accident. I did it on purpose.
I had thought she was talking about Jenk.
I did it on purpose.
The concrete wall to my left rattled and chipped as the police burrowed into the room. On the other side, I heard a shout. There’s a room there! There’s light! Hurry!
Clara—Samantha—gasped like a fish as I finished pulling the tube from her throat. She stopped moving, looking up at me. We locked eyes.
I did it on purpose.
“Did he really kidnap your child?” I asked. My raspy voice sounded odd to my ears, too close to the inside of my head. This is your real voice. This is the real you.
She nodded vigorously. “He did. I swear, he did. Anatoly promised me he’d give my baby to someone who would take care of her. I never thought it would’ve been… I objected, and they laughed. My baby was payment for getting in on the Beta. But after a while, Anatoly offered to hire me. So then I became an employee.”
“I… I don’t understand,” I said. “You did it on purpose?”
“Give up my child? Yes. Duke, you have to understand. My brain… I can’t be trusted. I can’t be trusted with children. I say I want them back. But it’s a lie. It’s all a lie. It’s always a lie. Sometimes it changes in my head. Sometimes it’s clear, and when it is I have to act fast. I have to act before it’s too late.”
“I don’t care about your fucking kid. Chris. I’m talking about Chris. You did it on purpose?”
She paused. She glanced at the wall then back to me.
“He wants you to kill me. If you kill me, he’ll win,” she said.
“Answer the fucking question, Clara.”
“My name is Samantha. I’m sorry. It’s complicated.”
My fists clenched. “It’s a simple question.”
The rattling sound stopped, replaced with a heavy hammering.
Samantha’s eyes changed, just like they did in the game.
“It was serendipitous,” she said. “It was the hand of god. I just knew there was a child in the car. I couldn’t see, but I knew. God told me. She was stopped on the side of the road, facing the wrong direction. It was late, and it was dark. The voice told me to do it. I was going home. I saw the lights, and I switched off the autopilot. I took over, and I turned into the light. I went straight for it. I saw him, Duke. I saw your son. He was like an angel at that moment. It happened so fast. He flew from the windshield and went right over my car. His eyes were just like Solomon’s. And it was good, Duke. He was free. I did it for Solomon, my boy. He needed a friend. And later, when I saw that mural you made, I knew we were connected. I looked it up, that mural, and I saw you were the artist. There’s no such thing as a coincidence. I needed a friend, too. It was meant to be. Don’t you see how we’re connected? Don’t you see it? So I…”
I lunged forward, grasping onto her neck. I squeezed. I squeezed. I squeezed.
Epilogue
The cops wouldn’t let me take the Manet. I told them it was mine, that I brought it with me to the original interview. They seemed to believe me, but they said it was evidence. It had to stay. I would get it back eventually. I tried making the paramedics bring it with me in the ambulance. They said I was delirious, babbling on and on about the stupid painting. I barely remember any of it.
It was waiting for me when I eventually got out of the hospital. Neither the cops nor the feds ever mentioned it. It was just there, sitting in the guest bedroom of Mary and Doctor Calhoun’s place along with my portfolio, which had been on the floor next to my rig. The large, oil painting now hangs in the living room of my new apartment. If anyone ever asks about it, I just say it’s the last loot drop of my time in the game.
I ended up charged with murder two weeks after the police found me screaming in the stark, cold server room, naked with my hands wrapped around Samantha Dillon’s throat. A week after that, the charges were dropped. The charges were re-filed six months later. And then they were dropped again after a second public outcry.
The world is on my side.
I tell them I don’t remember that moment when I choked the life out of Samantha. But I do. I remember every second of it. I dream of it, sometimes. It’s not a bad dream.
I choose to think of them as two different people, Clara and Samantha Dillon. Clara was my friend, my partner. I wouldn’t have survived without her. It was Samantha who brought me there. It was Samantha who played a part in the death of my child.
I will never forgive Samantha. I don’t regret killing her. Not for a second.
But I mourn her. I mourn her every day. The Clara I knew and had grown to love. She had lied about almost everything. But in the end, she had done all she could to help me get home.
I know that’s stupid, unhealthy to think of her that way, as two separate people. But you can do that. You can make unhealthy decisions and still be okay.
Ruth is still in jail. She’s not clean, but she says she is. The truth about Samantha Dillon didn’t help. I had hoped it would, but it didn’t. In the end, it didn’t matter. Not to Ruth. She was still drunk that night, still high. She’d still driven down the wrong side of the freeway. Chris was still dead, and nothing was going to change those hard, terrible facts.
Ruth says she found god in prison. She says she wants me to believe. I haven’t the heart to tell her what I really think.
She did have her baby. A beautiful girl. Kayla is her name. She’s named after Ruth’s mother, who had abandoned her when she was just a child. I don’t pretend to understand.
Mary and I… It would never have worked out anyway. Deep down, I think we both knew it. Most couples don’t last as long as we did after the death of a child. She didn’t stay with Dr. Calhoun, either. Not after I emerg
ed. We’d made love the night I came home, right there in the guest bedroom of her new home. It was a confusing time. She ended up marrying some asshole reporter guy. Dr. Calhoun kept the dog.
Lucas Jansen aka Anatoly mysteriously died in prison a couple days after I was freed. I originally assumed Jenk had been the head of some international conspiracy with a wide reach. But after learning all I could about the man, a computer programmer and IT security specialist from Toronto, I started to suspect the real culprits behind the suicides were someone else. I don’t know who they are or why they killed all the players in the conspiracy. I suspect there’s a bigger story there, a shadow that looms beyond what I do know. Sometimes not knowing all the details is for the best.
I know my part in this story is done. Almost.
Jenk.
I never told them about Jenk. I never told them about Peyton. His fate is not to be decided by the police or the mysterious group pulling all the puppet strings. He’s mine, and his time will come. But not yet. I still have some dominos of my own to set up.
They tell me I need to see a shrink. I have PTSD. Anger issues. I need to remember to eat. My lawyer tells me that sometimes I just stop talking and stare off into space for long moments without saying a word. I don’t remember these moments. He tells me I need to get help. I could lose custody of Kayla. I tell him to stay in his lane. I say I am fine.
I do it at night. I can’t help it. I hide the cuts, the deep, penetrating slices in places where the others can’t see. It is the only way I can feel now. This world, this outside world. It is too dull for me. But when I cut, I come close to feeling again. I can cry. I can breathe. I’m getting good at it. I cut deeper each time, closer and closer to the twilight area, the beautiful place. Sometimes when I cut, I think of a wide, endless field of cotton.
I should have stayed. I can’t tell people that. They won’t understand. But I want it so bad it hurts. I should have stayed.
The End
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Other Books by Matt Dinniman
The Shivered Sky
Trailer Park Fairy Tales
The Grinding
Dominion of Blades Series:
Dominion of Blades
The Hobgoblin Riot
The Thieves of Grandeur (Forthcoming)
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