by Penn Gates
The two of them walk a short distance from the bleachers before he speaks. “The thing is, doc - Nix isn’t finished with Cindi Lou.” Cash’s voice is tight. “She wants to see her again.”
“Well—” Lisa quickly scans her memory of texts she’s read. “Most PTSD experts believe it’s healing for a trauma victim to confront their perpetrator.”
“She just did - didn’t she?”
“No - she acted out a revenge fantasy. That’s not the same as telling her mother what she thinks and feels about her childhood abandonment.”
“Nix isn’t big on talkin’ about her feelin’s. I mostly can just tell what’s on her mind, but I’ll be damned if I know what she’s got planned at the moment. I’m afraid she might try to kill the bitch,” he admits.
Like that would be a bad idea, Lisa thinks. Cindi is like a scorpion. She’ll sting anyone who comes near her - it’s her nature. But aloud she says, “I think it’s worth the risk - sometimes you’ve got to lance a boil to release the infection.”
Cash nods slowly. “Makes sense - but I sure as hell am gonna make sure Nix ain’t armed before she comes face to face with her mother again.”
“No way is she to go into that room alone,” Lisa adds. “She needs people who care about her to have her back.”
CHAPTER 22: Free At Last
In the dim hall outside what used to be the first grade classroom, Nix St Clair stands staring at the wall. It hasn’t occurred to Lisa until now that Nix, too, may have gone to school here as a child. But whatever memory is playing in her head, the only clue to what she’s feeling is the death grip she’s got on her husband’s arm. Behind them, Margaret stands in the shadows, hands clasped in front of her. Lisa thinks she may be praying.
Holden has been tightlipped since he asked Nix one question back at the ball field: You sure you want to do this? His worried frown tells Lisa that he’s also aware of what may happen to her if she goes through with this confrontation.
“Has Gypsy Woman given you any trouble?” Holden asks McAllister in a low voice.
“Haven’t heard a peep out of her,” the private answers. “She’s probably still out. She’s drunk as a skunk - smells like a distillery in there.”
“Let’s wake her up,” Holden says. He indicates the bucket of water sitting next to his feet. “I brought a little pick-me-upper - just in case she decides to play possum.”
McAllister hesitates. “Maybe we should just leave her be. I get the feeling she could whip up a curse if she’s really pissed.”
“You know, McAllister, the whole horror movie thing isn’t funny any more,” Holden says. “This is somebody’s God damn life. So shut it!” He picks up the bucket. “Get the door.”
Sound is magnified in the empty classroom and can be heard clearly, even through a closed door. Water splashing. Unintelligible curses bouncing off walls. A male voice low and threatening, and then a yelp. More time goes by. Finally Holden and McAllister step back into the dark hall.
“How is Mommy Dearest?” Nix asks, coming out of her daze.
“She’s awake,” Holden answers, “Still pretty groggy - hard to tell how much she understands right now.”
“I doubt I’d recognize her sober,” Nix says through clenched teeth. “She’s been marinating in alcohol and chemicals since I was a kid.”
She tries to push past Holden, who looks unsure about how to stop her without using force. Cash puts his arms around her from behind and holds her until she stops struggling.
Lisa feels like a coward because she doesn’t want to be here. This is going to be too brutal, too ugly. But Nix needs to confront Cindi Lou before her rage pushes her beyond speech and into matricide. And in spite of her fear, Lisa wants to stand by the woman who’s become her friend.
“Margaret,” Lisa says quietly. “It’s time.”
The girl’s head remains bowed for another second, and then she squares her shoulders and steps forward.
Lisa lowers her voice. “You know Cash will keep Nix safe from any physical harm - but she needs a woman - the exact opposite of her mother - a counter-balance against—”
“Evil,” Margaret says simply. “There is no other word.” She walks to Nix’s side.
With his arm still firmly around Nix’s shoulder, Cash stares into Margaret’s eyes. “Can you hold on to Nix for me and keep her from slippin’ away?”
Margaret nods. “You know I would fight the devil for her soul.”
Cash removes his arm, and Nix kicks the door open so violently it crashes against the wall.
“Mein Gott!” Margaret gasps. She quickly grabs Nix’s hand and doesn’t let go.
Without discussion, Cash and Holden take up positions on either side of the door. Lisa has a contingency plan of her own. She stands in the doorway, with her hands behind her back. Part of her is appalled that she’s prepared to use a hypodermic needle filled with sedative as a weapon - but it won’t be the first time.
Holden glances at Lisa as she enters the room. She looks unnerved by this family drama that could give a Greek tragedy a run for its money. He’s got to get her grounded - and fast. “Good call, ” he whispers to her. “You came locked and loaded.”
Holden’s words make her feel like she can handle whatever happens - as long as he’s near. Even so, she holds her breath as Nix stands over the heap of old rags on the floor. After what seems like an eternity, Nix nudges the pile with the toe of her boot.
Cindi Lou rolls over and peers up at her with a bleary eye. “Who’s it now?” she slurs.
“Don’t pretend you’re drunk,” Nix says coldly. “You always had the constitution of an elephant when it came to the crap you dumped into yourself.”
Cindi Lou gives a lopsided grin. Her right eye is swollen shut and beginning to turn an interesting shade of purple. She sits up and seems to shake her hair and clothing back in place like a bird ruffling its feathers. “Why thank you, Phoenix. I didn’t think you’d remember.”
“I remember - everything.”
Cindi Lou smirks. “You had a great childhood. You got to play dress up and you didn’t have to go to school - there was music everywhere.”
“It was like a fucking fairytale,” Nix says sarcastically. “Especially when I entered third grade and could barely read.”
“Well - it would seem you learned. You became a cop, didn’t you?” Cindi Lou yawns.
“Yep, I sure did - to take junkie trash like you off the street - you and your pedophile friends.”
“Did I? Have pedophile friends?” Cindi turns slightly so she can see Nix’s expression with her one good eye, and she looks more like a crow than ever.
Lisa feels her stomach churn in protest. How had Nix, as a child, survived the casual cruelty of this monster? She sees Nix’s hands begin to shake before she balls them into fists and presses them against her legs. If the woman moves a muscle, Lisa is afraid Nix will hit Cindi Lou again, but this time she won’t be able to stop. Lisa grips the hypodermic a little tighter.
“Sure you did,” Nix says very quietly, as if she doesn’t want to risk setting off an avalanche inside herself. “In fact, you traded me to a kiddy diddler for a bag of dope when I was twelve.”
Cindi Lou’s eye gleams with malice. “Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about? I’ve had a very eventful life. You can’t expect me to remember every little detail.”
Lisa swallows hard. The intentional brutality of the remark is stunning.
But Nix smiles as if she’s amused. “You’ve never been any good at paying attention to things that aren’t about you. After you got the shit in your hands, I didn’t matter.”
“What happened?” Cindi Lou asks, with the feigned curiosity of a child willing to listen to another boring story to delay bedtime a while longer.
“The bastard took me to the woodshed and tried to rape me.”
Lisa sees Margaret sway, but then she steadies herself and makes an almost imperceptible movement closer to Nix - as if she might thr
ow herself in front of her friend to shield her from any more pain.
“Tried?” Cindi asks, still with the same pretense of ignorance.
Cash looks ready to charge, but Lisa shakes her head. As hard as this is to witness, it’s possible that if the adult Nix can speak her truth, the child within can heal.
“I got away from him - and ran all the way back to Ohio,” Nix tells her in a cold voice. “How long was it before you noticed I was gone?”
“You didn’t have to run, Phoenix,” Cindi says. “Because he disappeared around the same time.” She smirks. “I thought maybe the two of you took off together.”
Nix laughs sarcastically. “And I thought you didn’t remember. You must be slipping - you used to be able to keep your story straight when you were running a con.”
Cindi Lou puts her hand to her forehead in a melodramatic gesture. “It’s all coming back to me now.”
“You never came back to the farm after that,” Nix jeers. “Scared of what your daddy would do to you?”
“That dried up old prick?” Cindi laughs. “Anyway - I’m sure my absence didn’t bother you. You hated leaving that cow shit palace as much as I hated being stuck there.”
“You’re right. When I finally realized you weren’t going to show up again, I was happier than I’d ever been in my life.”
The aging, but still beautiful, woman sits crosslegged, as if she’s in a field at Woodstock, staring at her daughter with curiosity - maybe even anticipation.
“Glad it worked out for you,” Cindi croons. “Besides - you were too old by then. Nobody feels sorry for a mother with a teenager.”
Lisa feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room. This woman is a black hole, pulling everything that comes near into an alternative universe where hate is love and bad is good. She’s almost dizzy from the lack of oxygen. She doubles over for a moment, trying to catch her breath, and from that position sees Nix digging her nails into the palms of her hands. A single drop of blood hits the terrazzo floor.
“It’s strange,” Nix comments - and she sounds remarkably calm. “Technically you’re my mother - but that’s not really true. You’re just some pitiful whore who rented her womb to me for nine months. And I paid for it with a big chunk of my childhood.”
“Well, technically - you were a squatter, Phoenix. I didn’t really want you there.”
Cindi Lou’s one open eye is that of a carrion bird about to peck at a dying animal. Lisa sees no mercy, no pity. There’s - nothing.
“You were never a mother,” Nix points out. “Hell, you were never even a daughter. Far as I can tell, you don’t feel anything for anybody. Your life has been one long effort to fill the gaping hole that’s you with sex and drugs, but it only works until the high wears off - doesn’t it?”
Being a doctor has always meant being able to alleviate pain - to heal. But there is no medicine, no surgery - no magic bullet - to fix what’s wounded in Nix. Please, please let this work, Lisa thinks desperately. Let this free Nix and give her peace.
“I’ve hated you for years,” Nix is saying to Cindi Lou, and she sounds much less angry now. “I thought I couldn’t feel anything else - that I was just like you. But what was missing in me was only the ability to trust.” Tears are running down Nix’s cheeks now, but she doesn’t try to hide them. She isn’t crying with the pain of abandonment, but from happiness.
Cindi Lou senses the change in Nix and looks at her resentfully. She can’t tell exactly what happiness is, but she knows her daughter is no longer hurting. “I don’t know what you mean, Phoenix. It sounds like you’re the one who believes in fairy tales,” she sneers.
“We’re done here,” Nix decides. “This is the last time we’ll ever speak.” And she turns and walks into Cash’s arms.
Lisa stumbles out of the abandoned classroom, stunned by the lack of humanity in a creature that only pretends to be part of the human race. Holden grabs her elbow to steady her, then puts an arm around her shoulder to guide her a little way down the hall. He can feel her shaking.
“It’s over, Lisa,” he murmurs to her. “It worked just like you hoped. Nix is gonna be okay.”
He hears the door of the makeshift prison cell slam so hard windows rattle somewhere. McAllister is standing in front of it, and Holden sees him cross himself as if he’s been conducting an exorcism.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Holden says to Lisa and walks her toward the front door and the sunshine outside.
“That was some fucked up shit,” McAllister mutters as they pass him.
“Not your business,” Holden says sharply. “Or anybody else’s - you read me?”
“Keep my mouth shut,” the private replies. “Will do.”
“And while you’re at it - keep frosty,” Holden adds. “That woman is a snake - and snakes can escape from almost anything but a sealed box.”
CHAPTER 23: Burn, Baby, Burn
Lisa lays awake for a long time, her mind replaying the scene between Nix and her mother again and again. As an intern in the ER, she’d treated her share of children injured by abusive parents - or neglected by them. Mostly, she’d thought of such parents as stunted and childlike, not able to function as the adults their chronological age proclaimed them to be. She had never, not once, come across anyone as soulless and soul-killing as Cindi Lou St Clair.
She has never been religious, often describing herself as halfway between agnostic and clueless. She doesn’t really know a formal way to address the Creator, who may, or may not, watch over the writhing mass of life forms on planet earth. Still, the only way she can finally get to sleep is to repeat over and over, “Please help Nix, please help Nix.”
Her sleep is restless, haunted by a hazy, transparent image floating in empty air. It looks like Cindi Lou, but it’s as insubstantial as a hologram. Someone should turn the thing off. She doesn’t want to look at that evil woman, even if it’s not real. She sees an old-fashioned projector and feels a vague surprise that something so dated could produce such amazing technology - but the light is shining in her eyes and she can’t find the plug, although she feels the cord dangling just out of reach of her hand.
“Wakey-wakey,” a voice croons provocatively. “It’s time we had some fun, you and I.”
Lisa strains to reach the dangling cord, but the light and the vision do not disappear. Cindi Lou’s face, lit from below by a flashlight, looks like a gargoyle. She’s sitting on the edge of the naugahyde couch cushion, and Lisa tries to push her away. That’s when she realizes her hands are tied together by rope - and the loose end of it is suddenly taut as Cindi Lou grabs it. The woman stands up and jerks viciously, her strength out of all proportion to her age and assorted ills.
Lisa feels the rough hemp bite into the tender skin of her wrists. “Stop it,” she groans. “I’ll get up if you give me a second.”
Cindi jerks again. “But I don’t want to stop,” she croons. “I love hurting you - it feels good.”
“Because we didn’t let you hang around and cause trouble?”
“Well - there is that,” Cindi Lou laughs, and it sounds like the cackle of a witch in a fairy tale. “But you drugged me - and your handsome hunk of a boyfriend left me by the side of the road.”
“Stand up, you bitch!” the old woman suddenly snarls and yanks the rope.
Lisa falls to the floor and is dragged along like a sack of laundry until she finally manages to struggle to her knees. How long can this go on before somebody hears our voices? I’ve got to keep her talking until then.
“Lookee, lookee what I have,” Cindi says, like a child. She gleefully shines the flashlight on a small object she holds between thumb and forefinger.
Lisa squints at what looks like a dull piece of metal. “I can’t make it out,” she says. “Hold it closer to the light.”
“Oh come now,” Cindi smiles. “It’s lover boy’s two-headed penny - I picked his pocket while he was wrestling me out of the truck.” She lays it on the couch cushion w
ith elaborate ceremony. “I want to make sure he knows who took his girlfriend - and why.”
“I’m not—” Lisa decides to stop talking.
“Not what?” Cindi asks knowingly. “Not his lady love?” She leers at Lisa. “Well I’ll be damned - thought for sure after all the time you two spent together on the road, you’d be hooked up by now.” She shrugs. “But hey - some guys can’t stand gingers. All those freckles, I guess,” she snickers. “I once knew a girl who had freckles on her—”
Still on her knees, Lisa lunges forward and head butts Cindi Lou’s stomach. The woman starts to buckle, but then, amazingly, stays on her feet and grabs Lisa’s hair. Before Lisa can react, Cindi punches the side of her head and the world fades to black.
WHEN LISA OPENS HER eyes everything is still black, and she has a skull-piercing headache. She moves her bound hands through the empty space in front of her and her fingers make contact with cold metal. She’s locked inside a metal box! Her heart thumps painfully. Has Cindi left her to die? She becomes aware of a whining all around her, sneaking like a hornet through her ear and into her head. And then she puts it all together. She’s in the trunk of a car - a car that’s moving fast.
Oh God! She’s going to kill me and bury my body in the woods where I’ll never be found! The pain makes it hard to hold on to a thought. She brings her wrists up to her mouth and chews frantically on the rope. It’s rough and tastes like hemp and motor oil. If she can free herself before that trunk lid opens again - she might have the element of surprise for a second or two. The car lurches around a corner and the ride becomes bumpy. Lisa is tossed around like clothes in a dryer. Her attempt to free her hands is abandoned as she tries to brace herself against something solid.
Suddenly the vehicle stops and there’s a moment of blessed quiet - until a car door slams. Lisa hears footsteps and something brushes against the rear fender. She has no idea where she’s been taken, but if she gets out of this steel box, she resolves to scream bloody murder into the night and hope someone hears her.