"I had to wait to make sure they wouldn't come back for it. But when I saw it, I knew it was perfect for you, little Line." His hands had been so large, dwarfing mine as he slipped the ring on my middle finger. Kind hands. The hands of a father who loved me. The hands of an imperfect soul who couldn't shake his drinking habit. The hands of a man who drove home drunk at four in the afternoon and ran over his daughter's best friend.
"It should have been you."
"I don't belong to anyone." I heard my voice speak the words to Aaron. I sounded sure, strong, but my insides were a mess. They begged me to give myself to Aaron, again. I wanted to fall into Aaron and all that he was. He was more than electronic chains and a uniform. More than the simple, white walls of Z15.
And the monster let them scream.
The words jumped out at me. Loopy, soft, dark words in his skin. "Are you the monster?" I stood in front of him now. Close. He held the ring between us.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"I asked you first."
"We are all monsters, Violet, in our own twisted and fucked up ways."
"Why put it on your skin, then?" I touched the word monster, letting my fingers linger. It felt different than Love with the capital L. Smoother, deeper.
"Because unlike the rest of the world, I've accepted my monster. Have you accepted yours?"
"I'm not a monster," I said. His skin was warm. I'd been dying to touch him. I'd tried to squash the feeling all week, pretending I didn't want to touch him or have anything to do with him.
Lies. All lies.
He slipped my ring back on my pinky and something inside me swooned. "Yes, you are a monster."
"How so?"
"No one ends up here, without being one of the worst monsters there is, Violet. Haven't you recognized that yet?"
"I'm not a patient," I told him, but I wasn't really focused on what he was saying anymore. I watched his hands. Big hands. They touched my forearms. Tingles ran up my spine. The silver bracelets that connected to his chains hung limp against his wrists.
Freedom.
A sigh left my lips.
"It doesn't matter, Violet. Patient, or doctor, anyone down here is a special sort of monster that can't be found anywhere else."
"What?" But I could hardly process his words. My mind lost in his touch, my body, a bundle of nerve-endings on overdrive.
My gaze landed on his pulse point on his wrist. Love with a capital L, and I was reminded of what he asked me earlier. "Have you ever been in love, Aaron?"
His fingertips tapped against my forearms. His twitchy gaze on mine. His lips full, there, just before me. The lips that had ravished mine just a week ago, though right now it seemed like a million years had passed. I wanted to be reminded of his taste. I needed to feel him again.
"Yes." His answer was curt, simple. As if he wasn't affected by what we were doing, as if his body wasn't on fire like mine.
Hate bloomed inside me. It cut at my insides like a hot knife, slipping through, destroying everything in its path.
How does he do this to me and then feel nothing in return?
He said you were his, Adeline. He feels something.
But it wasn't enough. I could tell. I knew. Whatever I felt was more – and now I knew why.
"Who is she?" I asked. My mind went into overdrive. I saw it then, for the first time, the image of him in my head - Aaron Whitman with another woman. She drew him against her body. She was thin in all the right places. Her hair beautiful and messy all at once. She consumed him. She was all he could think about, all he wanted. Someone else. Not me. Never me.
I'm never good enough.
"Tell me who she is." The words were like venom, they spewed from my lips while the images of him and her filled my mind and killed me from the inside.
Who am I?
But I know. I wasn't her. I could never be her.
"The one you love. That's who you got the tattoo for." It wasn't a question. Suddenly Love with a capital L became something else. It wasn't special, something innocent amongst the darkness in his skin. It became more sinister than all the other words in his flesh. It became everything he was. Nothing else mattered.
He loves someone else.
My inner self cackled. It hated me. It knew, all along. Why had I ignored it?
"I won't talk about her," he said. "She is a part of me. Not you, my one letter away." The bite of his nails in my forearms came as sharp, splintering relief. They dug into my flesh, jerking me toward him until our mouths clashed together, a clanging of teeth. I should have pushed him away. But instead I wanted him to feel my hurt.
How had he hurt me again, so quickly?
It had taken only moments for him to tear me down after I'd worked so hard to build myself up this last week. I tried to imagine Anthony, but he was a faded memory. A disappointment. Love. Had I had that with Anthony? I didn't know. I couldn't remember what it felt like. I could only remember his freckles. Light brown flecks against his cheeks. They were smooth against his skin, no different than the rest. I could remember the way they felt, unblemished, perfect, a part of him, but I couldn't remember if I'd felt love.
What is love?
I gripped Aaron's head with my hands, my fingers intertwined with his hair and pressed into the mottled skin of his scar. This kiss was different than the last. I wanted to tear him open. Rip him apart. He had a whole life before this place, before me. A life where he murdered. A life as a monster. It was funny because those things didn't matter so much to me. Not right now. All I could see was her. The faceless woman. The woman he loved.
I bit his lip, sinking my teeth into his flesh until I tasted copper. This was all I wanted. All I had fantasized about for the last two months. Our bodies together. Our mouths. Touching.
He groaned against me. A guttural sound. I let go of his lip. He lapped at me. His blood smearing against my mouth. I'd hurt him. Something inside me rejoiced. I wanted him to feel it, to absorb it, to remember. Me.
Not her.
Finders keepers.
Aaron was mine now. I wouldn't let her have him.
What are you thinking, Adeline? What are you doing?
But it was too late to question myself. The thoughts were empty, light, whispers of words that faded out until only Aaron was left. Our mouths. His blood. His hands pressing against my skin as I clung to him.
In those moments, nothing else existed, not yesterday, not tomorrow. Only Aaron. Only me. Together. Us.
Sometime later we pulled apart, and when I leaned back and looked at him, there was blood on his face. His blood. My blood? I didn't know. There was flesh under my nails. Blood dripped from his head where my fingers had dug in.
He pressed his hand against my cheek. Wet.
Am I crying?
But then I saw the red. It was on his fingertips. My blood. My arms were bleeding.
"You're so beautiful when you cry."
I blinked and felt them. The tears. Blood and tears. Both for Aaron Whitman.
He shook his head slowly. Our faces were inches away. "I never thought I'd find something that repulsed me so much, so fucking beautiful." He cocked his head. "How do you do that?"
"Do what?" The words were breathless, a whisper from my lips.
"How are you the cold and the warmth all at once?" He tapped his fingers against my cheek, they were sticky, with my blood. "It's impossible.
I rubbed mine likewise, but against the scar on his head. "Nothing is impossible."
His eyes lit up, a fire behind them I hadn't seen before. He smiled, his teeth reddened with his blood. He looked like the monster, the one who let them scream. I drank him in, craving that monster from inside my very bones.
I wanted to drown in him. In his blood. I wanted him to consume me, every part of me, until there was nothing left. Until I was empty, full.
Until I was found.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Before.
Ruby.
"You're the smartes
t person I know, Aaron."
He glanced over at me from the book in his hand. It was after midnight, but he was still studying, our shade-less lamp next to the bed illuminating the mold-stained walls of our tiny apartment. I couldn't understand it. His ability to read those boring business books, understand, and learn from them. My brain didn't work like that. Fuck, I could hardly read, much less learn something from a book with big words like the ones he read.
"I'm all right," he said, giving me a half smile. He was tired. It always showed in the lines around his eyes. He'd been busy all day with his Purgatory brothers. There were ten of them now. Their small-scale drug-trafficking business across the border into Ontario, had boomed, seemingly overnight, after a surprising connection with a group down in Mexico.
"You know, you don't need to do this anymore."
He raised his eyebrows.
I tapped the cover of his book. "School."
He sighed, his gray eyes took on that impatient look he seemed to have more often than not lately. "I do, Ruby. It doesn't matter that we're moving more goods. Money doesn't mean success."
I sat up, pushing my curls out of my face. "Then what does, baby? I don't get it. I mean, sure. I can understand wanting schooling, maybe. High school to get a half-decent job. But you did that already, and quick too. You're out, and hell, you're only sixteen. Why all this college stuff? Seems to be more stressful than it's worth – and what's it gonna do for you that drug trafficking won't?"
"It's going to give us a better life, Rubes. A better life than this." He motioned to our little shit-hole apartment.
"This is the best life I've ever had Aaron, you know that. And it's because of you." I reached out and touched his face. "But I wanna spend more time with you. You're either with the brothers or you're doing this. Where does that leave me?" I missed the days when I was all he could think about, when he was by my side every second of the day. When he feared that if he wasn't with me, I would disappear into thin air and never return.
He closed his eyes. Breathing deeply for a few moments. "But I want to give you more. A life outside of this. Everything. "
"Everything?" I chuckle. "I don't know if I want all the things." But that was a lie. I wanted everything and I wanted Aaron to give it to me.
"Well too fucking bad!" He jumped on me, laughing. His book thudded on the hollow floor. His fingers were everywhere, and I giggled. I couldn't stop. He knew I hated it when he tickled me, but he did it anyway.
He did it until our mouths melded together, kissing and then he was inside me. The only person I'd ever wanted. The only one who hadn't taken advantage of me. The only person to ever truly love me.
But is it enough?
When we finished he was breathing hard with little tiny beads of sweat on his forehead. My heart beat fast in my chest ready to explode.
"I love you," he whispered. "I'm gonna give you the world. You just wait."
I smiled because I knew he meant it, every word. He kept every promise he ever made.
I would wait for him – always.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
"Are you sure you're all right?"
I glanced at Richard, shading my eyes from the bright white of sun bouncing off the snow as we walked to Ward Z.
"I'm fine." I usually walked alone, but this morning I came outside to Richard waiting for me on my porch.
"Dr. Violet," he paused, "can I call you Adeline?" He seemed so uncertain, nervous almost. I didn't like it. Richard had been a beam of certainty in my life these past months. We were familiar. We'd watched movies on my couch. Why would he ask me that?
I frowned. "Of course you can. You know that."
"I'm worried about you, Adeline."
"Why?"
"I just feel like you haven't been yourself lately."
My snow boots crunched through our well-worn path. I liked the way it sounded, crisp and spongy all at once. "Myself?" I asked.
"Yes. I'm just, just worried about you."
Richard wore black scrubs today, just like every day. They were unusual to me. No one else in the ward wore black scrubs, they seemed ominous, almost.
"You shouldn't be worried. I'm fine. This is a high stress job, just takes some getting used to." I sounded so professional, so sure, like I really had my shit together. Like I hadn't made out with a patient in their room yesterday while we both bled all over each other. Like I wasn't completely obsessed with Aaron Whitman. Because that's what it was. I knew that now. The denial, the blood, the tears, the uncertainty – they made me want him more.
"You hardly spend any time with some of the patients, Adeline. You spend most of your time with—"
"What's your point?"
Richard sucked in a shocked breath. "I just know how it is to be down in Ward Z, Adeline. I don't want you to get lost in these patients, especially Aaron Whitman."
I chuckle. The sound was dry, irritable, even. "Lost? In a patient? I'm his doctor, Richard."
"So you're just trying to help him then? That's why you spend twice the amount of time with him that you do with the others?" His voice was accusatory. "I've kept my mouth shut all this time, assuming you had some sort of good reason being with him that much. But it's starting to feel inappropriate."
I glanced at him. I could see the accusation in his eyes as well. There was some sort of hurt there too. "Richard," I paused. "Aaron Whitman is showing great potential. I think I can really help him."
Liar. You want to help yourself.
"Help him?"
"Yes." We'd almost reached the frosty moss-covered doors of Ward Z. I had the urge to sprint toward them, to race down the stairs and hide away in my office where Richard couldn't probe and bother me about all of this.
"Do you not get it, Adeline?"
I sighed, frustrated. "Get what, Richard?" I tried not to, I really did, but I glared at him anyway, wishing his blue eyes weren't so kind and perceptive.
"These people in Ward Z are beyond help. That's why they're here. There's no form of rehabilitation in their future. They have no future outside of these walls. They are going to die inside Ward Z. Every. Single. One. Of. Them." We were stopped at the door. He towered over me, punctuating his words, trying to make a point.
And fuck if he made it.
Something inside me gasped for air, a drowning ray of hope as it slid beneath dark waters. I knew these things Richard said were true. Every. Single. Word. But I didn't want to acknowledge that truth. I didn't want to embrace the reality that Aaron Whitman would never leave Ward Z, that he would probably never leave room Z15, not for the rest of his life. His reality was confined to those four white walls for the rest of forever. The words in his skin would live only there until there was nothing left of them, no more stories to tell, no one to read them.
One day I would leave Ward Z behind – and Aaron, Patricia – all of them. I would go on from here. He, they, would not. Nausea bubbled up inside me. I jerked forward to press my hand against the pad that would give us entrance – and get me the hell away from Richard, but the folders I carried slipped forward and tumbled out of my hands on the ground.
"Shit."
"Adeline, look, wait. I'm sorry." A warm hand touched my shoulder just before I leaned down to pick them up. I gazed up at Richard. Sorrow covered his face. "I just worry about you. You're the best psych doctor we've had down here since I've been here for the last year. You care, so much, and you try really hard. And that's awesome." He dropped his hand away and rubbed the back of his head. "No one else, that I've seen, has come down here with the kind of passion you have, the desire to help these people. That's admirable, considering the things they've done. I just don't want you to get lost in their crazy. It's happened. I know, you know that, and that we've talked about it before, but, fuck, I'm sorry. I just worry about you."
I nodded, remembering Dr. Smith being wheeled through Ward N, taken to his own personal room – as a patient.
"I don't want that to be you."
I suc
ked in a deep breath, the cold seeping through my jacket. I wanted to lash out at Richard, but I couldn't. "Thanks, Richard." My words sounded cold, stale, but I couldn't deny that I meant them. He was so genuine, such a good person. He bent down next to me as I gathered the papers that had scattered around us.
As his big hands shuffled through a few pages, I stopped him. "Wait."
I frowned.
"What is it, Adeline?" He glanced between me and the pages in his hands.
"This one." The page was only half exposed, but even as the paper sat perfectly still in Richard's hands, the ink on the page continued to move.
I shook my head, slipping the page out of his hand. The image swirled and danced before my eyes. I couldn't pinpoint what it was, it moved too quickly, dancing, taunting. I blinked – and when it didn't stop, I blinked again.
"Adeline? Are you okay?"
Richard's voice seemed far away.
I couldn't take my gaze off the dancing, the swirling – the something.
"Adeline?"
I sucked in a deep breath, tearing my gaze away. "Fine. I'm fine." I handed him the page without looking at it again.
"Are you sure?"
I nodded. "Yes. Just tired is all."
We didn't say anything else as we picked up the things I dropped.
I'm fine. It's fine. Everything is fine.
But something else bubbled under my skin – panic. The feeling followed me down the steps and into Ward Z.
"Dr. Violet, so good of you to be here, on time." Christopher's voice drug me from my thoughts as I reached the bottom of the stairs. A glance at my watch revealed I was one minute and thirty-six seconds late.
"I'm hardly late." There was a tremble in my voice. I cleared my throat and glanced at Richard, who had paused next to me, though not for long. Someone else drew my attention. Someone new. He stood next to Christopher, a man somewhere in his fifties wearing a white lab coat and thick glasses.
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