My fingers dug into his biceps as I fought what I knew was coming.
“No,” I said, but it was futile.
I was taken from the present and dragged brutally back into the past.
The musty, overpowering smell of damp earth burned my nose. You’d think by now I’d be used to the scent, but I wasn’t. I might never be.
It was worse when it rained, and tonight (or today), there had been one hell of a rainstorm. Even we could hear it down here. Sadie cried and screamed from her cot on the other side of the room as rain pelted the ground above us and thunder boomed so loud the stone around us shook.
I told her a few times it would be okay, that the storm wouldn’t hurt us down here. I didn’t know if she heard me over the rain and her own cries, but I kept telling her anyway.
I was chained. I think she was, too. The rocks were cold against my flesh, but when I sat huddled in on myself, it wasn’t as bad. My corner of rock stayed sort of warm from my body heat, but I wasn’t sitting back there now.
I’d stretched out, crawled across the floor as far as I could, moving as close as I could get to Sadie.
I hated hearing her cry. It seemed that was all she did. When he came down in the middle of the night as we slept. And now during the storm. There was no peace here. Not for anyone.
Eventually, the storm subsided and the smell of damp earth pressed in. I drew my knees up to my chest, wrapped my arms around them, and buried my face against myself to try and keep out the worst of the stench. Sadie was quieter now that the rain had stopped. I thought she might be sleeping.
I had trouble sleeping down here. I was afraid he would do worse things to me when I was unconscious. I’d rather just stay awake and know the pain for sure.
The familiar, distinct creaking of the overhead trapdoor made me stiffen. I sat up, plastered my body back against the wall, and stared up. When no sunlight shone down, I felt a pang of deep sorrow. I missed the sun. He didn’t know it and I would never say, but whenever he came down here, there was one thing I liked.
For brief moments, sometimes even a full minute, sunlight would stream down into this damp, dark prison. Reminding me there was life above us, that the sun still shone even though I couldn’t see it.
I wondered if it would still feel warm against my cheeks, if the air would still linger with the scent of sunshine.
All too fast, he would shut that door, though, closing us off from any kind of pleasure, climbing down into this hole to bring us more pain.
I still ached from the last time he’d been down. My body felt torn and swollen. My flesh still bore the sting from his bites. I’d made the mistake of crying out the first time he’d bitten me.
He liked that.
He did it over and over again.
I felt like a chew toy.
I didn’t cry out again, even though inside I screamed. Eventually, he grew bored of the biting and moved on to new horrors.
My body shook violently as I waited for him to climb down. I knew Sadie was still pretty bad off, though I knew he went to her the day before.
I didn’t know who he was coming for this time, maybe me. Could be her. If he went toward her tonight, I would call out, draw him away, toward me.
I could take another night. I wasn’t sure if she could. The storm seemed to wring out everything she had left tonight.
A flashlight clicked on and swung down. I saw the feet of a woman and sighed audibly. It wasn’t him.
It was her.
I didn’t know anything about her, only that she came to see to Sadie. She’d never come near me, never even glanced my way.
I couldn’t help but wonder about her, who she was, why she was here. Why she didn’t live down here with us.
She walked quietly over to Sadie, dropped down beside her, and spoke softly. After tending to Sadie’s healing wounds and assuring her the storm was indeed done, she packed up her little sack of supplies and started to leave.
“Wait,” I called out, my voice meek but heard.
The woman’s footsteps stopped shuffling over the rock. The beam of the flashlight swung toward me.
I cringed away from it, not wanting to be seen, not wanting to see myself. “Do you have an extra Band-Aid?” I asked, timid. I knew I could get in trouble for this, but really… wasn’t I already being punished?
“For what?” she said, her voice low.
“I… I have a bite on my shoulder. It won’t stop bleeding.” I felt my lower lip wobble. I bit it to make it stop. “It hurts.”
She stood there for a long time, so long I thought maybe she didn’t believe me. Why would I lie? It wasn’t as if I had anything to gain.
When I thought she was turning to leave, she didn’t. Instead, she walked over, crouching in front of where I sat. “Where?” she asked.
With shaking hands, I leaned forward, showing her the side of my aching shoulder. “Here.”
The light spotlighted the injury, and I squeezed my eyes shut at the vision it made. I knew it was bad. I felt the warm trickle of blood around it, felt the way the skin throbbed and burned.
But oh…
It was worse than even I imagined.
It was as if he chewed on my flesh. Not just a clean bite, but as if he tried to make my shoulder a meal. He enjoyed it, though, gnawing on me as if I were rawhide, licking at my blood while I whimpered against the floor.
The woman made a sound, then dropped her sack on the floor and used the light to fish through its contents.
She ripped open a small wipe of some kind and, without warning, wiped it over the area. I cried out a little, then stiffened, worried my show of pain would get me beaten.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It looks painful.”
I merely nodded, afraid to say anything else.
She cleaned it up, made a few tsking sounds, then rubbed on some kind of cream before covering it completely with a large bandage.
The second she was done, I sighed in relief.
The woman began packing up her supplies, then tied the sack closed.
Before she stood, I grabbed her wrist. “Thank you,” I said.
She seemed surprised I would thank her. Maybe I shouldn’t. But this was the first show of kindness (no matter how terrible it was) that I’d known in a long time.
If I forgot how to appreciate kindness of any kind, wouldn’t that make me a lost cause? Wouldn’t that make me less human?
“Why?” she whispered.
“Because now it hurts less.”
Something passed around us in the air, but I couldn’t name the feeling. She started to move away again. I let go but stopped her with my voice.
“Who are you?” I asked. I had to know.
“I’m his mother,” she replied after a heartbeat.
Shock rippled through me. “He’s your son?”
“Yes,” she said, emotion clogging her voice. “I’m sorry.”
Her apology caused emotion to well up inside me. Anger. “You know.” I sat forward, making the chain around my wrist clatter. “You know what he’s doing to us is wrong,” I accused.
“Yes.”
“But you help him.”
“He… he’s not well. He doesn’t understand what he does is wrong.”
“That doesn’t make it okay!” I demanded. “You should get him real help.”
“I can’t,” she whispered.
Nearby, I saw Sadie sit up, listening intently. No doubt she had all these questions, too.
“Why can’t you?” I demanded. I was in no position to demand anything.
Actually. Yes. Yes, I was in every position to demand answers.
“They’ll take him away from me. He’s all I have left.”
I fell back against the wall, shocked and shattered. She knew what he was doing was wrong. She knew, and she didn’t care.
“I’m sorry,” she rushed out, then hurried away, toward the ladder that led to freedom.
“How could you?” I yelled after her, anger bur
ning my throat. “How could you let him do this to us?”
I didn’t expect an answer, yet one came out of the darkness.
“Because if not you, then others. The two of you are a small price to pay for his freedom, for the safety of everyone else.”
I said nothing to that. I was too shocked and horrified to even comprehend.
We were nothing but a sacrifice. Playthings to a madman.
The sound of her climbing out of the hole made me look up.
The sound of the deadbolts locking us in made me cry.
Here I’d hoped I’d found an ally. Instead, all I’d found was another foe.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I scolded, even though it really wasn’t a scold. How could I reprimand the woman I loved when she was tucked into my lap, curled against my body, and shivering from whatever the fuck just took over her body and mind?
I was mad, though. Flaming, red hot, wanting to leave a fist-sized dent in anything nearby.
“I g-got some in-information,” she said, her teeth chattering slightly.
“It wasn’t worth the price you paid.”
“I think maybe it was,” she refuted.
The way she shivered proved her wrong. The way she collapsed into my arms when I stepped off the elevator proved me right.
My heart damn near stopped in my chest when she was immobile in my arms, unresponsive to any of my attempts to wake her.
I’d never seen anything like it before. Not until Am. The way the past took over, sweeping in without even a second’s notice to push out all the present and quite literally drag her back into the bygone.
Even though she appeared somewhat peaceful as I supported her body in my arms, it was anything but. I knew a war waged inside her mind. I knew she wasn’t really present with me when a memory took over.
The minutes I had to wait it out, to keep myself from literally losing my shit, were long and arduous. I took her down the elevator, back onto the floor where we’d been waiting. Mary B saw me step off the car with her and opened her mouth to yell for help. One firm shake of my head and the words died against her tongue.
She led us into an empty room, the closest one she could find. It was way better than the waiting room, as I wasn’t sure what kind of condition Am would be when she came back to me.
This time she didn’t run from the room or vomit all the contents of her belly. But it hadn’t been a cakewalk either.
The second the past let her go, her body went rigid in my lap. I stayed still for long moments, my arms and hands hovering around her in case she jerked so fast she tumbled off me toward the floor. I didn’t touch her, though. I was afraid to. I had to see what kind of condition she was in before I wrapped her close.
The last thing I wanted was for her to feel trapped or confined.
She glanced up, breathing heavy, wetness covering her cheeks. I clenched my jaw, my back teeth slamming together as I tried not to react the way I wanted, instead trying to be what she needed.
Am reached for me, fisting her fingers in the front of my shirt and curling into my center. That was my cue, the signal it was okay to hold her tight.
We sat there a while. I didn’t say anything, though I sorely wanted to give her hell.
What the fuck was she thinking just disappearing like that? Slipping out of the waiting room while I talked to the cops. When I saw she was gone, my fucking chest nearly collapsed.
Wild fear shot through me, adrenaline surged, and I searched everywhere I could think of. Just when I was about out of my ever-loving mind, I remembered the widow.
“Don’t do that again,” I intoned. I guess I wasn’t done scolding her.
“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “Please don’t be mad.”
I groaned. I swear, women (this one in particular) would be the death of me. “I’m not mad at you, baby.” My fingers dragged up and down along her side. “You scared me.”
“I just wanted to help.”
“I know.” I kissed the top of her head.
“Are the police still here?”
“Not a clue,” I remarked as though it didn’t even matter. Though, inside, everything was on high alert. Why would she want to know about the cops? Did she have something to tell them? I wanted to demand the answers, but I knew better. Pushing her would cause her pain, and frankly, that outweighed my need for info.
“Where are we?” She glanced around, still not lifting her cheek from my chest. It was telling, you know. The clinginess.
That memory hadn’t been pleasant.
I was starting to wonder if she had anything good at all from her past to remember. All she ever remembered was hell.
“Just a private room. Same floor as the waiting room.”
“Any word on Robbie?”
“Not yet.”
“I had another memory,” she informed me. Her voice was low, scared to even bring it up.
“Because you saw Widow West,” I whispered.
“She’s the only one with answers.” Am defended herself. “I had to try.”
“Seeing her triggered a memory.” My voice was flat and unhappy.
Amnesia pushed up in my lap, sitting so we were face to face. “No,” she refuted. “It was what she said.”
My eyebrows shot up. “She woke up?”
She nodded. “I told her about Sadie, Robbie… everything. I begged her to tell me where he might be. At first, I thought she couldn’t hear me, but then… she replied.”
“What did she say?” I demanded.
“It’s her son,” Amnesia intoned, dropping back against my chest. Her fingers returned to the front of my shirt, twisting the fabric. “The man who kidnapped us, it’s Widow West’s son.”
“Her son,” I echoed. My mind was spinning. “But…”
“I know. The headstone we saw. She must have had a baby who died… before she had him.” Then almost to herself, Am added, “It’s why she didn’t want to lose him. Too much loss.”
“Daniel,” I whispered.
“Who?”
“That’s his name.” I glanced down. “Sadie told me.”
“I didn’t remember.”
“She said you weren’t allowed to call him that,” I explained, trying to make her feel better about not knowing.
Amnesia shivered into me. “He’s not well. There’s something wrong with him.”
I grunted. That much was blatantly obvious. No one in their right mind would do to them what that sick fuck had done. “What else did she say, Am?”
“Not much, really. She wanted to know where he was. Seemed almost desperate we find him. I got the feeling she was scared he was out there… unsupervised.”
I made a rude sound, my chest jerking with the force of it. “Yeah, ‘cause he was so much more in control when she was supervising him.”
Amnesia tilted her head up. “I think… I think maybe he was.”
My jaw clenched. “What did you remember?”
Her voice slipped into monotone, her limbs rigid even though I tried to comfort her.
“She helped me one night, gave me first aid on an…” She glanced up, timid. “An injury on my shoulder—”
I was the one who was rigid now. “What kind of injury?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes.” I shook her lightly, trying to make her understand. “Yes, I do.”
I had to know. I had to at least try and understand, to be burdened with the same memories as her. She wasn’t alone anymore. I would shoulder this with her.
“It was a bite.” Her voice was strained. Tired. “He liked to bite me… chew on my skin.”
I bit the inside of my mouth, bit down so hard the metallic tang of blood hit my tongue. “Go on,” I rasped.
“It was the first time I’d ever spoken to her or really had contact with her at all. She usually only ever bothered with Sadie. I asked her. She told me she was his mother. She seemed sorry…”
“Not sorry enough.” The remark ripped right ou
t of me.
“No. Not sorry enough. She said she knew he wasn’t well. She seemed to believe he didn’t understand what he was doing to us was wrong.”
I laughed. This was disgusting.
“Why would she help him? Why would she let us be tortured that way? Locked in a hole, no sunlight… no hope.”
“Am.” I stroked her hair. For a moment, she paused, rubbing her cheek against my chest.
“Your shirt,” she whispered, still rubbing her cheek over the fabric.
“What about it?”
“I don’t like it,” she whispered. “There’s too much between us.”
I ripped the shirt over my head, throwing it onto the floor in front of us, where it slid a few feet before stopping in the center of the room.
Amnesia wound her arms around me, scooting so close it was almost as if she were trying to climb beneath my skin. The second her cheek hit my bare chest, she sighed and her body gave a great shudder of relief.
I swallowed thickly. Emotion so dense made me feel I might choke.
“You make me feel safe,” she whispered.
“You are safe,” I swore.
“She said she couldn’t lose him. She didn’t want him to be taken away. She hid him there, on the island. I doubt anyone even knew she had a son.”
“No one in Lake Loch knew,” I said, sifting through a lifetime’s worth of gossip and town knowledge. “She was always alone when she came for supplies.”
“She thought people would take him away if they knew what he was.”
“She was right,” I growled.
“She made it sound as though we were responsible for keeping him contained. She told me… She said we were a small price to pay for the safety of everyone else.”
The widow lost her husband, and her son grew up to be insane. I could feel sorry for her, the fact she lost a child, a husband, and all she had left was her son. I could sympathize with her pain and understand she was afraid to lose everything.
I didn’t.
In my eyes, this woman was no better than the son she unleashed on two innocent girls. Look what she’d done! She’d broken Sadie and drove Am to suicide. All to try and keep her son in control.
You can’t control darkness, though, not when you have no light.
Amnesty: Amnesia Duet Book 2 Page 22