Bubbles erupted at the surface. He propelled up, but I shoved him down.
His body fought and jerked. I felt like a fisherman trying to reel in the catch of a lifetime.
Visions of the way Amnesia looked floating in the lake swam before me. The innocent way she clung to the hoodie the first time I wrapped it around her. The first time she smiled. Her face when she talked about a banana. The way she whispered my name when we made love.
I shoved him farther beneath the surface, his kicks connecting, but I didn’t care.
I pictured Sadie huddled in that hole, the see-through gown covering her body. I thought of the baby that was beaten out of her. The way she must have suffered.
With an angry yell, I picked the man up, bringing his gasping face out of the water. He sputtered and yelled.
I spit in his face. Then I punched him again. His teeth cut into my knuckles. Blood started streaming in thin rivulets across the back of my hand.
“You sick son of a bitch!” I roared, thrusting him back under the water.
To hold him down, I sat on him. He fought and struggled… until he ceased.
The second I felt his body go slack, I shoved away from him, sick.
I didn’t regret killing him. Hell, it was almost too kind for a man like him.
Cold, aching, and terrified out of my mind, I yelled Amnesia’s name. The water put up less resistance this time, and I rushed to the shore. I heard a muffled yell inside the house, and I knew something was wrong.
My foot hit the grass, and I started to run. A heavy, wet figure rammed into me from behind, leaping on me like an elephant wanting a piggyback ride. I made a startled sound and planted my feet into the ground, bucking upward, tossing him over my head. He landed in front of me and rolled. Chest heaving, I looked down to see him with a busted, bruising face and half the buttons missing from his shirt.
“I always come back.” He started to laugh. “Always.”
I punched him in the side of the head, and his laugh turned to a cough. Glancing around, I saw his boat rocking nearby, and I rushed toward it, grasped the oar, and yanked it free from its clamp.
He was on his knees when I made it back. Without hesitation, I swung the oar like a bat, landing a solid blow right to his ribs. He fell flat on his stomach, sprawling out.
I wasn’t about to take any chances, so I hit him again in the back of the head. His body went immobile, and I felt around, unfortunately still finding a pulse. At least he was out cold.
For now.
The sound of a piercing scream cut through the night, and my head shot up.
“Amnesia!” I roared.
She screamed again.
The sound of the screen door banging alarmed me.
“Eddie!” she pleaded.
Bang, bang, bang.
It was as if she were trying to get out, but something was holding her back, keeping her contained.
I moved toward the sound, jerking to a stop, and every curse word I knew slipped out of my mouth. Glancing behind me at the man I wished was dead, but wasn’t, I scowled.
Quickly, I grabbed his arm and started to run, dragging his body over the ground behind me like stock supply from Loch Gen.
I wasn’t about to leave him so close to the shore. I wasn’t giving him a chance to escape.
I let go of him halfway to the back door, not wanting to drag him too close. Even though this situation was pretty fucking dire, I still had enough wits about me to not want Amnesia to get a look at him.
I had no idea what kind of flashbacks his face would bring up, but I knew she might not recover.
Just before I made it to the porch, a blur burst out from inside, causing the door to slam against the side of the house.
“Eddie!” she yelled hysterically. “Help me!”
I barely had time to brace myself before she flung herself into my arms and practically crawled up my body. She trembled like a leaf, her face buried into my neck. Long strands of silky hair blew out over my bare shoulder. Instinctively, my arms locked around her, offering solace and protection.
Water dripped from my hair, down into my eyes.
“She’s trying to kill me,” she said against my neck. “Please protect me. Don’t let me get hurt again.”
“Shh.” I soothed as movement in the doorway caught my attention and a figure staggered slowly outside. Her hand was pressed against her side, her shoulders hunched. She was hurt, bleeding.
“Amnesia,” I whispered.
Sadie pulled back from my arms, her hands still clasped behind my neck. “Yes, Amnesia, Eddie,” she answered. “She’s trying to kill me. She wants to keep us apart.”
And then I realized something.
The lake wasn’t friend or foe. Not to me.
It was its own entity, an omega.
It had its own set of rules and balances. Its own system of justice and punishment.
It took Sadie but gave me Amnesia.
Then Sadie came back. I had one too many of its secrets.
Lake Loch might have warned me, but it wasn’t without consequence. It wasn’t without blame.
I was going to have to choose. Here and now. Past or present.
Sadie or Amnesia…
The girl I lost or the girl I found.
I knew not to look in the yard, yet my eyes lingered there anyway.
But not at what I knew to avoid.
No, there was something even more horrific than my memories out there in the dark.
The broken make the most conniving. Perhaps because they were once victims, because devious behavior became so normal it developed into reality. A person gets very good at becoming something if they live it long enough.
Hadn’t I gotten good at being Sadie?
There was a difference, though, wasn’t there? A difference between being something because you didn’t know any better and being something because it was all you knew. Because it was a learned behavior.
Actually, that didn’t sound that different.
And it made me feel worse.
My head was throbbing. I felt confused. All my thoughts were jumbled, and the vision of Eddie—a bright spot in the dark yard—with Sadie wrapped around him as she begged for protection from me was one of my deepest fears.
Watching Eddie turn away from me. Watching him decide all he ever saw in me was Sadie sat right below remembering my past on the checklist of things I never wanted to do.
Here I was, though, staring it in the face.
I trusted him wholeheartedly. The words he whispered to me in the dark of the night, in the dawn of the morning, even in the stockroom in the middle of day, swirled around inside me, giving me hope.
He promised I was it for him. I believed him.
I wouldn’t be human, though, if the sight of his first love clinging to him, crying, didn’t chip away at the confidence I felt. This situation was all kinds of fucked up.
The things Sadie said to me would likely haunt me forever.
She was crazy. No. She wasn’t crazy. Crazy (to me) required a lack of rationale. A lack of empathy and understanding.
Sadie had empathy. Mostly for herself and what she lost, but for Eddie, too. I knew she loved him. Hell, maybe it was that love that kept her from completely losing it all these years. Maybe that’s why she clung to him so hard now. The thought was so sad tears sprang to my already blurry eyes.
She also understood that years of her life were stolen from her. There were moments of clarity in her eyes when she realized what she’d lost, what she would never get back.
No, Sadie wasn’t crazy. She was broken. Probably shattered.
Left staring down at her shattered pieces with no idea how to put herself back together. She’d been vulnerable, and that made her susceptible to brainwashing. She was convinced the only thing left for her was to banish me back to Rumor Island and pretend none of this ever happened.
The mental abuse she endured quite possibly outweighed the physical. After all, physical wounds heal over… bu
t the mental abuse?
It echoes inside your skin forever.
I was sorry for the way she hated me. I even understood it. Hell, in her position, I’d hate me, too. To her, I was nothing but a replacement. I escaped that island without looking back. I left her there to rot alone. To wonder. To be taunted about how I took her name. Her love. Her family and her life.
My amnesia was a get out of jail free card… but what she didn’t understand was nothing in life came free.
I watched just yards away as Eddie wrapped her up tightly, making sure she was completely against his chest. His hand caressed the back of her head, sliding down the length of her long hair.
I felt I was being gutted with a knife.
Oh wait, that sort of already happened. That probably explained that pain.
Regardless, it hurt.
Though he held her, his eyes stared in mine. I was afraid to yell to him. Afraid to tell him what really happened and plead my case. She would lose her mind again. I had no idea what she would do. I didn’t think she would hurt Eddie. But I wasn’t willing to take the chance.
After all, it was two against one.
I knew without looking exactly where he lay. I knew he wasn’t dead. The air still crackled with his sick and twisted energy. Just his presence made me feel weak. Made me feel scared and hopeless. How long did I spend feeling that way?
Long enough to crave death.
I was injured and bleeding. My body felt frail, perhaps my mind even frailer. If Sadie decided Eddie was somehow on my side, she could turn on him, and she would have help. I knew better than most people the kind of damage that man could cause.
Instead of saying anything, I sagged in the doorway, hand pressed against my side as blood slowly oozed between my fingers. I was getting lightheaded, woozy, and foggy. Even through it, though, I could hear her. Sadie poured out her twisted sense of truth, telling him I was playing him from the start. Telling him my amnesia had only been a game.
I asked him with my eyes, with no words, only with my heart.
Know me.
Know me without knowing, without hearing.
Know my heart.
“Where are you hurt?” Eddie asked Sadie, stroking her hair again. A part of my heart deflated. Everything inside me hurts.
“I’m not,” Sadie answered, pulling back. His eyes shifted away from me, and I felt cold the instant they were gone. “I made it out here to you before she could do anything.”
“Why is Amnesia bleeding?” he asked, keeping his voice gentle.
I perked up with renewed interest.
“Lily. I had to stab her,” Sadie said. “To keep her away from me. She was trying to hurt me, trying to steal my life.”
His eyes flashed to me, then quickly back to her.
“It’s the middle of the night. What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.”
“Look over there, Sadie,” he said, gesturing with his head.
“I don’t want to,” she said, her voice small.
“He’s here,” Eddie intoned. “Is that him?”
I had to make an effort not to look. In fact, I shrank back into the doorway.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“How did you know he was coming?”
“He told me. I was supposed to be ready.”
Eddie’s brow furrowed. He spoke to her as though he had all the patience in the world, as though he were trying to understand her. “Ready for what?”
“For him.”
As if just the mere mention of the man were a catalyst, a low groan filled the air.
“No!” Eddie’s voice erupted along with the sound of pounding feet. “Get back, Am!”
My body buckled, my back hit the doorway, and began to slide down to the floor. Squeezing my eyes shut, fat tears rolled from beneath my lids, slipping down my cheeks. Seconds later, he burst up the steps, and familiar, warm hands slid around me, lifting my paralyzed form.
“He’s out there,” I whimpered. “I didn’t look. Sadie stabbed me.”
A numb feeling mixed with a muted rush of hysteria bubbled up inside me.
“I know, baby,” he whispered and lifted me off my feet completely. Even as he moved so urgently, he was gentle. Always so gentle with me.
“I’m bleeding,” I said, even though that was pretty obvious.
He sat me on the kitchen counter, quickly grabbed a towel, and pressed it to my side. I cried out, and he made a sound.
“I’m sorry,” he moaned. “Pressure. Put as much pressure on this as possible.” He pressed my hand against the towel. Breath hissed from between my teeth. A phone slapped down beside me. “Call 9-1-1,” he demanded.
He gazed around, then lunged at the bloody knife lying on the floor. “This what she stabbed you with?”
I nodded. “She’s so brainwashed, Eddie. They told her I left her there to die and stole her life. Stole you.”
“I know,” he replied, grim.
“But how—”
With the knife in hand, he lunged forward. I flinched, recalling what it was like to have it slip so easily into my body. His touch was gentle, though, as he cupped my head, pressing a soft kiss to my hairline. “I love you. So much. Don’t ever forget that.”
A sound like someone coming onto the porch made him jerk back.
“Eddie!” Sadie yelled, a bit of hysteria in her scream.
“You shouldn’t have come for me,” I whispered, afraid. “You should have just stayed with her.”
With wide, angry eyes, he told me, “Do not come outside. No matter what you hear.”
“But—” Oh my God, he was going back out there!
“Promise me!” he snapped.
I balked. “I can’t.”
“Call the cops. Stay inside,” he ordered again, then rushed outside. The moonlight glinted off the red-stained blade of the knife as he went.
How do you choose between the past and the present?
You don’t.
The past is gone; it isn’t coming back. The future is just a promise, not a guarantee.
But the present, that was the choice. It was now, and without it, there would be no future.
Right now, my heart beat for Amnesia. It always would.
It was an easy choice.
I nearly collided with Sadie as I catapulted out the door.
The second I saw that hook on the back of that boat, I knew. I’d been played. We’d all been played.
Sadie included.
Though I knew she was responsible for that stab wound in my girl, though I knew she had deep-seeded hate against Amnesia, I still couldn’t blame her.
She was the biggest victim of all here. Part of me would always be responsible for that.
The true villain was outside, and his arrogance would be his downfall.
The door to the house slammed behind me as I rushed outside. Knowing Am was inside, away from him, was the only thing allowing me the single-minded precision with which to end this once and for all.
I’d die before I let anyone in the house. I’d take my last breath defending her if that’s what it took.
“What are you doing?” Sadie demanded, glancing past me to the door.
“It’s okay now,” I told her, slipping an arm around her waist. “The police are on their way.”
“What?” She yanked away from me. “No!”
“They’re going to help us, Sadie. They’re going to take him away where he can’t hurt you ever again.”
“We had a deal!” she wailed, looking over toward Daniel.
“Don’t look at him,” I said, taking her hand. “Look at me.”
She listened, her round, terrified eyes seized by my stare.
“What deal?”
“He’s taking her away, back to the island, so you and I can have our life back.”
“I’m not letting him take her!” I growled, momentarily losing my cool. Jesus fucking shit, I was losing my patience.
She started to cr
y, deep wails that frankly made me worry. “But if he doesn’t take her, then he’ll take me. I don’t want to go, Eddie. I want to stay here with you.”
“I’m not letting him take you either, Sadie. I swear it. Trust me.”
“I do,” she said, sobering up a little. Her head bobbed.
Daniel had made it to his feet and was staggering toward us. “They’re mine!” he growled.
I shoved Sadie behind me and planted my feet, readying for another fight. In the distance, sirens pierced the night and offered some promise of an end to this all.
Daniel heard them, too. The sound stopped him cold. He glanced in the direction from which they came, then back at me. His bloody, beaten face darkened. “This isn’t over yet. I always come back.”
He started backing away, his steps quicker with every second, toward the lake and his boat.
Oh, hell no.
With a cry, I ran forward. He tried to scurry farther back, but his injuries slowed him down. My injuries only pissed me off.
I grabbed him by the front of his tattered, wet shirt and yanked him forward. He swung his fist around, connecting with the side of my head.
“No!” Sadie yelled.
I staggered back, and he lunged for me. Blindly, I lashed out with the knife. He grunted and fell back.
Straightening, I saw I’d sliced him, but only on the arm. Blood stained the sleeve of his shirt as he heaved, staring at me with pure hatred.
With a battle cry, Daniel surged forward, running at me like a bull charging a red flag. I moved at the last second, brought my arm up as if preparing to throw a right hook, and buried the blade in his middle.
He made a groaning sound and stumbled back. I stood there, coiled and ready, but he didn’t come back. Instead, he stumbled backward, like he was trying to get away. After only a few feet he tumbled over into the shallows of Lake Loch.
Sadie screamed and rushed toward him.
I watched in horror and confusion as she fell to her knees beside the man who abused her for years, crying over him.
He moaned, and I burst forward, rushing to her side and lifting her away from him, terrified he would do one last thing to make her suffer.
“I always come back,” he said, coughing. Red coated his teeth.
From up on the porch, Amnesia yelled my name.
Amnesty: Amnesia Duet Book 2 Page 25