“It’s a memory of my mother,” I confessed as the distant reminder began to return to me in fragments. “Curtis?”
“Yeah?”
“We have to tell Lois. We’ve opened up Pandora’s Box and she’s not safe anymore.”
“Fuck!” His hands tore into his hair and then both fists rained down on the dashboard. “What are we going to do?”
The car bumped the kerb and I blinked rapidly, realising I’d zoned out. I pulled the car over, switched off the engine and took deep breaths as I dropped my head to the wheel.
“Skye-” Curtis placed his hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged him off.
“I need to think.”
I opened the door and climbed out of the car, kicking Charlie’s heels into the footwell, scraping my hair back in an attempt to try and breathe. And then I tore at the dress, feeling the material starting to suffocate me.
Realising where we were, I turned and walked along the path that led to the entrance of the park. Curtis followed, threw his hoodie over me and I was vaguely aware of him asking about my feet. If I thought about it, I could feel the sharp scratches of tiny little stones digging in the soles of my feet…so I didn’t think about it. I stayed focused. I drew from the madness that was quickly becoming my friend, and I continued along the path, in search of vast, empty space.
The park looked exactly how I remembered it when Curtis brought me here after Oliver died. It became a place I could escape and remember my brother, without having to pretend I was a complete person. It allowed me to be free from the burden of life that weighed me down. There was no freedom today. Even the park felt like a prison.
I stumbled onto the grass towards the bench that looked over farms and fields and communities. Curtis was right, perspective helped. But before I could reach the sanctuary the view offered, my stone-battered feet tangled together, my knees buckled and I fell. Curtis was right there waiting to catch me and he lowered us to the grass together. He held me close until we were a tangle of arms with no end and no beginning. Like us.
“Now you see, baby,” he said, cradling me with strong arms. “Now you see why the darkness helps me survive.”
“I do.” I nodded, numb to the pain I knew I should feel. There were too many hits. We were being attacked from every angle and there was too much hurt to be able to feel it. “We can't tell Lois.”
“But you said-”
“I know what I said.”
“So why enlighten me to the fact that my aunt is in danger if you’re going to change your mind about saving her?”
I climbed off his lap and kneeled in front of him.
“If I know what’s going on here, and I think I do, it’s dark, Curtis. This thing is so far beyond the evil either of us have experienced before. It has its own shelf in Hell.”
“What is it?” He leaned in to touch me, but I edged back. I wasn’t in a good frame of mind. “Help me understand what’s in your head.”
“I’m trying. God, I’m trying.”
I wanted him to understand, but I needed to escape my own thoughts, no matter how much this new knowledge might help us. I needed to get out of the past, focus on the facts of this clusterfuck and figure it out. But my head wouldn’t let me. My mind was a mess of facts, assumptions and repressed memories, true or untrue, rearing up to laugh at me for not seeing it before.
“It’s mind control. There are so many ways it could have happened, I don’t know where to start.”
“Reel it off, babe. I’m listening.”
“Stay there.” I stood up and paced the ground in front of him, back and forth, like Thomas used to do when he was trying to solve a problem. It always calmed him and enabled him to hone in on the thoughts he needed. “What Charlie does to you is mind control. Manipulation. Probably the simplest form, if there is one.”
“Yeah, but I'm not going to shut down and become a robot.”
“I know. I’m getting there. Brainwashing to the level we saw in Tiffany takes time – years of control, years of conditioning and sensory deprivation.”
“Speak hypothetically, babe. How could this have worked with Rochelle?”
I pulled my hairband out so I could scrape my hands through my hair. I had to put this into place; piece the puzzle together using Tiffany instead of the images I had of my mother on her knees, in a statue-like state for hours…until Phillip said the word – a word I couldn’t remember – and she’d snap out of her trance.
“You said she had daddy issues. I don’t think it’s because she’s been fucking my father.” I ignored the twinge of sickness that threatened to surge up and send me to my knees, and continued. “People who have been traumatised are more susceptible to mind control. He would have chipped away at the confidence she’d built up, and then he would have put it back together so she relied on him for everything. She’d need his permission to feel good about herself, to feel worth something. She has been trained to believe that only Phillip can give her the life she wants – or the life he wants. She’s conditioned to believe the thoughts he puts in her head are hers. She has no idea she is under his control.”
“So wouldn’t she be bat-shit crazy all the time? Following him around on her knees begging for instruction? I knew she was nuts when I met her, but this? This is ridiculous.”
“Think about it. You have to understand this. Do you think he’d allow her to chase after him, begging to be tortured?
He shook his head. “No.”
I continued to pace, my toes numb from their exposure to the cold, wet grass.
“Exactly. This is where the word association comes in.”
“How?”
“Phillip isn’t just erasing evidence on paper. He’s surrounded himself with an army. Tiffany is as much herself as he’ll allow – the woman he created for the outside world. If he hadn’t created that side of her? She wouldn’t do a very good job of protecting him.”
“So he waits until someone gets too close. The question was a trigger to put her walls up…to make her shut down so she couldn’t expose him.”
“Right,” I said, relieved he was finally following me. “It’s a form of cognitive behavioural therapy - CBT. It’s a form of psychotherapy that alters the way you think or behave. When thoughts or emotions begin to stray, word association takes people to their happy place. Phillip has used this to turn Tiffany into a soldier with only one purpose. To protect him, to keep him safe.”
Curtis shot to his feet. He turned away from me and began to stride towards the gate. He was shaking, his fists clenched by his sides. I panicked. I knew where he was going and I knew what he was going to do.
“Curtis!”
I left the path of grass that had been my tunnel of clarity and chased after him.
“Curtis, stop!”
“I have to find her. I have to save Lois.”
“Just wait. Let me show you.”
He stopped and turned to face me. We were still meters apart, an emotional and physical gulf separating us. I felt every emotion radiating from him, as if he had centred it and projected it onto me. It tore me apart, ripped me open until I couldn’t breathe.
“Show me what?”
“You love her, don’t you?” He nodded once, his face set like stone. “You don’t want to see her hurt, do you?”
He shook his head slowly, unsure of what I was talking about.
I locked my hands behind my back at the bottom of my spine and dropped to the ground on my knees.
“What are you doing?!” Curtis voice broke as he cried out and rushed to me. I bowed my head and raised my eyes to meet his. “Skye, get up.”
“If you trigger the change in Lois, this is what she will do.”
“Please, Skye, get up.” His plea was desperate, his eyes welled with unshed tears.
“If you trigger the change in Lois, only Phil can get her back. Do you think he’ll do that for us, knowing we’re onto him?”
“No.” He grabbed my elbow and pulled me to my feet. “Don�
�t do that. Don’t you ever fucking do that again.”
“I had to show you. You had to feel it so you wouldn’t make the mistake with Lois. We have to protect her.”
His fingers dug into my flesh until it felt like they’d reached bone. The pain hurt, burnt like a hot flame, but all I felt was relief. He was with me.
“I know.” He pulled me into him and crushed me to his chest. “I know.”
I took comfort in his embrace. We took comfort in each other. And then his phone buzzed between us, breaking us out of the bubble we’d put ourselves in.
“Answer it,” I said, pulling back and wrapping his hoodie around me as the cold chilled my bones.
“Lois,” he said, frowning as he answered the phone and kept his eyes on mine.
He was making sure I was there to catch him if he fell. I was. He was my animal and I would protect him until my time on Earth was done.
His face rapidly drained of colour, turning a ghostly white and he dropped his arm to his side.
His phone fell to the grass and his voice broke when he whispered, “It’s Geoff.”
Fourteen
Hypnosis. Manipulation. Sensory whatever-she-said. Triggers. Darkness…Phil.
What the fuck did it all mean? He was hypnotising Kent one wife at a time – or all at the same time? What did it mean for Lois? For Skye? For Ollie? For the entire world that seemed to play some sort of part in the fuckuppery that was my life? I couldn’t save them, but I had to save them. I couldn’t find Phil because his psycho girlfriend – the woman I thought was Australian and using me because she wasn’t getting it elsewhere – was, well, a psycho; but I had to find him. Screw what Skye said about mind control and depri-whatsit. Rochelle – Tiffany – was crazy but she had all the answers. She knew where Phil was hiding.
Lois. I’d never heard so much pain in my aunt’s voice. Not since she told me about the day my parents died, when I was eight and realised they weren’t coming home. She cried then; a cry that was beautiful yet tragic, even to my immature ears…and she cried like that again when she called me and said the one sentence I’d never anticipated hearing.
“It’s about Geoff…”
~Curtis~
The car flew. Where were we going? I didn’t know, but I stayed quiet. Curtis was gone; a machine focused on one thing – making it back to London in record-time without killing anyone.
He hadn’t said a word since he dropped his phone and mentioned Geoff’s name. I knew how close they were; Geoff was the only father Curtis had had since his parents died. Curtis was able to control the pain that tortured him because Geoff had prepared him, trained him to protect himself from self-destruction. Were it not for Geoff, Curtis would have been in prison…or worse.
I knew something had happened between them. Curtis said he was mad at Geoff, but I didn’t know why, and the race back to the city told me Curtis wasn’t angry with Geoff. He was angry with himself.
“What happened?” I asked, finding the bravery to talk to him. I hoped it wouldn’t backfire.
“Nothing.”
I held onto his hand and he squeezed mine in response. “Tell me what happened. We’re in this together, remember.”
“I let him down. I hurt him, Skye. I hurt him and I refused to apologise.”
“How?”
“I was a mess. I am a mess.” He sighed, filled with the self-pity I knew he loathed. “He asked me to sign a fighter and I agreed…and then I met Jesse and went back on something I said I’d do. When he confronted me, I offered him money.”
“Money?”
He nodded. “It’s what I do. I fuck and I buy myself out of trouble.”
A niggling of realisation hit me, but I didn’t know why or where it had come from. I squeezed his hand a little tighter and kept my eyes off the road, on him as his eyes flitted over the surroundings for incoming danger. I said nothing, afraid I’d ask a question I didn’t want the answer to, and continued to reassure him as he weaved between cars and pressed harder on the accelerator.
When signs for London began to whizz past us in a blur, Curtis hit a button on his on-board screen and a dial tone filled the car.
“Ah, my boss returns,” Angelica answered with an audible smile.
“I need you to do something for me.”
“Just say the word. When are you coming back?”
“I don’t know. Yusef is fine without me. Listen, I need you to call the Harley Street Clinic. I need every fucking piece of information you can get. I want to know what the consultants have for breakfast and how often they sleep.”
Curtis’ hand left mine and he dragged it through his hair. Geoff was sick.
“Is everything okay?” Angelica asked.
“Would I be asking this is it weren’t?” he bit. “Just get me the information and an appointment with someone.”
“Yes, boss.” Her voice shook with concern. “Is it you?”
“No, it isn’t me.” Curtis’ voice softened, but the pain and worry became more obvious as he ran a red light and tore around a bend. “Let me know…thanks, Angelica.”
“No problem.”
Curtis hung up and turned another corner into a carpark. I hurried to follow him out of the car and chased after him through the entrance of a gym.
“Don’t leave me behind,” I said, wrapping my arms around his waist when we stepped into a lift and Curtis hit the button for the top floor. “I’m here for you.”
He kissed the top of my head and held me close, but said nothing.
He took my hand and led me out of the lift, crossing the open space that looked like a replica of Geoff’s Gym back in Kent. We headed for the office, ignoring the people around us training, as they stopped and watched the intruders storm towards theit room at the back. This place, these people, weren’t part of Curtis’ life. He had been completely segregated from the world he once knew.
I pulled his hoodie tighter around me as he knocked on the door but didn’t wait for a response before pulling me into the room.
Curtis froze as Geoff gasped in surprise and stood up in shock.
“’Ello, son,” he said, forcing his gaunt face into a smile.
Were it not for his name on the label on the panel in the lift, or on the plaque that was fixed on the door we had just charged through, I wouldn’t have recognised him as the same pot-bellied, charismatic, typical cheeky East Londoner he was when I last saw him, in 2003.
“Geoff.” Curtis deflated, let go of my hand and threw his arms around the frail man in front of him.
“Lois called you, eh?” He patted his back and I realised it was Geoff doing the comforting.
“Why didn’t you?” Curtis stepped back and studied him. “Why didn’t you call me, old man?”
“I didn’t call Lois, either.”
“But-”
Curtis looked at me and I realised I was edging towards the door. I felt like an intruder as the father-son, mentor-protégé energy passed between the two men.
“Geoff, this is-”
“Pamela,” Geoff interrupted and sucked in a short breath. “I remember ya, sweet’art. I never forget a pretty face.”
“Skye,” Curtis corrected. “This is Skye.”
He stared at Geoff, wondering if he was delusional.
“I’ll explain later.” I told him, gripping the door handle. “I’ll be outside.”
Curtis nodded and I stepped out of the office, pressing my back to the closed door and shut my eyes.
Weight machines, metal on metal, crashed and pinged, punchbags huffed and sighed as they were pounded; a couple of chuckles and jovial insults echoed around the gym as two men sparred, and then a voice broke through, addressing me.
“Hey,” the low voice said, making me open my eyes to find the source.
The man in front of me was just a kid, with hooded eyes that momentarily distracted me from the painful reunion in the room behind me, and made me wonder why this clean-shaven twenty-something year-old looked so angry.
/> “Hey,” was my reply.
“My partner is running late…would you mind?”
“Mind what?”
“Well,” he shrugged. “There are spare gloves in the drawer next to you. They probably stink a bit, but they’re decent.”
“You want me to fight you?”
He shrugged again. “Might as well waste some time while you’re waiting.”
“How do you know I can fight?”
“You must be able to, to keep up with him.” He nodded past me and I turned to see Curtis through the slats of the blinds, pacing the room and pulling his hair viciously.
“You know Curtis?”
“Sure.” He winked. “We’re old friends. There are some clothes in there, too. Changing rooms are behind you.”
He turned and walked to the ring, climbing the steps and bending to ease through the top two ropes. I thought about it for a second, but I wanted to fight. If Curtis could, why couldn’t I? This guy seemed nice, despite whatever anger lurked beneath the exterior. He wouldn’t take it out on me – he just wanted to spar. I could do that. I rummaged in the drawer for some trousers and a t-shirt; they must have had women here often. I changed quickly in the locker room and set my clothes on top of the cabinet of drawers, picked up the gloves I’d chosen and made my way to the ring.
The man set one foot on the bottom rope, his hand on the middle, and pushed them apart for me. I paused for a beat, thinking of Oliver, thinking of Thomas; thinking of Curtis. And then I stepped in.
He pulled a leather head guard onto my head and flicked my hair behind my shoulders before he fastened the strap under my chin, then he held out one gloved hand and I bumped it with mine.
“Skye,” I offered with a genuine smile, grateful to be free from the cloud of pain, if just for a minute.
He smiled in return; a crooked smile of boyish excitement.
“Benny.”
Fifteen
I’d never seen Geoff cry. I’d never seen him angry, or afraid, or out of control. I did all that. I did all the crying, snivelling like a baby when he sat me down on the chair and tried to explain what was happening to him. All I could hear were fading beeps of the machines in a hospital, the drip of liquid in an IV, the coughing and spluttering of approaching death, and Geoff’s voice faded into nothing but a distant murmur as I slipped further and further away and turned to look out of the window of the office, hoping to see the woman who I would need more than ever before. I needed her to be there for me, because if she wasn’t? I was going to follow Geoff.
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