“Anything,” he swears.
“I want you to promise to keep me here. Here, in this room, where I know I’ll be safe. Don’t—don’t come and see me. Not until your brother finds a solution.” Tears want to form in my eyes. I blink them away in anger. “When I’m—insane? You’re Stonehart. You’re only Stonehart. You terrify me. And I don’t—I don’t want to lose what we have. The memories, the good times, the—”
I cut off. The love, I think.
The world lurches.
I turn around and vomit on the floor.
The throw up gets caught in my hair.
--
I’m alone in the dark. Here, I have no friends.
But I have no enemies, either. Stonehart comes to visit me sometimes, claiming to be “Dr. Telfair”.
I know better. But I let him pretend.
He has not raped me once.
And that’s all for the better. Every day that passes brings me one day closer to freedom. Closer to revenge.
Chapter Forty-Three
JEREMY
My brother listens to my request in silence. Then, he turns around and focuses on the computer screens.
Lilly’s test results are displayed on the three-monitor system. Dozens of graphs display vital health markers. Charts show their progression over time.
Atticus looks from one screen, to the other. I can see the stress lacing across his shoulders. It is not dissimilar to my own.
For hours he’d been analyzing these results. For days. For weeks.
For months.
I watch him keenly, waiting on the answer.
“No,” he says finally. He shakes his head and takes his glasses off. “No, I cannot do it.”
No. The word crashes into me and steals the air from my chest. I feel like I cannot breathe.
“Please,” I say. I try to be polite, to be cordial. But the tension is unbearable. My hands clench into fists. “I need to see her. I need to speak to her. Let me! She’s still in there, I know she is, I know she is, dammit!”
“Jeremy.” Atticus looks me in the eye. I can see sadness in his. “What is the point? You’ll have her for ten minutes—and then what? By giving her a third dose of the counteragent, you risk too much.”
“I can reach her,” I hiss. “Goddammit, Atticus, I know I can! Let me try. I’m going crazy without her.” I cast an angry glare at the computer monitors, mocking me in their bright serenity. “It’s been weeks and there’s no progress!”
“She hasn’t regressed.”
“Hah!” I give a scornful laugh. “You think that fucking counts? You think I can watch the woman I love be consumed by insanity and accept it?” My voice softens, and I take a menacing step forward. Anger is flowing through me, anger fueled by frustration and by lack of progress and by utter despair. “You think I can let her bury herself deeper and deeper into madness and not do a damn thing about it?”
“The risks—”
“WHO CARES ABOUT THE RISKS? SHE’S GONE EITHER WAY!”
I catch myself yelling, and stop short. My chest is heaving. My nostrils flare with each breath. Adrenaline is pumping through me, and my self-control—the one thing I prided myself on for so long—has been torn to shreds.
How can I last when Lilly is so far gone?
“Jeremy…”
“No.” I shake my head, close my eyes, and take a step back. I breathe in once, summoning the icy calm and letting it wash over my mind. As it does, the cold dispassion I had to assume when I had Lilly prisoner comes over me again.
I open my eyes and look at my brother. “I’m sorry,” I say. The words come out flat. “I shouldn’t have yelled.”
He dismisses it with a wave. “Jeremy, I know you love her. But you know that every time we administer the counteragent, the chance of it working again in the future is cut in half? You were lucky it didn’t backfire in the operating room when you injected the second dose.”
I sneer. “Oh, just like your fool-proof procedure didn’t backfire?” I know better than to make an enemy of my brother now, but what good is holding my tongue when the stakes are so high? When my Lilly is fading?
“You know that’s different,” Atticus says softly.
I look away. “Yes,” I finally admit. “I do.”
A cold silence sweeps in and fills the room.
I walk to the window and look at the frosty snow outside. “It’s December,” I say. “You told me you would need a month after the operation to judge her prospects of recovery. I’ve given you four and you still haven’t told me.” I turn around and look my brother in the eye. “I’m no idiot, Atticus.”
“There is still a chance,” he insists.
I scoff. “A chance? How small? It’s miniscule. You know it, I know it—we both know it.” I turn my eye to the small computer screen, the one with a live camera feed of Lilly’s room. “God,” I whisper. “It kills me to see her like this. She hates me, you know that? It’s no less than I deserve, considering all I’ve done, but still…”
I trail off. I’ve never expressed sorrow or pity before, not before another breathing human, not like this. But sometimes, situations of extreme stress call for extreme measures.
For me, showing weakness—showing humanity—is one of such.
I lock eyes with Atticus. “Please. Please, brother, I’m begging you. Grant me this one small mercy. Let me see her. Just once. Just one more time, that’s all I ask.”
He meets my stare for a long, contemplative moment. As each second stretches the silence further, I pray to fucking God that my approach works.
And then, in a flash of unexpected sympathy, Atticus reaches for the self-inject pen on his desk.
“Ask Jill to do it,” he says. “Lilly… Lilly trusts her.”
Chapter Forty-Four
LILLY
His lustful grunts fill my ears.
“Yes,” I beg. “Yes. Give it to me like that. Just like that. Faster. Faster!”
Jeremy complies, doubling the speed of his thrusts into me. I feel the breaking point looming. I need to hold it off. Just a little longer.
I grasp his hair and pull his lips to mine, devouring his mouth with my greedy kiss. I know Jeremy hates it when I take control. But logic is lost in the heat of the moment. There will be consequences later. Right now, I don’t care.
“Lilly. Lilly, I’m going to come…” Jeremy’s words die, replaced by a primal roar that is ripped from his throat as he shoots into me. My body accepts readily. Just like I’ve learned to do, I let the climax wash over me. My core clenches around his cock and shuddery convulsions rock my body.
--
At some moment in the night, I realize that I’m lying—sleeping—next to Stonehart.
I gasp and jerk away. Revulsion fills every fiber of my being. Sex is one thing, but snuggling…?
My movement wakes him. His dark eyes reflect the dim light.
They look murderous.
I’m struck dumb, unable to decide whether to pretend sleep or move back to him to avoid pissing him off, or just—
Thankfully, he takes the decision out of my hands. With one inscrutable look, he gets up and walks out of the room. He does not utter a word.
I sigh into the pillow, and relieved, fall asleep.
--
The next morning, the magnitude of my error in letting Stonehart sleep in my bed, slams into me with full force.
He might be developing feelings for me.
No! I can’t allow that. It would ruin everything. My plans for revenge, my plans for getting back at him, my plans for vengeance…
Feelings that began one sided might easily, insidiously, warp themselves and become…I gasp… two sided.
That, I can never allow.
But how to stop Stonehart from—
And then it hits me. There was a clause in the contract. A requirement for me to maintain my current shape, size, and weight.
Well, if Stonehart is developing feelings for me—and why else would he ch
ose to spend the night?—then there’s only one thing I can do to counter it.
I have to make myself wretched.
And so I begin day one of my second-ever hunger strike.
Chapter Forty-Five
JEREMY
I pace around the room, feeling confined, feeling trapped, feeling… useless.
“She’s not eating.” My voice, usually sure and confident, comes out hoarse and dry. “Why isn’t she eating?”
“She won’t say,” Jill rubs her hands nervously. “I bring her meals. She ignores them. Sometimes… sometimes I catch her playing with a pretend dishware set. She asks me if I’d like a piece of dove as she cuts through the air with an imaginary knife. A dove!”
Atticus glances at me, accusation filling his eyes. “Does that hold any significance?” he asks.
“None,” I lie.
Chapter Forty-Six
LILLY
One week later.
I’m not losing weight fast enough. I know if I don’t get skinny soon, Stonehart will come back. He’ll come back, and he’ll fall in love, and then I’ll fall in love, and then…
Well, I’d rather die than love a monster.
From that day on, I refuse to drink, too.
--
Five days later. December 20, 2014.
Something cool and wet is brought to my lips. A liquid, thick like oil yet sweet like honey.
A motherly voice whispers in my ear. “Slowly now, Miss Ryder. Your body’s still weak. Small sips, like a hummingbird.”
Water. It’s water. A drop of it gets in my mouth.
“Just like that,” the kind woman encourages. “Just like that. Oh, Mr. Stonehart is going to be so pleased!”
Hearing his vile name jolts me. I clamp my lips shut, cutting off the trickle of life-giving nectar.
“Miss Ryder, please. Please drink. Please, don’t stop. Oh, Miss Ryder…”
The old woman’s sobs are lost as darkness regains its hold.
Chapter Forty-Seven
JEREMY
I look on at the empty video screen. The love of my life, Lilly Ryder, is scarcely more than skin and bones. Bald, with one eyebrow missing, and the other just starting to grow back.
And she shaves them every chance she gets, I think miserably.
I feel a hand on my shoulder. I bring my sunken eyes up to look at my brother.
“I promised to protect her,” I say. My voice is no more than a murmur. “I failed.”
Atticus nods, but he doesn’t hear. “She’s getting worse,” he says.
I don’t pick up a shred of pity or remorse in his voice. Hard, I think. Hard and cold, just as I used to be.
But now? I look at my trembling hands. They’re clenched into fists, yet still they tremble. Still they shake.
Such weakness—such weakness used to disgust me. Now, it has become a vital part of my existence.
What else can there be when all the lights have gone out?
“We have no choice,” Atticus says. “The barbiturates will induce a coma. That will give us more time. While she’s out, we can IV feed her.”
“No!” I swear and surge to my feet, ripping out of my brother’s grasp. All the anger, all the frustration, comes boiling to the surface. “No! I am not losing her again!”
“Look at her.” Atticus motions to the video screen. He speaks with patience, with a distant calm. “She is starving. She is dying. If we don’t do it, she will die. You know it.”
“I believe in her.” I grind my teeth together. “She can overcome!”
“No.” Atticus takes a step toward me. “Look in my eyes, brother. I know you love her. I’ve seen it. I also know what she’s been through. Doing this now is a mercy. There is a chance—there still might be a chance—that she’ll emerge.”
“Bullshit,” I accuse.
Atticus avoids looking at me. He avoids answering directly. Instead, he says, “It’s better than no chance at all.”
I look at the screen again, where my precious Lilly-Flower is barely recognizable.
“She will die of dehydration if we do nothing.”
I sneer. It’s a mocking sort of sneer. “I know you wouldn’t allow that.”
“No,” my brother hedges. “But I would rather have your permission than go against your wishes. We are in this together.”
I turn away. I can feel tears forming behind my eyelids, and I refuse to let my brother see me cry. Never, since my mother’s death, have I truly cried.
But now, faced with the prospect of losing another woman who owns my heart, my defenses have broken.
I have broken.
“Then do it,” I say, choking on the words. “But let me see her first.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
LILLY
December 21st, 2014
I gasp, startled by the voice. It pierces through the all-encompassing nothingness of my mind.
I look up. My vision does not work as well as it used to. I have trouble lifting my head. My body feels shriveled, shrunken. Small. Thirst and hunger have long since disappeared. In fact, I feel almost nothing. I see almost nothing.
Nothing but the wonderful prospect of death.
It does not frighten me. In fact, it’s calming. In death, I will be released. In death, I will be no slave to evil Stonehart. In death, the visions will not come—
A startling thought. I tug on my braid. Visions? What visions? I’m already blind…
“Lilly…please. Come back to me, my love. I know you’re in there. I know you can hear me. I know you can see.”
The voice… the voice is so familiar. Whose is it? I cannot tell. It’s familiar, but it’s also different, choked on emotions that have never been there before.
Someone takes my hand. “Come back to me.” Fingers stroke my knuckles. “Please. Come back to me. Please.”
Warmth creeps up my arm from that touch. But whose touch is it? Why do I feel like I shouldn’t ignore it, like I should embrace it? Why do I feel that the warmth can pull me out of the darkness—
In an instant, my vision clears. I see him, that vile, evil, horrible man, sitting on the bed beside me.
“Lilly…” Stonehart says.
No, I think.
In my final act of defiance, I close my eyes and let death take hold.
Chapter Forty-Nine
JEREMY
“Lilly. Lilly, wake up.”
No answer.
“Lilly.” A hushed command. “Goddamn you, Lilly, get up!”
No answer.
“Don’t leave me. Don’t do this. Not now. Not now. GET UP!”
No answer.
***
Chapter Fifty
JEREMY
One year later: December 2015.
“Jeremy? She wouldn’t want to live like this.”
I hear the words, but they barely register. They bounce around in some distant part of my mind. My brain refused to assign them meaning.
Just like it refuses to assign meaning to anything that’s happened in the last twelve months.
Three months after Lilly’s medically-induced coma, Atticus had come to me and announced he’d done it: he’d found a permanent counteragent to the poison. Lilly would be saved. She would have to be operated on, and then allowed to rest. With her unconscious, that was not a big concern.
I approved the procedure. I watched from the waiting room as my brother injected her with the agent that would purge the poisonous residue consuming her mind.
“She needs to heal now,” Atticus had told me in the aftermath. “Now we just wait for her to heal.”
That we did. That I did. I stayed by her side every day. Every single day, since that moment, I stayed beside the barely-breathing figure that would be my wife.
Such hope filled me those first few days. Oh, how little I knew…
My Lilly did heal. Bless her soul, her brainwaves normalized. The poison had been leached out of her. She was whole again.
But she would not wake.
Time, I thought back then. We need to give her time. She’ll come to on her on.
That, we did too. We gave her time. A week passed. I did not sleep. A month passed. I barely ate. Two months. Three.
She was healed, goddammit, why wouldn’t she wake?
In a fit of rage I shook her. Screamed at her. Begged her and pleaded with her to come back to me. I took her hand and whispered all the things we would do together as husband and wife. I told her of the places we’d go. The things we would see. The grand ceremony of our wedding, our honeymoon, everything.
She did not stir.
I spoke of the children we’d have. Children I never wanted before. I spoke of growing old together, of living our lives in full together. How weak my voice seemed then.
“Just wake,” I begged her.
She did not stir.
Then I promised her, as I held her hand, as I whispered in her ear, that we would one day look back on this and laugh.
Three and a half weeks later, my brother came in and spoke to me in earnest.
“The IV is the only thing keeping her alive,” he’d said. “I’m sorry, Jeremy. I cannot give you false hope. She is brain dead.”
But like an idiot, like a deranged fool, I refused to believe. She was right there! My Lilly was right there, dammit, and damn her fragility! It did not matter! She was right there and she was breathing and she was healed! Why didn’t anyone see? She would open her eyes any moment now and see me as I see her, she would see me as Jeremy again, not as Stonehart, never as Stonehart, and we would live all the hopes and dreams of our lives out together.
I was giving in to some of my own hysteria, then.
Uncovering You: The Complete Series (Mega Box Set) Page 117