by Blake Crouch
There were tears in her voice now, her throat clogged with emotion.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“I know.”
“But not here. Not like this.”
“Can they hear us now?”
“If we aren’t careful. Speak softly and stare at the ground. There’s something I didn’t tell you last night.”
“What?”
Ethan hooked his arm around her waist, pulled her in close, said, “Hang on a second.” They went past a streetlamp on the corner that Ethan knew housed a camera and a microphone. When they were fifty feet from the lamp, he said, “Were you aware there’s a microchip in the back of your leg?”
“No.”
“It’s how they track you.”
“Do you have one too?”
“I just had mine removed. Temporarily.”
“Why?”
“I’ll explain later. I want to take yours out. It’s the only way we’ll be able to really talk.”
Their house stood a little ways down the hill.
“Will it hurt?” she asked.
“Yes. I’ll have to cut you. We’ll do it in the chair in the study.”
“Why there?”
“It’s a blind spot in our house. The only one. The cameras can’t see us there.”
Her lips curled into the tiniest smile. “So that’s why you always want me in the study.”
“Exactly.”
“Sure you can do this?”
“I think so. Are you up for it?”
Theresa drew in a deep breath, blew it out.
“I will be.”
Ethan stood under the archway between the kitchen and the dining room, staring at Ben, who sat at the table, swallowed in a big coat with a blanket draped over his shoulders. The only sound in the house was the squiggle of the boy’s pencil across a sheet of paper.
“Hey, buddy,” Ethan said. “How goes it?”
“Good.”
Ben didn’t look up from his drawing.
“What are you working on there?”
Ben pointed at the centerpiece of the table—a crystal vase holding a bouquet of flowers that had long since succumbed to the interior cold. Cast-off, colorless petals wilted on the table around the base of the vase.
“How was school today?”
“Good.”
“What’d you learn?”
This snapped Ben out of his concentration.
It was an honest slip—a holdover from Ethan’s life before.
The boy looked up, confused.
Ethan said, “Never mind.”
Even inside the house, it was cold enough for Ethan to see his son’s breath.
The rage came out of nowhere.
He turned suddenly and walked down the hallway, jerked open the back door, crossed the deck into the yard.
The grass was yellowed, dying.
The row of aspen trees that separated their property from the neighbor’s had dropped their leaves practically overnight.
The floor of the woodshed was still littered with scraps of bark and chips of pine from last year’s load. Prying the ax out of the flat-topped splitting stump, Ethan had a vision of Theresa out here, chopping firewood alone in the cold, him still in suspension.
He stormed back into the house, dark energy riding on his shoulders.
Theresa was in the dining room with Ben, watching him sketch.
“Ethan? Everything okay?”
“Fine,” he said.
The first strike split the coffee table down the middle, its two sides caving inward.
“Ethan! What the hell?”
Theresa in the kitchen now.
“I can see…” Ethan raised the ax. “My son’s fucking breath inside our fucking house.”
The next strike devastated the left half of the table, fracturing the oak into three pieces.
“Ethan, that’s our furniture—”
He looked at his wife. “Was our furniture. Now it’s heating fuel. There a copy of the paper lying around?”
“In our bedroom.”
“Mind getting it?”
By the time Theresa returned with the Wayward Light, Ethan had broken the coffee table into small enough pieces to put inside the stove.
They wadded up sheets of newsprint and stuffed them under the kindling.
Ethan opened the damper, lit the paper.
As the fire grew, he called for Ben.
The boy appeared, sketchpad under his arm. “Yes?”
“Come draw by the fire.”
Ben looked at the butchered coffee table.
“Come on, son.”
The boy took a seat in a rocker beside the woodstove.
Ethan said, “I’ll leave the door open for you. When that fire gets going, add another piece.”
“Okay.”
Ethan looked at Theresa, cut his eyes toward the hall.
He grabbed a plate from the kitchen and followed her back to the study.
Locked them inside.
The light coming through the window was gray, weak, and fading.
Theresa mouthed, “You sure they can’t see us in here?”
He leaned in, whispered, “Yeah, but they will be able to hear.”
He sat her down in the chair, touched his finger to his lips.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a slip of paper, which he’d folded thirty minutes ago at the station.
Theresa opened it.
I need access to the back of your left leg. Take off your pants and turn over. I’m sorry but this is going to hurt a lot. You have to keep quiet. Please trust me. I love you so much.
She looked up from the note.
Scared.
Reaching down, she began to unbutton her jeans.
He helped her slide them down her thighs, something inescapably erotic as he tugged them off—the impulse to keep going, to keep undressing her. Was after all their fuck chair.
Theresa turned crosswise and extended her legs into the air like she was stretching.
Ethan moved around to the side of the chair.
Ninety percent sure he was out of view of the camera, which, from what he’d seen in Pilcher’s office, aimed down at the bookshelf across the room.
He set the plate on the floor and removed his coat.
Kneeling down, he opened one of the large flap pockets and took out everything he’d raided from his office that afternoon.
Bottle of rubbing alcohol.
Handful of cotton balls.
Gauze.
Tube of superglue.
Penlight.
A pair of forceps he’d pocketed from the OR in the superstructure.
A Spyderco Harpy.
He stared at the back of Theresa’s left leg as the scent of woodsmoke crept in from the living room under the door. It took him a moment to zero in on the old, white incision scar, which resembled the footprint of a tiny caterpillar. Opening the bottle of rubbing alcohol, he held a cotton ball to the mouth and turned it upside down.
The sharp bright smell of isopropyl filled the room.
He wiped the wet cotton ball across her scar and then scrubbed down the plate. He opened the Spyderco folder. Its blade was an evil-looking piece of cutlery—fully serrated and curving to a point like the claw of a bird of prey. He wet another cotton ball and sterilized the blade and then the forceps.
Theresa watched him, the look in her eyes something akin to horror.
He mouthed, “Don’t watch.”
She nodded, lips pursing, tension hardening her jawline.
When he touched the knifepoint to the top of the scar, her body went rigid. He didn’t have the nerve built up to just start cutting her, but he dove in anyway.
Theresa sucked a hard breath through her teeth as the blade entered.
Ethan’s eyes fixed briefly on her hands, balled into sudden fists.
He detached himself.
The blade was psycho-sharp, but this was a small gift. With no resistance—like cutti
ng warm butter—he pulled it easily down the length of his wife’s scar. It didn’t feel like he was hurting her, but her face was scrunched and turning red while her knuckles blanched and a straight line of blood ran down the back of her leg.
The knifepoint was in a quarter, maybe half an inch, and he wondered if he’d gone deep enough to expose the muscle.
He carefully withdrew the blade and laid it on the plate. Blood coated the end of the Harpy with the consistency of motor oil. The beads and spatters popped on the white porcelain. Theresa’s panties were stained red and blood pooled in the crevices of the chair.
Ethan took the forceps.
He turned on the penlight and stuck it between his teeth.
Leaned in close to study the new incision.
With his left hand, he spread the mouth of the cut open.
With his right, he worked the forceps inside the incision.
Tears streamed down Theresa’s face, her hair clutched in both hands. He doubted she could stand more cutting in the event he needed to go deeper.
Slowly, he opened the forceps.
Theresa made her loudest noise yet—something deep and guttural in the back of her throat.
Her fingers clawing the upholstered arms of the chair.
The hardest part was not offering her a single word of encouragement or comfort.
He shined the penlight into the wound.
Saw the muscle.
The microchip reflected a mother-of-pearl shimmer from the surface of Theresa’s hamstring.
He lifted the Harpy off the plate.
Steady hands.
Sweat burned in his eyes.
Almost there, baby.
He pushed the blade back into the wound as blood poured down her leg. Theresa flinching when the tip of the Harpy touched the muscle, but he didn’t hesitate.
Ethan worked the knifepoint between the muscle and the chip and broke it free.
He withdrew the blade, the microchip barely clinging to the end.
He hadn’t been breathing.
Drew in a big gulp of air as he set the knife on the plate.
Theresa eyeing him, desperate to know.
He nodded and smiled and picked up a handful of gauze. She grabbed it, held it to the back of her leg. Blood came through almost instantly and Ethan handed her a fresh one.
The worst of the pain seemed to be retreating, the flush leaving her face like a fever breaking.
After five minutes, the flow became manageable.
After twenty, it had stopped altogether.
Ethan wet one last cotton ball with alcohol and cleaned the incision site while Theresa cringed. Then he pinched closed the gaping wound, ripped the top off the superglue with his teeth, and squeezed out a generous bead, which he extended down the length of her cut.
It was almost dark outside now and growing colder by the second inside the study.
He held the incision closed for five minutes, then let go.
The adhesive held.
Ethan moved around to the front of the chair and put his lips to Theresa’s ear.
“I got it out. You did amazing.”
“It was so hard not to scream.”
“The glue is working, holding it closed, but you should stay put for a little while. Give it time to really set.”
“I’m freezing.”
“I’ll bring you blankets.”
She nodded.
He smiled at her.
She still had tears in the corners of her eyes.
She mouthed, “Let me see it.”
He lifted the Harpy off the plate and held the end of the blade up to Theresa’s face.
The microchip sat in cooling blood that was becoming more and more viscous.
The muscles in her jaw tensed with a flicker of anger. Violation.
She looked at Ethan.
No words spoken, but that didn’t matter. He could see them written plainly across her face—Those fuckers.
He picked the microchip off the knife, cleaned the blood and tissue with a piece of gauze, and presented it to her. Then he reached into his lapel pocket and lifted out the gold necklace he’d bought that afternoon. It consisted of a thin, braided chain with a heart-shaped locket.
She said, “You shouldn’t have.”
Ethan opened the locket, whispered, “Keep the microchip inside the heart. Unless I tell you otherwise, you have to wear this necklace at all times.”
It was actually warm in the living room. Ben’s cheeks glowed in the firelight. He was sketching the open woodstove. The flames. The blackening wood inside. The pieces of the smashed coffee table scattered around the base.
“Where’s Mom?”
“Reading in the study. You need anything?”
“No.”
“Let’s not bother her for a while, okay? She’s had a hard day.”
Ethan gathered up an armful of blankets from the stash under the sofa and headed back to the study.
Theresa was shivering.
He wrapped her up.
Said, “I’ll make you something warm for dinner.”
She smiled through the pain. “That’d be great.”
Then he leaned in and whispered, “Come out in one hour, but no matter how much it hurts, walk straight. If they catch you limping on the cameras, they’ll know.”
Ethan stood at the kitchen sink, staring into the blackness out the window. Three days ago, it had been the end of summer. Leaves just beginning to take on color. Jesus, fall had been a blink—from August to December in seventy-two hours.
The fruit and veggies in the refrigerator were almost certainly the last fresh things they would eat for months to come.
He filled a pot with water and put it on the range to boil.
Stuck a roomy saucepan beside it, turned the eye up to medium, and poured a spot of olive oil.
They had five vine-ripened tomatoes left—just enough.
A dinner plan percolated.
He smashed a clove of garlic, diced an onion, dumped it all into the oil.
While things sizzled, he chopped tomatoes.
He could’ve been standing in their kitchen in Seattle. Late Saturday afternoons, he’d put on a Thelonious Monk record, open a bottle of red, and immerse himself in cooking a fabulous dinner for his family. No better way to unwind after a long week. This moment had the feel of those peaceful evenings, all the trappings of normal. Except that a half hour ago he’d cut a tracking chip out of the back of his wife’s leg in the one spot in their house that wasn’t under constant surveillance.
Except for that.
He added the tomatoes and crushed them into the onions and poured more oil and leaned over the stovetop into the sweet-smelling wafts of steam, trying, just for a beat, to embrace the fantasy.
Theresa came out as he was rinsing the pasta. She was smiling and he thought he sensed pain in it—a subtle strain—but there was no falter to her gait. They ate dinner as a family on a blanket in the living room, crowded around the woodstove and listening to the radio.
Hecter Gaither was playing Chopin.
The food was good.
The heat enveloping.
And it all passed too quickly.
After midnight.
Ben slept.
They’d burned through the coffee table in two hours, and now the Victorian was plunging back into the deep freeze.
Ethan and Theresa lay facing each other in bed.
He whispered, “Are you ready?”
She nodded.
“Where’s your necklace?”
“I’m wearing it.”
“Take it off, leave it on the bedside table.”
When she’d done it, she said, “Now what?”
“We wait one minute.”
They dressed in the dark.
Ethan looked in on their son, found the boy out cold.
He walked downstairs with Theresa.
Neither said a word.
As he opened the front door, Ethan raised the hood
of his black sweatshirt and motioned for Theresa to do the same.
They went outside.
Streetlamps and porch lights punctuated the darkness.
Frigid and no stars.
They walked out into the middle of the street.
Ethan said, “We can talk now. How’s your leg?”
“Agony.”
“You’re a rock star, babe.”
“I thought I was going to pass out. I wish I had.”
They moved west toward the park.
Soon they could hear the river.
“Are we really safe out here?” Theresa asked.
“We’re not safe anywhere. But at least without our chips, the cameras won’t pick us up.”
“I feel like I’m fifteen again, sneaking out of my parents’ house. It’s so quiet.”
“I love coming out late. You never crept out before? Not even once?”
“Of course not.”
They left the street and wandered into the playing field.
Fifty yards away, the bulb of a single streetlamp shone down on the swing set.
They walked until they reached the end of the park, the edge of the river.
Sat down in the dying grass.
Ethan could smell the water but he couldn’t see it. He couldn’t see his hands in front of his face. Invisibility had never felt so comforting.
“I shouldn’t have told you,” he said. “It was a moment of weakness. I just couldn’t stand to have this lie between us. For us not to be on the same page.”
“Of course you should have told me.”
“Why?”
“Because this town is bullshit.”
“But it’s not like there’s something better out there. If you ever dreamed of leaving Wayward Pines, I destroyed that sliver of hope.”
“I’ll take the truth any day. And I still want to leave.”
“It’s not possible.”
“Anything’s possible.”
“Our family would be slaughtered in the first hour.”
“I can’t live like this, Ethan. I thought about it all day. I can’t stop thinking about it. I won’t live in a house where I’m spied on. Where I have to whisper to have a real conversation with my husband. I’m done living in a town where my son goes to school and I can’t know what he’s being taught. Do you know what they’re teaching him?”
“No.”
“And you’re fine with that?”
“Of course not.”
“So fucking do something about it.”