It wasn’t just the drugs, or the violence he’d endured; there was something far worse pulling Finn away. I turned to Blaine. ‘Let me take him with me tonight. Please.’
She gave me an indulgent smile. ‘My, you do like him emasculated, don’t you? I can’t see him being of much use.’
‘He can’t stay there. Not like that.’
‘And what would I get in return?’
This is what it came down to. Blaine had no further need for Finn, but she knew that I did. We needed to arrive at a price. ‘What do you want?’
‘A kiss?’ she suggested, because this was only ever going to be a token, proof that I could finally be bought.
So I faced the woman who had recently ordered that my fingers be snapped like twigs and I kissed her as though she were my first love.
‘Thank you,’ she smiled, and I knew I was dismissed.
*****
I knocked softly on the door of the guest room and stepped in with a tray balanced on my palm.
Chester sat up, a look of delight on his face. ‘My God! Ellis, it’s Lilith Bresson!’ A Maine accent. Vermont. He pulled the quilt over his naked torso in a belated attempt to cover his modesty. ‘Ellis and I are such fans,’ he explained, and Ellis gave me a casual wave from his side of the bed. ‘What the hell are you doing at Albermarle Hall? Are you a guest?’
I sat the tray, carrying two glasses, down on the bedside table. ‘I’m... on a kind of sabbatical.’
‘I suppose this is the ideal place for you,’ Chester said. ‘Some wonderful erotic inspiration.’
I forced myself not to glance at Finn. ‘I thought you both might want a brandy whilst I ran you a bath.’
‘All this fun and Lilith Bresson on room service. Aren’t we lucky?’ Ellis finally spoke. California via Louisiana. He gave a knowing wink that suggested my lifelong goal had been to play chambermaid to a couple of predatory paedophiles.
I forced myself to smile. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll take Finn with me when I leave. I don’t think this bed’s quite big enough for three, is it?’
‘We managed,’ Chester grinned.
‘I’m sure you did, but if you have any intention of getting under the covers after your bath, it might be a good idea for me to move him back to his own room, don’t you think?’
Ellis gave Finn a cursory glance. ‘You want us to clean him up first? We were kinda energetic with the kid...’
‘We’ll be fine. Goodness, he’s out for the count,’ I said brightly, sounding alarmingly like a nanny I’d had when I was three. ‘What on earth did you give him?’
‘Lorazepam,’ Chester replied. ‘We’re lucky to have a friendly MD. Seems to have taken him a little deeper than expected, but I reckon he’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep.’
‘I’m sure he will,’ I said.
*****
Once I was satisfied that bathtime was well underway, I checked that the bathroom door was firmly shut, then knelt at the foot of the bed.
‘Finn?’ I whispered. ‘Finn, sweetheart, it’s Lili. Come on, wake up and talk to me.’
He raised his head to gaze at me with eyes that were the muted grey of a storm-hit sea. ‘Lili’s gone.’ He slumped back onto the bed.
Now I knew. As far as Finn was aware, I was no longer there and there was nothing left for him to do but surrender. I took his cold hand in mine. ‘Please keep moving, Finn. Come on, let’s go.’
‘Need to sleep.’
‘No. Not here. Not with them.’ I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and hauled him upright. He may have looked skeletal, but he was a dead weight. Muffled laughter from the bathroom spurred me on. ‘Let’s get you out of here, and you can sleep in my bed. You’ll be safe there, I promise,’ which was the biggest lie I’d ever told, but at least Finn’s eyes opened again. He stared at me as though I had just landed from another planet as I grabbed a bathrobe from the dresser and draped it over his shoulders. I had to pull his hands through the sleeves one at a time, but although it cost precious minutes I was determined to afford him some dignity in the short journey to my room.
*****
I was glad I’d stepped up my workouts, because it took a strength I hadn’t known I possessed to drag that man down the corridor and onto my bed.
Finn stank like something already dead; the cloying musk of stale sex, sweat, and tainted breath combined to cling to his exhausted frame. His face was deathly pale, save for an angry amyl rash that was beginning to scab around his nose and mouth.
More than anything, I wanted him clean. I would have immersed him in cool water to kill his fever and wash away the filth, but instead I had to settle for a crystal fruit bowl filled from my bathroom and a pile of towels.
In the pale glow of the oil lamp I began my task. I bathed away every trace of shit and blood and semen from his face, his back, his thighs. Only days ago we had shared this bed and risked everything, and now it was as if I were preparing his corpse for burial. When I had finished, I heaved him over onto his side, settled into the chair next to the bed and waited.
The crisis came at four o’clock in the morning. As I watched, what little colour he had left in his moon-pale face drained away, leaving him with a waxen death mask. He gave a succession of choking grunts and, still unconscious, threw up across the pillow. I thought back to how Ellis and Chester had left him; on his back with his head lolling over the edge of the bed, and knew this would have been the moment of his death. Just another junkie choking on his own vomit.
Finn didn’t stir as I pulled the sodden bedding from under his head. I used a damp flannel to wipe his mouth clear, replaced the pillow, and continued my vigil. I was almost glad that I couldn’t leave him: I was capable of doing real harm to the two sick bastards who were now no doubt sleeping peacefully just yards away.
Instead I sat back and watched Finn as he slept, as if I could keep his chest rising and falling simply by watching it.
Chapter Twenty Five
Finn
The first surprise of the day was that I could open my eyes at all, given my plans to be dead at this point. There was something particularly fitting about the fact that I had even managed to screw that up.
As consciousness began to thaw the numbness in my limbs, I discovered that I had the mother and father of all headaches; my temples throbbed in time to my heartbeat and as I forced my eyelids to open another millimetre I saw a changed world diffused with a sick, green light.
I had fuck all idea as to where I was – I’d have been struggling to say who I was right at that moment – but a haze of terror smothered me as a disjointed memory of men’s voices and hands shimmered at the back of my febrile skull. The only thing in the entire world that I knew for certain was that I wasn’t safe and I attempted to push myself up from the bed.
As I sat up I puked. I had a bizarre vision of Lilith standing there with some fancy glass bowl, which was ridiculous, because she was gone from my life, and then I had the thought that maybe I was dead after all and Coyle must have murdered her and she was dead as well. The tricky bit was figuring out where we were because I couldn’t imagine anyone, God included, daring to send Lilith Bresson to hell.
Then I had to stop thinking in order to puke again.
‘Good morning,’ Lilith said.
‘You’re not meant to be here.’ My throat felt as though it had been sandblasted.
‘Apparently not.’ She placed a cool damp flannel over my forehead. ‘Fucking hell, I can’t leave you alone for five minutes, can I, Strachan?’
I finally let myself acknowledge that this was real. Lilith was here and I was in her bed, and I had believed Coyle and let myself be taken when there was still a need to fight. Any joy I had felt at her presence was smothered in a wave of white-hot guilt. ‘I’m sorry,’ I began, but another wave of hollow retching cut short my apology.
Lilith handed me glass of water, but my hands were shaking so much that I couldn’t take a drink without spilling half the contents across
the sheets.
She took the glass from me and held it to my mouth with one hand and supported the back of my head with the other. ‘Steady – just take a couple of sips for now.’
‘Bad?’ I dared ask, and she nodded.
I shifted to look at her properly, and winced. ‘Fuck, I hurt. Must’ve been hardcore.’
‘It was.’
The realisation made me want to throw up again. ‘She made you watch.’
Lilith nodded. ‘Part of my re-education. And the final part, believe me.’
‘Oh God, Lili, I’m so sorry.’ That useless, empty word again, for everything I had let happen to her. ‘I can’t stay here...’ I made to get out of bed again, but the world shimmered and shifted around me and I had to swallow a mouthful of bile. I wondered when my stomach was going to catch on that there was nothing left to bring up.
I shut my eyes and forced everything back behind a wall that was harder to maintain with every second I remained in this room. I didn’t dare speak or move or even breathe for fear of everything crumbling away and leaving me entirely destroyed. I couldn’t show her that, for both our sakes.
The knock at the door threatened to tip the balance, even though I knew Coyle wouldn’t see the need for such manners.
‘It’s Blaine,’ Lilith said. ‘It’s fine, Finn. I’ve been expecting this; it’s part of it. It’s what she does, remember? She wants to gloat.’ She tied her hair back from her face and strode to the door.
Lilith
‘Good morning, Lilith.’ Blaine stepped into my room, dressed for a day at the office. She appraised me, still in my pyjamas with my hair messily scraped back from my face and smiled.
‘Good morning.’ She wouldn’t have been able to resist a trip to view the damage, and part of me was surprised that she’d stayed away for this long. She would want to gaze upon the wreckage of her own making, and prolong the pleasure for as long as possible. I was ready for it, but I feared for Finn.
‘You look exhausted,’ she said.
‘It’s been a long night.’
She almost looked maternal. ‘You should rest today. Our agreement still stands and you seem to be remarkably ahead of schedule – I’m sure you can spare yourself a few hours to recharge.’ It was as if Finn was invisible.
‘I wasn’t aware there was a schedule, other than completing the commission.’
‘Ah.’ She took the chair I had used for my vigil and turned it so she was facing me. ‘I’m so sorry; I thought I’d mentioned it. My birthday – it’s in a little less than four weeks; the tenth of December. I usually have a small gathering, just my closest friends, nothing too formal. I thought that might be a fantastic opportunity for the great unveiling. What do you think?’
‘It sounds ideal.’ The very moment I spoke, an embryonic light glinted in the furthest recesses of my mind. I didn’t dare acknowledge its presence for fear that I might extinguish it, or that Blaine might read the scrap of hope in my features. I promised myself that I would revisit it the moment I got the opportunity, and returned to the business in hand: getting Blaine where I wanted her. ‘There are a few finishing touches, but nothing that’ll take more than a few days.’
‘Excellent. Well, I’ll leave you to your day off.’ She placed the chair tidily by the bedside, still without so much as glancing at Finn.
I still had no real idea what I was going to do, but I needed to buy time; make my first move. ‘Blaine?’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you think we could talk later? Please? In private, I mean.’
I was rewarded with the hint of a smile that suggested she knew she’d finally worn me down. Gracious in victory, she nodded. ‘I’ll be free at eleven. You can come to my study.’
‘Thank you.’ I forced as much humility and gratitude as I possibly could into the words.
I thought Blaine was about to leave, but at the last second she turned to Finn. ‘You should be grateful to Lilith for taking the time to look after you, darling.’
‘I am.’
‘Good. And thank you for last night’s entertainment. You were very... versatile, is perhaps the best word. Chester and Ellis were delighted with your performance. They asked that I gave you their gratitude, and let you know that they’re hoping to spend some more time with you in the spring.’ Blaine reached inside her jacket. ‘I thought you might like a reminder of your talents.’ She dealt three photographs of the previous night’s savagery neatly on the duvet. ‘You’ve always been the most photogenic of my staff.’
Finn picked them up and everything fell apart.
With a desolate howl, he dived from the bed, retching and wild-eyed, heading for the bathroom. He crumpled on the floor before he got halfway there.
Blaine observed Finn’s reaction with that same self-satisfied smile she had worn the night before, as if the universe existed simply to provide her with an endless private joke. ‘Enjoy your morning,’ she said to me, once she’d had her fill. ‘I’ll see you at eleven.’ A final approving glance, and she was gone.
I dragged the duvet from the bed and wrapped it around Finn. He still held the photographs so tightly that his knuckles blanched.
‘Give them to me, sweetheart,’ I prised the pictures from his grip and threw them onto the fire. They flared briefly, then burned away to nothing.
‘Get away from me. I’m disgusting,’ Finn did his best to push me back, but I caught his wrists.
‘And when Coyle stuck his filthy fingers inside me, did that make me disgusting?’
‘No!’
‘So look at me.’ He gave one last attempt to escape my grip, but there was barely any fight left in him. ‘Look at me.’ His eyes finally met mine. ‘What happened was disgusting. What they did; what they made you do. But that wasn’t you, do you hear me? Stay with me, Finn.’
‘I thought you were gone, Lili. I thought you were gone, so I let them.’
‘No you didn’t. You just had nowhere left to run, and that’s not consent, Finn. It’s nowhere near.’ I pulled him close. I could feel every rib as his chest began to heave.
The first sob came from so deep inside that it bent him double in my arms, then a lifetime of grief spilled to the surface. There was nothing Finn could do but cry as it consumed him, and there was nothing I could do but hold him close until it ended. I had no more words, so I sat on the cold floorboards and embraced the thing that I had once feared most in the whole world: the chaos and fragility of a life cast so far adrift that there didn’t seem to be any way to rescue it.
Finn
I needed to stop. I was making a tit of myself over nothing at all. I needed to go and hide until I’d sorted my head out, so I could tell Lilith that it really didn’t matter, but I couldn’t form real words; I needed to do a lot of things, and none of them appeared to be possible right now.
I had never cried, as far as I could remember. Not once. There was a certain masochistic pride to be had in that. Sure, I had yelled out often enough, but this shit with the tears and the snot and the scrabbling for breath was entirely new to me, and I didn’t know what the hell to do. All I knew was that I couldn’t stop the noise for the life of me, and that Lilith was the only thing anchoring me to what remained of my sanity.
All that time, she wordlessly held me and let me howl. I cried for me, for the damage that had been done to her, even for my bloody dog, and by the time the worst of it had come to an end, I wasn’t even making proper sounds; instead a strange, high rattle replaced my voice, and my broken chest ached as I sucked in air with a series of ridiculous, hiccoughing sobs.
Eventually I found enough air to murmur, ‘M’okay.’
‘You’re not okay, Finn. In fact, I’d say you were about as far from ‘okay’ as a human being could get right now, short of being dead.’
I attempted a smile that probably looked more like a gargoyle’s grimace. ‘Was aiming for that. The ‘dead’ thing.’
‘I guessed. And you’ll never know how grateful I am that you failed.’
/>
‘Makes one of us. What the fuck do I do now?’
‘What we’re going to do now is deal with this. One step at a time. Starting with getting you cleaned up.’
‘We’, I mouthed, and just that word threatened to set me off again. ‘You can’t, Lili. Too risky. You’ve got to stay away...’
‘We tried that one, remember? We both just spent the last ten days obeying the rules to the very last letter, and I don’t think this can be called a successful outcome by anyone’s standards.’ She sat back on her heels. ‘Anyway, today’s covered. All I need to do is to figure out what the hell we do about the rest of our lives, and we’re sorted.’
‘That’s all right then.’ I glanced up at her. ‘What do you mean, ‘covered’?’
‘I need to run your bath. I’ll tell you later,’ Lilith said, and I decided I was better off living in ignorance.
*****
Just ten minutes later I was submerged to my neck in water that had turned sea-green from the contents of a small bottle that Lilith had swirled under the running taps.
‘How are you doing?’ She sat cross-legged on the floor next to the bath, in case I showed any signs of slipping under and never coming back up.
‘Bit better.’ It was the truth. The warmth of the sweet-smelling, dark water had begun to seep into me and wash away some of the taint. ‘Fighting the urge to reach for the scouring pad, but better.’
‘Do you want me to do that? Not with the scouring pad, obviously.’
‘Please,’ I began, then had to shut my eyes tight against acting like a dickhead again. ‘You’re the first person in this whole fucking place who’s ever asked permission to touch me, you know that?’
Lilith
In the tranquillity of our temporary haven I began to wash him. Finn acquiesced to my touch with such trust that I ached for him, and I had never undertaken a task with such self-conscious care. This was the body that I had spent months coming to know in a detail I could never have imagined; the days when I could gain distance by thinking of him as an anatomist’s model were long dead.