She raises her chin, appearing confident. “Maddie Asherford, you aren’t going out and that’s final.”
My patience vanishes. “Oh dear Madison, how ridiculous you are,” I say and her face drains of color. I think she knows who I am. I’ve suspected all along that she might have; the obsession to make her daughter good based on the fact that she knows me and what I’m like. “You better be ready.”
“F-for what?” she stammers, her knees wobbly and she almost falls to the floor. She has to grab on to the sides of the doorframe for support.
I let a slow grin expand across my face then turn away toward the front door. She follows me, demanding for me to stop, but I disregard her, walking out of the house. The alarm screams and she starts shouting at me over the loudness. I shrug her off and go outside into the cold air and walk away beneath the stars and the crescent moon. By the time I reach the end of the driveway, the alarm has silenced. I pause, waiting to see if she comes out of the house, but she doesn’t. She just stares at me from the window and I can picture how relieved she looks that I’m out of the house.
Smiling at her, I give her a little wave and then stroll out into the night, breathing freely.
Chapter 29
Maddie
As soon as I realize I’ve fallen asleep, I jump up in a panic. They drugged me. Preston drugged me and I fell asleep and I… no… My anxiety goes up a notch when I realize I’m lying on the floor on my side in front of the mirror, surrounded by mud tracks. There’s also mud on my skin, my clothes, my hair. My shirt is torn and I have a cut on my finger. And the worst part is my hair is blond, like in the pictures. I’ve transformed overnight into someone else.
Into Lily.
“You dyed my hair.” I shake my head in denial as I touch strands of it. “No… I didn’t… this is just a dream.”
“More like a nightmare,” my reflection says from the mirror, looking just as wrecked as me, yet in more control. “Calm the fuck down, would you? It’s not as bad as it seems.”
I narrow my eyes as I let go of my hair. “What did you do?” I ask, sitting up and tucking my legs under me. “While I was out?”
She rolls her eyes. “I didn’t do anything, except…” She pauses and it’s the longest pause ever. “Well, your mother might be a little upset with you today, more than she already was.”
I clamber to my feet. “What did you do to her?”
She shrugs, but there’s a wicked glint in her eyes, “Honestly, do you really care?”
I briefly pause, deciding. The good rises in me and I dash out of the room and down the hallway. “Mom,” I call out. “Mom, are you here!” I reach her door and try to turn the doorknob, but it’s locked. “Mom, are you okay?” I ask with a desperate knock.
It takes three more knocks before I hear her moving toward the door. She doesn’t open it, but just says, “I’m fine. Now go back to bed.”
“Okay, but…” I scratch my head, wondering why she won’t unlock the door. “You’re okay, right?”
There’s a pause. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
It gets quiet, but I think she’s still standing on the other side of the door. I wait for her to say something about the sedative, thinking maybe I should say something, but Lily tells me not to worry. That she already took care of it.
I always take care of you.
I wander back to my room and shut the door. “What did you do?” I ask aloud, noticing that my window’s wet. It’s been raining outside, the grass is muddy and the streets are puddled. Lily’s been outside somewhere, doing God knows what.
Of course, she decides to play the silent treatment and doesn’t respond. I check the time—four thirty in the morning. I’ve been out for twelve hours. She could do so much in twelve hours. I have to check—have to know. Reaching into my pocket, I hold my breath, waiting to see if I feel a button. I exhale loudly when I don’t feel anything and move my hand to the other one. There is something in this one, but not a button. A piece of paper. I pull it out. No, not paper. A photo of a man. In the picture, he’s just sitting there staring at the camera. Brown hair. Dark eyes. Maybe in his thirties. Not smiling. Not frowning. Not anything. He looks hollow empty. Yet he makes me feel full of emotions I never knew existed inside me and with no control of my own, tears flood from my eyes. I cry for what seems like forever, my shoulders shaking, my body frozen in fear, my heart beating a million miles a minute. Fear. Fear. Fear.
I know this man well.
This is the man who kept me a prisoner.
This is the man that hurt me.
Beat me.
Hurt others.
I’m afraid of him.
“Where did you find this?” I ask, shutting my eyes tightly, willing myself to forget the man. But he’s there in every one of my memories. Killing people. Making me watch. Trying to teach me about wickedness. Evil. When the evil is him.
“From your file in Preston’s office,” she says in the gentlest voice I’ve ever heard her use. “There were a lot of interesting things in there.”
“Like what?” I whisper, but deep down I think I already know. Pain. There’s a lot of pain. Caused by this man, who I know, as well as I know my own mother.
“You really want to see?” she asks cautiously. “Because you really need to make sure you’re ready. It’s worse than looking at that photo.”
I hesitate, opening my eyes and looking down at the photo. Do I really want to know? Pain. My chest aches. Vomit burns at the back of my throat. It’s just a man. Just a man. But I know it’s not. Deep down I think I know who he is, not just the man who kept me prisoner, but I’m not ready to admit it to myself anymore. The things he did to me… to all those people… to Evan. You’re the one who hurt Evan.
“I don’t want to look at it anymore,” I whisper through my tears as I clutch the photo.
“Then get rid of it.”
“I can’t,” I sob, so afraid of the picture I can barely move.
Lily sighs exhaustedly. “Oh, fine. I’ll do it. It’s always been me anyway. I’m your out when you don’t want to do things.”
Without warning, my feet move toward my bedside and my fingers move toward my nightstand drawer. I’m not in control anymore and I’m gratefully handing it over, because I want to stop crying, want to stop staring at the photo that instills fear in me.
I open the drawer and take out the lighter. Then with a flick, I ignite the flame and watch the photo burn.
Burn.
Burn.
Burn.
And only when it’s nothing but ash, gone, dead, burned, do I feel content again.
“Now show me what else you found,” I say, feeling better that it’s gone. Like I can breathe again. Like I’m not a child cowering in the corner.
“Not yet,” she says. “Not until you’re ready.”
“And when will that be?”
“When you can’t feel anything anymore,” she says cryptically. “When you become me. Otherwise you won’t be able to handle it.”
Chapter 30
Maddie
I’m not sure what Lily means by until I become her. Become insane—accept the insane. Maybe she just means become tougher, more capable of handling things the way she does, with such indifference. I want to believe that I can’t get to that place, but with each passing day, it feels like I’m getting closer to it.
It’s been two days since Preston gave me a sedative, almost a week since I last talked to River, almost two weeks since Sydney died and I woke up in Bella’s apartment with blood everywhere. I haven’t heard anything from the cops since Detective Bennerly dropped me off at my house a few days ago, but I don’t think I’m in the clear yet. It’s late, the moon shining through my window, and I have my lamp on. As I sit on my bed, going through my new button collection, it seems like each button holds a memory, but the memory is hidden. What I really would like to know is if the ones my mother got rid of belonged to any murder victims. Was Sydney my first one or have I done this before? In
my memory of the hospital I’d wrote I wasn’t a killer on the wall. But it feels like I am and with everything I’m seeing in the memories, all the death and murder by the man, maybe I somehow turned into him.
Don’t make yourself guilty when you don’t even know if you did it for sure yet. And you could find out if you—
“I know. I know. Become you, but that’s not going to happen. And besides, I’m pretty sure I’ve done a lot of bad things, without you having to tell me about them,” I mumble, scooping up the buttons and letting them slip through my fingers into the box. The sound like heavy raindrops when they land. “I saw it… In hypnotherapy… I think… I took the gun from that girl to shoot that man… but I couldn’t… but it felt like I did shoot him… I think…”
Pitter-patter… pitter-patter… I can hear the rain falling… Hear someone yelling out in anger. It makes me feel sick. Makes me fear what’s going to happen to me in just a few moments.
“Maddie, count the buttons with me. Count the buttons we’ve collected and don’t listen to the screams,” someone says in a gentle voice. “Count the buttons and pretend you’re someone else.”
“You always take good care of me, Evan,” I say, sitting up and scooting forward. One by one, I start counting the buttons. With each one, I feel better, because the buttons are the only things that belong to me anymore. And when he comes to get me, it’s easier to walk up the stairs, even when I know the pain that’s coming because Lily is stronger and handles it so much better. She knows how to turn it off. She knows how to not feel anything and is okay with it.
My hand starts to shake as the voice starts to echo in my head over and over again.
You’re a whore!
You’re a whore!
You’re a whore!
“This is all your fault,” he says as he pins me down. “You make me like this. You and that other whore. You’re evil and so you’re going to have to be punished. The bad must be punished, Maddie.” He touches my hair and the smell of cigarettes, booze, and sweat make me want to puke. I’m holding my breath and I can hear the voice of a woman in the background, the one I’ve heard but never seen like she’s afraid to come in here—see the truth. “This is all your fault, for being such a bad girl. And now you’re going to have to pay for it by watching her suffer and die. But don’t worry, Maddie, she’s been a bad girl too.”
I shake my head. “No.” Then I fight with all my strength to get out from under and somehow I manage to kick him off me. He’s surprised by my strength. He always thought I was the weaker one. But not this time.
I hurry to the nightstand and pick up a lighter while scooping up his bottle of booze and smashing the bottle to the floor. Liquid and glass spill everywhere as I flick the flame on. He rushes at me, screaming at me, that we’ll all die. But I don’t care anymore. About me. Him. Her. Anyone. I feel nothing but hollowness inside as I drop the flame and let the place burn.
My phone starts ringing from my nightstand and the memory fizzles away like dying smoke. It’s eleven o’clock and no one ever calls me, so I’m confused. But I get up and check the screen. It’s from an unknown number. Weird.
“Hello,” I answer, sitting down on my bed. There’s music playing in the background and I can barely hear anything at first.
“Maddie, I need your help.”
My entire body goes rigid. My heart stills. Time stops. “Bella… is that you?” Oh my god, she’s alive. Oh my God, I didn’t kill her. Oh my God, then who the hell’s blood was splattered all over her apartment?
“Yes!” She shouts over the music. “And I….” I hear someone else in the background. “Look, I need you to come down here right now. It’s an emergency.”
“Where the hell are you?” I get up and start pacing my room, biting my nails. Is this real? Or another one of my hallucinations? “You know everyone thinks your missing. The cops are looking for you and everything.”
“I know,” she says warily. “Look, I’m in some really big trouble and I just need you to come down here and pick me up.”
“From where?”
“The bar.”
“I can’t do that…” I struggle with what to say to her that will make sense without having to tell the truth. “Can’t we meet somewhere else? Or maybe you could call the police if there’s something bad going on.”
“I can’t call the cops… I did something… Look, this is really important,” she pleads and it sounds like she’s crying. “You know that guy that I’ve been dating? The one I met from AA?”
“I remember you vaguely talking about him.”
“Well, he and I… well, we’ve been hooking up a lot and I thought I was falling in love with him and everything… But he wasn’t what I thought he was and he got me into some trouble. And I… Look, I really just need you to come get me. I’m hiding out in the back room and I need you to drive me to my place so I can get some stuff and then go to the bus station. I have to get the hell out of town now.”
“What about River?” I ask. “Is he there?”
“No, he never showed up for work tonight,” she tells me and she starts sobbing so hysterically I can barely understand her. “And I don’t dare walk into the bar anyway. I need to lay low… make sure as few people see me as possible.”
“Where’s your car?” I ask, glancing at the clock. “How did you even get to the bar?”
“My car’s home… he dropped me off here… or more like kicked me out,” she says sniffling. “Maddie, I really need you right now. Please?”
I want to tell her just to take the bus, but it makes me feel like an asshole when clearly she’s upset. I knew I should have never made friends with anyone. There’s this unfamiliar sense of obligation to help her out, even if it means getting into trouble. Beside, maybe if I go to her, I can convince her to talk to the police and help eliminate that suspicion toward me. Although, it still won’t explain my fingerprints in whoever’s blood is painting Bella’s house.
“Fine, give me like twenty minutes and I’ll be there,” I say grabbing my leather jacket from my closet.
“Okay,” she says, her voice hoarse. “Thank you so much, Maddie. It means a lot to me.”
“You’re welcome,” I say and hang up, only realizing the alarm is going to go off like a firecracker on the forth of July the moment I open the door. “Now, what?” I ask my reflection as I pull my hair back into a ponytail and put some eyeliner on.
“I’m not the one who told her I’d come get her,” my reflection replies as I apply some red lipstick. “And honestly, the whole thing seems sketchy to me.”
“Yeah, me too…” I shake my head as I pick up my keys. “But I still think I should go down there, even if it is to check on her. It’s important… I need to see… to know if she’s real for myself.”
“Then go,” Lily says with a shrug. “Your mother’s not going to do anything when the alarm goes off—she never does.”
I consider it, but not for very long, then I slip on a pair of boots and I head out of my room. At the front door, I take a deep breath and hesitate before I turn the doorknob. The alarm sounds off and I throw my hands over my ears, running out of the house and to my car parked at the end of the driveway. By the time I have the engine started, my mother’s looking at me from the front doorway. She’s wearing her pajamas, her hair undone, and beneath the light of the porch she looks exhausted. I wait for her to run out and yell at me, but she just scrutinizes me with a look like I just shattered her heart into a thousand pieces. Like I’m about to vanish from her life, like I did six years ago. Like she’s given up on something, perhaps protecting me.
“She could call the cops,” I say, buckling my seatbelt with my eyes glued on my mother. “Technically she owns this car.”
She won’t.
“I hope so,” I say, putting it into reverse and backing down the driveway. “I really do.”
I drive to the bar in fear, constantly checking my rearview mirror for flashing lights and listening for sirens, b
ut they never come. Maybe Lily does know what she’s talking about.
When I reach the bar, it’s around two o’clock, nearing closing time, yet there’s still a lot of people loitering around outside and crammed in the inside. The place is packed, lights low and flashing, and the air smells like must and beer. The music is throbbing, and there are people dancing everywhere, the bar on the stage is empty. The dancers are by the tables instead. As I squeeze my way in deeper, my eyes instantly go to the office window above and I breathe freely when I see that the lights are off. I focus on heading for the back room to get Bella when I get intervened by the waitress who was giving me dirty looks the last time I was here.