Chapter Twenty-One - Molly
“Wait,” I say, as he lets go of my coat and starts to turn away. “Just wait a minute, OK?”
“Why?” he asks, giving me a sidelong glare. “You didn’t get the message? I’m a danger to society, Masters. And your job is to protect it. We can’t be friends. We’re enemies—then, now and forever.”
What does that even mean? Then? Now? Forever? But I let it go, trying my best to stay focused even though every time he’s around, I lose my head. “You’re killing those scientists, aren’t you? You’re setting them up to look like suicides and then you’re killing them.” As soon as the words come out I know I’ve made a mistake, because any bit of softness in his expression is immediately gone.
“I never touched them, Detective.” He laughs. But that laugh, holy shit, it sends a chill down my spine. “And no matter where you’re looking or how much you think you’ve got figured out, you’re still in the dark.”
“How would you know? You said you didn’t do it.”
“It’s not about who did it, Masters. It’s about why they did it.”
He’s toying with me.
We watch each other for a few moments. The only sound is the wind passing through the pine trees and the birds. It’s a nice day. The sun is out, the sky is blue, and the temperature is mild.
But down that tunnel he so badly wants to retreat to, it’s black. That’s his world, I tell myself. He’s darkness and he’s giving me a chance to leave.
I should take it.
So I turn away and begin to walk.
“I know who you are,” he calls out after me. It comes out desperate. Like he can’t let me walk away. A ploy to keep this interaction going. “I felt it back there out on that highway. I know more about you than you know about yourself.”
My heart skips as I think of all the possible ways he could be keeping track of me. Cameras in my house? Tracking on my phone? I whirl around and face him again.
“Don’t hate me, Molly,” he says, pulling out his phone and pressing a tab on the screen that makes the rusty gate begin to lift up. “I want you to walk away, I really do. But not before I get my say. Because I never asked for this. I never asked for you to come find me. That was all you. That part was always you.”
“No,” I say, backing up and never taking my eyes off him. “You told me to come find you, Lincoln.”
“You’re wrong. I told you to run. I told you to never look back. I saved you and you don’t even know it. But then there you were out there on the road. Saving me back. And once I accepted the fact that you were really here, I did my best, Molly. I did my best.”
He takes a step out of the tunnel, and my gun is out, pointed at his chest in an instant. But a wave of revulsion hits me in my stomach, enough to make me double over and start to retch.
“Sorry about the inhibition sickness. But fair is fair, right? It’s only temporary, anyway. Not like mine.”
He walks forward, grabs the gun out of my hand and throws it on the ground. The waves of revulsion in my stomach ease.
“What the hell?” I ask, righting myself to look at him through my hair.
“What the hell? What the fucking hell, Molly?” He grabs me by the coat again and gives me a good shake. My head is still spinning and this just makes it worse. “You owe me everything. You owe me your life.”
“Fuck you,” I say, gaining back some control. “Just fuck you, you crazy vagrant. Living in a tunnel. All that weird shit you have in there. Is that hologram your wife?”
He shoves me so hard I stumble backwards and hit a tree, knocking the wind out of me. Now it’s his turn to double over. I can almost feel his pain. I imagine it to be like the revulsion that receded from my own gut seconds before. “You were only eight back then,” he says, spitting on the ground and regaining his composure so he can look up at me from under the hair that drapes over his eyes. “I was fifteen. I had all the power then. You were never gonna live through it, Molly. Not without my help. You were never going to make it. Never.”
“Shut up!” I don’t even know why I’m so mad. But I don’t want to hear anymore. I need to get the hell out of here.
“And when Thomas said, ‘You need to kill her, Lincoln. You need to kill her or she will come back and kill us,’ I didn’t. But I should’ve, Molly. I fucking should’ve done it. And if I was as smart as they say, I would’ve done it.”
I bolt to the left, but he grabs my arm and throws me down on the ground. He straddles me, one foot on either side of my hips, looking down at me like a wolf might look at prey.
A memory flashes through my mind. Fire, everywhere. Explosions.
Lincoln kneels down with me between his legs and shakes his head, grimacing like he’s still in pain, but that only makes him clutch me tighter. I feel fear. Real, honest-to-God fear. “I set you free that night. I told you to run, you stupid girl. I saved you even though your only purpose in life was to hurt me.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” He’s insane. And I’m dead. He is the killer and he’s gonna get me next.
He grabs both my shoulders and gives me another shake. “Remember me, Molly? Remember me? I was your only friend even though you did everything they told you.”
“No, I don’t know you. I don’t know you!” I say, desperate to make everything stop. My head hurts so bad. My vision blurs and my heart is beating so fast it sounds like the thunder created by a galloping horse. “I’m Molly Masters. You’re confusing me with someone else. You’re crazy. You’re a criminal. You hate the world and you want to make me crazy with you.”
He kisses me on the mouth.
Hard and soft at the same time. His hands wrap around my face, pulling me towards him. And then he withdraws and I am so stunned, I cannot move.
“I saved you, Molly,” he whispers into my mouth, trying to kiss me and talk at the same time, grabbing my face like he can’t bear to let me go. “I saved you even though you’ll kill me if you ever have the chance.”
“Stop,” I say, pushing him away, tears streaming down my face. “Stop!” I scream it this time. I kick my feet up and even though I’m trained to take down men twice my size, I am powerless as he looms over me.
“You can’t make me stop, Molly. But don’t worry. I can’t really hurt you. It’s how they made us.”
“No,” I say. “No. Everything you’re saying right now is a lie. I want you to get off me. I want you to let me go. I want to go home, Lincoln. I want to go home—”