Grayson

To break a person of their will, you have to break their hold on life itself. London knows this all too well. She employs this very tactic with her patients. Gradually stripping them of all hope.

Hope.

It’s hope that gives a person the strength to fight, to persevere, to overcome. To live. Take their hope away, and you’re left with a perfectly pliable, shell of a person to mold and shape. I don’t have to agree with the psychology of it to appreciate the process, the structure. It’s brilliant.

You could say it appeals to the welder in me, and the puzzler. I enjoy the building part more than the tearing down, and that’s why London and I are a perfect match.

Together, we’re complete. We’re whole.

All these years, I’ve been missing an important aspect of the process. Torture isn’t enough. Physical pain isn’t enough. It’s the psychological element—the total mental destruction—that breaks a person. Like a twig, when the mind is bent to the snapping point, the slightest outside pressure will break it clean through.

I admit this is a recent revelation. I’m prone to stick with what I know, the tried and true methods of my craft. In her presence, I’m lacking. But I hope she’ll come to appreciate my methods just as I admire hers.

I turn the key, locking the cell door, then pocket my key ring. London is curled into a ball in the middle of the room, looking beaten, defeated. But I know better. She’s dressed in one of my T-shirts and a pair of my sweats. She’s disheveled and beautiful.

I didn’t build this dungeon for her—I built it with the idea that one day it would serve a purpose. Which proves how fortuitous we are. A twisted design by fate itself.

It’s perfect.

“Did your father have a light?” I ask her. I relight the candle that went out during our struggle to put her in the cage.

“Did you make this cell for me?” she counters. “How long have you been planning to take me?”

I lower into a crouch and slide a plate of food under the bar. Spaghetti and two pain pills. “Take them sparingly.” It’s not the freshest meal, but not too much else can be kept for long without spoiling.

“Answer me.”

“Believe it or not, London. Not everything is a conspiracy against you. That’s the paranoia kicking in.” I tap my temple. “I welded this jail because I’m a welder. It’s what I do. I spent time here myself, staring at the bars, getting accustomed to them.” I run my hand along the cold iron. “I spent a year incarcerated in solitary confinement. I can be a very patient man. I’ll wait for you for as long as it takes.”

She sits up, brushes her hair out of her face. “Can you at least tell me where we are.”

“That’s not what you’re really asking. Our location serves you no purpose.” I sit, making myself comfortable across from her. “You’re asking how likely is the chance that the authorities will find you. This house isn’t in my name. Technically, it doesn’t belong to me or anyone that can be connected to me. It will be a while before you’re found.”

A spark of hope ignites in her dark eyes.

I’ve given her just enough to keep going. She’ll need that tiny flicker of hope to survive her dungeon.

“I have to get rid of the car.” I stand and brush down my jeans. It’s liberating to be out of the orange jumpsuit. “I can’t risk it being spotted. That would be irresponsible.”

“Don’t leave me.”

Her voice is small and fragile. She looks almost helpless on the floor, surrounded by wrought-iron bars. She looks lost.

Another of her sins: deceit. She’s mastered the art of duplicity. In order to fool others, she has to live the lies. As a narcissist, she even believes them. The structure of her world depends on her falsehoods. When London's truly at her breaking point, only then will the dam give, and the truth rush free.

I don’t have an infinite amount of time with her, however. I’m not deluded enough to think that this won’t fail absolutely. Her mind is her strongest attribute. And again, that’s her specialty, not mine. She needs a push.

Bracing my hands on the bars, I say, “It’s strange what impacts us. What defines us. People don’t remember the good. They remember what guts them.”

She gets to her knees. Keeping herself beneath me, giving me the assumption of power. She’s an expert. I smile.

“I’ve been gutted, Grayson. My life is no fairytale. The punishment you’re inflicting on me…I’ve already suffered. Any sins I may have committed throughout my life, I have paid for them already.”

“Have you.”

She squints at me. “You know I have.”

I press my forehead to the bars. “Your patients suffered, too. Granted, they were sick individuals. Where we’ve been able to channel our sickness, control our compulsions and hide in plain sight, they’re not as talented. They lack impulse control. But that’s where the good doctor comes in.” I smile at her. “You are the best in your field.”

She gets to her feet. “Go to hell.”

I laugh. “Which one?”

A disgusted expression tugs her features into a scowl. “I strove to help my patients despite a world that would see them executed, exterminated. Like vermin.” She clears her hair from her eyes. “As rehabilitation became more and more unlikely, I still fought for my patients.”

“You have a bit of Florence Nightingale about you, don’t you? You fall a little in love with all your patients—that give and take, sacrifice and consume, like a lovesick couple. Except for you, it’s all about the take.”

She regards me cautiously. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re an artist, London. Your practice is like a dance. A bloody ballet where you warp and break the minds of your patients like a dancer’s body. You devour their gifts, and when they’re used up and broken, you discard them to the nearest insane asylum.”

She stands still, her eyes gauging me. She’s not the prey; she’s the hunter. “You’ve fabricated a very rich story for me, Grayson. None of which is real.”

I cock my head. “When did the headaches start?”

The confused draw of her eyebrows is her only response.

“I bet they’ve been happening more frequently lately. Becoming more painful, lasting longer.”

“I’ve worked harder this year than at any other point in my career. Of course I’m going to suffer physically for that.”

“You sure have been working hard. What about Thom Mercer?”

She shakes her head. “What about Thom?”

“Being inside prison, you meet a lot of unsavory types. A lot of whom were your patients. Thom was a very disturbed individual. The things he said…” I tsk. “If you hadn’t already destroyed him, he may’ve ended up as one of mine.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Thom Mercer was committed to Cotsworth’s psychiatric ward as a functionally medicated schizophrenic. He was one of my most acclaimed case studies.”

“Who hung himself with his bed sheet.”

Her face pales in shock. “Why are you doing this. Why are you lying?”

“Come on. Is lying a part of my disorder?”

She looks away, paces the cell. “No, but creating an elaborate disaster is. I won’t fall victim to this. I won’t become your next disaster.”

“Oh, London.” I love the way her name tastes; like fresh lilacs. “Why do you think I was so tempted from the start? You came to me as a beautiful disaster already.”

She rushes the cage. Like a wild animal, she grips the bars and throws her body into a violent fit to rattle her prison. I stand unmoved on the other side. The bars don’t give. “Fuck you. Fuck you—” She says it over and over, a breathy chant falling from her lips.

Breathing heavy, she sags against the iron, her grasp on the bars barely keeping her upright. I rest my hands over hers. “There’s only one way out,” I say. “You’re smart enough to figure out how.”

Her gaze latches on to me. “Did before—between us—mean anything to you?”

I press my mouth to her fingers, inhale her scent. “It meant everything.”

“Then you can’t do this, Grayson. You’re confused…you think this is love? Disempathetic types don’t torture their loved ones. You should be protecting me from your illness, not inflicting it on me.”

A laugh bursts free. “But that’s a myth, right?”

Her brows crease together. “And I’m a liar, right?”

I reach through the bars and grasp the back of her head, dragging her to me so I can taste her. I linger there, just feeling her breaths pulse against me, before I release her. “Because I do love you, I’ll give you what I’ve never given anyone before.” Her eyes widen as I back away from the cage. She clings to her hope, waiting to hear the word freedom. But I can’t grant her that. It’s solely within her power to be set free.

“Here’s your one hint, London,” I say, and pick up the candle. “Think of this as your confessional. What Dr. Mary Jenkins was too proud, too vain to admit, you can divulge in secret. Only the cage to hear your whispers.”

A hysterical laugh springs from her mouth. “And a camcorder, right?” Through with pacing, she settles next to her dish and stares at the food. “I’m not like Dr. Jenkins. I didn’t lobotomize my patients.”

“No, you didn’t. That would’ve been too obvious. You’re smarter than that. Better at impulse control. But yet, here you are, just like the others, caught in a web of your own design.” I move toward the door. “Time to admit to your sins, London. You tortured your patients. You shredded their minds. You played God, trying to find a cure for yourself. Once you can admit that, then the cell door will open.”

She looks up from the plate. “This is what you want me to confess?”

“Yes.”

She lifts her hands in surrender. “Fine. I confess it. Now open the fucking door.”

I pause in the doorway. “You know it’s not that simple, love.”

It’s fleeting, but for a second, panic slips across her face. She’s about to be abandoned. In a cage like her father kept his girls. She claws at her clothes, searching for a loose thread, her hair in tumbled disarray. Wild and frantic. “I want to see Thom Mercer’s file,” she says.

I rub the back of my neck. “That’s a hard demand to meet out here—”

“I want to see it,” she snaps.

I exhale heavily. “I’ll make it happen.” Then I turn to leave.

“No,” she says, halting me just outside the door. “My father didn’t allow light in his basement. He held them in the dark.”

I keep her gaze. I promised to set her free, and I will. Set her free of the pain, and her crippling humanity. But first she has to face the dark. Even she knows this.

From the very beginning, people have divided good and evil. Two beings fighting for dominance. I don’t believe in divine beings. Life is simpler than that. We’re our own gods and devils. Capable of the vilest evil and of the holiest righteousness. We make our own rules, and create our own heavens and hells.

We choose them every day.

I douse the flame and close the door, shutting out the light. Leaving London to war with her demons in her personal hell.