Maddox
I see Cassandra, the gun and the flip lighter, the flame—and I see Eden tied to a chair. She’s crying, but there’s something oddly matter-of-fact about the tears, like part of her has already accepted that what Cassandra is going to do is inevitable.
Rage explodes in my chest, courses down my arms to my fingertips. I clench my fists and march to the front door. I’m about to throw it open when something occurs to me. It’s a cool idea behind the rage, the leader of The Miseryed speaking in my mind. I want to rush in there and floor Cassandra, but she has a goddamn lighter in her hand, and I know she’ll do it. She wouldn’t think twice about it.
I raised my trembling fist and knock on the door twice. Knock-knock.
Cassandra is droning on and on about how this is the right thing to do, the only way. I can hear the satisfaction in her voice. I remember meeting her at the club, looking her up and down and thinking how hot it would be to have her. I never guessed, not at the start, what lay beneath her smiling face. It was even worse when I learned she was at the same college as me, doing the same course. Did she stalk me? I used to ask myself. Or is it a coincidence? I almost laugh: Well, I know now, don’t I?
At the sound of my knocks, Cassandra’s voice cuts away. “Who’s that?” she hisses after a moment. “Who the hell is that?” She sounds like an actress who’s furious at having her big moment in a play interrupted. “Are you expecting company?”
“Sometimes the m-m-mailman knocks.” When Eden stutters, I know that Cassandra has the gun pressed against her head. Without having to see, I can see it: Cassandra’s arms standing taut, muscular, the gun pressed flat and cruel against Eden’s skin. If you touch her, I think.
Footsteps sound across the house, coming toward the door. Good, I think, feeling like I do before a fight. My body is buzzing. My knuckles itch as though they can’t wait to feel the slap of a good punch. Even now, the idea of hitting a woman doesn’t appeal to me. But Cassandra isn’t a woman. She’s a goddamn demon. And I have no qualms about hitting a demon.
The footsteps stop a couple of feet from the door. “Hello?” Cassandra says. The transformation in her voice is terrifying. One second she’s mean and low and gloating; the next she’s the waitress at a fancy restaurant asking you if you’d like a refill. “Who is it?”
She’s too far from the door. A couple more feet and she’d be close enough. Then I could barge in and tackle her. But standing where she is, I can’t get to her. If I ran in, maybe . . . But then she could just as easily swing the gun and kill Eden. I bite down on my tongue, knowing that if I speak, she’ll recognize me. Even if I put on a different voice, she’d know. Cassandra isn’t the sort of person to forget things like that.
Hell, Cassandra isn’t the sort of person to forget anything.
Just two more steps, I think. Just walk forward two more steps.
But she doesn’t. She’s close enough so that I can hear her breathing, but working for The Miseryed, you get a sense of space. You know when a man – or a psychotic woman – is close enough to rush and when he’s not. You know when you can take someone and when someone will take you. My whole body is shaking with rage, but I fight it down and wait.
“Helloooooo,” she sings, and she could quite easily be an old mother waking her son for school, trying to be as nice as possible.
And then the footsteps recede, moving away from the door.
Damn it.
I back away from the door and creep back around to the window. When I poke my head up, she’s staring straight at me.
***
“Maddox!” she grins, the flame flickering in one hand and the gun pointed straight at Eden’s head with the other. “How nice of you to join us!”
Eden has bitten back her tears, but a few drops still glide noiselessly down her cheeks. I want to hold her, more than anything. Just hold her and tell her that everything is going to be okay, hold her and let her know that I’m here for her and that I’ll never let anything like this happen again. I’m here now, I imagine myself saying. You’re safe. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’ll protect you.
But Cassandra holds the gun like she means to use it.
“Cassandra,” I say.
“Raise your hands,” Cassandra says. “I don’t want any funny business.”
I lift my hands above my head, and Cassandra nods with satisfaction.
“I always loved your hands, you know. Really. They know exactly what to do, don’t they? Exactly where to tickle. Exactly where to glide. I often dream about how they would move down my body, to my you-know-where.” She winks, and then licks her upper lip. The way it moves, she looks like a snake. “Why are you here, Maddox? Tell me that.”
“To save Eden,” I grunt.
“You look angry,” Cassandra comments. “Are you angry, Maddox?”
“Of course I’m angry,” I hiss.
“But why?” Cassandra sighs. “Why would you be angry? I’m doing this for us. Just for us. I want us to be together. Isn’t that sweet? Isn’t that worthy of some respect? Isn’t that worthy of something? I don’t see that it has to be like this.”
“You’re holding a gun to my girlfriend’s head,” I say.
“Don’t call her that!” Cassandra screams.
She hefts the gun and brings it down on the back of Eden’s head. “Ah!” Eden squeals as the gun connects. Then her head slumps forward, her chin resting on her chest. Her hands, which had been gripping the arms of the chair for dear life, go limp. Her eyelids flutter. She’s awake, but dazed, the way you are after you get sucker punched.
“Cassandra,” I growl. “If you do that again, I’ll fucking kill you.”
“No,” Cassandra says, pressing the gun into the nape of Eden’s neck. “I don’t think you have it in you to kill me. You see, I think you still love me.”
You’re a crazy goddamn bitch, I think. I almost say it, but something stops me. An instinct. The same instinct that makes me an effective leader in The Miseryed. Use their weaknesses. That’s the trick to beating somebody, really beating them. Not knives or bullets or fists. Exploiting weaknesses, and Cassandra’s weakness is me.
I swallow—pride, self-respect. I swallow and force a smile to my face. I know how it must look: ghoulish. Like the twisted lips of a gargoyle. But I also know that Cassandra is the type of woman who’s willing to believe anything about. This is the woman who convinced herself that I wanted to marry her when I’d make no sign in that direction. This is the woman who had twisted her mind into thinking we were lovers.
I’m sorry, Eden, I think.
“Oh, you’re right,” I say, forcing my voice to be syrupy sweet. “You’re right, Cassandra. You’re always right.”
She raises her eyebrows, a dog about to be given a treat, eager. “Hmm?” she says. “Yes . . .”
“I couldn’t hurt you, not really.” Part of me hopes that Eden is unconscious, that she can’t hear any of this. Cassandra’s grip loosens on the gun. Without seeming to realize, she closes the flip lighter. The flame gutters out. “It’s always been you, Cassandra.”
“Do you mean it?” she says, but there isn’t enough suspicion in her voice. She wants to believe it, and when a person wants to believe a thing, it’s all the easier to make them. “Do you really mean it, Maddox? Tell me you really mean it.”
“Of course I do,” I say, acid in my throat. I don’t want to be saying these words, but these are the words that may save Eden’s life. “I’m sorry,” I sigh. I place my hands against the glass of the window, and Cassandra doesn’t seem to mind. Maybe she thinks it’s romantic, that I’m a lover who’s so keen to be with her I want to push the window in. “I’m sorry, Cassandra.”
“For what?” she urges. Her mouth is slightly open and her tongue sticks between her teeth. “For what?”
What would she most like to hear? I ask myself. What would bring her the most joy? Eden lifts her head slightly, opening and closing her eyes quickly. She peers up at me. I shake my head, a tiny motion, a motion Cassandra doesn’t see. She’s too caught up in my performance. But Eden sees it, and she lowers her head. She’s smart; she knows what I’m doing. And she knows it’s best if she’s not conscious while I’m doing it.
“For lying,” I say. “I’m sorry for lying, Cassandra.”
“Yes?” she breathes. “Yes? Yes?”
“I really did say all those things to you,” I say. “I really did say that I loved you and that I wanted to be the father of your children.” For Eden, for Eden, this is for Eden. “I was scared of my own love. Terrified by it. That’s why I lied. I couldn’t stand the thought that I’d been broken so completely by a woman. But I had! I had! You were the woman who broke me, Cassandra. You’re the woman who owns me.”
The grip on the gun loosens even more. I’m making ground, inch by painful inch.
“I always knew it was us,” she says. “I knew it.” She giggles. “Sometimes, Maddy . . .” She licks her lips, tasting the words. She’s never called me that before, but by looking at the way her jaws sets, I can tell she’s already fooled herself into believing it’s a long-used nickname, a name we’ve used with each other for years. “Sometimes, Maddy, I’d wonder if perhaps you were right. If you were telling the truth, I mean. If maybe you didn’t really say all those things. But the memories are so clear. So stark. The memories shine out in my mind like searchlights. How could they be false? So it’s you and me now, yes? We’ll get married and have children and be happy?”
I’d rather die.
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, of course. That’s what I want.”
“Okay, okay, good.”
A weight falls from my shoulders and my hands slide down the glass. Now all I have to do is go around to the door, open it, and keep up the charade long enough to get close to her. Then it’s over, and Eden is safe. Then we can forget that this ever—
“Good,” Cassandra says, tightening her grip on the gun. She pushes it hard into Eden’s head. Eden groans.
“Cassandra,” I say. “It’s okay. We can be together now. You don’t have to.”
“I know.” Cassandra looks at me like I’m missing something very obvious. “I know that, silly. So I’ll just clean up here, and we’ll get going.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there’s no reason to let her live now, is there? You’ve picked me, you silly man!”
***
“Wait!” I roar, seeing Cassandra’s finger tighten on the trigger. “Wait! For fuck’s sake, wait!”
Cassandra tilts her head at me. “What? Why? We don’t need her anymore, do we? Why do I need to wait?”
“Why kill her?” I breathe. “Tell me that! Why kill her? There’s no need for it now, is there?”
“There’s no reason to let her live, either,” Cassandra says. As if we’re discussing how much sugar to put in a coffee. As if we’re discussing the weather. Goddamn, this woman is ice. “I don’t see any. Why should we?”
“But why kill her?” I persist. “I’ve chosen you.”
Cassandra chews her lip, thinking it over. How did we get here? I think, looking into Eden’s face. Her trembling lips. Her half-dead eyes. Her head lolls up and down from the strike. I need to get her to a hospital, sooner rather than later. I need to make sure she’s alright. I need to goddamn save her!
“But why?” Cassandra says. “I don’t understand.”
“It will be harder for us to be together if you kill her,” I say. “You won’t just be an embezzler anymore. You’ll be a killer, Cassandra. We can’t have that, can we? Imagine the hunt, the pain. It will be awful. So awful. They won’t stop hounding us. They’ll be after us forever.”
“Oh,” Cassandra says, a small smile on her lips. “You’re sweet, but you don’t need to worry about that. I’ve got everything sorted out. I have contacts, sweetie. Men who can sort fake passports and men who can get us far away from here. I have funds, too. And I imagine you have some funds of your own. We’ll make it out alright. There’s no need for panic.”
She strokes the trigger.
“Cassandra! Stop!” My voice is ragged, the pretense gone. Filled with fiery rage. “Don’t you dare pull that trigger.”
“Maddox, honey,” Cassandra says like a girlfriend trying to convince her boyfriend to go to a show. “What on earth are you talking about? We don’t need her anymore. You don’t need her anymore.”
“She has a child!” I say madly, hardly knowing what I say, just trying to get her to take the gun from Eden’s head. “She has a little boy, Cassandra! You can’t kill her when she has a little boy!”
Cassandra hesitates. “Is that true?” she says, nudging Eden’s head with the barrel of the gun.
Eden winces and then says: “Yes, it’s true. His name is Simon. He’s four.”
“Well, where is he?” Cassandra says. “I don’t see him anymore. Is he upstairs?”
“Yes!” I snap before Eden can answer. “He’s upstairs, Cassandra. You wouldn’t kill someone with their kid upstairs, would you?”
“That is unfortunate,” Cassandra says. “But what am I to do? You see, Maddox, I know you love me. I know you’ve always loved me. But what if there’s even a one-point-one percent chance you have an inkling of feeling for this sweet little bird? I don’t think I can take that. I’m not a jealous woman but—not that, not another woman. When you’re with me, you have to be with me. Nobody else.”
“I will!” I growl. “I will! Just you! Just don’t pull that trigger!”
Behind Cassandra, an old woman appears. A grizzled, bony old woman. Her eyes peer around the door, which leads to the hallway. She takes in the scene, wide-eyed. Okay, okay, I think. This can still work out.
“Just you!” I shout. “Just you, Cassandra!”
Then the old woman rushes into the room.