CHAPTER EIGHT
"I want to touch you again."
I kept my expression neutral, staring at Aaron, across the table from me. It had been a month since I watched him on the screens that night. Over thirty days that I'd been in Ward Z, and over a week and a half since I'd been back in to meet with Aaron Whitman. Time had passed quickly and slowly all at once. I hadn't gone back in the little surveillance room since that night Richard had knocked on my door. But I spent a lot time thinking about it. Standing in front of the smooth wood door. It begged me to open it.
I didn't.
"You've made me think about the cold. I've missed it so."
What did that even mean?
No matter how tempting, I hadn't returned, choosing my bed instead, where I laid awake each night, my mind racing.
You're committed to this job, Adeline. You're not going to fuck it up over some fascination with a patient.
Though I was beginning to think fascination was too mild a word for it. Aaron interested me far more than any patient had, ever. I'd spent many nights poring over his file, perhaps the only thing that kept me from the surveillance room. The ins and outs of his life characterized through newspaper articles and half-explained doctors' notes. The internet had provided more, revealing Aaron Whitman as some sort madman playboy. The photos of him online revealed someone else. Someone younger, but not quite the same and not just because of age. Those hours in front of my computer only made our sessions that much more complicated for me. I wanted to understand, to peer into his head and know who he was and how he landed here at Silent River in Ward Z. But each session seemed to reveal less and less about Aaron. Each time I left his room I found myself further from understanding who he was than before I entered.
It didn't make sense.
"Let's talk about your past, Mr. Whitman."
"Aaron," he corrected me. "Why are you acting different?" His fingers tapped their rhythm on the table. "Why haven't you been back to see me? It's been ten days. Ten fucking days, Violet." Anger laced his words.
"I have other patients, Mr. Whitman."
"Aaron." He raised his voice an octave.
I didn't meet his gaze directly, looking instead at the script across his forehead. "I'm sorry, Aaron." I repeated. "I have other patients who require my attention." It wasn't a lie. I did have other patients and I'd spent the last week and a half lending more of my focus to them. It turned out Z01, the muzzle man and cannibal, Raymond Smithers, was the easiest experience with a patient I'd had yet, and he had been, by far the one I dreaded the most. He'd been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder – basically meaning he had multiple personalities. I had tentatively entered his room, after reading his file and discovering that the nurse, Christopher had indeed been telling the truth. Smithers was, basically in every sense of the word, a cannibal. He'd murdered his live-in girlfriend and claimed to have no recollection of how, or what happened to her. He'd lapsed into this cannibalistic personality many times since then, killing police officers and security guards while he was imprisoned in the time leading up to the trial for her murder in the late 1960s, until his ultimate incarceration as a patient at Silent River.
The photographs on file of the dismembered and half-eaten bodies, had my fingers trembling as I entered Z01 the first time. I kept seeing the permanent teeth marks in Christopher's arm in my head. I'd dreamed about it, about the long dead doctor who'd gone into his room to be removed more than a week later by his colleagues and practically a whole SWAT team. The pictures had been the most disturbing. I probably shouldn't have looked at them, but I did. The black and white photographs of Dr. Edwards eyeless and his mutilated face had kept me up at night.
In spite of all of that – Raymond Smithers had been perfectly pleasant during my first session with him and in all meetings we'd had since. His muzzle didn't do much to distort his voice. We discussed the weather and he'd told me about his childhood, growing up in Wilmington, Alabama – about his parents who owned a small farm and a sister who hated the walk to school. Simple things. Normal things. The hours had passed with ease, and I'd felt accomplished when I left each time. I'd faced Z01, the cannibal of Ward Z and it was fine. Everything was fine.
I'm doing this!
"I want to touch you again, Violet."
I allowed myself to smile at Aaron, not letting it reach my eyes. Keep your professional distance, Adeline.
He leaned forward. "It's all I can think about. It grows a little more each day. I can't take it."
I looked away from his tattoo, down at my notebook. "Why don't we talk about your childhood, Aaron? I want to know more about your past."
"Your skin was so fucking soft. My nails slipped right inside your flesh." This wasn't the first time he brought this up. In fact two of our sessions had been characterized by nothing but this. Him talking about touching me again.
You're a professional, Adeline.
I didn't want him to know how many times I had looked at those half-moon impressions his nails had left in my skin, how many times I had run my fingers over the tiny wounds. I glanced down at my hand. They'd been gone for some time now. I mourned them.
"Like they were meant to be there. Inside you."
I glanced up, letting out a whoosh of air. Heat had spread across my skin. I adjusted the front of my white coat, hoping he couldn't tell.
Hang in there Adeline. You've only been in here like two minutes, don't come undone!
I'd spent the last month convincing myself that my strange response to Aaron Whitman was stress-related, provoked by fear and entrance into my new position.
I cleared my throat. "Tell me about the Purgatory Brotherhood, then, and about the Brotherhood Homes."
He continued to tap his fingers. "Why?"
Excitement jumped under my skin. He typically didn't respond to my questions, at least not in any sort of direct way. Rather, he would stare at me with his unnerving, twitchy gaze and talk about something unrelated, typically something that had to with my insides.
"They were a charitable organization. They helped homeless children." I flipped through the folder of positive newspaper articles. "This article here talks about a home you opened nine years ago, that you opened it personally, even though you had become a sort of celebrity inside Detroit. You worked on the ground with homeless people you employed to build the newest home."
"Ah, so you want to romanticize me, huh, Violet?" A smile spread across his face, making his tattoos crinkle. "Talk about all the good I've done so you won't feel bad about the little crush you've formed on me. That's it isn't it?" He tapped both hands in sync with one another.
My mouth gaped open for a moment before I recovered. "Romanticize you? Crush?"
"Yes. You want to fuck me, and you don't want to feel bad about it."
My head snapped back as if I had been slapped, the movement involuntary. "That's not—"
"Not wrong," he finished for me.
Flustered. That's what I was. Irritation burned under my skin.
Who is he to act like he knows me?
"I'm just wondering about the man who helped build those places, who helped the homeless. That same man ended up becoming one of the most volatile men in Detroit." I flipped farther back in his file, trying to keep the hostility out of my voice. More newspaper articles that traced Aaron's and the Brotherhood's demise. "The number of people who have died by either your hand, or your orders have been estimated to number in the thousands." I snatched an article out of the folder and held it up.
Whitman and Brotherhood: Largest terrorist organization in America
"When, and why did you change your mind? When did you go from charitable helper of the poor to terrorist?" I pulled out another article.
Purgatory Brotherhood bomb APlex Mall, hundreds dead
I dropped the article on the table and tapped my finger on the headline. "What happened?"
"Ooooh, look at you! Someone is all huffy and puffy. That didn't take long. Guess I hit the nail on the head." His smile still in place. "You like me under your skin too, don't you?"
I hated that he was right. I was breathing hard, irritated with him, and myself.
What the hell is going on with me? Why am I letting him bother me like this?
I'd done well this last month. Sure, Aaron had been on my mind a lot, but I had managed to stay professional in each session. I squeezed my legs together under the table, hating the tingling heat between them.
"What happened, to the side of your head? Did that happen when you were a child?" I referred to the severe scarring, where no hair would grow, the remnants of a tattoo lost in the mottled skin.
He smiled. "No, Violet."
I furrowed my brow, letting challenge seep into my eyes. "No?"
"That's right. No." He spoke slowly.
I had the urge to smack him.
Just leave before you do something crazy.
Just as I was about to stand up, he spoke. "Okay, fine, Violet. I'll give you a break, I don't want you to leave yet." He chuckled. He fucking chuckled, like he was genuinely enjoying himself. "The Brotherhood was a passion of mine. We were never perfect, though."
I glanced up, surprised he actually responded to something I asked.
"Where was the transition though, how did you go from charity to terrorism?" I asked, hating that my voice sounded a little breathless.
"Aren't they one in the same?"
"Charity and terrorism?"
"Yes." He wasn't smiling anymore.
"Do you believe they are the same?" I asked.
"Charity is helping someone and terrorism is simply helping someone else."
I frowned and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, mulling over his words. "But doesn't terrorism inspire fear, don't its roots grow out of hatred?"
"Sure, Violet. But doesn't everything find its roots in some sort of ugly form of hatred?"
"I'm not sure I understand what you mean."
"Charity, the word itself, finds its origins in religion, Christianity specifically, meaning to give love and help to fellow man. Christianity, a religion, has an othering effect. The religion itself damns those outside of it, until they are saved and within. Does it not? Thus, charity and its intentions come from a religion based on change – deception. Those unwilling to change, find themselves on the wrong side of history, resulting in my favorite," he paused and winked at me, "violence."
"So," I twirled my pen in hand. "You're saying that to help someone – charity – is to try to change them?"
"Yes."
"And all change is bad?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Change is just that. It's change. Good and bad are a perception within the self – an opinion – nothing more."
I considered this, surprised by his sudden bout of clarity. "Then you think terrorism is a form of change."
"Terrorism is a new word, Violet. I didn't instruct to have that bomb planted in that mall so I could be proud and call myself a terrorist."
"Then why did you have the bomb planted there?" My gaze was locked with his gray one now. The black around the edges sucking me in. I'd read the stories. I'd watched the videos on my computer. The terror as people rushed from the mall that winter day. The interviews with the family members, the mothers who lost their children in the blast. A tragedy, truly. The videos had made my heart ache. It still ached.
"Business, Violet. Sometimes it gets messy."
I furrowed my brow. "Murder. Your business involved killing innocent people. That's murder, the complete opposite of charity."
"I was a murderer before anyone ever called me a terrorist, Violet. I was a murderer before I ever sat on the seventeenth floor of the Sigment building. How do you think I even got there to begin with? How do you think I was able to create the Brotherhood?"
I blinked and rubbed my neck. "You went to college, you beat—"
"Beat what? The odds? Are you really buying the bullshit in those newspapers?" He paused. His fingers still tapping. "The only thing I beat were those who opposed me, with violence."
"So you didn't go to college?" Why did my voice sound almost whiney?
Aaron rolled his eyes. "I did, but that's not what put me where I landed. That's not how I created one of the largest crime syndicates in the nation."
"But you were a charitable organization—"
"It was a front."
"So you didn't want to help those peo—"
"You aren't listening, little Violet." He shook his head, almost as though he was disappointed in me. "What do you expect from me? Did you come in here and expect me to be sorry about these things? Did you expect me to repent?" His voice raised an octave. "Do you want to redeem me?"
I opened my mouth, but no words came out.
"Is that what all this is about - so you can feel better about the fact that you haven't been able to stop thinking about me since the moment you laid eyes on me?" Aaron leaned against the table. The silver bracelets that connected to the electronic chains, pressed against his wrists, against the black ink there. The word Love jumped out at me. I hadn't noticed it before, but there it was, right there on his wrist, in his skin. "I can see it in your eyes when they look at me." He licked his lips. "In the way they dilate ever so slightly when the conversation gets deep and heavy. You like it there, don't you? Where words are powerful and thick with meaning."
"I—"
"I can see it in the way your cheeks flush – just a twinge of pink. The heat that spreads across your chest. It's just blood rushing to the surface of your skin. A simple reaction, one that most wouldn't notice." His fingers tapped while the bracelets pressed hard against his skin. "But I'm not most, Violet. Don't you know that? I'm different. Better. I see it all. The way you adjust your shirt, when your skin gets too hot. How you toy with the ends of your hair when you're thinking, considering the weight in my words. You can't hide anything from me."
I tried to stop the heat that spread across my face, my chest as he spoke, but I couldn't. It seemed I was helpless to control my own body when it came to Aaron. I cleared my throat and shuffled through the papers in Aaron's folder.
"You don't know what you're talking about Aaron."
He smiled, the dark ink in his skin crinkling. "You'd be surprised what I know, Violet."
"Would I?"
"Yes. You're already surprised, but you just don't want to admit it. That's okay. You don't have to. I know, and that's enough."
My hands were shaking. Not from anger, not from irritation that he had me pegged. I wanted to touch him. The reaction was natural for me. I'd always been fascinated with touch, but I'd never had such a desire to touch a patient before.
I wanted to trace the tiny little block letter word Love with a capital L. It was pathetic. Unrealistic. I shouldn't have wanted these things. He was a monster. A murderer. I tried to force the voices of those tearful parents of dead children to the front of my brain so I could be disgusted with him. It didn't work.
"This is all just a part of your game, isn't it?" I asked. "The one you talked about during our first session. You're trying to mess with my head."
He leaned back. "You think so?"
"Yes."
"Perhaps. I am having fun – are you? Games are supposed to be fun, so I guess I can't complain." He chuckled and stared at me. "Are you, Violet, are you having fun with me?"
I crunched my eyebrows together. I didn't know how to answer that. "That depends – is your whole life a game? Is this how you spend most of your time? Trying to figure people out? Is this your game?"
"Maybe. Maybe it's not a game. Maybe this isn't real, Violet. Did you consider that?"
"Do you wish it wasn't real?" I asked him.
"I don't wish for anything. I know better than that."
I frowned. "Why is that?"
"A wish is just that. It's something you want – but how could I want something I don't understand. If this wasn't real, then what would it be?"
I shook my head, uncertain.
"See, Violet," he leaned forward again, lowering his voice, "when you wish for something, when you want something from the very marrow of your bones, it becomes a part of you and it has the power to destroy you. To wish is to make a mistake."
A mistake.
"Have you made that mistake before?" I asked.
His gaze seemed to darken, the gray of his irises becoming a dense fog. "We all make that mistake, don't we, Violet?" There was something sad about his demeanor. I couldn't explain it, but it was like a cloud descended over him, causing him to pull the little pieces of himself he let out back into himself.
I didn't want that. I wanted, needed, to know more about Aaron Whitman, about what made him tick.
"Who broke you?" The words were out, in the air between us, before I realized I had spoken them.
He leaned back. His fingers stopped tapping. Silence.
The bland, sterile, silence engulfed us. It took up all the space between us, around us, inside us until time didn't exist. Nothing existed except the silence.
"The cold," he said, finally. His fingers began tapping again.
"The—"
"Have you heard the story about the woman, attending her mother's funeral?"
"I—what?"
"The woman, Marissa," he said, "she was young. Your age, late twenties. Her mother had cancer. It was sudden, her death, like those can often be. Alarming and out of the blue. She found out she had cancer, and then she was dead three weeks later." He snapped his fingers. "Like she had never existed at all. Marissa went to the funeral. Her little sister, Shellie, was there. They were sad, as people most often are at funerals." He cocked his head to the side as he spoke. "They only had a graveside service because her mother didn't have life insurance. Cheaper. It was a hot day, sweltering. They lived somewhere in the south. A man came. Someone Marissa had never seen in her life. She was enamored with him." Aaron's gaze flitted over my face. "Enraptured by him. He was kind, caring. She didn't even care how he knew her mother. That didn't matter to her. It was love at first sight. She decided it was fate – her mother's death wasn't in vain because it brought her and this man together. But he left before she could get his number, or even his last name."
I frowned. "What does this have to do with—"
"Marissa was frantic, once she realized he had left. She searched for him, Violet. She tracked down everyone she knew that had attended the funeral and asked them about him. But no one knew him. She got nowhere. Two weeks later, Marissa's little sister Shellie is murdered."
"Murdered?" I asked.
"Yes, by Marissa."
"Marissa murdered her own sister? Why?"
A slow smile spread across Aaron's face. "You tell me."
My pocket started buzzing, and I quickly pulled out the work phone I'd been given when I started down in Ward Z. It was Richard.
"Yes," I answered, distracted.
"Christopher has some paperwork from the main office for you to look over."
I frowned. "I'll look over it once this session is over."
"What? Your session was supposed to end twenty minutes ago. Are you still in there?"
I glanced down at my watch, confirming Richard's words. "Ah, I'll be out in a moment."
I slipped the phone back into the pocket of my jacket.
"Leaving already? We were just getting to the fun stuff, Violet."
I didn't respond. I didn't even look at him. What was there to say? I didn't even know what the fuck had just happened over the last hour and twenty minutes, it seemed as though I had only been in here ten minutes at the most – nor did I know how to characterize it with some sort of response. My insides felt like jelly, uncertain viscous liquids. I stood up.
"Wait." His voice held an element of panic.
Panic because he's afraid I won't come back?
"Watch the camera tonight."
"What?"
He motioned with his head at the camera.
I said nothing as I moved toward the door. "And Violet?"
Just leave.
I turned back around.
"I want an answer next time."
"About what?"
"Why you think Marissa killed her little sister."
His head was still cocked to the side. He hummed now, in time with his fingers. His hair, his eyes, his tattoos they were so dark amongst all the white that surrounded him, like splattered ink on a clean page. Something inside me reached for it, desired it – to smear the darkness until it covered everything.
Even me.