London

What does it mean to be liberated?

During my career as a professional psychologist, I’ve counseled many patients, each one mentally shackled in one way or another, chained and bound by limitations. Even the most disturbed personalities who believed themselves to be free were governed by a crippling psychosis.

Take away our matter, and we exist only in thought.

We are all thoughts born of character. Each new moment, each new direction we take and journey we venture is first given birth by thought. This thought here, this is my transformation.

I’m being christened by darkness.

I’ve stared into the reflection of myself and glimpsed the unvarnished truth. Undistorted by the image our mind creates. When faced with that candidness, you can either accept or fracture.

No one can survive the absolute destruction of one’s mind. We’re not tempered glass, we’re delicate shards, and I’m cracking.

Have I used my skills to warp the minds of six men? Have I been the murder weapon in their deaths? Or has Grayson shattered my mind?

Which reality is true?

My bare feet pound the earth as I race toward the edge of the woods. Grayson’s house stands tall and ominous against the night sky, its twinkling lights a refracted halo in the crisp air. I use the sparse light to guide me to the fence. I’m almost there.

Static erupts, crackling against the dark. “Touching the fence will end the game too soon, love. You don’t want to do that.”

I pant, my chest tight, as I stare up at the razor wire. I can hear the buzz of electricity humming along the woven metal fencing. Bastard. I look around, desperate for another escape.

“There’s only one way out,” Grayson’s disembodied voice says. “And that’s in.”

The mouth of the garden maze lays before me, surrounded by high walls of vegetation.

“This is madness,” I whisper to myself. “What if I refuse?” I shout. “What if I sit right here all night?”

The chirring of crickets is my only answer. “Shit.” I bury my head in my hands, taking searing breaths, bone-weary. The ache in my back feels as if I’ve cracked in two—the lower half of my body a web of pain.

Atonement is another thought. It comes to me on a frantic note, a scream ringing out through the night. Somewhere amid the maze, a man awaits his fate. One of Grayson’s victims. What has he done to be here? Is he worthy of saving?

Who has the right to make that choice?

I’m not a savior. I’m definitely not a hero. But I refuse to be this vile creature Grayson has painted me out to be. I’m not the bad thing—I can’t be. My father’s blood doesn’t course through my veins.

I have a choice.

I drag the skirt of the dress up, freeing my ankles, and I sprint toward the opening of the maze. I took an oath as a doctor, and I can’t let gravity pull me into the blackest hole…not yet.

Fire snakes a blistering trail through my lungs as I reach the latticed opening, halting just within to grasp a breath. I find purchase on the wall of green, supporting my weight. Thorns press into my palm, and I pull away.

The screaming is louder here. My skin ripples with shivers. A glow dusts the night above the tall hedges, and I know that’s my destination. I go in.

A cold sweat blankets my skin, my teeth chattering. The deeper I go, winding a path around walls of shadowy green, the colder the nighttime air gets. The temperature plunges as the night grows darker.

“Dammit,” I curse as I hit a dead-end. I spin around, hands fisting my tangled hair. “Where am I going?”

The distorted hiss of the speaker system erupts, and I spin toward the sound.

“You’re too impatient. Head east. You’ll find your patient in the center.”

“Fucking east,” I breathe, my breath fogging. Which way is east? I chase the light instead, navigating the maze by shadows and instinct.

A tinkling sound disrupts the silence that’s been my companion until now. A faint clang whispers in my ears. I follow the chime, dragging the hem of the dress behind me over the worn path. The hollow of the maze brightens as I turn a corner. Shock seizes my chest with a sharp spike.

No.

At first, I refuse to look—to see—so I stare at my hands. My thoughts lost in a void as I’m sucked down by the undertow.

Then I look up at the keys.

A canopy of gleaming silver and bronze and rusted metals held aloft by red string—a blanket woven of blood in the sky. The keys clang together, playing a dark, chiming melody that chills me to the bone.

My voice cracks on a laugh. I glance at the tattooed key on my flesh until my eyes blur. Sweat leaks into their corners, a biting sting like a needle piercing my vision clear.

He knows me.

In my vanity, I concealed the ugly and vile. And yet he saw.

In my profession, your past can be as damning as a wrong diagnosis. Shame is the conception of most sins against ourselves.

Twirling and twinkling like dancing stars in a black sky, the keys glimmer with the reflection of spotlights. Two lights shine on a glass container in the middle of the maze clearing. A tank filled to the brim with what looks like water. A half-naked man suspended above.

He screams as he fights his restraint. “Help me!”

I try to turn around, to go back, but Grayson’s voice cuts through the night to stop me. “Below your patient is a deadly compound containing a heavy concentration of sulfuric acid. A lethal amount that can dissolve flesh and bone. To help him, London, you have to follow the rules. If you deem his life worthy of saving, that is.”

“Fuck you!” I spin in circles, searching. I claw at the beads strung around my shoulders, tugging at them until the necklace breaks, spilling the glass orbs to the ground. “How do I save him?”

“There’s a path you must follow. Stones guide the way. Stand on each and select a key. For every key you choose, your patient will either be lowered or lifted higher above.” He pauses a beat. “There are two special keys I’ve selected for you. One will set the fiend free, the other is the kill switch.”

How do I know which is which?

Breath searing my chest, I look at the container. A labyrinth of tubes wind and connect. Christ.

“Too many wrong choices and your patient will suffer a very close death to that of his victims. But, for every sincere confession you urge from him, redeeming his black soul, you’ll move him farther above his fateful death.”

I tear a hand through my hair. “What did he do?” I shout. “What is his disorder?”

“I’m innocent!” the man cries.

“Shut up!” I look to the keys. “Tell me, Grayson, or I won’t know how to help him.”

I wait, the cold air prickling my skin, before his voice returns. “Roger’s particular paraphilia is pedophilic disorder, though I’m sure you’ll unearth a multitude of others beneath his rotten flesh.”

I nod to myself. Although pedophilia isn’t my specialty, I’ve had two patients diagnosed as such. My stomach pitches. There are few paraphilias that sicken me as much. Grayson chose wisely. I can’t do this.

“At least seven children have suffered due to Roger’s illness,” Grayson says. “And four were murdered, taken from this world by Roger’s hands. Their remains dissolved and buried. He was brought up on charges for only one—his nephew—but the court failed to prosecute due to insufficient evidence.”

Legs weak and trembling, I step onto the first stone. “Why didn’t you just give the authorities the evidence?”

“Because this man had no mercy for his innocent victims, he deserves to be shown none.”

Right. I’m trying to reason with a psychopath. “I can’t do this. You know I can’t do this—”

“One last thing,” Grayson interrupts. “You should know that Roger’s most recent victim, a boy by the name of Michael, has not yet been recovered.”

I look up at the man dangling over the container of acid. Oh, God.

The speaker system clicks off with a screech as I balance on the rock, gaining equilibrium.

A wail rips through the canopy, and I can feel the agony in the gutturalness of it. A scream wrenched from an abyss of never-ending pain. It forces my hand into the air.

I teeter on the rock, bare feet gripping the serrated edge of stone, as I reach for the first key.

Forgive me.

The tips of my fingers graze the keys before I latch on to one. I close my eyes and yank down.

A grinding noise echoes through the clearing, and then Rodger’s body jerks and drops. He cries out, a sloppy wail that rattles my teeth. “Stop—stop! Don’t do it. You’re going to kill me.”

I breathe through the sickness coating my stomach. “If I don’t try, he’ll kill you regardless.” I move to the next stone and stretch onto my toes, my hand wavering beneath the suspended keys. Flames lick my lower back. There’s no logic to Grayson’s game. One of the keys could free this man, or they could all doom him.

I grab ahold of a bronze skeleton key and pull.

Roger drops another inch.

Shit. Panicked, I forego the next stone and charge the tank. It’s taller than me. Maybe six-feet high and looks like a vertical fish tank.

Christ. Grayson has taken every aspect of me to design my tests. Now he’s turned something I used for tranquility into a deathtrap.

Ignoring the man’s pleas, I inspect the rest. A mounted wooden beam holds Roger aloft, thick metal cables support his weight, his torso cradled by a leather harness. “It’s a hangman’s gallows.” A simple structure, but built solid and sturdy. I walk the perimeter, studying Grayson’s trap. Looking for a way to release Roger without dropping him straight into the vat of acid.

“Please, help me,” he pleads.

Even if I was strong enough to shimmy the scaffold and pull him away from the tank, Grayson wouldn’t allow it. As if he’s reading my thoughts, a gear on the trap grinds, and Roger lowers closer to the surface.

“God—fuck—” He sobs, his flabby, milky body jiggling with his wretched cries.

“Christ. Shut up. Just shut up.” I push my hair out of my face. “Why don’t you walk me through this, Roger,” I say, deciding to follow my path back to the third stone. “Tell me about yourself. You’re here for a reason, just as I am. We’re in this together, okay?”

“Okay,” he concedes.

As he talks about his job at a local supermarket as a meat packer, I count the stones ahead of me: three. I gauge how many more inches Roger has until his feet hit the sulfuric acid. Maybe five…I can’t be sure.

There are more keys draped along the string canopy, outside my reach of the rocks. Follow the rules. But Grayson doesn’t abide by rules. He breaks them. He defies society’s laws. Everything with Grayson is a test.

I move off the rock and jump, waving a hand in the air.

“What are you doing?”

“Hush, Roger.” I jump again and pull a key down with me.

A deep groan from the gears, then Roger descends. Even lower than the last time, he goes down, his toes skim the top. His shouts of fury ratchet my nerves, and I scream. Hands in my hair, I grip at the roots, tearing at the anxiety.

Chest heaving, I’m lost in a sea of keys, all shimmering with a mocking melody as they clang together above. There are too many.

I press a hand to my stomach, the black satin too binding, as I pull air into my tight lungs. Do you think you’re above taking a life? Grayson’s question haunts me. He chose this particular victim for a reason—why?

I step onto the stone, my bare feet blistered, stinging. “Tell me about your victims, Roger.”

Past the shadows, I glimpse his stillness. Without my glasses, he’s blurry from this distance, but I can read his demeanor, the way his rigid body planks. “Why? What do they matter?”

No denial. No remorse. What do they matter. If this man was seated in my therapy room, I’d log a note to explore the antisocial spectrum, to distinguish if there’s a particular psychopathy. But we’re not in my therapy room, and there’s only time to acknowledge that there is one.

“I’m a psychologist,” I say, taking a moment before I reach for the next key. “I can help you. Well, in theory. Truthfully, I don’t really care whether you live or die. I just don’t want your death on my hands.”

There. Brutal honesty. Wherever Grayson is, I’m sure that devilish smile tilts his lips. “If it’s true, and you’ve committed the crimes levied against you…then that man over the speaker system won’t let you leave here alive. I’m not sure there’s anything I can do to save you.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he shouts down at me. “Jesus—you’re just as fucked up as him.”

I shrug. Maybe. Probably. But the adrenaline has run its course, and sheer exhaustion is wearing my patience. Before Grayson ever entered my office, I was decided. Rehabilitation was not possible for the truly sadistic.

If I was given an infinity of nights to transform this man, I would not succeed.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice whispers. I’ve been here before, standing at the precipice. The moment I realized it for the first time that I was fighting an impossible battle, waging a mental war with no end.

During this discovery, this acceptance, I broke a man’s mind. I turned his psychosis against him and urged it to devour him. To end him.

My chest catches fire, my breaths erratic. I drag in a lungful of cool air, dousing the burn. Now that you’ve been shown the truth, you’ll never see the lie again. You’re liberated.

Liberated. Free to speak and act without shame.

“I’m not ashamed for what I’ve done,” I say, steadying myself on the rock. “I’m ashamed that I hid it from myself.” A weakness I accepted the second I awoke in that hospital bed. A denial I fueled into a delusion because I couldn’t—wouldn’t—accept the truth.

I look at the suspended man. “Where is Michael, Roger?”

He twists, struggling with no hope. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I blow my bangs from my eyes, hands anchored to my hips, impatient. “You’ve kidnapped a little boy. You have him hidden somewhere. If you want me to save you, you’re going to tell me where. Is Michael alive?”

My hand thrusts into the air. I flick the key teasingly.

He shouts, “Yes! All right. Yes. The boy is alive.”

I pull the key. Roger’s body is lofted higher. A sob of relief racks his body.

The realization that Grayson is playing according to his own rules hits me. He’s controlling the mechanism. The keys are tied to the strings, the strings attached to the contraption, and Grayson is working the controls. He’s in control.

We’re in control.

Roger’s life is dependent on Roger alone.

We give them the means to take their own life.

If I want to save this man, all I have to do is work his confessions free. There has to be a catch—Grayson has never given any of his victims a real chance. He’s doing this for me.

“Where is Michael?” I ask.

He doesn’t respond. Then, as I reach for a key, he says, “Wait. I’m not ready.”

“Neither were the children you stole and killed.” I grip and pull the key.

Roger drops. His toes hit the acid, and he cries out.

“Now, where is the boy being held?”

“Fuck—” He bends his knees, trying to hold his feet above the acid. “If I tell you that…then I’m going to prison. Do you know what they do to men like me in prison?”

“Do you fear that more than death?” I challenge. “If so, tell me. If death is your choice, I know the man doing this. He will grant you that freedom.”

“Freedom?” he spits the word at me. “You’re insane.”

“That’s the second time you’ve insulted my mental state.” I hop off the rock with little to no jarring impact to my back. I breathe in a cleansing breath. “You’re making a poor case for yourself, Roger. And you only have hours to decide.”

Unable to hold his position, his body weary, he drops his legs. His ear-splitting scream echoes through the maze as his feet submerge. “God, please—I don’t want to die like this.”

I step onto a stone. “How did your victims die?”

His breath fogs the air around his head. “Go to hell.”

Been there. I stretch onto my toes and grasp a key. The cool metal feels satisfying against my heated skin.

“Wait,” he says again, straining to keep his grotesque, acid-eaten feet held over the tank. “I couldn’t help myself. It’s a sickness.”

“How?” I demand.

“Shit. All right. Fuck. Okay. I choked them.” He wriggles, trying to swing his body away from the container.

A cruel memory of my father’s hands around my neck assaults me. Disgust morphs into rage.

“Yeah. I choked them,” he repeats, easier this time, as if the admission feels good. In this way, Roger is also being liberated.

I close my hand around the key. Then pull. Again, Roger is lifted higher. He extends his legs, relieved.

I move to the last stone. I understand how this works, even if Roger hasn’t caught on yet. It doesn’t matter the number of keys dangling above my head; my selection of a key is my choice. Grayson knows me—he understands me, anticipates me.

One key will set the pedophile free. One key will end his life.

I study the keys. All the gleaming bronze, rusted metals, shiny silver. They’re beautiful. I never admitted it—not even back then—but when I inked a key over my scar, I was branding my kill. It was my trophy. I can admit this now.

The canopy of blood-red string and keys plays a dark melody that speaks to my soul. No, I wasn’t born this way. I was stolen, groomed, and born to another realm the average person only glimpses in nightmares. I never feared the monster, because the monster was already inside me.

“I want to know where the boy is,” I stress to Roger.

Sweat pours from his matted, balding head. He’s as pathetic here, now, as he is in his life. He shakes his head. “I can’t.”

“You can and you will.” My hand wavers between two keys. The first is gold. Untarnished and new. The second is corroded. Its teeth gnarled, the silver worn and faded. It’s a replica of the key I wear on my flesh.

Grayson chose it for me.

“What do you see when you think of Michael? What do you feel, Roger?” My hand stretches into the air.

Roger finds the strength to tear at the harness. His curses salt the night as he claws the leather. “He’s special,” he finally says. “I watched him the longest. God, he’s beautiful. Baby blue eyes. His thin blond hair cut into a bowl. His skin is soft and delicate.”

While he’s been lost in his memories, his underwear displays the true lack of his remorse. An erection tints the dingy material. I advert my eyes in disgust.

I have to know, however, if this man is capable of change. I force my gaze back onto Roger. “Can you release him?” Not will he release the boy. But can. The two words are not interchangeable to a vile man like this.

His mouth twitches as he attempts to form the words. It’s a telling micro expression. My sight is hindered, especially in the dark, and yet he’s unable to mask his true feelings.

“Yes,” he shouts. “Okay? I will release him. Let me go, and I’ll take you to him.”

Liar.

“But what about the others?” I insist. “All the future children you plan to harm. How can we trust that you’re reformed, never to damage or kill another child again?”

His laugh bounces over the clearing. “Are you serious?” He glares at me. “You’re a fucking therapist. You know how my illness works.” He releases a lengthy breath. “I’ll try, all right? I’ll get help. I’ll go to the meetings. I’ll put a goddamn chastity belt on my dick!” He fights the harness more. “Now get me the hell out of here, you fucking cunt.”

Yes, Roger has many more disorders to unearth. Woman-hating misogynist is on that list. There’s no reform in his future. If he’s set free, he may do time in prison. But he’ll be released eventually. Set loose to prey on innocent lives.

Our justice system fails when it comes to the predators of children. The very lives that need the most protection and shelter. Grayson was a victim to a monster just like Roger, and so were my sister and I. Now, there is no rehabilitation for any of us.

“What are you waiting for?” Roger yells. “Do it!”

One will free him. One is the kill switch.

I yank the rusted key.

Roger’s scream arcs over the maze before his body plunges feet-first into the tank of acid.

He sinks to the bottom of the container. The water bubbles and froths, bleeding pink at first, then a deep blood-red. Flesh bobs and hits the sides, then floats to the surface. I won’t look away—I can’t. I watch the gruesome death unfold.

Minutes pass, or maybe only seconds. The liquid thickens into a paste-like substance, too thick to discern Roger any longer.

My thoughts are a void. Hallowed out of me and splashed against the night. I only am—the purest sense of acceptance melds into the natural order. My existence in balance.

Then I feel arms surround my waist.

Grayson pulls me against his chest. I lean my head back, feeling his heart race in time with mine. His solid form embraces me as he says, “Our first kill.”