The door slowly creaks open.
I don’t bother lifting my head. My hand slaps erratically at the wall over and over and over. The noise my palm makes against the padding is the only reminder that I’m still alive and present.
“Victoria, I’m so sorry.” Dr. Calloway bends down until she’s kneeling next to me. She wears an expression of concern. I stare at her blankly. “I didn’t know you were in here all night. I would never approve of this.”
She places her hand on my shoulder and I jerk away from her touch. Someone can only take so much before they break. “I’m so sorry,” she repeats.
Dr. Calloway holds her hand out, but I stand up on my own. She didn’t shut the door behind her, and now I can hear the very faint voices of nurses and patients.
“How long have I been in here?” My voice cracks.
“Just one night. No more than nine hours.”
Impossible. It feels like years have gone by.
Right then the image of Evelyn slams into my mind. “Where’s my daughter?”
Dr. Calloway holds her hands out in front of her. “She’s fine. She’s just fine.”
“Where is she?” My voice is frantic now. Until I see her with my own eyes I won’t be satisfied. The scariest part of this room is the separation. Countless times I heard her cries. But after a while, I don’t know when, they stopped.
And then I begin to fear the worst.
I know it sounds impossible, but when I searched for my own pulse, telling myself that if I could find my own, then my daughter was still alive, well, I didn’t find it.
“Where is she?” I yell.
“Victoria, she’s fine. But I need to talk to you about something I found in your file. I—” Dr. Calloway’s lips are moving, but I can’t hear a word over the beating of my heart. I try to listen. I really do.
But my mind is screaming at me to find my daughter and I can’t avoid it. Ducking beneath her arm, I run out into the hall.
“Victoria!” Dr. Calloway calls out behind me.
“I need to know she’s okay!” I shout and run down the hall. It doesn’t take me long to reach my room. The door is wide open; one look inside and I know Evelyn’s not there.
I quickly move toward the dayroom. The hallway is empty. A therapy room next to the locked doors is open. A nurse is ushering a group of ladies into the room. She makes the mistake of leaving one of the doors open. I run through it and into the dayroom.
All eyes are locked on me. I probably look like a maniac. At this point it’s hard to care. My appearance is the last thing on my mind.
Where is she? Where is she? Where is she? I turn in a circle, and then I see Alice. She’s standing next to the nurses’ station. My daughter is in her arms.
My daughter.
Alice sees me. The cocky demeanor that she had while she encouraged the doctor to inject me is gone. She looks terrified. Of me.
“Give me my baby.” The minute the words slip from my tongue I have a sense of déjà vu. This trips me up for the barest of seconds. I grab my daughter, ready to kill for her if I have to.
I hold her tightly in my arms. She’s crying. I try to soothe her but she won’t calm down.
“Look what you did….”
Wes’s voice is whispering in my ear. I whip my body around. He’s not there. The television is on just as usual, but no one’s watching it. Board games are paused. Books are on the table and multiple sets of eyes are on me.
And that’s when I see him.
He’s outside, walking along the length of the building. Plain as day.
I take a step forward but stop when he disappears out of my line of vision.
“No, no, no…” I whisper. This isn’t happening again. Not again. He’s not getting away so easily while I’m trapped in this prison. I walk toward the dining room. In this hall the blinds are always open, letting in bright white light, and in this case they give me a clear view of Wes.
His hands are in his pockets, and his eyes remain looking forward. He has a dark smirk on his lips.
My pace matches his, step for step. In front of me the hall cuts to the left and right. In front of me is the back door where the nurses take their smoking breaks.
I slam my shoulder against the door; it opens but a siren goes off instantly.
“Hey!” a nurse shouts behind me. “Come back here!”
Once I’m outside I take off. Wes already has a lead on me. He’s running toward the woods, cutting a trail between the long grass.
Barefoot and with my daughter in my arms I run after him. I can hear multiple voices behind me, but I don’t stop. I can feel it in my bones that this is the coup de grâce and everything has been leading up to this. All I can think about is that I have to catch up with Wes. The dry grass snaps beneath my feet. My heart is pounding so fast I think it is going to burst from my chest.
The alarm seems to be getting louder. And then I hear Sinclair’s voice. He’s yelling at me to stop.
But doesn’t he get it? For weeks I’ve been trying to untangle my past, undoing the knots, and I knew I was so close to having my life back. It was right there. I could practically touch it.
“Wes!” I shout. “Stop!”
He continues running. My muscles burn so badly I want to collapse in one big heap and greedily suck in all the air I can.
Yet we draw closer and closer to the trees until the next thing I know, I’m swallowed by them. The grass gives way to damp ground covered in leaves, pine needles, and broken branches. They puncture my feet. I barely register the pain. My heavy breathing mingles with the drone of the alarms. I lose my footing on uneven ground. I stumble a bit but remain upright.
Evelyn is screaming. This time I feel her heartbeat. It’s as frantic as my own.
But Wes remains unfazed. He jumps over fallen tree trunks. Dodges along slopes.
Sinclair’s still behind me. He continues to call out my name. I feel the weight of his stare on my back.
Clouds move in front of the sun, surrounding me in further darkness. The wind picks up, rolling through the trees. Strands of my hair whip into my face, blurring my vision before I impatiently pull them back.
We keep running. I don’t know where we’re going or what will happen. Wes is ahead of me, weaving in and out of the trees, stepping over thick branches as if he’s done this many times before. Finally the trees thin out and in the middle of nowhere stands a small cabin. Wes runs inside it, leaving the door open.
I hesitate.
And then I step into the cabin. I’m panting, ready to drop from exhaustion. But I stop dead in my tracks when I see what’s around me. On the wall, my face smiles back at me. There is not a square inch that isn’t covered in pictures. Some of them are of me alone. The others are of Wes and me through our entire relationship.
The small cabin has been transformed into a replica of our master bedroom in our old house. The same four-poster bed. Same bedspread. Same rug. The dresser against the wall has a wedding picture of us in a silver frame.
I feel like I’m in a funhouse. I won’t be surprised if the floor shifts beneath me and reveals a secret room with more surprises waiting for me.
Wes claps loudly. I whirl around. “Congrats on making it here.” He tucks his hands into his pockets and rocks back on his heels. “For a minute there, I didn’t think you had the courage to get up and leave. Pushing those women out of the way?” He whistles. “Ballsy.”
I stand perfectly still, gasping for air.
“I bet you want to know why we’re here. Don’t you?”
All I can do is nod.
“I wanted to show you where I lived all this time,” he explains. For greater emphasis, he lifts his arms and gestures to the small space. “Do you like how I decorated?”
He advances and without thinking I take a step back. It is my first instinct around him. He just laughs at my fear. “Why do you look scared? I won’t hurt you. I’m on your side, Victoria. I want to help you remember.”
Sinclair’s voice becomes louder. I take comfort that soon I won’t be alone.
“You didn’t want to help me!” I yell. “You made it look like I was making up your visits.”
“Not true. I walked in and out of Fairfax every single time. It’s not my fault that their security is complete shit. By the way, I came to see you because I care about you.”
My breaths even out but the beating of my heart doesn’t. “You’re lying.”
“Again, that’s not true. I care a lot about you. I love you.”
I point a shaky finger at him. This isn’t a time for him to twist things around and make me look like the crazy person. “You’re fucking crazy.”
“Now, come on. That’s a cheap shot, Victoria. Everyone is a little crazy. You have to be to survive in this world.”
“Why are you doing this?”
The floor creaks underneath him as he comes closer. “You’re my wife. I love you.”
The look in his eyes, the possession in his words shows that this cycle will never end. I’ll never be free of this man. If I ever am I’ll also be six feet under.
“No,” I groan. “No, no, no.”
Sinclair bursts through the door. His chest heaves as he looks me over. I’m too scared, too much in shock to walk toward him. He takes a few steps my way but stops when he sees Wes. His face goes pale.
Wes is nonplussed by this arrival. “Guest number three’s here. Good, good. We’re just waiting for one more person.”
“Wes?” Sinclair asks in disbelief.
“What’s wrong, Montgomery? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“What are you doing?”
“Why does everyone keep asking that? Have you not been paying attention to Victoria these last few weeks? The love of our lives wants the truth. So I’m going to give it to her.”
He continues to speak, but my past is waiting for me. Lurking above me like a hive of bees, it buzzes, the noise louder with each passing second.
It hasn’t touched me but I can already feel the sting of its truth.
Funny how just a mere hour ago I was anxious to escape. Anxious to seek the truth, boldly reach out and grab on to it. But now I’m terrified. Suddenly I can’t breathe. My heart starts to palpitate. My head starts to spin.
My vision is starting to blur and all those whispers from the past are growing louder in my head. I try to focus on Wes.
“At first, I thought we should all reunite at the house. I mean, that’s where we all met. That’s where the betrayal started. So that’s where it should all end, right? But I had it all wrong. That’s not where it started. Not by a long shot.”
Time starts to crawl. The air becomes thick. Stale. And it’s almost as if I’m breathing in the past.
“It’s clear you’re angry,” Sinclair says to Wes, talking to him as you would a child throwing a tantrum. “But let’s think clearly.”
“I am. In fact, I’m beginning to think I’m the only person in this fucking room thinking clearly.” He looks at me, his eyes beguiling. “Victoria is the catalyst. Everything begins and ends with her.”
That’s all it takes. Six simple words.
Six seconds to say.
Six seconds to destroy.
One second Wes is clear across the room. The next he’s lunging for me. His arms are extended, fingers spread. He tackles me full-on.
I land flat on my back. The air whooshes out of my lungs. There is no time to be dazed and out of sorts. I have to react. Push him off me. Protect Evelyn.
Yet it’s too late.
Hands wrap around my neck, squeezing tighter and tighter. With more pressure the smile widens across Wes’s face.
I close my eyes and I see flashes of pain. Screams of agony. Blood. I see my hands curling into mud. I see myself close my eyes.
I count my breaths.
Six of them and then I slip away….