I gave in. “Okay… By her I assume you mean Miranda.”
“That is twice now with the honesty… Very good… I am becoming somewhat heartened.”
I splayed my hands out in a small shrug-like gesture as I rephrased her comment and repeated it back to her, “So you think I’m afraid of Miranda.”
“I do not think you are afraid of her,” she replied, shaking her head slowly. “I know you are.”
I sighed then gave her a quick nod of assent. “Okay. I’ll admit that I was once, but not for the reasons you imagine. And, I’m not anymore.”
“How is it you think you know what I imagine?”
“Call it an educated guess.”
She pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. “No, not the lying again. We were just starting to have a meaningful dialogue.”
While I had been maintaining a passable front, on the inside I was going down for the third time. No matter how hard I had been trying to wall myself off from her malignant energies, she was finding a way in. The very core of my being was under assault, and the effects couldn’t be contained much longer. I felt like a bomb, and she was holding the dead man switch that would set me off.
I shifted forward in my seat and growled, “Meaningful to whom? It sounded to me like all you did was state the obvious. Trust me, I’ve seen myself in the mirror today, and I know damn well I look exhausted, so you aren’t telling me anything new. You want honesty, Annalise? Here it is. Everything you just said was a dime store observation anyone could make. Just like you said earlier, no psych degree necessary. So maybe it’s you who isn’t all that clever. Did you ever think of that?”
She leaned in, mimicking my posture. “Come now, be honest. You really do not believe that.”
“No,” I admitted, my voice even but still edgy. I huffed out a heavy breath and then sat back. “No, I don’t. I just think you made a horrible error in judgment. Miranda is the one who isn’t as clever as she thinks she is.”
“Really? How do you know you are not talking to Miranda right now?”
“I don’t.” I shrugged. In point of fact, from her very first words I knew that’s exactly whom I was talking to, but I lied anyway. “I suppose I could say I know who is riding the horse because of your initial comment to me.” I kept close watch on her eyes as I spoke. I had purposely used the phraseology common in Vodoun to describe the act of a Lwa, or ancestral spirit, inhabiting a corporeal body. I knew it was a transparent attempt to provoke a reaction, but I tried it just the same. However, the reference didn’t even garner a twitch, so I continued. “Or, maybe it’s because you didn’t even blink when I called you Annalise. I think we both know Miranda wouldn’t really care for that. But if I gave you any of those reasons, I’d just be lying and you know it. The real truth is, I have no idea which one of you I am talking to at the moment.”
She allowed herself an exaggerated sigh. “And it seemed like we were making such progress, but here you are lying to me again. Come now, telling me the truth did not hurt that much, did it?”
“Only a little,” I replied. “So…before we go any further with this game of yours…”
She cut me off. “This is not my game. It is yours…”
“Fine,” I grumbled. “Have it your way. So, if it’s my game, then we play with my rules. Time to ante up. What are you wagering?”
“What about you?” she asked. “What are you putting on the table?”
“You first.”
“Greedy, aren’t you?” she replied. “Should you not be happy with what you have already won?”
“And what would that be?”
She smirked and cocked her head to the side. “You are alive, are you not?”
“I see. So then I guess that’s what you meant with your comment about not understanding what she sees in me. Miranda has a soft spot for me so she let me live?”
She shook her head. “Of course not. You have Annalise to thank for your continued life.”
I remained silent, eyes locked with hers as she waited for me to react to her purposely-clumsy move. I searched my grey matter for an appropriately biting response but found none. The harsh pain inside my skull had taken its toll and then some. In my mind I tried to blame it on the lack of sleep, but I had been down this road before. It was nothing new, and I had definitely gone longer than just a day without rest and still managed to function. The simple fact of the matter was that I had walked in here unprepared, and Miranda was draining me. In my haste to bring this all to a close I had underestimated her, just as I had done in New Orleans. She had bested me there twice. Now she was doing so here for the trifecta, and it seemed I was handing it to her without much of a fight.
The longer I sat there allowing this to happen, the more my psychic nerves throbbed, raw and bleeding. She knew this and was mercilessly grinding them under her heel while taking delight in every moment of my inadequately hidden agony. In the grand scheme of things, our verbal sparring had only just started, and here I was already face down on the mat. I couldn’t help but wonder if I had made a fatal error by coming here at all.
I silently pondered the idea of trying to rally myself enough to at least finish this round. To somehow drag myself up and regain control… But all I could find was a resurgence of my earlier anger, which was now directed at myself more than anyone else. After a moment I simply gave in and allowed it to take over.
When I opened my mouth once again, my words were laced with venomous sarcasm. At this juncture, I knew the best I could hope for was a stalemate. Of course, given that I’d actually surrendered the game the minute she came into the room, hope and expectation were as always, two completely different things.
CHAPTER 4
I shook my head slowly and somehow managed to snort out a short harrumph. “Referring to ourselves in the third person are we?”
“Are we?” she replied.
“Well now… If this isn’t all creepy and spooky I don’t know what is…” As I spoke the words I was simultaneously wavering my hands in the air between us to pantomime the mystical. I stared at her for a moment and then huffed out a second heavy breath while struggling to keep a tight reign on my anger. Weaving more of a sardonic tone into my voice I spat, “And embarrassing too. I mean, what a surprise. I’ve been talking to Miranda this whole time. Whoops. How awkward for me.”
“Finally, the real truth comes out. You knew with whom you were conversing all along, little man,” she stated without pause.
“I actually suspected it while you were busy playing stare down with me. Then once you opened your mouth it was fairly obvious. We’ve met before, or don’t you recall?”
“Of course I remember.” She leaned back in her seat as far as her restraints would allow and then purred, “We have actually met more times than you know.”
“Believe me, I’ve got a pretty damn good idea,” I countered. “You aren’t exactly forgettable.”
“Of course I am not.”
“I hate to burst your bubble, but I didn’t mean that in a good way.”
“I am sorry to hear that. I enjoyed our times together very much.”
“Well, I guess that makes one of us.”
She feigned a melodramatic pout. “You really should not be like that. You see, if you are nice to me I just might keep you around when I take Felicity.”
There it was, the figurative dead man switch. The trigger she had been squeezing in her fist, just waiting for the right moment to let go. From the moment she walked into the interview room she had been steering everything to this point, and now she relaxed her grip so she could watch me explode.
No more had the last syllable of my wife’s name been pushed past her lips than I came up to my feet with a wildfire of rage consuming me from within. A sharp, metallic sound ricocheted from the walls as my chair toppled backwards and clattered across the tile floor. It was joined midstream by a loud smack echoing through the room when my left hand came down flat on the surface of the table. Propelling myself into a forward lunge, I thrust my right hand out, clipping her jaw in the process.