I screech like an animal through my gag, the kind of screech that should make your throat bleed and your eardrums explode, and I slam against my bonds so hard that the chains cut into my skin. My eyes bug out, trying to burst from their sockets. If I were a dog, I would be foaming at the mouth. I want only one thing: to snap these chains and kill the demon with my bare hands. I don't just want it to die--I want to eviscerate it. I want to tear it apart so that it is unrecognizable. I want to split the atoms that make up the demon and turn it into mist. But the chains stay strong. They don't break. They don't even loosen. Through this, the demon watches me in bemused fascination, one hand resting on the top of Matt's head, a monstrous parody of a fatherly gesture. The demon laughs and shakes its monstrous head, causing its multiple mouths to mew in protest. Speaks again with that voice that doesn't match its form.
"There we go! Cook and baste, bake and broil." It winks. "Nothing like a little despair to bring out the taste of a heroic soul. . . ." A pause, and then the voice goes serious for just a moment, fills with a kind of perverse regret: "Don't blame yourself for this, Smoky. Even a hero can't win all the time."
I look at Matt again, and the look in his eye is enough to make me want to die. It's not a look of fear, or pain, or horror. It's a look of love. He has managed, for just a moment, to push the demon out of the world of this bedroom, so that it's just he and I, looking at each other. One of the gifts of a long marriage is the ability to communicate anything--from mild displeasure to the meaning of life--with a single glance. It's something you develop in the process of mixing your soul with your spouse's, if you're willing to mix your soul. Matt was giving me one of those looks and saying three things with that one, beautiful eye: I'm sorry, I love you, and . . . good-bye.
It was like watching the end of the world. Not in flame and fire, but in cold, drenching shadows. Darkness that would go on forever. The demon seems to sense it as well. It laughs again and does a little prancing dance, waving its tail and dripping pus from its pores.
"Ahh-- amore. How sweet it is. That'll be the cherry on top of my Smoky sundae--the death of love."
The door to the room opens, closes. I don't see anyone enter . . . but there is now a small, shadowy figure at the periphery of my vision. Something about it fills me with desperation.
Matt closes his eye, and I feel the rage again and tear at my bonds. The knife goes down, I hear the wet, cutting, sawing sound, and Matt screams through his ruined lips as I scream through my gag, and Prince Charming is dying, Prince Charming is dying--
I wake up screaming.
I am lying on the couch in Dr. Hillstead's office. He is kneeling next to it, touching me with words, not hands.
"Shh. Smoky. It's okay, it was just a dream. You're here, you're safe."
I'm shaking hard, and I'm covered with sweat. I can feel tears drying on my face.
"Are you all right?" he asks me. "You back?"
I can't look at him. I bring myself to a sitting position.
"Why did you do that?" I whisper. I'm done with the pretense of being strong in front of my shrink. He's shattered me, and he holds my heart, still beating, in his hands.
He doesn't reply right away. He stands up, grabs a chair, and brings it close to the couch. He sits down, and though I still can't look at him, I can feel him looking at me, like a bird beating its wings against a window. Tentative, persistent.
"I did that . . . because I had to." He's silent for a moment. "Smoky, I've been working with FBI and other law-enforcement agents for a decade now. You people, you are made of such strong stuff. I've seen all the best parts of humanity in this office. Dedication. Bravery. Honor. Duty. Sure, I've seen a little evil, some corruption. But that's been the exception, not the rule. Mostly, I've seen strength. Unbelievable strength. Strength of character, of the soul." He pauses, shrugs. "We're not supposed to discuss the soul, in my profession. Not supposed to believe in it, really. Good and evil? They're just broad concepts, not things defined." He looks at me, grim. "But they aren't just concepts, are they?"
I continue to stare at my hands.
"You and your peers, you hoard your strength like a talisman. You act as if it has some finite source. Like Samson and his hair. You seem to think if you break down and really open up in here, you'll lose that strength and never get it back." He's quiet again, for a good long while. I feel empty and desolate. "I've been doing this for some time, Smoky, and you're one of the strongest people I've ever met. I can say with near certainty that none of the people I've treated in the past would be able to endure what you've suffered, are suffering. Not one of them."
I manage to make myself look at him. I wonder if he's making fun of me. Strong? I don't feel strong. I feel weak. I can't even hold my gun. I look at him, and he looks back at me, and it's an unflinching gaze that I recognize with a jolt. I've given blood-drenched crime scenes that gaze. Dismembered corpses. I am able to look on those horrors, and not look away. Dr. Hillstead is giving me the same look, and I realize that this is his gift: He is able to give the horrors of the soul a steady, unwavering gaze. I'm his crime scene, and he'll never turn away in distaste or revulsion.
"But I know you are at your breaking point, Smoky. And that means I can do one of two things: Watch you break and die, or force you to open up and let me help you. I choose the second one."
I can feel the truth of his words, their sincerity. I've looked at a hundred lying criminals. I like to think I can smell a lie in my sleep. He's telling me the truth. He wants to help me.
"So now the ball's in your court. You can get up and leave, or we can move on from here." He smiles at me, a tired smile. "I can help you, Smoky. I really can. I can't make it not have happened. I can't promise that you won't hurt for the rest of your life. But I can help you. If you'll let me."
I stare at my shrink, and I can feel it all struggling inside me. He's right. I'm a female Samson, and he's a male Delilah, except that he's telling me it won't hurt me to cut my hair this time. He's asking me to trust him in a way I don't trust anyone. Except myself. And . . . ? I hear the little voice inside ask. I close my eyes in response. Yeah. And Matt.
"Okay, Dr. Hillstead. You win. I'll give it a shot."
I know it's right the moment I say it, because I stop shaking. I wonder if what he'd said was true. About my strength, I mean. Do I have the strength to live?
4
I'M STANDING AT the front of the LA FBI offices on Wilshire. I look up at the building, trying to feel something about it. Nothing.
This is not a place I belong to right now; instead, I feel it judging me. Frowning down at me with a face of concrete, glass, and steel. Is this how civilians see it, I wonder? As something imposing and perhaps a little hungry?
I catch my reflection in the glass of the front doors and cringe inside. I was going to wear a suit, but that felt like too much of a commitment to success. Sweats were too little. As a testimony to indecisiveness, I had opted for jeans and a button-down blouse, simple flats on my feet, light makeup. Now it all feels inadequate, and I want to run, run, run.
Emotions are rolling in like waves, cresting and crashing. Fear, anxiety, anger, hope. Dr. Hillstead had ended the session with one dictate: Go and see your team.