I always take care of you.
I wander back to my room and shut the door. “What did you do?” I ask aloud, noticing that my window’s wet. It’s been raining outside, the grass is muddy and the streets are puddled. Lily’s been outside somewhere, doing God knows what.
Of course, she decides to play the silent treatment and doesn’t respond. I check the time—four thirty in the morning. I’ve been out for twelve hours. She could do so much in twelve hours. I have to check—have to know. Reaching into my pocket, I hold my breath, waiting to see if I feel a button. I exhale loudly when I don’t feel anything and move my hand to the other one. There is something in this one, but not a button. A piece of paper. I pull it out. No, not paper. A photo of a man. In the picture, he’s just sitting there staring at the camera. Brown hair. Dark eyes. Maybe in his thirties. Not smiling. Not frowning. Not anything. He looks hollow empty. Yet he makes me feel full of emotions I never knew existed inside me and with no control of my own, tears flood from my eyes. I cry for what seems like forever, my shoulders shaking, my body frozen in fear, my heart beating a million miles a minute. Fear. Fear. Fear.
I know this man well.
This is the man who kept me a prisoner.
This is the man that hurt me.
Beat me.
Hurt others.
I’m afraid of him.
“Where did you find this?” I ask, shutting my eyes tightly, willing myself to forget the man. But he’s there in every one of my memories. Killing people. Making me watch. Trying to teach me about wickedness. Evil. When the evil is him.
“From your file in Preston’s office,” she says in the gentlest voice I’ve ever heard her use. “There were a lot of interesting things in there.”
“Like what?” I whisper, but deep down I think I already know. Pain. There’s a lot of pain. Caused by this man, who I know, as well as I know my own mother.
“You really want to see?” she asks cautiously. “Because you really need to make sure you’re ready. It’s worse than looking at that photo.”
I hesitate, opening my eyes and looking down at the photo. Do I really want to know? Pain. My chest aches. Vomit burns at the back of my throat. It’s just a man. Just a man. But I know it’s not. Deep down I think I know who he is, not just the man who kept me prisoner, but I’m not ready to admit it to myself anymore. The things he did to me… to all those people… to Evan. You’re the one who hurt Evan.
“I don’t want to look at it anymore,” I whisper through my tears as I clutch the photo.
“Then get rid of it.”
“I can’t,” I sob, so afraid of the picture I can barely move.
Lily sighs exhaustedly. “Oh, fine. I’ll do it. It’s always been me anyway. I’m your out when you don’t want to do things.”
Without warning, my feet move toward my bedside and my fingers move toward my nightstand drawer. I’m not in control anymore and I’m gratefully handing it over, because I want to stop crying, want to stop staring at the photo that instills fear in me.
I open the drawer and take out the lighter. Then with a flick, I ignite the flame and watch the photo burn.
Burn.
Burn.
Burn.
And only when it’s nothing but ash, gone, dead, burned, do I feel content again.
“Now show me what else you found,” I say, feeling better that it’s gone. Like I can breathe again. Like I’m not a child cowering in the corner.
“Not yet,” she says. “Not until you’re ready.”
“And when will that be?”
“When you can’t feel anything anymore,” she says cryptically. “When you become me. Otherwise you won’t be able to handle it.”
Chapter 30
Maddie
I’m not sure what Lily means by until I become her. Become insane—accept the insane. Maybe she just means become tougher, more capable of handling things the way she does, with such indifference. I want to believe that I can’t get to that place, but with each passing day, it feels like I’m getting closer to it.
It’s been two days since Preston gave me a sedative, almost a week since I last talked to River, almost two weeks since Sydney died and I woke up in Bella’s apartment with blood everywhere. I haven’t heard anything from the cops since Detective Bennerly dropped me off at my house a few days ago, but I don’t think I’m in the clear yet. It’s late, the moon shining through my window, and I have my lamp on. As I sit on my bed, going through my new button collection, it seems like each button holds a memory, but the memory is hidden. What I really would like to know is if the ones my mother got rid of belonged to any murder victims. Was Sydney my first one or have I done this before? In my memory of the hospital I’d wrote I wasn’t a killer on the wall. But it feels like I am and with everything I’m seeing in the memories, all the death and murder by the man, maybe I somehow turned into him.
Don’t make yourself guilty when you don’t even know if you did it for sure yet. And you could find out if you—
“I know. I know. Become you, but that’s not going to happen. And besides, I’m pretty sure I’ve done a lot of bad things, without you having to tell me about them,” I mumble, scooping up the buttons and letting them slip through my fingers into the box. The sound like heavy raindrops when they land. “I saw it… In hypnotherapy… I think… I took the gun from that girl to shoot that man… but I couldn’t… but it felt like I did shoot him… I think…”
Pitter-patter… pitter-patter… I can hear the rain falling… Hear someone yelling out in anger. It makes me feel sick. Makes me fear what’s going to happen to me in just a few moments.
“Maddie, count the buttons with me. Count the buttons we’ve collected and don’t listen to the screams,” someone says in a gentle voice. “Count the buttons and pretend you’re someone else.”
“You always take good care of me, Evan,” I say, sitting up and scooting forward. One by one, I start counting the buttons. With each one, I feel better, because the buttons are the only things that belong to me anymore. And when he comes to get me, it’s easier to walk up the stairs, even when I know the pain that’s coming because Lily is stronger and handles it so much better. She knows how to turn it off. She knows how to not feel anything and is okay with it.
My hand starts to shake as the voice starts to echo in my head over and over again.
You’re a whore!
You’re a whore!
You’re a whore!
“This is all your fault,” he says as he pins me down. “You make me like this. You and that other whore. You’re evil and so you’re going to have to be punished. The bad must be punished, Maddie.” He touches my hair and the smell of cigarettes, booze, and sweat make me want to puke. I’m holding my breath and I can hear the voice of a woman in the background, the one I’ve heard but never seen like she’s afraid to come in here—see the truth. “This is all your fault, for being such a bad girl. And now you’re going to have to pay for it by watching her suffer and die. But don’t worry, Maddie, she’s been a bad girl too.”
I shake my head. “No.” Then I fight with all my strength to get out from under and somehow I manage to kick him off me. He’s surprised by my strength. He always thought I was the weaker one. But not this time.