Page 116 of Last Seen
The memory speeds up, taking shape, the black darkness shifting, softening, becoming a vapor, the fog of all the years fighting it dispersing to allow Halley a clear view to her past.
She is in Nashville. She is six years old. There is a stranger in the house.
Her sister’s boyfriend Ian has come.
Is that fear in Catriona’s eyes? Is that laughter Halley hears? They are fighting, arguing. Cat is panicking, pleading, and he just laughs at her. His voice is mocking and sharp.
“You said you wanted to be free of them. Now you will be. We’ll wait for your father to get home, and he can join your mother and that brat of a little sister, and you will not be tied to this ridiculous family who hates you anymore.”
“You killed her. You killed them both.”
“I did you a favor. One you wanted me to do.”
“I didn’t want them dead, Ian. I just wanted—”
“You said you wished they’d just die. And now they have. Your wish is my command, princess.”
“This isn’t right. Ian, this is not what I wanted.”
His voice, dark and raw. “You most certainly did. You wanted this. You did this, Catriona.” The hand holding the knife shifts. It is smaller, more delicate. The nails bitten and painted black. The edge of the knife is red. The rabbit’s throat is cut. “If we’re caught, you will tell them you did this. Am I clear?”
“But I didn’t do it.”
A thwack, and a cry of pain, and Halley, who’s never been hit or spanked, has no trouble realizing her sister has been punched. She wants to surge up, scream, pummel, rend him limb from limb, but she can’t. Cat told her to stay down. To pretend she is dead. So she is dead. Inside her little brain is a small box, and she climbs inside. Pulls the doors closed. And sits in the darkness, waiting for him to leave. A darkness so complete she is safe.
He never left. And now he’s here again.
“You killed my mother,” Halley says flatly.
“Cat killed your mother. She admitted that.”
“Because you threatened her. You hit her. You were the one who did it. Where the hell am I? What day is it? Fucking tell me what’s happening!” Halley shrieks this last, and he laughs that awful, empty laugh.
“Let’s see if I can help explain. You, much to my delight, finally stuck your lovely nose into your mother’s case. My father has a flag on it, naturally, because we can’t have people like you digging around in our world. One of his law enforcement pals warned him, and he sent me immediately to deal with things. So convenient that you were mere hours away. So yes, I’ve simply been removing the ... impediments as they arise. It’s what I do. Someone has to protect us.”
Impediments.Kater. Dr. Chowdhury. Tammy. Me.
He shifts closer. He is holding her in the dark like a spider about to suck dry an insect that’s blundered into its web.
“When I saw you, though ...” He sighs, and her entire body flinches. “My lucky day.”
“I won’t tell. Just let me go.” She tries to pull away, but he holds her tighter. His voice grows deeper.
“Now, now. You are mine. Time has no meaning for you anymore. It is whatever day, whatever time, whatever month, year, century I say it is. I am your sun, your moon, and your stars. The breath in your lungs. The blood in your veins. I am your sight, your sound, your sensation. I am your universe.”
A large hand is traveling up her body, and she is covered in horrid chills.
“You are nothing,” he whispers. “You belong to me now.”
A sharp prick in her elbow, and the suffocating darkness envelops her again.
Time doesn’t exist in the dark.
The absence of senses creates a disequilibrium.
Halley is living inside the blackness that she created. Her defense mechanism to protect herself. All these years, when she’s thought of her mother’s death, of the accident that shaped her life, all she’s been able to muster is darkness. Blackness. Now she realizes that infinite space was protection. It was safety. It was sanity.
Seeing your mother murdered, watching the blood bubble from her lips as she urges you to run, to save yourself and leave her to die, is a mark that can never be erased. A scar so deep its horror becomes sublime beauty. Like the shock of white hair that makes her unique, this awful memory, and her ability to hide herself from it, created her. The mind is an elastic and repairable system. Damaged neurons rewire themselves. Neuroplasticity exists. The mind can protect you from the worst things that happened to you. You can forget. You can block things out. You can find ways to live with your own horrors. Hide from them.
