Page 59 of The Player
He sighed and shook his head.
“Why? He’s dead, Bee. Why put yourself through it all again?”
“Because I need to know everything.” I don’t know why I felt that way, but I did. “I’m not sure…” I stumbled over my words. “That I’ll get over this unless I do. I’m not sure how I’ll come to terms with it if I don’t understand it all.” I turned to face him. “I mean, how do you go on living, knowing your dad is dead because of you? That you could’ve done something to save him.”
I couldn’t hold back anymore. I had to let the tears brimming in my eyes fall freely down my face. I had no choice.
“How can I do that, Will? Live a normal life knowing what I know. I can’t even imagine telling my sisters about it. I don’t think I can say the words, because if I do, they become real, and even though I need to know what happened, none of it feels real.”
I knew I was rambling; I couldn’t help it. And I knew my words were jumbled, but I wasn’t in control of my emotions or my tears. Both were cascading out of me like a waterfall.
Will reached out for me, pulling me to him as he spoke.
“First, you need to accept that none of this was your fault. There’s nothing you could’ve done to change the outcome today. He was going to die whatever we did. Second,” he said, his voice becoming softer. “It’s gonna take time, but it will get better. I know it’s not the same. My dad died of cancer. But talking about it does help.”
“You’re right. It’s not the same. Your dad was ill. Mine was murdered.” Guilt hit me right away, but the words had tumbled out before I could stop them. “I just want to know what happened.”
He stilled for a moment, and I waited. Waited for him to say why it wasn’t a good idea. Why I should forget what’d happened and move on.
But he didn’t.
Eventually, he opened up to me, telling me about the task room being soundproofed and how that sick fuck had messed with his head. He’d messed with mine too, and my dad’s. He’d promised to set my dad free, and then, when Will told me the trade-off, what he’d asked him to deposit in that bowl, my tears turned to sobs. Huge, ugly sobs for what he’d done for us.
Will had put me and my dad first, sacrificing himself despite everything.
I couldn’t believe it.
This man had skyrocketed in my estimations since we’d been taken, but now, he held God-like status.
They say you never truly know someone, and that was so true. I’d never have imagined Will was capable of so much humility and kindness, putting everyone before himself. I’d been naïve. So fucking naïve, seeing the façade and not the man behind it all. But I saw him clearly now.
He was all I saw.
“I can’t believe you did that,” I choked over my words.
“It didn’t matter though, did it?” He couldn’t look at me as he spoke. “Hestill did what he wanted. He electrocuted your dad while I was…” He pointed at his ear. “Hacking away at this.”
“Fuck, I need to clean that up for you.”
I shot off the sofa, heading for the first aid kit in the bathroom cabinet. It wasn’t the best kit, but it’d have to do for now.
I walked back into the room, telling him, “You should really get it properly stitched up by a nurse.” I opened the box, spotting some Steri Strips I could use to patch him up. “But thank you.”
He turned his head to look at me.
“Thank you for trying. But if you’d succeeded in whathewanted you to do…” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words ‘killed yourself’. “I would probably be even worse than I am now.” I dabbed an antiseptic wipe on the side of his face, gently stroking up to his ear, and he hissed, but he didn’t flinch. “I can’t do this without you, Will. I need you here, with me.”
“Your dad didn’t deserve to die. Evenheadmitted that. Your dad was unlucky. Just a guy that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“I know. But you didn’t deserve to die either.”
He held my gaze for a beat.
“Didn’t I? I’ve killed people. I’m not a good guy, Bee.”
I kept stroking his wound, throwing the now blood-soaked antiseptic wipe onto the coffee table and taking another out of the packet.
“You’re not a bad guy either. You’re a guy caught up in bad things. The only person who deserves any kind of retribution is that masked fucker.” Mentioning him made me shiver, and I wasn’t even using his full name.
