Page 41 of Freaks
“Sadie, please. Just let me get dressed and we can talk. You can tell me what happened with Sam. Explain everything. Just let me put some clothes on first.”
She looked at me pityingly. “You’re in no position to bargain. You don’t get to negotiate terms here. If you think you’re gonna be able to talk your way out of this, then you clearly don’t know me at all.”
“Idon’tknow you, Sadie! You’ve been lying to me since the day we met.”
An arrogant pride flashed across her face. “Of course I did. There’s something quite intoxicating about holding the balance of power in one’s hand. At any moment, I could have brought everything crashing down around your ears. You thought you were so smart, that you had everything under control, but you had no idea how much danger you were in. How out of your control your life was. Even with Gareth, you were so fucking blind. You caught him fucking his secretary in the end, but you had no idea I was fucking himfor monthsbefore that.”
What? Sadie and Gareth? I rocked back on my heels, the hairs on the backs of my arms standing up. I’d had no idea. Literally none, whatsoever. Gareth had let me down and hurt me, but that was old news. It hurt beyond belief to know thatshehad betrayed me with my ex-boyfriend. Stung more than I knew what to do with.
“Get up, then,” she said, poking the end of the knife at me. “Get dressed if it’ll make you feel better. Hurry, though. I plan on being far, far away from this place by the time your treacherous moron of a boyfriend returns.”
I didn’t take my eyes off her, didn’t turn my back to her as I quickly donned a sports bra, panties, an over-sized t-shirt and a pair of running shorts. Could I get away with putting shoes and socks on? I doubted it. She’d know I was trying to figure out how to run, and she’d never let that happen. My stomach tied itself into a knot of sorrow as I moved back to stand by the blood-soaked bed.
“You didn’t need to kill Archie. He was a fucking dog. He didn’t do anything wrong.” I wanted to close his eyes, to try and give him some kind of peace, even though he’d obviously died in agony, but Sadie stepped in front of me, brandishing the knife in my face.
“Ididhave to kill him. You loved him, and he loved you. I need to destroy everything and everyone who cares about you. That includes your sister, and Marcosa.”
“You really think you’re going to outsmart Fix?” A chill ran up the length of my spine, though. She’d managed to fool us all until now. She was an expert liar, and an even better actress. If she put her mind to it, she’d probably be able to concoct some sort of scenario whereby Fix found himself alone with her, vulnerable and taken by surprise. Sadie would revel in the chance to prove he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was, too.
She was a complete sociopath. Were sociopaths capable of feeling alone? If I were her, living a lie every day, putting a fake smile on every time she saw or spoke to me, feigning our entire friendship, then I would have felt like the loneliest person in the world. It was all pretty sad, for meandfor her. She’d wormed her way into my life out of hate. And it turned out the woman I’d called my best friend for a long time had been secretly planning my violent demise since day one.
“My father drew you from memory, y’know?” Sadie said, kicking at the drawing on the floor with the toe of her shoe. “He never wanted to ask you to pose for him, so he’d sit there for hours, scribbling, trying over and over to capture an accurate likeness of you in his sketch book. He’d get so frustrated when he got something wrong that he’d beat me. That wasn’t the worst of it, though. It was when he got it right that I’d be truly scared. When he was pleased with what he’d done, he’d get turned on. He’d bind my hands behind my back, then bind my wrists to my ankles, so I was stuck in a kneeling position, then he’d cut my clothes from my body with a knife. He’d fuck my mouth until he came, and all the while he’d be staring at the picture he’d drawn of you, grinding out your name between his teeth as he thrust himself as far as he could down my throat. Didn’t care if he made me gag. Didn’t care if I threw up all over him. He actually seemed to like it when I did that,” Sadie clarified in a bitter tone. “So long as his imagination could whisk him away to you, it didn’t matter if I was hurt, or sick, or bleeding. All he fucking cared about was you.”
I was sick to my stomach. Peter had never said anything about Sam interfering with Sadie. WithJulia. Why would he have said anything, though? It wasn’t like he’d ever told anyone about Sam rapingme. He’d kept his mouth shut, and he hadn’t breathed a word to anybody about anything. Sadie blamed me for what happened to her back then, but it wasn’t my fault. It was difficult to purge myself of the guilt, though. I supposed, in a small, fucked up way, shewasright. If I’d railed against Sam a little harder in the beginning, his sense of shame might have gotten the better of him. He might have stopped. And then, later, if I’d quit beseeching him to end the assaults, if I’d just laid there, limp like a ragdoll, glassy-eyed and staring at the ceiling while he took what he wanted from me, maybe he would have grown bored. I’d known how excited it made him when I cried and whimpered. I was all too aware of how hard it made him when I told him he was hurting me, and I wanted him to stop.
He’d become obsessed with the power he had over me, and that obsession had bled over into his relationship with Sadie, until even her misery and fear didn’t matter to him anymore.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Truly, I am. I can imagine what he put you through, because he put me through the same thing. But I’m telling you, if I’d known…”
Sadie sobbed, lunging forward with the knife. Her eyes shone brightly, but she wasn’t crying. It was as if she was refusing to let her tears fall. “If you’d known, you would have killed him sooner?” she spat.
“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. I never intended t—” She lashed out with the knife. The polished steel sang toward me, making contact before I could dart out of the way. Blood blossomed from the burning three-inch long laceration on my forearm, and Sadie froze, eyes locked on the sight of my blood, as if transfixed by it.
“Don’t make excuses, Sera. Excuses are only going to make me angry.”
I hugged my arm to my chest, covering the shallow wound with my hand. If I didn’t hide the damage she’d done, I could guess what was going to happen: one cut wouldn’t be enough. She’d want to do it again, and again, and again. She’d want my blood to flow freely, and once we’d reached that stage, I was fucked. She had a knife. I had nothing to defend myself with at all. I knew how to relieve an attacker of a weapon, but I needed to wait for the perfect moment. Act too soon, and I’d end up on the floor, staring up into Sadie’s crazed eyes as she stabbed me to death.
How long had Fix been gone? If I kept Sadie talking long enough, he’d come back and knock her the fuck out for real this time. I couldn’t rely on him, though. It was too dangerous to play a waiting game like that. I had to handle the situation as quickly as possible. “Aren’t you happy that I killed him?”
She jerked her head back. “What?”
“Aren’t you at least glad that Ididkill him in the end. I stopped him from hurting the both of us.”
A vein pulsed angrily at her temple. “Are you insane? He was my father. I loved him. Even when he—even when he did those things to me, I knew he didn’t really want to. You turned him into that monster. He just needed to get away from you. If you’d only left us alone, he would have stopped. He wouldn’t have touched me anymore. But you fucking carved him up like a piece of meat.” She was fire and vitriol—a spark, waiting to ignite. Leaning close to me, she shoved her face into mine, brandishing the knife underneath my throat. “You were the carver once, but not anymore. I didn’t think I’d have the strength to face you like this. I hired Marcosa to do my dirty work, because I didn’t want to sink toyourlevel. Now, I’m glad things have worked out this way. Now, I reallydoget to become the carver. Marcosa won’t even be able to recognize that pretty face of yours by the time I’m satisfied, Sera. I’m going to cut you into ribbons.”
I was running out of time. She was losing her grip on reality. She was delusional if she believed her father would have stopped abusing her.Ever. Men like him never stopped until they were forced to. I didn’t waste my breath trying to make her realize the truth, though. She’d never listen to me, no matter what I said. All that was left to do now was to get the fuck away from her before she had chance to follow through on her threats. I had to arm myself, and quickly.
“Peter paid for his crimes, too, y’know,” Sadie said. “Took me a while to find him. Just like me, he’d changed his name. Moved to some fucking nowhere town in the middle of Pennsylvania. I hired him to work for me for a while, just like Daddy did, and then, when I was done with him, I shot him up with formaldehyde and left him to die slowly. Painfully. It must have been an awful death for poor old fat, useless Peter. I know you found him down there in that hole. I made him sit in front of a computer for hours, tracking you, monitoring your card transactions, figuring out where you were at all times.
“I waited for Marcosa to kill you for two fucking weeks in Seattle, but he didn’t carry out the job. I figured the setting hadn’t been right. Too crowded. Too busy. So, I tried to speed the process up. I hired him to take out that mechanic in Liberty Fields. I put him directly in your path again. Right in front of it, so he’d have no excuse. Next thing I know, he’s in the background of three separate photos at your sister’s fucking wedding!”
So Fix’s job in Liberty Fields hadn’t been a coincidence after all? He’d picked up the job to buy himself some more time, but Sadie had been the one to drop the work in his lap. She’d been pulling the strings behind the scenes this whole time, and I hadn’t suspected a thing. She’d been the one to murder the guy in the bunker in Centralia, too. Peter. I still couldn’t believe that guy, Anderson, had beenPeter.
He’d looked nothing like he used to, but then again, I hadn’t hung around to get a proper look at him. His swollen, purple face and his bulging eyes had scared the shit out of me.
“Fix saw right through that ridiculous bullshit you said about me,” I growled. “He watched me. He knew that file you sent through was complete and utter bullshit. You really expected him to believe I murdered my mom? That I was poisoning my sister? Come on, Sadie.”
She shrugged. “I gave him the ammunition he needed to satisfy his bizarre moral code. I didn’t expect him to try and verify any of it. Besides, you might not have been responsible for your mom’s death, but you’re very much responsible for Amy’s. As soon as I’m done with you, I’m getting on a plane and I’m going to pay your little sister a visit. I’m going to slip a needle in her arm. I’m going to poison her, just like I poisoned Peter. And thatwillbe your fault, Sera. She will settle the final debt between you and I. It’s not enough that you’ll be dead. You need to die filled with despair. You need to know that the people you love are going to suffer for your sins, even after you’re gone. Amy. Marcosa. I’m going to—”
