Blood and Bone(24)

Memories clear away, leaving one distinct image in my mind. I see him,  my father. He's on a bed, tied there. He's old-older than my other  memories of him. I'm in the room, smiling wide at him as I inject a  needle into his fat hairy arm. He cries out in pain, making me jerk the  needle a little more. I can see it dragging under the skin as he  screams. There's a small second when I almost open my eyes to stop the  image, but I don't. I force myself to watch as I drag a blade across his  chest, cutting in. Then I pour a type of acid across the skin. In the  haze I see the label of the white bottle as my gloved hand lifts  it-citric acid. His screams are delicious. I rub him down with cream,  his entire naked body including his flaccid cock; touching it makes me  gag but I do it. I douse him in something that makes him scream in a way  that just seeing the memory makes me shudder. His skin is flaming red,  and his eyes are bulging from his fat head. He goes pale in the face  after a few moments, clearly in shock. I grab the paddles and shock him  to bring him back.

He screams and cries. He begs and pleads. But like my words once fell on his deaf ears, his do now to mine.

The scene fades away. I open my eyes, unsure how Derek could have killed my father if I was the one torturing him.

The airport isn't any different when my eyelids lift, but I am.

I remember small bits of being me. It's not whole, but the bits and pieces give me a clue to a few things I didn't know.

I remember Rory-I remember not hating him at all.

Getting up, I hurry down the hall to the bathroom. The door slams open  as I burst through it and instantly stick my arm into the trash bin. My  fingers touch things I might have squealed about seconds ago, but now  I'm unfazed by it. My armpit pinches as I reach to the very bottom of  the trash and paper until I touch the pale-pink phone. I squeeze it with  my fingertips, lifting it slowly so I don't drop it back into the  filth. I press 911 and put it on speakerphone, not even washing my  hands.

"Tell me you changed your mind." Rory's desperate voice makes me wince.

"Ror, I need you." He doesn't respond, so I speak again. "Ror? You there?"

I can hear him breathing and, I swear, swallowing hard. "Sam?"

I wince again. The name is mine. "Yeah. It's me."         

     



 

"You remember?"

"Sort of." I nod, like he can see me doing it. "I think so. I think I  remember a lot of things. I need you to come and get me. My aunt was at  the American Airlines counter and got a ticket to Austria. I need her  found and taken somewhere safe."

Again he pauses. "We followed her to the gate for Colorado, not Austria.  She's there now. I was just looking at her. We got here about ten  minutes ago. She was being incredibly slippery earlier. We tracked the  phone and followed that way. We assumed she meant to leave the phone at  the airport and sneak out another way. That's sort of the thing Dash  would do."

It's my turn to pause. "Fuck. He might actually be doing that. He left me at the gate for Austria. What if he ran?"

"Come to the Colorado gate. It's twenty-seven. Come here and we'll regroup."

"Okay." I don't want to leave Derek/Dash in case he's on to me. I don't  want him to run. I have to assume I've wasted almost seven years trying  to get him. "I'll be there in a couple of minutes." My head isn't clear,  and my heart is conflicted, but my thirst for revenge has become the  only emotion I am capable of feeling.

He didn't kill my father.

He didn't save me.

I saved myself.

Fuck him. Guess I am back to not trusting him again. The back-and-forth is making me dizzy.

Before I go, I scrub my hands thoroughly to wash off the trash-bin  filth. When I've dried my hands twice, I leave, constantly scanning the  hall for him. In the seats for the gate to Austria I see him. His head  cocks to the side, he lifts an eyebrow, and stands, walking toward me.  He stops ten feet from me. "Plain Jane find her way home?"

The sentence makes me tremble. "What did you do to me?"

"I couldn't kill you, Sam. I know I should have. I know I should have  killed you and been done with it, but I couldn't. And you wouldn't  listen, would you? You never do."

"Oh God, you did this to me twice, didn't you? This is the second time  you've screwed with my brain. I've remembered already once, haven't I?  What was it that time?"

"We were in California, and there was something like the Ronald  problem." He shrugs, and I hate him. It's less than I love him, but it's  enough to keep me from walking to him.

"You killed Ronald?" The answer is so obvious now. I suspect I always  knew that. He smiles wide, making my hate grow. "You killed Ronald? Why  are you doing this?" It's the only question I have.

"Jane, I need you to understand that for me this isn't over." His  sickening smile sells me on the severity of his disease, past the fog in  my head and the way I make myself see him. For the first time I really  and truly see the man behind the curtain. He nods. "It won't ever be.  You can run and you can hide, and I will chase you because we are meant  to be. We are each other's light."

I follow his advice, turning and running as fast as I can. I don't know what else to do.





12. WHAT WHIP MARKS?

When I get to the gate for Colorado I pause. I recognize Antoine and  Rory at once, but the woman they're sitting by isn't my aunt. She looks  similar, but she is definitely not my aunt. I frown, bringing Rory to me  with just the look. He smiles cautiously. "Hey!"

I look at the woman. "That's not my aunt."

He glances at her. "I know that."

"Where's my aunt?"

"In custody. She thinks you're in danger, and she's freaking out." He looks past me. "Where's Dash?"

I point behind me with my thumb. "Back there. He's freaking out too.  Mostly just freaking me out." I look up into Rory's dark-blue eyes and  nod. "I need some answers from you-now. No holding back."

"What do ya remember?"

"Not much." I shake my head, not sure how to tell him what I do  remember. But the crowded and noisy airport suddenly seems like the  perfect place to blurt out something so horrid. If I'm lucky the words  will get lost in the noise and crowds of this hectic place. I need to  say it aloud to rid myself of the burden of being the only one who  knows, and he suddenly seems like the right person to tell. Taking a  large breath, I prepare myself for the sentence as I say it. "I think I  might have kil-murdered my father and hidden it like it was an  accident."

He glances at me in a funny way, clearly disbelieving my statement. "We  were in Germany when your dad died. I know, because I was with ya when  you got the call."         

     



 

"I remember torturing him. I burned him and cut him and made him scream."

"Well, not to sound like you're insane and remembering shit that never  happened, but if the cuckoo shoe fits, ya might have to wear it." He  lifts a cynical eyebrow, and the disbelief thickens in his tone. "You  couldn't be in the same room as your dad, no matter what. I also know  this for a fact because I was with you once when he showed up at Pat's  house. You started shaking and lost all the color in your face. Pat  screamed at him and called the cops. He was calling ya a liar and  screaming crazy things. I didn't even know who he was until afterward,  but during his two-minute stay at the front door, you became a different  person."

I know we dated or something, so I ask a question he might know the  answer to. "Did I have nightmares? Did I do horrible things at night?  Wake with blood on me and such?"

Rory sighs. "No. What is this?"

"I don't know." And God help me, but I don't. I don't understand how any  of this is possible. I have woken with blood on my hands. I recall  horrible things even if they seem very unlikely. "What was I like?"

He leans on the back of a chair next to us. I don't know if he's  contemplating telling me the truth or if he's trying to find the words.  Either way, I have to assume it's bad. "Sarcastic and bitchy. Sort of a  control freak. Ya never liked anyone to help ya with anything. You'd  fuck something up six times and get it right on the seventh and still  not take a hand from someone who knew how to do it. Ya drove me nuttier  than squirrel shit. Ya slept with a night-light. That was odd and  annoying to the people in the room who liked it dark." His smile twists  into a wry grin. "But ya were worth every second spent sleeping in a lit  room."

I sigh. "Can you try to be professional?"

"No, but I'll be honest. Ya were a badass bitch who liked to do things  her way and get fucked, hard. Ya didn't like things soft or slow. Ya  didn't like men who were sweet, and ya didn't cry, ever."

I step back, sort of scared I might have actually been a man. "I never  cried, not even with sad movies when animals were hurt or killed?" I  don't even want to touch on the sex.