I walk back to Derek, trying to hide the fact I’ve been crying, but he sees it immediately. “You all right?”
I nod. “Just a little sad still. My heart hurts, ya know?”
He wraps an arm around me. “I do.” We walk to the security check. It’s there I discover we are headed to Austria, which makes me excited. I know I’ve been there before. I saw the pictures, but I don’t recall it.
We walk to the gate for the plane, sitting next to each other on a bench. Earlier I told him I thought coming to the airport and taking the same flight was a gamble, but he said he picked the flight for a reason—it was overbooked.
He kisses my hand again, muttering, “I’ll be right back.”
I nod, waiting for him. Everything is clicking into place. I watch him walk down the long corridor of tan carpet, past the gates of the departure area. He’s crazy, there’s no doubt, but he wouldn’t ever hurt me. I know that. He’s the only way I’ll ever be rid of the haunting details of my childhood. I wish he could just take away the last two weeks but leave me with everything else. I was never scared before, except when I worried he would eventually see what a plain Jane I was. Plain Jane. The words ring in my head. Plain Jane.
I open my mouth, whispering the words, “Plain Jane.”
It acts likes a trigger. A darkness covers my face, like a bucket of blood has been poured over my head, making my vision turn red and cloud out my view. My eyes flutter like I’m having a seizure, only I’m not making them do it. A thousand images wash through my head at once, like a flood filling my brain.
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?”