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Chapter Forty-Three
Phoebe
I was in a new room. That much I knew.
Everything else was a blur. After waking with what felt like wads of cotton shoved down my throat, I lay still, fading in and out of consciousness. My throat felt like fire, and I could barely swallow.
No one had come in, but I had no idea when, or if, they’d make a surprise appearance.
The closer to death I seemed, the better off I’d be.
During the deepest parts of the unconscious moments, I prayed I was having a nightmare. I convinced myself I’d roll over and Julian would be there to soothe me, assuring me monsters only lived in my memory.
Then clarity broke through and reminded me monsters were very real. The ropes tying my hands behind my back and my feet together were very real. The scarf that brought me within a whisper of death was definitely very real.
“Julian…” His name croaked from my cracked mouth. Tears quickly followed. What was he thinking? Did he think I’d abandoned him, or did he know my life was ending?
And what about Iris? I’d heard her. I knew in my heart she still drew breath, and it ripped me apart to be so close and yet so far from her. I had to get out of here. If it was the last thing I did, I’d get her away from that monster.
Resolve strengthened within me and I whimpered with shrieks of pain as I fought against my restraints. Crumpled on the floor like a discarded rag doll, I twisted and yanked my wrists raw.
A clanging sound all around me halted my actions, demanding my attention. Squinting through the darkness, I vaguely made out a roadmap of copper wiring and pipes lining the walls above me.
Where the hell?
The clanging intensified, crashing to a thunderous boom, then quieting. The hiss started slowly. Gradually, it intensified to a whistling roar. With each rise in volume, a bead of sweat trickled down my temple and pooled onto the concrete floor.
Then another.
Then another.
Within minutes, a thick layer of sweat coated me, dampening my clothes and suctioning them to me like a second skin. The air became so humid, I coughed more than I breathed.
Steam.
Realization smacked me across the face.
It was late spring in California, and someone cranked up intolerable heat. The tiny room had no windows and no ventilation. I could hardly breathe anyway—with thick air in my lungs, it was almost impossible.
I tried to move, but my limbs were bound.
I tried to scream, but my voice was gone.
He was slowly suffocating me. The first time, apparently, didn’t satisfy his sick obsession. Somewhere, he watched this. I felt it. He wanted to watch me struggle for my last breath.
A tear escaped and rolled down my cheek, mixing with the multiplying beads of sweat cascading off my body. I glanced around one last time, assuring Iris was nowhere to be found.
Somehow the verification both relieved me and frightened me.
Evil lived inside my father. It had consumed and devoured him.
In the heated delirium, my mind raced backward in time. Right after Julian’s stalker had attacked us, we cuddled in a hospital bed and reflected on what we’d lived through.
“I’m scared I’m going to leave and the fucking bottom is going to fall out from under us again. Every time we turn around something is hiding in the shadows waiting for us.”
“Julian, I should know better than anyone that monsters can hide in plain sight. They can hold your hand as you cross the street and then push you in front of a car when your back is turned. We can’t hide from the world living in a bubble of what ifs. Evil doesn’t have a face. It just is.”
Evil had a face. It tucked me in some nights. It came shit-faced to my parent-teacher conferences. It cut all my hair off in second grade with a pair of garden shears when I’d asked for a pretty haircut like the other girls in school.
Evil left me here to die.
Evil had my daughter.
Breathing became too much of a chore. Too sleepy to think, I closed my eyes. Right before I drifted off, I offered a silent apology to Julian, praying for him to find Iris in time.
And maybe someday he’d tell her how hard her mother had tried.
