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Both of us sat in silence for several moments. I didn’t receive a shock on my bracelet, which told me that either Sam wasn’t watching, or he didn’t care that we were talking openly. Drake looked toward the camera again, a confused look on his face.
"I tried to set Ashley free last night," I said, lowering my voice to a whisper in case someone listened in. "We were taken out to the chapel, and Sam wanted me to hurt her, but I tried to save her instead." I wiped at my face, fresh tears already slipping down my cheeks. Drake didn’t move, instead he chewed at the inside of his cheek, no longer looking at his book, but instead staring off into space.
The sound of my voice, hiccuping and sobbing as I recounted the way Ashley had died, made me want to scream. I sounded weak and broken, and I didn’t want to be that way anymore. No matter what I did I couldn’t stop. It was so bad that I didn’t even hear Drake trying to break into my speech.
"Dahlia? Dahlia, I know you all were out there. I was there."
"Huh?" What was he saying?
He put the book aside, and turned to look into my eyes. "I carried Ashley out to the chapel. I saw everything."
My hand went to my mouth. I knew I’d recognized the guy carrying her. The broad shoulders, the familiar walk, it made sense now. "Oh my god, Drake. He made you carry her? Was he the one carrying me?" My skin crawled at the thought of Sam’s arms around me.
Drake never took his eyes off me. Instead he leaned in closer. "He sent one of our assistants to wake me up. He’s the one who carried you."
"Assistants? How many…" I trailed off, leaving my question unfinished. An icy cold fist of terror clutched my guts. A new question sprang to my mind that I didn’t want to ask, but had to. "What, uh, what do you mean by ‘our assistants?’ "
Drake sighed, and finally tore his eyes from mine, dropping his gaze. "This place, this entire thing, is a way to help people understand the benefits of catharsis. A miniature society predicated on revenge, punishment, and reprisal. My partner and I—"
"What the fuck are you saying?" I leaped from my chair and took a step back. "What the fuck is this?"
My hands and lips trembled as I looked at him. This was a joke. A sick and twisted fucking joke, but that had to be what was going on. It had to be.
"He’s making you say this, isn’t he?" I asked, desperate. "He told you to make this up. What is it? Another round of psychological torture for Dahlia? Huh? Is that his game? Well, you don’t have to play, Drake. I get it. It’s fine."
Drake stood and took a step toward me, a sad smile on his lips. "I picked you, Dahlia. Hand picked from the clients at my practice."
My jaw dropped open. "No! That’s not true. You—you’ve been getting tortured like us." I pointed at him, an accusing finger shaking as it pinned him in place. "You’ve done the same things we have. Tortured? Murdered?"
"Yeah," Drake said with a sigh. "My partner and I take turns being ‘Sam.’ Each cycle we’d trade spots. No one ever truly understood what we were doing here. But you do. I see it in your eyes when you punish the wicked. Once I found you, I decided I wanted to experience all this with you."
"This isn’t happening," I screamed at him, crying harder now, hands digging at my hair, tearing at it. "This isn’t real."
"It’s very real," Drake admitted. "You’ve seen me before. Can you remember? Out there?" He gestured to the wall, meaning the outside world.
"No, I don’t know you. I’ve never seen you before coming here," I said, still trying to process what he was saying. My legs shook weakly, unable to hold me up. I lowered myself to sit.
Drake, calm as ever, took another step forward, nodding his head. "You have. The day you went missing. I had my beard then, and my hair was a little longer. I changed all that to make sure you didn’t recognize me. It was fleeting, but you saw me. I already knew, at that minute, that we were taking you next. I’d known it for weeks at that point."
A memory burst into my mind, pulled up, like a dead and rotting body dragged up from mud.
"Shawn Jones?"
A man in a suit, reading a name off a clipboard. My head jerking up to see the doctor flicking his eyes at me, a moment of recognition. Those eyes. That voice.
"No," the word dragged out of my mouth, turning into a wail of heartrending sadness. One long syllable that grew in volume until I thought my head would split apart.
Drake nodded, and the faint outline of a smile flashed across his lips. "You do remember?"
He knelt down, and I flinched away. "Don’t touch me, god damn it."
Drake ignored that. Instead, he crossed his arms over his legs. "Dr. Pope came to me right after you first became a patient. Asked me for my expertise in childhood trauma. The moment I read your file, I became enthralled by you. The story of how you persevere was fascinating. I’d never seen someone that strong, that powerful, yet without any idea that she was. Once I’d learned your entire story I understood, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there was only one thing that could open your eyes to the toughness and potential you had within."
I clamped my hands to my ears, agonized at the very sound of his voice. This man was a mask. Was anything real between us? God in heaven, what was happening here? I couldn’t stop myself from spiraling down into a sludgy black pit of despair. I didn’t even have the energy to pull away, when he reached out and pulled my hand from my ear and held it in his own.
"This place was where you were going to become whole, Dahlia. I wanted to heal you the best way I knew how." He squeezed my hand tighter. "All of this, all of it, is for you. I need you to believe that, because the game has changed. I’ve lost control, and—"
A buzzer went off, signaling the end of library time. The door clicked open, and before Drake could say anything else, I scampered forward on all fours like an animal, rushing for escape.
