I fix my eyes on the ceiling, trying to get off the Sydney subject as quickly as possible. “Look, if we’re going to do this, can we get it over with? I have somewhere I have to be soon.”
A sea of confusion fills his eyes. “Where?”
“Somewhere.” I squeeze my eyes and wish I had the superpower to disappear. I’d vanish up to the cabin with Ryland again. I never should have left.
Seconds later the sound of rain flows from the speakers as he clicks on the iPod. Pitter patter… pitter patter…
“Just relax.”
Pitter… patter… pitter… patter… The rain is falling… my cheek is pressed against the cold concrete. My hair is wet, my bones aching. I don’t want to be a prisoner anymore. I want to be free… please, someone help me.
The rain gets quieter and is replaced by an eerie calm. I can smell smoke, feel the heat of flames. My skin feels like it’s melting. I can’t breathe. I need to help them, but I can’t see them. I can only here him. I don’t want to hear him. I want him to die in the flames.
“Wake up. Open your eyes. Now.”
“I can’t… I don’t want to…”
“Maddie, wake up. We need to get out.” It’s a girl’s voice pleading with me as she tugs on my arm. “We have to go. I started the place on fire.”
“Lily?” I try to lift my eyelids. Try to see and breathe through the smoke, but it’s blinding me, searing at my skin. Metal scorches my body. The building is caving in around me. Boards land on my body, tear at my side, rip flesh from my body. Where is Evan? I need to see Evan. Help him. But he’s saying run, leave him behind. He’s going to die. And I’m going to let him.
“Maddie, wake up. Open your eyes.”
Fire. Blazing. Flames. Smoldering Smoke. Smothering. I’m going to die. He’s going to die. Watch him burn. Feel his pain. The pain you inflicted on him. I didn’t save him. I just ran and left Evan with him. The man who hates us. Tortures us. Does God awful things. The man I could kill and not care. He says I’m bad all the time and maybe I am.
“Jesus, Maddie. Open your eyes.”
Evan is gone and he’s chasing us, through the flames and the smoke as we race through the house, Lily pulling me along with her, my feet fighting to keep up with her. She’s faster than me, stronger than me. She is everything I want to be. And he wants to hurt both of us. Wants to punish us for trying to escape. For being bad. Like he punished all of those people that used to own the buttons scattered all over the basement floor. I wonder if he catches us if he’ll scatter mine along with them.
“He’ll kill us if he catches us,” I call out to Lily as we head for the front door of the house, coughing against the smoke.
She pauses, fumbling around through the smoke for the doorknob. “You go,” she says and suddenly she has something in her other hand… something silver… a gun? “I’ll take care of him. I’m better at this stuff anyway.”
It makes something deep inside me twinge and I find myself shaking my head, my eyes skimming to the flames and the smoke. “No. Not this time.”
Her grip on my arm tightens, her nails pierce into my skin, split open my flesh. “Just go. You’ll never be able to do it.”
Her words are painfully right. “But what about Evan—” There’s a thud and before I even know what I’m doing, I snatch the gun from her hand. I’m not even sure what comes over me. If I really am bad or if her words have finally gotten to me, but at the moment I don’t feel like myself. I feel like Lily.
When I see him walking through the fire and smoke toward me, I aim it at him. Flames engulf the wood, beams crash to the floor. Ashes spill all over my skin, singe my clothes, grey smoke swirls around, but even through it I can see him smiling at me.
“Do it!” Lily cries as the man grows closer and closer
I start to squeeze the trigger, but when I see his eyes, his face, his life, I can’t do it. I may hate him, but at the same time I love him. I may want to kill him, but at the same time I’m not a killer.
Flames ignite, roaring brightly, and smothering everything with smoke. I can’t breathe and I fall to the ground on my knees, choking for air. “I can’t do it.”
“Maddie.”
“Well, I sure as hell can.” Lily points the gun at him, smiling as she pulls the trigger, and when his blood splatters, it feels like it’s on my hands too. Like we’re one and the same.
“Maybe we are,” she whispers. “Then again, you might be too weak to be me.”
I look up at her and for the briefest moment, I think about taking the gun and aiming it at her, but then the fire ignites, a gun fires, and then everything smothers in flames
The fire shifts… fades… sucks us both away… I’m being carried... I move somewhere else. I can’ move… I claw at the ground. My flesh. Four white walls surround me… the number 14 brands in my mind, just on the other side. I have to get out. The smoke and rain is gone and all I can see is the florescent lighting and feel the cold air.
I’m alone.
No you’re not. We’re in this together.
They tell me I’m crazy.
But I’m not!
I see her.
She’s real.
She didn’t leave me to die.
“I’m not crazy! Let me out!” I pound on the door. Scream at the top of my lungs, but no one hears me. My fingernails dig in to the door and I scrape at the metal until my fingers bleed, until some of my fingernails rip off.
Calm down. Everything’s going to be okay. I’ll take care of you. I always do. After all, you’re too weak without me.
“You keep saying that,” I say, continue to bang at the door, panting and trembling with fear. I haven’t seen sunlight in days. Haven’t breathed fresh air in ages. I need out. “But it’s never okay. My weakness has won.”
It will, though. But you need to calm down. Panicking’s not going to get us anywhere.
“But I want out. I want to breathe the fresh air again. Want to be out of this place.”
“You will be,” she promises as I turn around and sit down on the cement floor with my head resting against the door, tucking my damp blond hair behind my ears. I stare at the scribbling on the wall. The sentence that I wrote over and over again: I’m not a killer. I’m not a killer. I’m not a killer. “Just trust me. I know a way to get us out, but it’s going to have to be me.”