The Shape of Night(71)

    But after we finished and we both lay half naked on the kitchen floor, the reality of what we’d just done made me so sick to my stomach that I stumbled into the bathroom and threw up, again and again, coughing and choking on sour wine and regret. There, hugging the toilet, I started to sob. What’s done cannot be undone. Lady Macbeth’s words came to me like a chant, a horrible truth that I wanted to erase, but the line just kept echoing in my head.

I heard Nick groan in the other room. “Oh my god. Oh my god.”

When I finally came out of the bathroom, I found him huddled on the floor, rocking back and forth and clutching his head in his hands. This broken Nick was a stranger I’d never seen before, and he frightened me.

“Jesus, what were we thinking?” he sobs.

“We can’t let her find out.”

“I can’t believe this happened. What the fuck am I going to do?”

“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We are going to forget this, Nick.” I kneel beside him, grab him by the shoulders, and give him a violent shake. “Promise me you’ll never tell her. Promise me.”

“I need to get home.” He shoves me away and lurches to his feet. He’s so intoxicated that he can barely button his shirt and buckle his belt.

    “You’ve had too much to drink. You can’t drive.”

“I can’t stay here.” He staggers out of the kitchen and I follow, trying to talk sense into him as he pulls on his coat and heads down the stairway. He’s too agitated to listen.

“Nick, don’t leave!” I plead.

But I can’t stop him. He’s drunk, the roads are perilously slick with ice, and there’s nothing I can do to change his mind. From the doorway I watch him stumble off into the night. Snow swirls down, fat, thick flakes that obscure my last glimpse of him. I hear his car door slam shut, and then the glow of his taillights fades into the darkness.

The next time I see Nick, he is lying comatose in a hospital bed and Lucy is slumped in a chair beside him. Her eyes are hollow with exhaustion and she keeps shaking her head, murmuring again and again, “I don’t understand. He’s always so careful. Why wasn’t he wearing his seatbelt? Why was he driving drunk?”

I’m the only one who knows the answer, but I don’t tell her. I will never tell her. Instead I bury the truth, guarding it like a powder keg that could explode and destroy us both. For weeks I manage to keep myself together, for Lucy’s sake. I sit beside her in the hospital. I bring her doughnuts and coffee, soup and sandwiches. I play the loving younger sister, but guilt gnaws at me like a vicious rodent. I’m terrified that Nick will recover and tell her what happened between us. Even as Lucy was praying for Nick’s recovery, I was hoping he would never wake up.

Five weeks after the accident, my wish was granted. I remember my overwhelming sense of relief when I heard the whine of the flatlining heart monitor. I remember holding Lucy as the nurse turned off the ventilator and Nick’s chest at last fell still. While Lucy shook and sobbed in my arms, I was thinking, Thank god it’s over. Thank god he will never tell her the truth.

Which makes me even more of a monster than I already was. I wanted him dead and silent. I wanted the very thing that broke my sister’s heart.



* * *



—

    “Your own sister’s husband,” Brodie says. “Because of you, he is dead.”

I bow my head, silent. The truth is too excruciating to admit.

“Say it, Ava. Tell the truth. You wanted him to die.”

“Yes,” I sob. “I wanted him to die.” My voice fades to a whisper. “And he did.”

Captain Brodie turns to his men. “Tell me, gentlemen. For betraying those she loves, what does she deserve?”

“No mercy!” one man calls out.

Now another man joins him, and another, in a chant that will not stop.

“No mercy.”

“No mercy.”

I press my hands over my ears, trying to shut out the shouts, but two men grab my wrists and wrench them away from my head, forcing me to listen. Their hands are icy, not the warm flesh of the living, but the flesh of cold, dead men. I look wildly around at the closing circle and suddenly I do not see men. I see corpses, grim and hollow-eyed witnesses to the prisoner’s execution.

Above them all towers Brodie, and his eyes are a cold, reptilian black. Why did I never see this before? This creature that has stalked my dreams, who aroused me, who punished me—why did I not recognize him for what he really is?

A demon. My demon.



* * *



—

I awaken with a shriek. Wildly I stare around the room and find that I am back in my bedroom, in my bed, and the sheets are twisted and soaked with sweat. Sunlight streams through the windows, as bright and harsh as daggers in my eyes.

    Through the pounding of my heart I hear, faintly, the sound of my cellphone ringing. Last night I was so drunk I left it in the kitchen and I feel too drained to climb out of bed to answer it.

At last the ringing stops.

I squeeze my eyes shut and once again I see him, staring down at me with those black viper eyes. Eyes he’s never revealed to me before. I see the circle of men, all with the same eyes, surrounding me, watching as their captain moved in to deliver his punishment.