Unravel(84)

When I left Fairfax, I didn’t look at my discharge papers. I was just happy to be leaving. I assumed that it was deemed safe for me enter the world again. Right?

Everything seems harmless enough. The sky’s a cloudless gray. The temperature is warm, considering the bitter, cold weather that’s been happening. The ground is soggy. Potholes filled with water pepper the road.

That icicle runs past my memory. I bend down, my back resting against the car door, and drop my head into my waiting palms. I picture the water dripping onto the ground.

Drip, drip, drip.

I bet it’s gone. I bet there’s nothing left of the frozen water drop. Why does that fill me with so much despair? Because it meant more to me. It represented my life and everything I was fighting for. It’s gone, and I still haven’t figured out a damn thing. If anything, I am even more lost. Even more broken.

When I was in Fairfax I had one singular goal: to get out and get answers. That goal would keep me going, even when it felt like I was running on empty. To get out and still have no answers makes me feel hopeless. Tears of frustration slip down my cheeks and onto the black asphalt. I wipe my face, stand up and take a deep breath. No matter what I feel, I know one thing is for sure. Lana is out there somewhere. I know it sounds impossible and crazy, but I feel her heartbeat echo in my ears.

Not my own.

Just hers.

I get back in my car, do a U-turn and try to find a road that looks familiar. A few minutes later I finally do. The houses rushing past me are ones that I’ve seen for years. But I ignore them. I only focus on one thing: the heartbeat echoing in my ears. In fact, the closer I get to Lana’s house, the more prominent her heartbeat becomes. I press my hand against my heart. My heartbeat is calm and steady and very quiet up against Lana’s, which is loud, with a short, staccato beat.

Dr. Rutledge once told me that Lana is safe and that her dad could no longer hurt her. So why, when I get to her house, does the echo burst from my ears? Why do I feel her all around me?

I run toward the front door, knowing with a sickening gut that Lana is here. Maybe Dr. Rutledge thought Lana is safe but she’s wrong. She’s been wrong the entire time. That thought alone is powerful enough to make my legs buckle.

I make it to the front door and burst into the house. I’m panting, looking frantically around. There’s a candle burning somewhere, the scent meets my nose. I can hear the sound of the grandfather clock clicking in the dining room.

I just want to find Lana. Instead I find Max. I freeze in my tracks. He’s pounding on Lana’s dad’s office door.

“Michael!” he screams. “Open up!”

His hands are frantically beating against the hard oak. A crash sounds from behind the closed doors. Fear shoots down my spine.

I walk down the hall, closer to Max.

“No, no, no,” I whisper faintly.

Max doesn’t see me come closer. He takes a step back and kicks the door down. The wood splinters and the door hangs from the hinges.

He runs into the room. But I can’t. I’m too afraid to go forward. I already know what I’m going to see and I don’t want to see it. Once is enough.

The only reason I step forward is because of Lana. I can hear her voice. I can hear her crying and moaning. I walk into the room and the blinds are closed, shutting the world off. Only the light on her dad’s desk is on. And on the floor, right across from her dad’s desk, is Lana, being held down by her dad.

I think I scream, but no one notices.

Lana’s dad holds her hands above her head with one hand and covers her mouth with the other. His pants are down and so are her jeans.

Her eyes are wide and frantic. They find mine and she looks at me with alarm.

“No,” I whisper.

“I own you,” her dad pants. “Your life is mine.”

“No,” I groan.

Her dad turns and looks at Max. He yells something. I can’t make it out. The volume has been turned down. All I can hear is the sound of Lana’s heavy breathing.

Max’s mouth moves rapidly. Lana’s dad lets go of Lana, leans back on his knees. He’s getting up.

That’s when I notice Max reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a gun.

“Stop!” I scream.

Max keeps walking and his index finger wraps around the trigger. He’s pointing it directly at Lana’s dad.

I run up behind him. “Don’t!” I yell.

Lana stares at Max, trying to warn him with her eyes to stop. Her dad lets go of her hands. She covers her face; her cries are muffled against her hand. Her dad pivots his body and goes to stand up.

Max pulls the trigger.

Everything happens so slowly, as if time is resisting, trying to stay in place, yet our actions are moving it forward.

The bullet releases from the chamber. It circles out into the air slowly. The aim is perfect, going directly to Lana’s dad’s head. It hits him. “Go,” Lana mouths to me. Her eyes are wide open, pleading and begging for me to leave the room.

The black pinpricks of her pupils draw me in and I’m pulled into a vortex so powerful, there’s no getting out. Everything changes in that second. Lana’s brown irises that made her always look so vulnerable and quiet. The irises that hid so much are now dark, cobalt blue.

The exact shade of my eyes.

I drop to the ground and moan. It feels like someone’s reaching into my chest and ripping the very life out of me. My breath comes out in shallow gasps as pain starts to radiate throughout me.