72 St. Margaret’s Way Chapter 15
Amelia sat up straight, glancing over at Madelyn. She was still in charge and James noticed the smooth way she didn’t ask him permission or look for confirmation about her plan. Madelyn stood up and motioned for James to come with her. The rattling at the door started again, harder this time. Then they started pounding.
Madelyn led James into the hall, out of sight beyond the closed storage closet. He heard Amelia start down the stairs. “Who’s there?”
“I’m looking for my friend who lives here.”
Her voice actually hurt in his ears, like stripped wires sparking inside his skull as James closed his eyes.
“There’s no one living here,” Amelia said. “We’re not interested, go away.”
“I need my friend James,” Adele called.
Her voice wasn’t muffled anymore and James realized that Amelia had opened the door. No, no, no, what was she doing? Was Adele controlling her now too?
Then he heard the crackle of a taser starting up. “You need to get the hell away from here,” Amelia said.
“James!” Adele called sweetly.
She couldn’t see him. He was far enough down the hall that she couldn’t see him. But that didn’t matter. James was shaking as Madelyn touched his shoulder. He shrugged it off in a panic, vaguely aware that he should apologize. But he was frozen, too afraid to move.
“You need to leave,” Amelia insisted, and Madelyn slipped past James toward her, clearly as backup. “Get the hell away from here before I make you.”
There was the sound of movement at the door, like Adele was trying to force her way in. Amelia swore, then the taser crackled again.
“Let me in!” Adele yelled.
“Get the fuck out!”
“JAMES!” Adele called in, her voice furious.
He was trembling in his hiding place, but didn’t answer. She couldn’t control him now.
“Get the fuck out before I shoot you.”
That was Gabriella. Did she have a gun? Where did Gabriella get a gun? Was it the one he requested? She was going to hurt herself with that, James should-
“KILL YOURSELF!” Adele screamed, her voice high and petulant. “JAMES! I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE. TAKE A KNIFE FROM THE KITCHEN AND CUT YOUR FUCKING THROAT!”
James wasn’t going to do that, he wasn’t under her control anymore. No matter how scared he was, he didn’t want to follow her commands. But now his feet were moving, walking toward the kitchen doorway without any input from him.
The knife block was in there, on the counter by the fridge. It didn’t matter if he wanted to or not, James was going to cut his own throat with one of those old dull knives. And he was alone in this hallway as he reached the kitchen doorway, none of the others were going to notice because he couldn’t cry out.
The front door banged shut just as something slammed into James from behind. And then he was sprawled on the kitchen floor, his head bouncing off the tile as Bradley’s entire body weight pinned him down on the dingy linoleum. James choked, his body giving only the slightest resistance before collapsing, no longer attempting to reach the knife block on the counter. His hands were by his head, Bradley gripping his wrists as he made no move to get off of him.
“She’s gone,” Amelia said, hurrying into the room. “Gabriella was terrifying and- oh, shit.”
“We’re good,” Bradley said breathlessly.
“James, can you hear me?” Amelia asked.
He nodded, his chin bumping against the floor. “She’s gone,” Amelia said, kneeling down beside him. “Fucking Doc Holliday out there scared her off. It’s a paintball gun, but she doesn’t need to know that. Can you get up?”
“No,” Bradley said before James could answer.
And James realized he was fighting Bradley, just a little. Barely enough to notice. He turned away from them, his forehead resting on the floor. The other two talked over him, captain to second-in-command, and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block everything out. And clearly it worked because the next thing he realized, Bradley was talking to him.
“If I let you up, are you going to try to kill yourself?”
“No.”
“I have the tranq gun and taser within reach. If it seems like you are, I’m going to grab whatever I touch first and shoot you with it. It’ll fucking suck, but it beats death. Got it?”
He didn’t sound aggressive, but he was firm in a way that made James take notice. James nodded and Bradley let go of his wrists, carefully moving off of him. James sat up and took a shuddering breath. Just like it had been in the bathroom that first day, it was him, Amelia, and Bradley in the kitchen. Both of his teammates were looking at him cautiously.
“I want to go home,” he whispered uselessly.
“Not yet,” Amelia said. “Soon. Once it’s safe.”
“Where’s Gabriella and Madelyn?”
“They’re fine,” Amelia said. “They’re safe. They’re doing a quick check of the property right now.”
She helped him to his feet, but just as she was walking him out of the kitchen, the phone rang in James’s office. “I have to get it,” she said. “I’ll call Dr. Oliver right after. Bradley, can you stay with him?”
If Bradley answered, James didn’t notice as he turned and walked down the hall. The gray bedroom was open and he went straight for it, not daring to look toward the front door or at anyone who might be there.
Bradley did, in fact, come back with him. He closed the door and stood back as James sat on the closest bed, the one he’d been in for days now. He felt too exposed, vulnerable to too many possible dangers. Adele’s control was still lingering in his body. The antidote had failed and he was still hers.
“Please just let me die,” he whispered.
Bradley froze and James shook his head. “I’m me,” he said. “I’m asking as me, not because of her. But she still has me and I’m never going to be safe. I don’t want to be her toy anymore. So please just let me die. I want to die.”
He stared at the floor, waiting for whatever reaction was coming his way. But he knew he was right. If she still had control over him after he’d finished the antidote, then what else was going to possibly stop that? His willpower clearly wasn’t enough if his body was still going to listen to instructions.
Tears burned in his eyes and he wiped uselessly at them. “You should go to bed until Jolene gets here,” Bradley said. “One of us can stay.”
“I-”
“The antidote helps your body break it down,” Bradley interrupted, sitting down on the other bed. “It doesn’t immediately solve everything, didn’t she tell you that?”
If she had, James didn’t remember the conversation. Especially not right now when he could barely remember his own name. “It’s like the compound is a virus, and the antidote basically gives you an immune system against it,” Bradley continued, correctly interpreting James’s blank silence. “I’m going to assume you were telling the truth about that whole digestive system science fair project. So you know how body systems work if you passed the rest of tenth grade biology.”
James had done great in tenth grade biology. But thinking about that just confused him right now. Now that the adrenaline was fading, he felt even fuzzier than before.
“You maybe need a booster,” Bradley said. “Or something. I don’t fucking know. But Jolene will. And you’re not the first person to go through this protocol. Your cousin dug up what the Foundation had about the antidote process. And the one guy who gave permission for his records to be declassified took about five or six days to be rid of all of it.”
James nodded. Five days felt like forever, but it wasn’t actually, was it? He was almost there. “I found the anchoring bead,” Bradley continued, motioning toward his own head. “The one in your hair. So I can tell you for a fact it’s gone, I pulled it out myself. That’s what keeps the poison level maintained and now that it’s gone, you just have to wait it out.”
James felt dizzy and sick and his wrists hurt. And his head hurt where he’d hit it on the floor. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t…I’m not going to do anything. Please don’t tell anyone I said that.”
“I can’t.”
Right. They were all required to report statements like that. Technically for the safety of whoever had mentioned self-harm, but James also figured it was so that the Foundation could avoid any lawsuits or extra responsibilities. “Yeah.”
Bradley groaned. “Because if anyone else said that to me, you’d want them in safe hands even if they said they didn’t mean it. That’s why.”
He didn’t have to be defensive, James knew he was right. James nodded, sure if he tried to talk he’d cry. His head was pounding, he wasn’t sure if he was hungry or would never be hungry again, and his hand shook as he tried to wipe his face. “Yeah,” he managed to choke out.
There was a knock at the door and his heart seemed to stop for a second, but it was just Amelia. “Dr. Oliver’s going to come by in about two hours,” she said. “She’d be sooner, but there was an emergency at the Franklin County branch.”
James nodded, not looking at her. She went to touch his hand and he flinched, pulling it away before he even realized what he was doing. “Sorry.”
“You’re fine,” she said. “I…fuck, I’m sorry. Um, I’m going to take your meeting with McGovern. We moved it to today.”
He barely remembered setting that meeting when he’d been in Adele’s thrall. “Someone needs to stay,” Amelia said as he finally looked at her.
“I’m already here,” Bradley said. “Can you grab my backpack?”
Amelia slipped out of the room with another glance at James. Without saying anything, James climbed into the bed, feeling slightly better once the sheets were up over his arms.
She was back a second later. “Do you need anything?” she asked him. “Do you have water?”
“I’m fine.”
Half an answer, but she didn’t call him on it. Instead, she smiled. It was small and sad, but genuine. Then she ducked out of the room.
Bradley pulled out a textbook and notebook. “I’ll stay until Oliver gets here,” he said, sitting down against the headboard of the other bed and opening the textbook. “Do you, um, you’re good? No…”
He trailed off, but James knew how that sentence ended. He nodded, turning onto his back to look up at the ceiling, which was rolling slightly above him. “If you shoot me with the tranq gun, Amelia has to report you,” he said quietly.
Bradley stopped flipping through his textbook. “I’m sorry?” he said. “Who is going to report me for what?”
James closed his eyes, still not entirely trusting that the plan was working, but grateful not to be exposed anymore.
***
“She told me not to sleep,” he said a little while later, after staring up at the popcorn ceiling for what felt like hours.
Bradley jumped and swore. “I thought you were asleep,” he said.
James wanted to be. He could barely think and it was hard to even remember where he was. He was so tired and desperately wanted to stop thinking. When was the last time he’d slept without drugs?
But it still tugged at him, the same way Adele’s voice had made him go for those knives. Not enough to impact his mind, but enough to impact his body.
“I told her I was tired,” he said, still staring at the ceiling. “Because I was up all night thinking about her.”
“Gross.”
James would have laughed if this wasn’t so terrifying and humiliating. But every time he tried to let his mind relax and go to sleep, something tugged him back. And even if it wasn’t physical, it was still there.
“I think it was supposed to be funny,” he admitted for reasons beyond his understanding. “She told me if I loved her, I wouldn’t sleep. I’d just stay up and think about her.”
“Well, you don’t fucking love her. So shut up and go to sleep.”
That made sense. James nodded. “I don’t love her.”
He closed his eyes, but he could see blood red and hear her careful footsteps echoing around him.
“She’s still here,” he murmured.
“No she isn’t, Gabriella chased her off.”
“She is,” James insisted, shaking now as he looked at Bradley, who had set his homework aside. “She’s here, I swear she’s here.”
“She’s gone,” Bradley said. “Your cousin was waving that paintball gun around like Yosemite Sam and she fled.”
“It’s fine,” James said. “I’m sorry.”
Bradley looked at him, but things were pretty confusing now, so James couldn’t tell if he was mad or not. He let his eyes roll back toward the ceiling again.
“What was that story you were telling me?” Bradley asked.
“What?”
“When I was at the hospital. You were telling me something about a cat.”
James remembered now. In the emergency room back in December. They’d been there hours already with hours to go. Bradley had been shivering with pain, half awake after yet another morphine shot. Knowing he risked getting kicked across the room by Bradley’s remaining good leg, James had been running his fingers through his hair, which was gritty with salt and road sand, and trying to comfort him with yet another inane, rambling story. Was that where they were now? Had they not left the hospital yet?
“A cat,” he repeated, not feeling fully in the room.
“Yeah, that one. Tell me about it.”
“You want…”
“You started telling me a story and I want to hear the ending. Please just tell me about the fucking cat.”
“Yeah, okay,” James said. Taking care of the others, that was something he could handle. “Where did I stop?”
“Who cares? Start over.”
They probably had a while. The nurse had been apologetic, but said there were more emergent situations coming in. Bradley hadn’t said anything, but James had been considering whether St. Hildegard would maybe take him after all. Or, if he didn’t have a concussion, maybe they could pop his dislocated kneecap back in at headquarters. Amelia could probably figure out how to do it, if anyone could.
But if there were still hours to go, yeah, he could start over.
“So it was like, six years ago?” he started. “There was this thing over at the Montachusett Ski Area. And people were…they were going up the ski lift and they’d see it on the way up. Like…like a panther in the snow. So they didn’t want to ski back down.”
He closed his eyes. It was a little less scary now as he remembered the panther. “It was, like, six feet long, and it was gorgeous. Bradley, it was so beautiful. Madelyn made fun of me, I think she thought I might go pet it and get torn apart. But it was so…”
James sighed, feeling more at ease as he told the familiar story. “We didn’t catch it,” he said. “It started snowing and Robin finally called us off. But I wanted to…go back and see…”
