Page 64 of Phoenix
I take a step back, but he moves forward again, this time raising his hands to reveal a petrol can in one, and a lighter in the other. The instant I see it, I close my eyes and take in a hint of gasoline through my nostrils. My eyes shoot open, only to be staring right into his as he now stands in the doorway, which he’s managed to open, locked or not.
“My darling,” he whispers, sounding just as syrupy sweet as he did on the day he took me.
Everything from that day suddenly hits my senses full throttle – the smell of rain on dry ground, the sound of distant thunder, the greyness of everything, and the sweat of my clammy hands.
I don’t utter a word, just like on that day, even though the scream was in my throat; it is still inside my throat. All I can manage to do is shake my head, slowly, as if caught inside a vat of glue. He steps further inside, revealing the checkered shirt he’s wearing, a jacket that’s too small, slacks that are too long, as well as his receding hairline.
“Oh, my darling girl, what has he done to you?” he asks with the sound of pity in his voice. I throw up my hands in a defensive stance as I continue stepping back, still shaking my head, though now a little quicker than before. I want to call out, to run, to do anything, but my body refuses to.
“Now, don’t worry, my darling girl, I’m not angry; Daddy isn’t angry with you. I just want you to come home,” he says softly, inching closer step by step. “You want that too, don’t you, Niamh?”
“No!” I think I manage to gasp, though I cannot even be sure if it came out. I feel dizzy and completely overcome with fear.
“Darling, you know I cannot leave you here, not with that thug of a man,” he says a little more sternly. “You need to come home now, Niamh.”
“No,” I whimper, huddling myself in smaller, and trying to force myself into doing something, anything of use.
“Now, don’t make me lose my temper, Niamh, you were always such a good girl with me,” he says, only a few feet away from me. “I don’t blame you, Niamh, you’ve been around that criminal for too long; it’s logical he would have rubbed off on you. But come with me and I can make it all better again.”
“No,” I gasp again, but it’s too late, he already has hold of my arms.
I begin hyperventilating, but he’s too strong to fight against. I’m soon being dragged across the floor and through the door, all the while the smell of gasoline hits me like a wall; I almost choke on it. He must have doused the ground with it, which means taking me isn’t his only plan tonight.
“I know, darling, the smell is not nice, but I can’t let that man live, not after he put his hands on my darling girl,” he whispers in my ear, his spit coating my skin. “He needs to die, just like his mother did. She tried to get between my child and me too, but I took care of it; I take care of my own.”
“I’m not a child anymore,” I finally whisper, “you need to let me go.”
“I will never let you go, darling, we can start a new family together,” he says with the same creepy smile he would give me through my incarceration in that basement.
“I don’t want to,” I cry, being too overwrought to stop the lump from erupting from my throat. “I want to be a family with him.”
“That’s not possible, darling, he’s not good enough for you,” he says, taking out the lighter from his pocket. The panic begins to swim through my veins, and I don’t know what to do, how to make him stop being the psycho that he is. I can’t escape him alone, not without Jake, not without Warren.
“Please, don’t do this, please don’t hurt him,” I whimper, “I’ll come with you, I’ll stay with you, just don’t hurt him. Please, I love him!”
“Precisely why I have to do this, darling,” he says, staring me in the face with a grin that fills me with dread and hopelessness. “It’s for your own good, darling.”
Without another word, he flicks the lighter and drops it into the path of gasoline. The fire travels so quickly, it reminds me of a train moving at top speed. I grab at the roots of my hair and pull, willing myself to think of something, anything to save the man I love inside.
“Wake up, Phoenix, fly from the ashes, baby!” I think to myself with the feeling of bile climbing up my throat.
Robert stands back with a blank expression, watching as the fire spreads, and with the flames growing higher and higher. My breathing is going at such a rate, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stay conscious. I take a step back when the heat becomes too intense to take, right up until my foot hits something hard but not yet hot, so I look down. A simple glass bottle of amber liquid with a gold label revealing its contents – whiskey, with an illustration of a dragon beneath the name. Stanley. I now know what he’s been trying to tell me in all those dreams; I know what I have to do. No one is going to save me, except me.
Without any further thought, other than what I know about dragons, alcohol, and fire, I grab hold of the bottle and one of the sticks from the log stack. I rip away the bottom of my cotton nightie and wrap it around the end of the stick, glancing up at Robert who is still hypnotized by the growing flames. I then rest the bandaged end inside the flames, waiting for it to catch. Once alight, I grab the bottle, unscrew the cap with my teeth, and begin walking up to him. He doesn’t notice me until I am but a foot or two away from him.
“Darling, what are you doing?” he asks with his syrupy tone suddenly dropped, and instead, a hint of fear coming through his voice.
“I am not your darling,” I growl at him through my teeth, even though every part of me is trembling – through fear, through shock, through rage. “I am not your child, and I will never be yours.”
“Niamh, put the stick down!” he orders, still trying to dictate my life.
“You took my life,” I whimper through angry tears, “but you won’t take it again.”
“Niamh!” he shouts.
“Stanley,” I murmur before taking a gulp of whiskey and blowing it out against the flaming stick, right in his pathway, his hair catching before his entire head, neck, and shoulders are engulfed inside of the flames.
The screams that follow are not mine, they are his, my adductor, my tormentor, my thief of dreams, and my reoccurring nightmare. I cannot help but stare at his pain, his suffering, all the while doing nothing to aid him, as no one did for me, not until Jake, not until Warren. Thinking on this, I remember the man who is still inside, most likely choking on the mounting black smoke from the fire burning all around the bar. As I begin to make my way past the dying man, still strangling himself with his screams, a horn honks from behind me. I do not turn to face it until I see the door to the bar, still wide open, showing me the path to where I will find the man who has made my life worth living again.