Page 22 of The Spiral
“I’ll get you some.”
I lean on the doorway, watching him leave and pulling the robe tighter around me.
“You going to be in an arsehole mood all day?” I call out, hoping that he is.
I don’t want nice Jack who dances around ballrooms with me, or sensible Jack who thinks logically about situations. I need whoever that was last night. The one who brooded and dwelt in darkness as he downed alcohol. I need him to help me on this journey.
I turn back into the room and sigh, ready to let myself linger in the mood I’m falling into. What else is there to think about? Nothing. He’s right, though. Clothes might be good.
My thoughts make me slump down into a sofa, coughing slightly at the plume of dust that envelops me as I do. Christ, someone could really do with a cleaner. Doesn’t he have staff? Surely a place this big should be looked after by people. Maybe he’s one of those eccentric types who lives alone in the country, hoarding things. I don’t care. I’ve got plans to make. For a start, I need somewhere to live. I suppose the insurers will need to be contacted, and then I’ve got police reports to file. The cops said something about that. Going back to town. And Callie’s parents. Oh god, I don’t even know who they are or where they live. They need to know, though. It’s about the only thing I feel anything for, enough so that my eyes well a little, tears threatening as I finger the sofa and pull at a loose thread, trying to picture her smiling face yesterday before I left. M&M’s. She was eating M&M’s. And laughing at me. Always laughing at me.
They need to know.
“You okay?” he says, as a load of clothes are thrown by my side on the couch. I don’t look up at him. What’s the point? He doesn’t care if I’m alright or not. I don’t know why he’s being nice in any way. Instead, I lift the stack of clothes—plain blue skinny jeans, about my size by the look of them, and a brown, tight fitting t-shirt. Both women’s.
“Do you have guns here?” I ask.
“What?” he replies, his voice low and cautious.
“Guns, for killing people with?” I slowly look up at him, undoing the robe around my waist as I do, not in the slightest bit embarrassed by my nakedness. What’s the point in that? He’s already seen my tears, seen my fury. There’s nothing left for him to see other than love, and there’s none of that left now. “It’s a simple question.” I reach out for the t-shirt, shrugging it over my head and then standing up, leaving the robe behind on the sofa. His frown increases more than usual, if that’s possible, and at the same moment his eyes travel over my exposed crotch and skin. I reach down for the jeans, not wanting any more than to get dressed and learn how to shoot a gun. “So, do you have guns?” I ask again, yanking my legs into the jeans and then bouncing to get my bottom into them.
“Yes.” He might have said it, but there’s hesitation in his voice.
“Good, where are they? I need to learn how to use one to kill with,” I say, making my way out into the hall and following it down past the stairs to get to the kitchen. “With all this space around the house I should be able to learn quickly enough.”
“Madeline, that’s not the answer you’re after. You need to forget this and move on.”
I swing around mid-stride, daring him to carry on. How the hell would he know what I need, or what will make this go away? How would he have the first clue about how I’m feeling or what I need to do to make this right again. Forget it? Dismiss it like it’s nothing to think about, just another little dalliance in life that should be disregarded? Lewis destroyed my home and killed Callie, and the last shred of me along with her.
“How would you damn well know? Living here in your playboy mansion, having sex with women at will with no thought I should think. Playing with people must be so much fun.” There’s a menacing narrowing of his eyes, then a sigh, followed by him walking towards me slowly with apathy entrenched in his eyes.
“I suppose that’s what you would think,” he says eventually, walking past me and stopping by a part of the panelled wall. I watch him for a second or two, noting the way his muscles twist around, and try to calm my wandering thoughts back to killing.
“What else is there to think? It’s all there’s been to see.”
There’s no response to that. What could he say? It’s true. His hands are rough. His vocabulary rougher regardless of the wealth that surrounds his frame. He’s clearly just another man who thinks he can play with whatever falls into his lap, me included. No more. Not now I’ve seen what I need to do. I thought I was in control before. I wasn’t.
I am now.
He points at the panel, misery etching his features as he steps away from the woodwork and huffs out a breath.
“Take your pick.” I look at him, unsure what he means. “Push on the panel.”
My hand gently eases at the grained oak, trying to find access to some secret cavern. Nothing happens until I increase my pressure. It snaps back and slides downwards, opening a small closet. I peer into the back of the dingy space, searching for a light. There isn’t one I can find, but the glinting of metal shines back regardless. Three shotguns and two handguns, all safely secured to the wall, an array of bullets and cartridges loaded neatly on the shelves next to them.
“Pick one up,” he says. “Feel it. It won’t solve your problems, I promise you that, but if you think it will, try.” He walks away from me, back in the direction he came from, past the spiral and to the left. And then he’s gone, leaving me staring at guns without any real ability to use them.
I gaze at them, lumps of metal resting onto each other, and then look back up in the direction he left in. I don’t need him. I don’t. I wish that thought sat as comfortably as the words, but it doesn’t. It’s something about the way sadness crept into his eyes as he gazed at me. Or perhaps the way he said ‘try’, as if the very word made him melancholy.
My hands fidget at my sides, unable to actually pick up the things as I glance back at them. They’re alien to me, not something I’ve ever used or thought about using. Lewis had one—hell, most of America has one, but not me. I suppose I’m still too British, not quite able to see them as normal and feasible for use. Although, Lewis isn’t going to die unless I pick one up, is he? My life won’t be free. Nothing is going to change unless I take control and do something about it.
I force my hand forward, knocking the panel first for some semblance of reality, and then link my fingers around the chrome handgun to lift it from its holstered position. It’s heavier than I thought, and the grip’s bumpy, wider than anything I’ve ever held there, awkward. And cold, it’s bitterly cold, like it’s been in a fridge. I hold it up, inspecting it and trying to find a comfortable position for it as I feel my breathing increase. It sits clumsily in my grasp, as if it’s got no reason to be there. It has, enough so that I find myself tweaking it around.
Opening and closing my thumb around its base to force it into a more comfortable position, I tremble around it. My finger hovers over the trigger, unsure about safeties or bullets as I lift it to my eye-line and stare down the top of it, hoping for aim. My blood heightens as I begin to believe I should be holding it, that it’s in my hand for a purpose. Perhaps it’s the feel of it warming in my grip, moulding itself to me and making me feel at ease with its cumbersome shape.
“Hold it with two hands,” his voice says behind me. “Cup your left hand around your right.” I don’t know why I’m smiling, but I am. He suddenly makes me feel like it’s all worth something, like this fiddling about with guns is workable somehow.
“I thought you didn’t care,” I say, jiggling with my grip and trying to find what he’s talking about to no avail. His hand slides around my waist, pulling me back into him as he lifts my left hand, closing it around the right and securing it into place.