Page 171 of Into the Dark
Because since I met her, I’ve never wanted to look back. Only forward. Only her.
I was afforded a miracle that night, but for the rest of my life, in those quiet, dark moments, I know I’ll watch her die over and over and over again, just like I did that night. Bleeding out in my arms on a cold bathroom floor, perfect and unbroken. She’s alive only because she’s the bravest person I’ve ever known. Because she did what she had to do.
I didn’t save her. She saved herself. Just like she saved me.
They give me a look like they know me and what I’ve done, and like maybe I’ve lost my fucking head coming here. Like maybe I won’t be able to walk back out once they shut those reinforced doors behind me. Maybe I won’t. A flicker of paranoia that makes me jumpy, makes my palms sweat, makes my heart thud.
Then it’s gone.
The fat one steps forward with a scowl that says he’s used to dealing with human waste all day and so I’d better not mess with him. He’ll happily throw me inside where I belong.
“Hat off,” he orders, then: “Arms.”
I stick them up and out, mimicking a scarecrow, and he kicks my legs apart. I’m certain then that he does know me. My name. What it still means. He saw my name on the sheet, so he must. He skims his wide, tattooed hands over the leg of my jeans and then up around my stomach and over my back.
“Turn your pockets out. All of them. Everything goes in the metal box. Keys, wallet, phone, the lot.” There’s an automated sound to his voice, like he does this a lot. A few times a day, every day, for years. Fodder—that’s what we are to him.
When I’m deweaponized, he moves me along down a corridor painted the color of a rain-heavy sky with a wine-colored rubber floor, where another door buzzes and opens.
The folk behind me and in front are a mixture of nervous and bored. Some have been here a lot. Others not. A good-looking older woman with a work dress on like Alex would wear, her hair pulled back from her head, looks like she’s about to cry. She’s got a teenage girl with her who now looks lost without her cell phone. A younger woman, tanned with a model figure, gives me a loaded smile, licking her tongue over a pierced lip. She has a ring in her nose too. A bored woman sighs as the inner door opens a little, stops, opens some more, then stops. The automatic motor is as bored as everyone else who works here.
We’re led into a classroom-size space and told to take a seat at one of the tables. Signs on the walls tell us what to do and what not to do. Do not cross the yellow lines. No mobile phones. No kissing. No spitting. (I’m certain there’s an over-supply of “no spitting” signs and people just stick them up anywhere.) No touching. No smoking. There’s a bookcase on the wall inside the yellow line with four books on it. Alex has more than that on her fucking nightstand. There are board games too, and I smile at the idea of that. Sitting here playing Connect Four with him until the bell rings. Yeah. Sure.
When the bell does ring, the sound of another automated door opens, and at the far end of the room people start to file in. Uniformed, baton-carrying soldiers of Her Majesty come in first. Then those staying here at her pleasure follow. Gray sweaters, darker gray pants, white just-out-the-box unbranded trainers that have barely had a sniff of the outside. Not that he’ll mind the lack of design. Fred isn’t that into labels; he much prefers hiding his money. Hiding it in the Seychelles, or in legit but untraceable streams: laundromats, bars, taxi companies.
He’s last through the door, a gap between him and the wide Asian wearing the traditional dress in front of him. He scans the room slowly, still managing to look like he fucking owns the place. Still managing to look too big for the room and like he might have to duck down to move about inside it.
When he sees me he stops walking, eyes absent of anything I can name—then he smiles. He takes his time getting to me, walking with a slight limp, I notice, leaning to one side as he makes his way to the far right of the room where I sit waiting for him. I looked around before I chose this seat. My back to the wall. Somewhere covered on one side. Somewhere I can see what’s coming. Not that I’m expecting to have to be alert in here—but you can’t take any chances. He’s the last to sit down, and he keeps his eyes on mine as he pulls out the chair and drops down into it.
“You look good, son,” he says after a minute of silence, leaning back in the plastic chair that also looks too small for him.
“You too, Fred.”
He does, in fact. The glasses and neat beard make him look like a professor from one of those history programs Alex is mental about, not one of London’s most-wanted.
“Didn’t think you’d come,” he lies.
He knew I’d come. Because he knows me.
“I wasn’t going to,” I lie back, looking at my hands, my half-chewed nail, the table. Alex asked me why I needed to come. She held it up under the magnifying glass and watched it squirm. Because I have to. I need to look him in the eye. He deserves that much. “But here I am.”
“Here you are.”
I lift my eyes to his and hold them for as long as possible. You wouldn’t know it to look at him—the calm, unbothered look he has was always one of his greatest assets—but I’ve no doubt his mind is swimming in the depths of vengeful, violent depravity right now, the likes of which would make the plans I had for Kev look like a game of Connect Four.
“How was Victoria’s service?” he asks after a moment, eyes heavy but without any emotion I recognize. Not sure he’s capable of it. “You did it proper?” I’ve no idea what he considers proper, so I look him in the eye with a question. “Church? Priest? Burial?” he clarifies.
I nod, unable to find any words. If he knows I put her in the ground in more ways than one, he doesn’t let it show on his face. But Fred has always been able to see straight through me—right through to the other side.
He nods back, apparently satisfied.
He’s quiet for so long I wonder if maybe this was all he wanted me here for, and now that I’ve filled him in I should get off. But then his eyes turn from silver to ice-blue and he gives me a look that would make any other person’s blood run cold. Not me though. ’Cause I’ve already experienced the most terrifying thing a human can experience. And she lived through it.
“So, you want an apology then?” I ask him to break the silence. “Want me to tell you I’m sorry? That why I’m here, Fred?”
Mouthy little prick—I can almost hear him say it.
One beat. Two. Then he smiles, his eyes lighting up again with humor. “You even think about telling me you’re sorry and I’ll cross this table and choke the fucking life out of you,” he says calmly. “Another twenty-five years ain’t much to me at this point, son.”