Page 34 of Antihero (Tregam’s Fractured Souls #3)

Chapter twelve

M y limbs feel heavy, my heart lurching to a stop, then hammering so hard it shakes me.

And I see now, through his split lip, through the blood pouring from his nose and gushing along his jaw, from where his ear used to be; Goodry is smiling.

Needler’s words are true.

“Not s…” I gasp a short, shallow breath. I can’t even get the question out, and when I do, it feels like the wrong question. “Why?”

“Because you stayed!” Goodry grates. His shrill scream, even his pain, is forgotten. He wore a mask more real even than Needler’s. More real than any of ours.

The last ten years coalesce. Appointment, needles, treatments. Lies . To keep an eye on me. Could that really be it? All of that torture just to keep tabs on me?

“And for his own sick pleasure.” Needler growls, then twists his hand in the coat, pulling the front to choke Goodry, making him lurch and cough. My gaze cuts to that silver mask, the man behind.

He’s angry, furious. He’d pick bits off Goodry piece by piece right here if I asked him to. But I just feel so cold. “No,” is the only word I can choke out. No to all of it. To trusting him, to not trusting my own body. To everything I’ve done because of this…

I clutch at what’s got to be the truth. What can’t have been for nothing.

But it slides out of my grip like sand. All those tests, the ones that hurt, the aches, the despair.

Somehow, it gets worse. My benign scare two years ago.

The one that turned me into a killer. And Goodry was the one to tell me of it, so sympathetic, so tender.

The same way he told me just earlier today that I was dying.

It hits me in a rush. That too is a lie.

I’m not dying.

He made me think I didn’t have time. That there was nothing to lose. How much of my life have I based on his words? I’ve killed for this. Nearly died for it.

I stumble before I realise that I’m faint.

Charlotte is on her feet. I blink when I feel her hands clutch my arm, realising it’s her, realising my vision momentarily faded and came back as my blood decides where to go. “You called the cops,” Charlotte accuses to the doctor. So, it really wasn’t her. “What did you tell them?”

Goodry spreads his hands. “The truth, of course. Paige here is the Wraith.”

A lump lodges in my throat. They know. It’s over no matter what. As quickly as I got a future back, it’s been taken away. And again, it’s by him.

I look into Charlotte’s face, see the despair in her eyes, and realise she didn’t know about this. About Goodry. What was she trying to tell me? That there were more? That I’d never be free of them here.

Any freedom I’ve ever had has been an illusion, a manipulation. All along, the asylum never really let me go.

I’m looking up at the two of them. Rain strikes my upturned face.

I don’t care. It’s washing away the blood on Goodry’s face.

I shiver once as the wet soaks through my clothes.

But I can’t feel the chill, can’t feel anything.

“I’m not really sick. There were no harmful waves or chemicals.

You know what really happened to me. You knew us all. You were at the asylum.”

Needler has let him go, left him in a pile on the edge, and stepped back.

He could snap out within a second and kill him, but he doesn’t.

Not until I’ve got all the answers. He stiffens when Goodry laughs.

The sound is a slick, abrasive grate after his scream.

“I know what happened to you, dear. Because I’m the one who did it. ”

My world tilts.

Needler is telling him to shut up, making him scream again. But the words are echoing themselves. It was him. All along. The monster of my dreams, and the one who kept the nightmare alive in my waking days; they were the same person.

Bile rises in my throat. Sudden and acrid. I vomit, falling to my knees on the broken ground.

Charlotte is standing behind me. She looks up at Needler. “Kill him.”

A helicopter roars overhead, blurry through the falling rain. It passes without seeing. They won’t stay in the air for long. Soon they’ll be on foot.

The Tregam force has finally come to White Rock. Soon, they’ll be here. To find me. And anyone with me.

Needler kicks the backs of Goodry’s legs, hard. He falls to his knees again, swaying, blood pouring down his neck, dribbling down the wall of the basement he kneels on the edge of.

Tristan has the needle in his hand.

At first, I think the blast comes from down here. That somehow, I’ve made a horrible error in turning my back on Charlotte.

Tristan staggers, then drops or trips, falling backwards. Shot.

I can’t tell if I’m the one that screams.

I spin on Charlotte, understanding now that she’s unarmed. Goodry is climbing to his feet. Alone.

“Tristan!” I finally shout. There’s no answer.

My breath hyperventilates from my lungs. No, no . Don’t be dead. Not him. What I needed wasn’t more death. Not even Goodry’s death. It was Tristan. Alive. With me.

“You imbecile!” Goodry is cursing, raging, but not at me.

Or at Tristan. “You could’ve shot me!” The figure creeps, haltingly, along the edge, his boots squelching on the mud.

He’s holding out the gun in a limp hand.

The rain drips off the ugly weapon. Goodry snatches it away as soon as he’s within reach.

“James?” Charlotte gasps. The boy, my neighbour, looks at me. His eyes are glassy. He clutches his shaking fingers, meeting my eye, looking pained, then turning away. Does he understand what he’s just done? That he’s just shot a man? My hand shakes in its fist.

“I’m sorry, dad.” When Goodry slaps him across the ear, sending a spray of water up, James ducks his head like someone who’s used to being clobbered.

“ Dad ?” I ask, looking between the two. My gaze lands on James. Not another orphan, after all. But Goodry’s son… “Have you been watching me? For him ?” Not just now, I realise. All those times he came to my house. The times he seemed to be too close, lingering around.

James looks to his father as though for permission to speak.

I eye the stairs. I need to search for Tristan.

He’s up there somewhere, among the ruin.

But Goodry has the gun now. What if I bring attention to Tristan?

Goodry might finish the job. What if there’s no job to finish?

I want to scream. Tristan, please. Be alive .

“You said your son was lobotomised! That he died .”

Goodry chuckles, using his sleeve to wipe blood and water off his face. “Just like sweet Molly?”

My chest constricts. “You…”

“I didn’t ‘treat’ her, no.” Now, he glances at son.

“Him, yes. Harry showed me. Let me do the honours.” He claps a hand on the flinching man’s shoulder, squeezing a bit too hard.

James’s eyes hitch on the detached ear. Even in the dim light straining through the rain clouds, through the downpour, I see him pale.

“He was a poorly behaved young man,” Goodry continues.

“Disobedient, wilful… but now, he’s happy. Loyal.”

If he’d had his son following me, had him live in the cottage near mine…

“You knew I was the Wraith all along?” I don’t give a shit what he knew.

There’s only one possibility that I can live with; that I’m buying Tristan time, that he’s going to appear and somehow, we’ll take control back and make this all right.

Goodry shrugs, toying with the gun. “Paige, you know, I didn’t quite realise what that first diagnosis would start.

But you really did take things into your own hands.

I always suspected you never quite got over your sister’s death.

But the lengths you went to… well, I needed to keep you coming back more after that. In case you got wise.”

To keep me constantly waiting for the news… and all along, he was deciding whether it would happen. Like some kind of sick god.

“You didn’t warn anyone?”

“Of course not! You got them out of my way, removed loose ends. Some of them were onerously close to growing guilt . You were a boon, really! But I’m afraid you’ve been reaching the end of your usefulness for some time. You shouldn’t have broken into the asylum, Paige…”

Then I see. He knew that was me. Because of Gina.

Who else but me would be interested in her?

It was his sign that I was getting too close.

If I’d looked closer, if I’d plied through the many thousands of sheets of archival papers where I saw Gina’s name and found Filan’s guilt, would I have seen his name? How many others?

Those documents are still in my house, waiting to be found. Soon the police from Tregam will be there. Then they’ll have them.

I’m crying, salt mingling on my lips with the freshness of the rain. “Can I… could I… have had children? Can what you did be reversed?”

“Oh,” he looks on with pity. “Darling please. You have no womb. I pulled it right out of you myself. No ‘waves’, no tricks. Just a plain old scalpel.”

I’d vomit if I hadn’t already.

“You monster,” Charlotte murmurs, low and horrified, beside me. But I’m beyond that.

“But my blood markers… you showed them to me, explained them.”

“Some dead woman’s.” Goodry waves a dismissive hand. “You’re perfectly healthy. It’s a shame really, that it’s going to be cut short now. You could’ve lived a very long time. You all could have.”

My blood, already cold, freezes. “Others?” I ask, my voice wavering. I always thought no others stayed. But what if they did and…

Goodry’s laugh is a gargle. I want Needler to rip off his other ear. Tear out his tongue. “You were all so mistrustful of doctors. Would never get a second opinion, never wonder if the results I was showing were really yours. Yet for all that paranoia, so easy to remove.”

I glance at Charlotte. She’s swaying. Pale. Her shoulders shake and I realise she’s silently sobbing.