Page 62 of Last Seen

Chapter Forty-Three

Halley

When Halley was little, her dad used to massage her head when she had a bad headache. She was too young for the heavy-duty painkillers that would help alleviate the migraines, so they went for old-fashioned cures. Cool cloths, dark rooms, gentle massage. It helped; it always did.

She is relieved that he is stroking her hair and running his fingers lightly around her temples now. Her head is in his lap, and her eyes are screwed shut against the pain.

“Relax,” her dad says. “You’re okay. You’re going to be just fine.”

His voice is odd and thick. His hands feel bigger than normal. Stronger. They are pressing too hard. She shifts. “That hurts.”

The pressure doesn’t let up.

“Daddy, stop. You’re hurting me.”

The pressure releases, and she breathes a huge sigh of relief. “It’s a bad one. I can’t see anything.”

He is running the lock of white hair through his fingers, tugging on it uncomfortably. “Dad, seriously, stop.”

“So beautiful.” The voice croons to her. “I made this. I got inside you and left my mark on you. I’ve been with you all this time. And you still don’t remember me. I’m wounded.”

Not her father.

She tenses, realizing she is tied down. There is nowhere to go. It is dark, pitch black.

Keep your head. Don’t panic. Don’t freak out.

“Who are you? Why should I know you?”

“Oh, Halley Bear. The most pivotal moment of your life. Think back. Think.”

And as he says it, the memories come back.

Ian. Her sister’s boyfriend. The boy Cat met at camp.

The one their parents fought with her about, over and over.

Warning her he was trouble. Forbidding her to see him.

Cat was in love, though. She wasn’t about to stop seeing the dark and dangerous young man she’d met.

Who she talked to constantly. Who followed her home.

Who killed Halley’s mother.

“Run, Halley Bear. Run.”

“Stay down. Don’t move. Make him think you’re dead.”

The memory speeds up, taking shape, the black darkness shifting, softening, becoming a vapor, the fog of all the years fighting it dispersing to allow Halley a clear view to her past.

She is in Nashville. She is six years old. There is a stranger in the house.

Her sister’s boyfriend Ian has come.

Is that fear in Catriona’s eyes? Is that laughter Halley hears? They are fighting, arguing. Cat is panicking, pleading, and he just laughs at her. His voice is mocking and sharp.

“You said you wanted to be free of them. Now you will be. We’ll wait for your father to get home, and he can join your mother and that brat of a little sister, and you will not be tied to this ridiculous family who hates you anymore.”

“You killed her. You killed them both.”

“I did you a favor. One you wanted me to do.”

“I didn’t want them dead, Ian. I just wanted—”

“You said you wished they’d just die. And now they have. Your wish is my command, princess.”

“This isn’t right. Ian, this is not what I wanted.”

His voice, dark and raw. “You most certainly did. You wanted this. You did this, Catriona.” The hand holding the knife shifts.

It is smaller, more delicate. The nails bitten and painted black.

The edge of the knife is red. The rabbit’s throat is cut.

“If we’re caught, you will tell them you did this. Am I clear?”

“But I didn’t do it.”

A thwack, and a cry of pain, and Halley, who’s never been hit or spanked, has no trouble realizing her sister has been punched.

She wants to surge up, scream, pummel, rend him limb from limb, but she can’t.

Cat told her to stay down. To pretend she is dead.

So she is dead. Inside her little brain is a small box, and she climbs inside.

Pulls the doors closed. And sits in the darkness, waiting for him to leave. A darkness so complete she is safe.

He never left. And now he’s here again.

“You killed my mother,” Halley says flatly.

“Cat killed your mother. She admitted that.”

“Because you threatened her. You hit her. You were the one who did it. Where the hell am I? What day is it? Fucking tell me what’s happening!” Halley shrieks this last, and he laughs that awful, empty laugh.

“Let’s see if I can help explain. You, much to my delight, finally stuck your lovely nose into your mother’s case.

My father has a flag on it, naturally, because we can’t have people like you digging around in our world.

One of his law enforcement pals warned him, and he sent me immediately to deal with things.

So convenient that you were mere hours away.

So yes, I’ve simply been removing the ..

. impediments as they arise. It’s what I do. Someone has to protect us.”

Impediments. Kater. Dr. Chowdhury. Tammy. Me.

He shifts closer. He is holding her in the dark like a spider about to suck dry an insect that’s blundered into its web.

“When I saw you, though ...” He sighs, and her entire body flinches. “My lucky day.”

“I won’t tell. Just let me go.” She tries to pull away, but he holds her tighter. His voice grows deeper.

“Now, now. You are mine. Time has no meaning for you anymore. It is whatever day, whatever time, whatever month, year, century I say it is. I am your sun, your moon, and your stars. The breath in your lungs. The blood in your veins. I am your sight, your sound, your sensation. I am your universe.”

A large hand is traveling up her body, and she is covered in horrid chills.

“You are nothing,” he whispers. “You belong to me now.”

A sharp prick in her elbow, and the suffocating darkness envelops her again.

Time doesn’t exist in the dark.

The absence of senses creates a disequilibrium.

Halley is living inside the blackness that she created.

Her defense mechanism to protect herself.

All these years, when she’s thought of her mother’s death, of the accident that shaped her life, all she’s been able to muster is darkness.

Blackness. Now she realizes that infinite space was protection. It was safety. It was sanity.

Seeing your mother murdered, watching the blood bubble from her lips as she urges you to run, to save yourself and leave her to die, is a mark that can never be erased.

A scar so deep its horror becomes sublime beauty.

Like the shock of white hair that makes her unique, this awful memory, and her ability to hide herself from it, created her.

The mind is an elastic and repairable system.

Damaged neurons rewire themselves. Neuroplasticity exists.

The mind can protect you from the worst things that happened to you.

You can forget. You can block things out.

You can find ways to live with your own horrors. Hide from them.

She never thought she would be the one to find this truth for herself, but it was always there. She realizes now that anytime she was scared, or embarrassed, or frightened, or in pain, she retreated into this safe space in her mind.

So she goes there now. The black box inside the black box. The place she’s always held within her mind to keep her shielded from the horrors of the world. She climbs inside like she is six years old and covered in blood and pulls the door closed. She will not come out until it is safe again.

And in the absence of sound and sight, in the velvet darkness so rich and tangible, a deprivation of senses that would drive any other person mad, she waits. Something terrible is coming. A monster. An embodiment of fear personified.

She will not let it get her.