Page 54 of The Haunting of William Thorn

William found Edward in the middle of his crime scene. Guilt did that to a person, it drove them back to the place where the darkness spilled like ink, entrapping them as a spider does with its web.

William took the final stair down to the ground floor and noticed the drawing room’s door was ajar and simply followed the signs.

Hanbury waited with bated breath – it watched on for the drama to unfold, delighting in the chaos it caused.

For a place that devoured secrets, the manor wouldn’t be happy with William in the coming moments.

Because he planned to unearth them all, tear them from the root and expose the nasty, ugly truth so all could witness and judge.

Outside, the storm raged on. As did the one inside of William Thorn.

Wind buffeted outer walls, rain soaked the earth, and thunder rumbled like the starving stomach of a beast ready to devour everything beneath it.

There was a sense of urgency, like time was running out, that William couldn’t explain.

But it rushed him on quick feet until he stood stock still before the agape door.

A ballad of grief slipped out of the crack, enticing William to nudge the door open with his foot.

Edward stood with his back to William, hands draped at his sides as he stared longingly at a portion of the wall he’d ruined with the shard of glass.

William couldn’t lie and say he wasn’t relieved to find Edward back to his old ways, scratching more marks off walls.

But from his quick scan of the scene, it didn’t seem like the ghosts had anything else to say.

Perhaps because they knew William was on the cusp of everything, they waited patiently for the show to begin.

“Go on then,” William said, his voice as cold as a winter breeze. “ Tell me .”

William deliberately used the words that’d haunted Edward, words he’d harmed himself to hide.

Edward turned on his heel, slowly coming to face William.

Tears cut down his paled face, once beautiful brown eyes now stained red from his inconsolable tears.

Eyes that could rival that of Hades himself.

It took only one look from Edward to make William second guess himself.

He’d come barrelling down the stairs, all blaze and fury, but seeing Edward in such a state of silent distress was all it took to disarm him.

For a brief moment, William paused, naturally feeling protective over Edward. But the weight of the lies between them pulled taut like a string, and it was inevitably going to snap.

It took everything in his power to focus on the car keys in one hand and the phone holding the evidence in the other. His mind told him to focus, but his heart screamed with the need to wrap Edward in his arms and console him.

His mind won this time.

Edward took the back of his bandaged hand and cleared tears from his cheeks, one by one.

There was a noticeable tremble to his action.

William was no healthcare professional, but he knew the look of a person fighting back the urge to vomit when he saw one.

Before his eyes, Edward’s pallor shifted from a deathly pale to a sea-green tinge.

“I did tell you I was sorry, William Thorn.”

“But you didn’t bother explaining what for, did you?”

Edward hung his head, chin to chest. “Because I was weak. No, I am weak.”

William believed every word, but the problem was he still didn’t know what Edward was apologising for.

Was it lying about having access to a car, which seemed minor compared to Edward’s knowledge about Archie long before he arrived on Hanbury’s doorstep?

Either way, it also confirmed that Edward knew about William, too.

All this time, they weren’t strangers. At least in Edward’s case.

William took a cautious step forward. “You are going to need to be a little more specific, Edward . I need you to tell me everything.”

Edward, to his defence, looked back to William and refused to look anywhere else again.

His focus was iron-clad as if nothing else mattered to him.

But every time he opened his mouth to say something, it was like the air was torn from his lungs, or the words off his tongue.

He gasped like a fish out of water, then slunk back into familiar silence.

“Perhaps you’d like some help,” William said, lifting the car keys. “You told me you came here on a train. You carried that lie on so far you even made me believe that was how we would get out of here. Except that was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was.” Edward didn’t even bother to look directly at the keys. “In fact, I’ve lied to you too many times to count.”

“No shit .” William almost threw the keys across the room, but his fingers curled tighter around them until the metal pinched into his skin.

“But what I’m wondering now is why you lied.

What made you think about keeping something so trivial from me, unless you were forcing my hand into letting you stay… was that it?”

Edward steadied himself, bandaged hands falling to his sides, limp and defeated as the rest of his demeanour. “I can explain–”

“Then do it,” William shouted, throat sore. “The floor is yours, we are waiting.”

We. As if even in the back of his mind, William knew it wasn’t only Edward and him in that room.

“I lied, at first, so you felt like you couldn’t send me packing so easily,” Edward admitted, looking helpless and sorrowful.

His shoulders slumped forward as if he carried the weight of the world on his back.

But William knew otherwise. It was simply the burden of holding back the truth – it always caught up to a person.

“Then I couldn’t bring myself to tell you because, well – I knew you’d look at me the same way you are now, and I’m far too pathetic of a man to survive it. ”

William became suddenly aware of his expression, finding himself smoothing out the creased furrows across his forehead, although there was no removing the tension from his jaw.

His teeth ached in their places just for the sheer force of his grit.

“But that isn’t just it, is it? Lying about the car is barely grazing the skin of the deceit you’re made up of. ”

Edward shook his head, another tear falling free of his eye, trailing a path down his face until it dripped off the end of his nose.

“How long were you going to play this character for?” William asked, his question short and sharp.

A burst of stark light split the dark sky outside, illuminating the room in glory for a brief moment.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Edward said, voice cracking. For the first time, his gaze shifted to something just shy of William’s shoulder. Whatever drew Edward’s attention made his eyes widen slightly, his breathing becoming harsh with panting. “I – I…”

William was almost sure he saw something red and glistening reflected in Edward’s eyes. He would’ve turned around to see what stole Edward’s attention, but the anger at his response had the next words exploding out of him.

“I know, Edward. I know everything . You emailed my solicitor and gave your details to them. How long did you think you’d keep it from me?

” It took but a moment for William to get so close to Edward that he didn’t even realise he was moving.

He held the phone screen up mere inches from Edward’s face.

“You knew about me before you got here. That’s not only it, is it?

You knew all about Archie, the manor. All of it. ”

Edward’s silence was incriminating.

“How dare you, Edward,” William shouted, louder this time, enough for the glass to quiver in their frames.

“How dare you allow me to be so vulnerable with you… When all the while, you knew my story but decided to play into this narrative that you didn’t.

Was I some joke to you? Did you pity me so much that you thought you’d let me open up, bleed myself dry just for your amusement? ”

Edward’s face crumpled the moment William released his first tear.

“Please,” Edward said, head tilting, hand raising to William’s face. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not.”

Edward’s thumb brushed at his cheek and William felt the tear be cleared from his skin. He blinked and more fell.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” William snapped. “Ever. Ever again.”

Edward reacted like he touched a bare flame. He withdrew so quickly that it was a surprise that his fingertips didn’t bubble and blister. “I promise that you’ve never been someone I pity. Not in the sense you might think in this moment. I need you to know that.”

“Then why the need for all the lies? Why not tell me the truth the moment you turned up?”

Edward looked back into the corner of the room, and William saw the flash of red again – wet blood red, like Archie’s coat. But the glance was so brief that he couldn’t be sure, and something screamed at him not to turn around and see.

“I was going to, but when I told you my name, and you didn’t react, I thought it was best that you didn’t know about me. It was, if anything, a lapse in judgement. Then I found myself sinking so deep into the lie, I wasn’t sure how to get out of it. Believe it or not, my decision was to help you.”

A tight pain sang in William’s chest. The room was suffocating him, all the damage and the ruined walls.

He needed fresh air so suddenly, and not from an open window.

He needed to get out before the walls drew in and devoured him whole.

“You don’t get to decide what’s good for me. You don’t even know me.”

Edward reached out and took William’s arm before he could turn away and flee. “I do know you.”

“Ha.” The sharp laugh that William released even surprised himself. “Actually, you are right. You do know me, don’t you? Poor, crazy William Thorn. You know so much about me, and yet I know jack-shit about you.”

“Let me explain.”

William snatched his arm back. “Go on. I’m fucking waiting, Edward.”