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‘Please,’ Gailcontinued, her hands raised slightly, palms open in a gesture of placation.‘I've worked with many people who've felt lost, trapped by their own minds.There's always a path back to control.’
'Then why did you tryto pull a gun on me?'
‘Because I wasscared,’ Gail said, her vulnerability laid bare in the face of his loomingthreat. ‘But that doesn't change the fact that I want to help you, Simon.'
He couldn't deny theunwavering empathy in her gaze, the same kindness he once saw in the eyes ofanother.
For a moment, hebelieved her—wanted to drop the weapon, to collapse into the embrace of hope.But then, the chill of reality seeped through the cracks of his fantasy.
The sirens mightalready be on their way, summoned by some silent alarm he hadn't noticed. Thepolice could be moments from bursting through the door.
‘Get up,’ hecommanded, the muzzle of the gun gesturing toward the door. ‘I need to get outof here, and you're coming with me.'
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
'This has to be theplace,' Ella shouted over the relentless drumming of rain against the car roof.
The journey had been alabyrinth of turns and misdirection, the windshield wipers struggling to fendoff the onslaught of water cascading from the heavens. As their car jolted to ahalt, gravel crunching under the tires, Ella felt a surge of surreal anticipation.The dust of unpaved roads still hung in the air as Ella's sedan rolled to astop before the decrepit house.
The dwelling loomed, arelic of better days now swallowed by the relentless downpour, its saggingframe overrun by nature's reclaiming hand. Weeds had waged war on thestructure, tendrils of greenery pulling at the siding like hungry childrentugging on their mother's skirts. Ella's heart pounded as she jumped out of thecar and raced up the battered driveway with Ripley in tow.
It was more a skeletonthan a home, with vines clutching its sides like desperate fingers, and windowsthat gaped like open wounds. Their GPS had led them on this breadcrumb chasethrough rural obscurity. She reached the door, its paint peeling like sunburntskin. Without ceremony, Ella's fist pounded against the wood, but the hollowthuds went unanswered.
She leaned closer, herear to the splintered surface, listening for any whisper of movement inside.
Nothing but theghostly silence greeted her, and her gut clenched with the realization ofabandonment.
‘I know an empty housewhen I see one,' Ripley said. 'Let's get inside.'
Ella nodded, herdetermination a silent roar in her veins. She squared her shoulders and thrusther weight against the door. It gave way with a groan of protest, hinges cryingout in rusty agony as she burst into the shadowy interior. A wave of damp, mustyair assaulted her senses, thick with the stench of mold that clung to herthroat. Ella coughed, waving a hand in front of her face as if to clear thetangible decay.
‘Christ, smells like asewer,’ Ripley muttered, stepping over the threshold with less haste, her gazesweeping the derelict foyer.
Ella moved forward,boots scuffing across the floor layered with years of dust and debris. Thehallway revealed rotting furniture and wallpaper that drooped off the walls indefeated curls.
‘Check the back,’ Ellacalled to her partner. 'Make sure no one's hiding here.'
Ripley acknowledgedwith a nod, disappearing into the bowels of the house. Ella's pulse quickenedas she traversed the cluttered hallway, her senses on high alert. Ella pushed aloose wooden door and entered a living room, furniture upturned and papers strewnacross floors like confetti in a windstorm.
The destruction was anecho of the devastation she'd seen in the therapists' offices, as if theperpetrator had raged against every corner that confined him.
‘Anything?’ Ripley'svoice called back.
‘Nothing alive,’ Ellaresponded as she trampled through more wreckage. ‘It's like he wanted to erasehis existence here.’
‘Keep looking.'
Ella turned away fromthe disarray and caught a narrow staircase, tucked away in a dark corner of theroom. The stairs wound upward, disappearing into a blanket of darkness. Ella'shand found the railing, the wood rough and splintered beneath her fingers,guiding her ascent into the unknown.
Here, the air grewheavier, as though the house itself exhaled its rot into her lungs. At the topof the stairs, a hallway stretched out. Each step on the old carpet kicked up ahistory of dust. To her left and right, doors hung ajar, some barely clingingto their hinges, others open as if in invitation or perhaps a silent scream forescape.
Ella approached thefirst door on the left, the wood swollen from humidity, barely hanging onto itsframe. With a push, the door groaned open, revealing a bathroom that timeseemed to have forgotten. The tiles were coated in grime, the mirror aspiderweb of cracks, reflecting back a fractured world. The tub held puddles ofstagnant water, breeding grounds for mold that climbed the walls like ivy.
Ella recoiled from thestench as she quickly backed away, closing the door on the room's sad story.
She rushed to the nextroom in line. The door creaked open to reveal a spare room, a graveyard forwhat once was or could have been. Ella stepped over a broken lamp, its lightextinguished long ago. A moth-eaten armchair sat in one corner, its fabric fadedand torn, offering comfort to no one. A desk, littered with papers, old billsand newspapers told a tale of routine, of days that blended one into the nextuntil they stopped altogether. She saw a pile of broken children's toys, awoman's shoe missing its pair.
Ella left thedesolation of the spare room behind, her mind a whirlwind of questions with noanswers. She approached the next room in line, a sliver of apprehensionthreading through her resolve.
