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“Oh, God! He’s dead. We need to run. We need to leave now!”
My confusion had been rampant as I had been tossed into the car. She had taken the road out of town, the one that passed the old church. The rain had been so loud that I had played with the dials of the radio. But nothing could tune out the broken sobs of my mother and the crashing of the rain on the hood of the car.
The way the car swerved as something hit us.
My mother taking me and trying to run, only to be hit by the car that was chasing us.
I remember the man who got out of the driver’s side. I remember his face as he approached us, my injured mother on the muddy road, crawling away, pushing me, begging me to run.
The body that slid out of the passenger seat, the face of the man I had seen only a few hours before that day when he and my mother had discussed something in urgent tones.
The monster who walked towards us, stretching out his arms to catch me.
My mother throwing herself at him, shrieking at me to keep running.
Only now, I remember the face the monster had been wearing.
“Don’t touch me!” I scream out, my mind in shambles as everything I’ve believed in, shatters.
“Don’t be like that, Halley.” Uncle Raymond’s voice is filled with hurt.
I twist in his grip, only knowing fear at his touch.
“I didn’t want this to happen any more than you do. But how was I to know that Lily would find a way to get into your head after so long?”
My breathing is ragged as I stare at his face, my thoughts making no sense. This kind of betrayal, how am I supposed to recover from it?
He smiles at me, lovingly. “But it’s all right now. You’ll stay here and we’ll always be together.”
“Why is Cam here?” I don’t know how I get my voice to sound so calm even when I can’t manage to regulate my breathing.
Uncle Raymond glances in the direction of my trussed-up friend and sighs, regretfully. “He managed to figure some things out. He’ll have to go, of course.” When he sees the horrified look on my face, he immediately says, trying to comfort me, “I know he’s your friend but you don’t need him anymore. You’ve got me. You won’t need anyone anymore.”
You’re crazy!
But the words don’t leave my lips because you don’t tell a crazy person that.
“You killed Hashem. You were the person in the car…” It had been him all along. “My—why did you—Mom?” Why can’t I get the words through my burning throat?
“She was leaving me. She wasn’t supposed to leave me.” An ugly expression settles on his face, the kind of fury that has me quivering in fear. “Even after I made sure that she had no home to return to. Even after I ran her parents off the road, showing her that I was always going to be what she needed, the only one she could depend on, she had the gall to fall in love with that man and try to run.” He giggles.
I’ve never heard a more chilling sound.
“She’s never running anywhere now, is she?”
“Jet…” And another sort of pain flashes through me. “You killed my father as well?”
This surprises Uncle Raymond and he blinks. “Your father? Who, him?” He gives me a patient smile. “You silly child. I’m right here.”
His words take me a few minutes to comprehend—this is a new kind of horror that descends on me, and I want to scream.
It’s not possible!
Uncle Raymond—no—my father, sees the look on my face and he pats my cheek, ignoring the way I’m tugging at my chains. “I had always loved Lily, you know. Back in college, we had dated for a while, but she broke up with me. Then after I met Angela, I thought that if I married her, Lily would realize she was losing out on something wonderful and she would come to me. But she didn’t.” He sounds disappointed. “And then Angela got pregnant and I went to see Lily, to tell her, to get her to… We got drunk and had sex and you were conceived. I sent a letter to her parents, making sure that they kicked her out and then I convinced her to come back here, so I could take care of her. She agreed but she refused to be more than just friends. I did try, Halley. I took away her bank accounts from her, tried to teach her what life without me would be like, but she wouldn’t break. And then she met Jet.”
I cannot believe what I’m hearing. All these years, he was never who I believed him to be.
That cold look once again enters his eyes as he goes on, “Lily and you always belonged to me. I found the fake IDs that she had gotten made. It wasn’t hard to get Ange to make the call. All I had to do was tune her up a little and she was willing to do whatever it took to keep her and that brat alive. But the man wouldn’t answer her, so I paid a kid to make the call.” He shakes his head. “I had no choice but to track down the man and look for the rest of the IDs.”
