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“You ready for another round, New Jersey?” Bryson asked as he walked through the room. He came to kneel right in front of me and immediately picked up the two nails that I’d pulled out of my feet so I wouldn’t be able to use them against anyone.
“Hope you’re up to date on your shots,” he said and laughed at how hilarious he found himself while he tossed the nails up and down a couple times in his good hand. I didn’t figure it’d do much good to remind him that my body wouldn’t last long enough for an infection to be the thing that killed me if he held this pace of torture with no treatment in between the sessions. My mind had an even worse chance at surviving by this point. Trista had been slowly fading. She’d started out so clearly. I could picture her anytime I wanted. Now, I had to close my eyes and concentrate if I wanted to see her, and concentrating on anything was taking a lot of effort. I hadn’t had enough time with her for the memories of her to get me through this, and unfortunately there was another voice that was always ready and waiting to rush me at my lowest moments.
Van, do you ever think about us having a baby?
Another violent head shake to force her voice back out before I was hoisted from the floor and placed back in the chair at the table. I had to put actual effort into keeping my mind blank this time. Keeping her at bay was work now. I didn’t even notice that Bryce had occupied the seat across from me at some point once my arms were fastened to the table again. I got another look at my mangled hand. I’d spent most of the time since they’d destroyed it asleep, but looking at it now that I was somewhat coherent was…rough.
“The girls have essentially created an online chatroom to make themselves available for communication,” Bryson said and started laying instruments across the table in front of him. I didn’t bother to look at them. I didn’t need to add extra worry to what was being done here. He’d pick one and he’d use it, no matter which one caught my eye or my fear.
“But we still don’t know where they actually are, New Jersey. Memphis really is the best at what she does. We’ve had everyone trying to break down the system that she has around it to trace it back to a home computer. Nobody has come up with anything at all.”
He chattered on for another few minutes, or few seconds, about something. But I was seeing a tiny bundle wrapped in a Pooh Bear blanket and that was an image that I had no desire to fight off. I was defenseless against that one, no matter the circumstances around it.
“You still there, old man?” Bryson said and slammed his good hand down on top of my fucked up one. The pain scorching all the way up my left arm did bring my attention back to his face. I couldn’t recall a single moment in my life when I’d been more pissed off about someone interrupting a memory. The image of a Winnie the Pooh blanket was quickly replaced with bloody, disturbing thoughts of beating Bryce’s face until it was nothing more than pulp that slid through my fingers with each blow.
“Let’s just get started,” he said and swung an ancient fucking potato peeler from the tips of his fingers in between us. “I don’t want you fading out before we’ve even had any fun this time.”
“Cut the theatrics. Do what you’re going to do and get the fuck back out.”
“Awe. Drained all the attitude out of you already, did I? Which part did you in? Was it the nails? I imagine it was the nails,” he said. “Anyway, you got a favorite tattoo in this mess?” He asked and waved the potato peeler over both forearms.
“I dislike them all equally.”
“Yeah? One seems to stand out. Only one that’s done in color,” he said.
I put every bit of effort that I had left into not reacting to that bait at all. I couldn’t stop whatever he decided to do about it either way.
“He was your daughter’s favorite, right?”
But I couldn’t have prevented reacting to that question if my life really did depend on it.
Because why the fuck would he know that?
Nate knew the shit that happened. We had talked about it when he hired me. But I couldn’t pull up any memory of those conversations where we’d gone into personal details about Faith.
Faith.
Fuck.
Flashes of blonde hair and a tiny stuffed tiger flooded my brain.
Bryce scraped the potato peeler right down the top of my left forearm in one lone swipe to draw my focus back to him that time. The scream that came out of me would put any horror movie to shame.
“Why do you know about Tigger?” I asked through a desperate attempt to avoid crying.
The smile on his face was nearly enough to make me feral.
“Because I know everything about her, New Jersey. I know everything about Faith. And your fucked up wife, Liz.”
Liz.
Van, do you ever think about us having a baby?
This was it. The moment I was about to crash and burn right out of control. Her face was right in front of me. The way that she looked at me the day that she told me she wanted to try for a baby; like I was the thing in the world that could always save her, that could always ground her, that could always keep her present. And here she was, to drag me back into the oblivion of the past. Because what she wanted from me was what I always wanted to be. My purpose in life was to become the man she thought she saw when she looked at me. But nothing about that day was a happy memory anymore. I was supposed to have a lifetime of cherishing that memory and the way that she looked at me. It was supposed to be the kind of thing that I could look back at with fondness when I was in a rocking chair on my front porch at eighty-years-old. Instead, when my wife’s face came to mind with that look, it meant I was about to fade into some version of myself that I didn’t know anymore; where the memories ruled and caused pain so deep that I ceased to exist because I couldn’t survive them.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
jersey
