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In the situation I’m in, though, I don’t have any room to question it.
The ride back to my building is silent.
He helps me into the building, using the back elevator to get me into my penthouse, away from prying eyes.
“Don’t worry, no one knows you were missing. Of course, those closest to you do. But that’s an internal matter, I’m sure.”
As I stand on my own finally in my living room, I look around at the sheer audacity I have as a fucking human to live as I do. All the while she’s been living in fucking limbo, dealing with the shattered mess we’d left her in on the floor. Wondering what Conner knows is now going to be my new obsession until I can get him here.
Now that my memories are back, he’s the first one I’m going to approach. But I don’t know how much he’ll tell me, being that he’s always loved this life more than I have.
“You going to manage on your own, Mr. Stanner?”
“Yeah, I’ll be alright. Thank you.”
My door closes as he leaves, and I drop to my knees, letting the entire depth of emotions sting through me like a swarm of angry wasps, pecking my insides as I scream in agony from the pain of reliving that night and what I’d done.
Now, I know I’m a fucking monster.
But what I do from here is what matters.
At least I hope.
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
Carina
The sinking, guilty feeling still hasn’t left me for what I’d done to Emery in the warehouse. What I’d let happen to him, what my hands had done. I can’t deny I feel reborn, as Gage told me he’d help me feel.
“You did nothing wrong,” Gage tells me, leaning over the side of the tub and brushing my wet hair off my shoulder. I’d told him I needed time. I’d all but condemned him back to the shadows. But as soon as I was out of the car, looking up at the daunting Victorian house looming in the darkness, I couldn’t go in alone. He’d known in an instant and turned his car off, taking me inside and drawing me a bath and settling me into it. He’s become someone who’s slowly helping me rebuild, piece by piece. But I have to break the finely built barrier of lies and comfort I’d built around myself. And I think I’m now realizing it.
“Then why does it feel like this? It’s like a vise has my chest. I can’t breathe past it...I can’t...”
He turns my face, fingers gripping my chin snuggly. “You were owed tonight. Now, we go back and see what he remembers. Well, I will. I don’t want you to have to hear it from him.”
“I don’t know if I can...Do I want to know? It’s all I’ve wanted this entire time. To know. Now, I know someone died that night. I lived, Gage. It could’ve been me who died. It could’ve been me they buried.”
He shakes his head, rage trickling across his face. “You were buried, Carina. Can’t you see that? They buried you the second they realized you couldn’t remember anything. They paid you off like they would any of their other problems.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. But my mind doesn’t want to admit it. They’d buried me so deeply; I never even questioned it. Not until small little flashes of his face started to come back after seeing him on a news conference. That’s when I was obsessed with revenge, answers, anything to give me closure. Anything to make me less afraid of the fucking world outside of my house.
But what I’d done tonight wasn’t me. Was it? It means I’m capable of the same violence as Emery was that night at Westpoint House. And I don’t like the sticky, heavy feeling it’s left behind.
“He’s going to tell us what he did. You’re going to find out, and then you can choose how to go forward,” Gage says, breaking me out of my spiraling panic.
“What do you mean? Choose to go forward, how?” My words don’t even sound like I’ve spoken to them, it’s as if I’m on autopilot, existing through the tough shit to get to something better. Something akin to my old life.
“Well,” he says, “when we figure out the extent of what he did, what he buried, you’ll have to decide what to do with him.”
Gage’s phone rings, causing me to jump and the water to splash at my movement.
“I’m sorry, I have to take this,” he says, moving out of the room.
“Deal with him?” I whisper to myself. Does he mean kill him? I could never end someone’s life. Yeah, what he did was horrible, but I’m not an executioner by any means. My stomach rolls, and all of the sudden, the bath feels too hot.
Pulling the plug, I step out and wrap myself in a towel, moving out of my ensuite and catching loud shouts from Gage’s phone call he’d taken into the hall. Moving across the floor, I press my ear to the door.
“What do you mean he’s gone? I left him chained, of course!” Gage says, and my heart sinks, fear rushing through me. My body becomes like a brick of ice, seizing with terror as I recall all I’ve already done to my boss, done in front of my boss, and now he’s freed from his bindings. The ethical and moral lines I’d crossed alone are enough to get me fired and arrested in one fell swoop.
