Uncovering You 10: The Finale (13 page)

I give him a small, tight, non-committal nod.

He opens the door.

It’s an empty square room. Hugh is inside. There is nobody—and nothing—else.

“Thank you, my boy,” Hugh says. “Leave her to me.”

Esteban bows his head slightly and back out the room.

As soon as the door closes, Hugh holds one finger up. “Before you try anything rash,” he says, tilting his head to meet my eyes, “I must inform you that this room is being watched.” He points at the four corners of the ceiling. “Anything you do, anything you say, will be recorded. Esteban’s guards are on close alert. So let’s not have things devolve to a relapse of the dinner my son set up, hmm?”

“What do you want?” I ask stiffly, crossing my arms.

“A truce, of sorts,” Hugh says. “I’m here to offer you armistice.”

I narrow my eyes in suspicion. “Why?”

“To give meaning to your life.”

“It has meaning.”

“Ah,” Hugh agrees. “Maybe so. But not in the way I want.”

“And what do you want?”

He holds one hand out before him and uncurls his fist. Inside are three small, red pills.

“For you to take these,” he says.

My back stiffens. “No.”

Hugh smiles in a sad way. “Really, Lilly. Do you have a choice? Besides, you don’t even know what they are.”

“I don’t care. I’m not taking them.”

Hugh shrugs and puts the pills back in his pocket. “A pity,” he says, “that you should make your mind up so early.”

All at once, the lights in the room go off. I’m plunged into darkness.

“No!” I scream, and lunge at Hugh. But wherever I thought he was, he’s not any longer. I stumble and fall.

“Consider your options,” he says from a faraway corner. “I’ll come back to give you the choice again.”

A small sliver of light breaks through the darkness and then he’s gone.

And I’m left on the ground in a cell devoid of light once again.

Chapter Eighteen

I shiver, wrapping my robe around myself in a vain attempt to retain what feeble heat my body produces.

This room is worse than the sunroom. Much, much worse. For one, it’s freezing cold. If there were any light I would see my breath misting out in front of me.

For two, it’s small. Tiny. So, so very much constricting. While I was limited in range by the collar, before, the sunroom gave the illusion of space. Here, there is none.

Something about the four tight walls, the way they intersect at harsh angles, adds to the sense of oppression. It’s not a wide, gentle circle. It’s a closed, tiny box.

The fact that there’s nothing here to cling onto? No pillar, no chair, no bed? Just the empty floor? That alone makes me feel lost in a nightmare. My sense of sight has been taken away by the dark. My sense of touch—by the lack of physical objects and the persistent cold.

Hearing. What do I hear? Nothing. Nothing, except for my own shuddery breaths. It makes the sense of dread, the sense of looming apprehension, so much worse.

The only saving grace is that I do not wait long before being given the choice to take the pills again.

Hugh enters. I know it is him by the way he breathes.

“Do you like your new accommodations?” he asks. “Rose tells me you were used to lodgings like these while under my son’s care. Is that right?”

“You know it is, old man!” I hiss.

He tsks. “Why so angry, Lilly? I returned to help you make a choice.”

“Fuck your choice.”

“Language, language,” he mutters. “Such crude words should never come from the lips of a woman. But you can hardly be blamed. Jeremy did not instill manners into you.”

He walks toward me, his silhouette visible against the frame of light from the door.

He kneels down at my side and drops three pills into my hand.

“Take these,” he says. “And your suffering will not have to go on much longer. You’ll be returned to the white room, with a shower…a light…a bed.”

“Go fuck yourself,” I spit, and turn away.

He clicks his tongue, and then stands. “You’ll be here,” he says, “every single moment, being watched, until you take the pills, Lilly. There’s no use trying to fight. You’ll give in eventually. And Esteban and I? We have the luxury of unlimited time, while your clock, I fear, is running short.” He turns away. “Think on it, Lilly. It won’t be that bad.”

I cradle the pills in my palm, fingering them back and forth in a circle.

Hugh wanted me to take them. Why? I can only think of one reason:

They will do the same thing to my mind as they did to Paul’s

And if I do—if I succumb—there will be no going back. Not from that. Not ever.

Have I given up all hope of an escape? It’s been a month and a half since I was kidnapped. A month and a half where I have been given no chance.

A month and a half in which Jeremy did not come.

The reward should have sparked a search. Doubtless, it did. And nothing has come of it so far.

Frightening? No, this is terrifying.

Chapter Nineteen

Hugh visits me again the following day.

I need confirmation of my suspicions. “If I take these,” I ask him, “what will become of me?”

He chuckles. “Finally, you are asking the right questions. The three pills, on their own, will do nothing. But..they will prime your mind to succumb to bouts of schizophrenia, give the proper trigger.”

“And that trigger is?”

“Another chemical, with a two day half-life. You see, what I did to Paul was unfortunately crude. It ruined him forever. I do not want that with you. After all, what use would you be as a bargaining chip if you were broken?” He laughs. “None. But. If you were not broken, simply temporarily… impaired? In a state that could be achieved by a single drop of the proper chemical catalyst in your drink? Well, that makes you valuable again. To me.”

“Why not just slip them in my food, then?” I challenge. “Why offer me the choice?”

“Because, sweet Lilly, you have to be in full understanding of what is happening to you. You have to see how it is only because of your choices that you have ended up in this…” Hugh glances around the room. “…this cold, dark, despicable place. The three little pills will open your mind to us. And they will also be your escape.”

I laugh. “Escape? Escape what? You said it yourself: You intend to use me as bait. You don’t mean to let me out.”

“Perhaps not,” Hugh admits, “but wouldn’t you rather spend your final days in unbridled luxury, as opposed to this… this miserable existence?” He stands and turns away. “Think on it, Lilly. Do you know where we are?”

“You know I don’t.”

“We are miles beneath Esteban’s beautiful home on a remote island in the Mediterranean. Wouldn’t you like to see the sea? We will let you. We will let you roam the wonderful landscape of the picturesque nature above us, should you simply swallow those three, red pills.”

“You’re lying,” I hiss. “We can’t be out of the country. I
know
we’re still in California. You couldn’t have just flown me away, with no one being the wiser, without us clearing customs?”

“Customs?” Hugh laughs uproariously. “You think that some TSA officials could have stopped us? Remember what happened in the airport in Boston, Lilly. Remember why Jeremy felt
compelled
to bring me.”

He lowers his voice. “It’s because I still hold connections from my past life. Do not dismiss things you know nothing about. It’ll turn your stubbornness into a weakness instead of a strength.”

He turns away. “Ten days, Lilly,” he informs me. “I am giving you ten days to make your choice. Already, Esteban is growing impatient. I advise you to take the pills. Because you know that in the end, whether you will it or not, they will end up in your system. And honestly? It’s so much better when you feel like you are the master of your own fate.” He chuckles. “No matter how wrong the illusion might be.”

Succumb. Give in. End up like Paul
.

Nightmares like that haunt my sleep. In the background of them is the ever-present voice. The voice of my subconscious, the voice that once gave me my strength.

Succumb. Give in. What choice do you have?

Over and over that mantra is repeated in my sleep. Over and over I reject it, determined to remain true to who I am, determined to make Jeremy proud of me.

Wherever in the world he is.

Chapter Twenty

June 2014.

The Stonehart Building. Top floor.

“Sir? The banks are calling. They want—”

“Fuck
them
,” I growl, cutting the man off. I don’t need to look up from the computer screen to know he doesn’t have the courage to face me.

He tries to continue. “They’re asking for s-settlement of o-overdue accounts,” he stutters, “and—”

“What did I just FUCKING SAY?” I explode, slamming my hand on the desk and surging up.