The thought of lying nearly naked, utterly exposed in front of this monster, was terrifying. It made no logical sense, of course. Realistically, she should have been just as frightened sitting on the couch with her legs crossed and her arms folded. None of that would provide her with the slightest protection if Milo decided to begin wielding his blade.
But then, nothing that had happened since leaving Tampa made sense anyway. A simple trip up the East Coast to reunite with a long-lost parent had turned into a nightmare of the highest order. This whole experience was a tumble down the rabbit hole, a field trip to hell, an inexplicable descent into madness.
So in a matter of seconds, when the lunatic grinned his greasy, terrible grin and told her that sitting on the couch wasn’t good enough, that she would have to uncurl her limbs and stretch out on her back, her body almost completely unclothed, Cait Connelly fully and unforgettably discovered the meaning of the phrase, “the last straw.” A roaring that only she could hear filled her ears and puffy black clouds bloomed in her vision and she thought for one awful moment that she was suffering a stroke and that she would either pass out from the debilitating fear or just freeze up and turn into a gibbering, drooling mental case.
But again the thought of Kevin kept her going. His condition had not improved, he was still unconscious and taped to a chair, hanging on to life by a thread, blood slowly seeping out of him, still depending on her resourcefulness for whatever slim chance at survival he might have.
She clamped down on her fear and forced the clouds away.
Forced the roaring freight train out of her ears as well.
Did the only thing she could think of that might buy her a little more time, although what good could possibly come from it, she had no idea.
She started talking as he moved toward her, the bloodstained knife held in front of him in both hands like some religious icon. “There’s something you should know,” she said, and he stopped dead in his tracks and stood unmoving. He stared at her, seemingly flummoxed by this unexpected development. It was clearly not the reaction he had been expecting.
“What are you talking about?” he said.
Cait knew his indecision would not last long, so she pressed on, willing her voice to remain steady, making up her strategy as she went. “I’m your sister.”
Milo shook his head and Cait wondered whether he was disagreeing with her statement or simply trying to process it. Maybe he was doing both. “What the fuck are you talking about, bitch?” he finally managed. “I don’t have a sister. I’m an only child, and thank God for that.”
Cait wondered what he meant by the last part of that statement but continued on quickly, while she still had his attention and before he came to the conclusion talking was pointless. “You were adopted as a baby, weren’t you?” She was grasping at straws, trying desperately to recall the incredible story her mother had related to her, putting things together as she went, wondering as she talked whether she hoped it was all true or all a lie.
Milo eyed her suspiciously. “Yes, I was adopted, so what? And how did you know that?”
“I knew it,” Cait answered, her voice growing stronger and more confident, “because I was adopted, too. And I just learned the story of my history yesterday. I learned it from my real mother. The same woman who is your real mother. The woman sitting right over there.” She risked lifting her arm and pointing across the room at Victoria, hoping he wouldn’t interpret the movement as a threat and slash at her with the knife.
He didn’t. He followed her motion dumbly, making a slow half-turn toward the frail older woman duct-taped to her own kitchen chair, her mangled hand still dripping blood slowly onto the floor. Victoria closed her eyes and hung her head before nodding slowly, a mute affirmation of Cait’s story.
“You see things, don’t you?” she continued. “In your mind, I mean. You see things in your mind from other people’s perspective. You know things you couldn’t possibly know and it’s always been that way, ever since you were a very young boy. Am I right?”
The man’s jaw had gone slack and his eyes glazed over. He still clung to the knife but it seemed to have been forgotten, at least for the time being. “I’ve always seen things,” he whispered. “I never understood it but I’ve always been able to see pictures, like mental movies, of things happening in other people’s lives. Sometimes it’s overwhelming, sometimes the visions just keep coming, one after another, they won’t stop for hours sometimes, and it’s just so fucking…exhausting…”
Cait nodded, hoping to keep him talking, hoping against all reasonable hope that by beginning to forge a connection with him, however fragile and tenuous, he might see her as a human being rather than simply as a potential victim, and that in so doing she—and, hopefully, Victoria and Kevin as well—might somehow have a chance to escape this nightmare with their lives. “I’ve always had the ability as well,” she said gently. “I call those visions ‘Flickers,’ because they are like those old-time black-and-white movies that flicker up on the screen when you watch them.
“Our mother didn’t want to give us up,” she continued. “I just found that out yesterday. It was the hardest decision she ever had to make; it literally tore her family apart. But she had no choice in the matter—” Cait stopped talking, suddenly realizing she had gone too far, remembering what Victoria had said about the history of fratricide among twins going back centuries in her family’s history, remembering what Victoria had said about her becoming a target should she ever be reunited with her brother. Suddenly she understood that he didn’t comprehend his burning hatred for her any better than she did.
But the problem with making things up as you went was that you didn’t have time to plan ahead, and Cait immediately regretted her words, knowing they could logically lead only to one question in her brother’s psychotic mind: Why? Why had his mother cast him away? And the answer to that question would likely lead to a knife in the heart, not just for her but for Victoria as well and probably Kevin, just to round things out.
She hurriedly tried to steer the conversation in another direction, desperate to get onto safer ground. “But it doesn’t matter,” she said. “Adoptive parents can be wonderful; they can treat you with love and respect just like biological parents. In fact, you could argue that if they were unable to have children of their own, they may appreciate the opportunity to raise kids even more than biological parents would.”
Milo’s face hardened, and as he tightened his grip on the knife, Cait realized immediately she had said something wrong, had blundered into a taboo area. “Or,” he answered, “they might treat you like an object, a slave, an animal to be beaten and abused and tortured.”
Milo took a menacing step forward and Cait shrank back, wishing she could disappear into the couch cushions. “How nice that you were given parents who treated you with ‘love and respect’”—he spoke in a falsetto voice filled with sugary sweetness, the anger behind the words spilling out despite his tone, or maybe because of it.
“My parents never gave me a chance. They were well-respected in the community, but at home my father was a monster, using his belt as a motivational tool, flaying my back until it bled for the smallest transgression, using a fork to gouge ridges into my skin if I took too long bringing the trash out to the curb.”
Cait’s eyes widened in horror now as well as in fear. Milo’s anger seemed to be building on itself as he spoke, gaining momentum, taking on a life of its own. He was working himself into a rage, exactly what she was trying to avoid, and there was nothing she could do about it. “You want to see the ‘love and respect’ you seem to value so highly?”