Page 11 of Atonement

“Yes.”

“No.” I shook my head. I had to come up with something for him to give me. This was a shot in the dark, but it was the last thing I could take that would actually hurt him. “Give me the stock.”

He laughed out loud at that, a mirthless sound that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “I’m even less likely to give you that than Anita.”

“I want—”

“Listen to me, boy.” He walked over to me, finger extended as if he meant to shoot me with it. “You think you can extort me?” He grabbed me around the neck, and I forced myself to hold still. His other finger dug into my chest. “You want to see her, I’ll bring her down here. I’ll throw her on the floor and rape her while Joshua holds you back from helping her at all.”

I didn’t even realize I was reaching for him until he flattened his palm against my chest, the other hand tightening too hard around my neck and suddenly I could barely breathe. Still, I tried to reach for him, tried to fight, but he was holding me too far back, and every second that passed with my vision turned darker.

“You’ll sit here and listen to every scream, every cry for help, and there will be nothing you can do about it. And when I’m done, maybe you’ll both leave me the fuck alone.”

A moment before I lost consciousness he suddenly released me and shoved against my chest, sending me falling to the ground. I gasped and held my throat, trying to suck in enough air to stay aware of my surroundings.

“I’ll be back for her,” I said, but with my breath wheezing through my throat the words couldn’t be taken seriously. Conrad turned his back and waved his hand, dismissing me. He picked up his desk phone and pressed a button.

“I’ll need another drink, and a new laptop.”

He ignored the response from his staff, staring at me until I took one step toward the door, then another, until I was across the room with Conrad’s eyes boring into my back. I paused with my left hand hovering above the handle. There had to be something else.Come on, think!

“Keep walking, son.” Conrad’s voice was too close. He’d snuck up on me, and I hadn’t noticed. I grabbed the handle and yanked open the door and nearly ran into a wide-eyed attendant holding a brand new bottle of gin and a sparking glass on a tray. They rattled as I bumped him with my shoulder. It was petty, to take out my anger on the staff, but it was all I could manage at the moment. I could barely think past the pain in my hand. My arm where I’d cut not two hours before was bleeding again; I could feel it soaking through my suit jacket. If Shawn couldn’t care for me, we’d have to call a doctor.

Joshua was waiting for me in the foyer, and opened the door as soon as I approached.

“You put up a good effort,” he murmured as I passed him.

I slammed into him as I passed, smearing some of my blood on his white shirt. “Fuck you.”

Outside, Shawn’s car was still running, though it sat in darkness with the lights off. That was probably the first thing to alert me that something was wrong. He didn’t jump out of the car to greet me, or ask me where Maddie was, or demand that I go back inside and come back out only when I had her with me. I stopped outside the passenger door, staring at the darkened interior, but something kept me from reaching for the handle.

Slowly, as if by delaying the inevitable, I walked around the front to stand by the driver’s side. Even as I stood there I knew. I should have sent him home, even if it meant ending my friendship with him. He didn’t know what he was getting into, couldn’t comprehend the lengths my father would go to to protect his reputation and his legacy. Cutting off my only friend would have been better than whatever was waiting for me on the other side of that door.

I didn’t open the door for several minutes, because as long as it stayed closed, it meant he could still be alive. A chill unrelated to the cool weather seeped into my bones with every passing second. There was no noise, no wildlife or crickets to disturb the silence informing me I was the only living person out here. I looked back toward the house, once, and imagined I saw someone step away from a window just as turned my head.

The not knowing was going to kill me. My hand snatched out to grab the handle, pulling open the door as the rest of my body jumped back to avoid what was waiting for me behind the door. I wanted to close my eyes, but I was focused on the blood that splashed onto my shoes as my best friend’s body tumbled onto the pavement. Shawn gazed up at me with lifeless eyes, the veins on his wrists split open too wide for there to have ever been any hope of repairing them. Yet another reminder from my father of what my personal failings had taken from me.

I stood there and watched, knowing there was no way of ever making this car or these clothes clean again, as his blood poured out of the car like rain.

Maddie

Sleeping that first night felt much like those early morning hours after Meyer attacked me, bound up with worry and jumping at the slightest sound. When I opened my eyes, I half expected to see Meyer across the room in front of his window with a knife in hand; to hear him speaking to me as if through deep water. But it was Conrad standing at the side of the bed, reminding me that my nightmare was in waking, not sleep.

“Call her,” he said, tossing a cell phone onto the bed next to me. I glanced at it briefly before staring at him again. He was just handing me a phone? I blinked as I pushed up to sitting and rubbed at my eyes.

“What—”

“It’s been programmed to only dial one number,” he said, “so don’t get any big ideas.”

“Whose?” I asked. His answering smirk told me all I needed to know.

Sleep was falling away from me quickly. Crossing my arms and pulling the threadbare blanket to my chest, I sat back against the wall, trying to put as much distance between us as I could in the small space. Was this what my mother had felt like, those first days she sat in here, still a child herself with only an even smaller child for company? “You’ve done enough to my family already. I won’t put them through even more hell.”

He was on me in an instant, a fistful of my hair in his hand before I even had time to react. He moved fast for someone his age. The joints in my stiff neck popped as he twisted my head to the side, shoving my face against the wall.

“Do you think what you’ve been through with my son in the past few weeks has been a joke? I’ll make whatever he did to you seem like a walk in the fucking park. There’s a reason your mother never talked about what happened to her, Mads. I fuckingbrokeher. And I’m going to do the same to you.”

I wanted to be mad at him for using my nickname, but I couldn’t think past my pain and discomfort. The inside of my cheek was bleeding. The muscles in my neck felt like they were about to snap. I flailed, trying to hit him, but a punch to my kidney left me gasping for breath. My back arched, trying to bend and protect my aching organs, but he held my head in place and limited my movement. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.

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