Page 8 of Atonement

Then I tried to hurt her. That day, she showed me just how at risk I was of turning into the man my father wanted me to be.

I fought off the urge as long as I could, but after a night of tossing and turning with my captive crying in the corner, shivering in her wet clothes, I couldn’t take it anymore. My future was as clear to me as if I were watching it happen on a movie screen. I heard every time I’d cried and begged my father to stop, only to be met with harder blows, days spent without food, sleeping on a hard floor because I didn’t deserve a bed. And layered on top of it, Eva on her knees, pleading, offering her body as payment if only he wouldn’t hurt me anymore.

I woke up early specifically to give myself time to enjoy the ceremony of it all. Testing the knife to make sure I would get a clean cut. Having cloth ready to catch the blood. Preparing the alcohol and bandages to prevent any infection. And a new step—putting myself across the room from Maddie so that she didn’t have to see any blood up close. Was that the moment I really started to care for her? When I bled out the infection that had poisoned my entire being, to ensure it didn’t corrupt her as well? For the first time, I was able to put someone else’s well-being above my own. And I found I didn’t mind it.

The knife clattered to the floor as my broken fingers refused to grasp it any longer, and I put my hand against my head. Had Conrad already hurt her, or was he planning something else? My world was still spinning, but the revolutions felt more manageable now. I could get this under control, as long as I remembered who I was dealing with. He’d probably let her fret for a few days before he did anything. I had time, but not much. Hot blood rolled down my arm, droplets patting softly against the tile.

“Help me bandage it up,” I whispered, and Shawn scrambled to grab my kit from where I kept it under the sink. He’d been witness to this practice more than once, even tried to stop it before. That earned him a broken nose for his trouble. We hadn’t spoken for a month. But he was the first person to visit me in the hospital, besides Eva, when he found out I’d finally attacked a critical vein.

I sat with my head in my hand as he wiped up the mess, pressing against the cuts until they stopped bleeding. He pressed bandages over the open wounds and set about cleaning up the floor.

“You’ll need to change your pants. They’re stained.”

“Good. I wanted to get out of your cheap-ass clothes anyway.”

He snorted. That was a good sign. If he was amused by me giving him a hard time, it meant he wasn’t quite as mad at me as I feared. I couldn’t pull this off without someone rooting for me, even if he didn’t know the whole score.

“What’s the plan?”

“I haven’t quite figured out yet.”

“Well, you’d better do it quick. We need to be there in half an hour, based on what you told your dad.”

“Forty-five minutes it is.” I pushed myself to my feet and walked to the closet. “Follow me. You need to know the whole truth of what’s going on.”

Meyer

It was Joshua who opened the door for me when I arrived at Conrad’s house. We stared at each other for half a heartbeat before he stepped back to let me into the house. I kept my eyes on him as I crossed the threshold, unwilling to show him my back.

“He’s waiting for you in the study.”

“No he’s not.” My injured hand was tucked away in my pocket. A massive dose of ibuprofen had taken most of the edge off my pain, but there wasn’t much we could do about the redness and bruising. I didn’t want Conrad to see that if he didn’t have to. “I’m already here late, but he’ll make me wait even longer before he comes to talk to me.”

Joshua looked away and shrugged one shoulder. “Nevertheless, that’s where he wants to speak with you.”

I pressed the fingers of my left hand against my mouth, biting back the words I wanted to sling at him. There would be a time for that later.

“I know where it is.” Even though having Shawn come in here with me would have been a mistake, I was suddenly wishing I hadn’t asked him to stay behind. I could have used his moral support here, especially now that he knew the whole truth of what was going on with Madeline. He reacted as I expected him to, with disgust and disbelief. But he got in the car with me and rode to Conrad’s house all the same. I wanted him to stay at my place, but he was insistent on being close to the action. He didn’t want me to fuck up again, run away when I should be standing firm. His dedication to making sure Maddie was safe was admirable, but it still grated on me. I’d always done things on my own. I wanted to keep it that way.

Maybe it’s time to accept some help. Keeping him out hadn’t worked; I was only here to save an innocent life because of him. I had to give him credit for that.

The skin on the back of my neck prickled as I finally turned my back on him and walked farther into the house. The door closed with a bang, making me flinch. I sneered at myself. Now was not the time to be skittish.

I glanced up the East staircase as I passed it, forcing my eyes not to linger. I was confident Maddie was being kept in the same room where Eva and I had stayed the first couple of years she lived with us.

The first couple of years she was Conrad’s captive. I had to stop thinking of Eva as some sort of guest or nanny. She was a victim. She was kidnapped then raped, repeatedly, for years, yet she always cared for me as if I was her own child. At the very least, I owed it to her to be honest in my own thoughts.

As expected, the study was empty when I entered. I walked to the window and stared out it. The sun was gone now, and residual sunlight streaked purple across the sky. Purple was Maddie’s favorite color, I remembered randomly. I didn’t think she’d ever mentioned it to me, but she bought so many purple decorations for her freshman year dorm room I had a feeling the interior must have looked like she spilled cough medicine over everything. When this was over, I’d redecorate my entire house if it would make her happy. Even better, we’d go somewhere completely new. Build from the ground up. She could pick out the paint color for every wall, and I wouldn’t care how ugly it was.

The well-oiled hinges of the door to the study didn’t make a sound as they opened, but I knew the moment Conrad entered the room. I could taste the bad blood in the air as clearly as if he’d opened a wound.

“You’re late.”

“As are you.” I turned as he approached me, both hands tucked in his pockets, still dressed in his suit as if he’d come directly from the office. It was a good idea to change my clothes, even if they were more wrinkled than I would have liked. Shawn never had the need to dress as pretentiously as I did, and Conrad would have noticed right off the bat.

“Yes, but you’re the one who set the time.”

He reached out his hand to shake mine, and I had no choice but to take it. He smiled maliciously as he squeezed my hand far too tightly. I felt the pain all the way up to my neck and partway down my back. Somehow, he’d figured out what I did to my hand. Maybe he somehow had me followed to the doctor’s office, or just saw the hole in the wall of my office and drew his own conclusions. I slipped my hand back into my pocket the moment he released me, using every ounce of my self-control to keep the pain from showing on my face.

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