Page 96 of The Chain

“Shit!” she says, spinning around and holding up the bread knife.

Stuart comically puts his hands in the air.

“Stuart, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you were over,” Rachel says.

“You can put the knife down now, Mrs. O’Neill,” Stuart replies, faking terror.

“Sorry about the S-word too. Don’t tell your mother.”

“It’s fine. I might have heard that word once or twice before in various, um, contexts.”

“Would you like some toast?”

“No, thanks. I just came by to say hi to Kylie before you guys leave.”

Rachel nods and makes some toast for Stuart anyway. She and Kylie and Pete are going to Boston for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was only two days after a chemo Tuesday, so Marty had stepped into the breach and invited them all to his place for the holiday.

It’s OK. Everything is OK.

Rachel makes two more slices of toast, puts them on a plate.

Pete comes in from his run, looking breathless but happy. He’s been running a lot the past two weeks and getting stronger. The VA in Worcester got him into a methadone program, which allows him to ease the opiates out of his system gradually. It’s working so far. And it would have to keep working. Her family is the priority. Pete knows that.

Pete kisses her on the lips.

“Good run?” she asks.

He looks at her. He can tell. “Bad dream?” he whispers.

She nods. “The same,” she says.

“You should talk to someone.”

“You know I can’t.”

They can tell no one that they have gone through the looking glass and into the world where nightmares are real.

Pete gets himself coffee and sits next to Rachel at the living-room table.

He had never formally asked to move in. He had driven to Worcester and brought the stuff he’d wanted—which wasn’t a whole lot—and then just sort of stayed.

Out of the three of them, Pete perhaps is doing best.

If he has bad dreams he doesn’t mention them, and the methadone keeps away the worst of his cravings.

Out of the three of them, Kylie is definitely doing the worst.

That night at the Appenzellers’, Kylie went down to little Amelia. The girl had woken up and Kylie had comforted her and told her that everything was going to be all right. But that isn’t the point. The point is that she went down there. She was part of the apparatus keeping Amelia prisoner. Thus Kylie had been both victim and abuser. Like all of them. Victims and accomplices. That’s what The Chain does to you. It tortures you and then makes you complicit in the torture of others.

Kylie hasn’t wet the bed since she was four years old. Now nearly every single morning, the sheets are soaked.

When she dreams, the dreams are always the same—she’s thrown in a dungeon and left to die alone.

Everything is changed on Plum Island. Kylie doesn’t walk to school or to the store or anywhere by herself.

Before, they seldom locked the doors; now they always do. Pete has reinforced and changed all the locks. He cleared Rachel’s devices of spyware and his friend Stan came in and professionally debugged the house and put coin-size GPS trackers in Kylie’s shoes. They monitor Kylie constantly when she goes anywhere, especially when she stays with her dad in the city.

Kylie knows she can’t tell her father about what happened. Not her father, not Stuart, not the school counselor, not her grandmother. Nobody. But Marty is no fool and he sees that something is wrong. Maybe something to do with a boy? He isn’t going to press it. He’s having his own problems. Tammy had suddenly moved back to California to take care of her mother who had recently been in an accident. Tammy wasn’t interested in a bicoastal relationship. A few curt e-mails, and just like that, so long, Marty.

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