Page 60 of Antihero
I spin on Charlotte, understanding now that she’s unarmed. Goodry is climbing to his feet. Alone.
“Tristan!” I finally shout. There’s no answer.
My breath hyperventilates from my lungs. No,no. Don’t be dead. Not him. What I needed wasn’t more death. Not even Goodry’s death. It was Tristan. Alive. With me.
“You imbecile!” Goodry is cursing, raging, but not at me. Or at Tristan. “You could’ve shot me!” The figure creeps, haltingly, along the edge, his boots squelching on the mud. He’s holding out the gun in a limp hand. The rain drips off the ugly weapon. Goodry snatches it away as soon as he’s within reach.
“James?” Charlotte gasps. The boy, my neighbour, looks at me. His eyes are glassy. He clutches his shaking fingers, meeting my eye, looking pained, then turning away. Does he understand what he’s just done? That he’s just shot a man? My hand shakes in its fist.
“I’m sorry, dad.” When Goodry slaps him across the ear, sending a spray of water up, James ducks his head like someone who’s used to being clobbered.
“Dad?” I ask, looking between the two. My gaze lands on James. Not another orphan, after all. But Goodry’s son… “Have you been watching me? Forhim?” Not just now, I realise. All those times he came to my house. The times he seemed to be too close, lingering around.
James looks to his father as though for permission to speak. I eye the stairs. I need to search for Tristan. He’s up there somewhere, among the ruin. But Goodry has the gun now. What if I bring attention to Tristan? Goodry might finish the job. What if there’s no job to finish? I want to scream.Tristan, please. Be alive.
“You said your son was lobotomised! That hedied.”
Goodry chuckles, using his sleeve to wipe blood and water off his face. “Just like sweet Molly?”
My chest constricts. “You…”
“I didn’t ‘treat’ her, no.” Now, he glances at son. “Him, yes. Harry showed me. Let me do the honours.” He claps a hand on the flinching man’s shoulder, squeezing a bit too hard. James’s eyes hitch on the detached ear. Even in the dim light straining through the rain clouds, through the downpour, I see him pale. “He was a poorly behaved young man,” Goodry continues. “Disobedient, wilful… but now, he’s happy. Loyal.”
If he’d had his son following me, had him live in the cottage near mine… “You knew I was the Wraith all along?” I don’t give a shit what he knew. There’s only one possibility that I can live with; that I’m buying Tristan time, that he’s going to appear and somehow, we’ll take control back and make this all right.
Goodry shrugs, toying with the gun. “Paige, you know, I didn’t quite realise what that first diagnosis would start. But you really did take things into your own hands. I always suspected you never quite got over your sister’s death. But the lengths you went to… well, I needed to keep you coming back more after that. In case you got wise.”
To keep me constantly waiting for the news… and all along, he was deciding whether it would happen. Like some kind of sick god.
“You didn’t warn anyone?”
“Of course not! You got them out of my way, removed loose ends. Some of them were onerously close to growingguilt. You were a boon, really! But I’m afraid you’ve been reaching the end of your usefulness for some time. You shouldn’t have broken into the asylum, Paige…”
Then I see. He knew that was me. Because of Gina. Who else but me would be interested in her? It was his sign that I was getting too close. If I’d looked closer, if I’d plied through themany thousands of sheets of archival papers where I saw Gina’s name and found Filan’s guilt, would I have seen his name? How many others?
Those documents are still in my house, waiting to be found. Soon the police from Tregam will be there. Then they’ll have them.
I’m crying, salt mingling on my lips with the freshness of the rain. “Can I… could I… have had children? Can what you did be reversed?”
“Oh,” he looks on with pity. “Darling please. You have no womb. I pulled it right out of you myself. No ‘waves’, no tricks. Just a plain old scalpel.”
I’d vomit if I hadn’t already.
“You monster,” Charlotte murmurs, low and horrified, beside me. But I’m beyond that.
“But my blood markers… you showed them to me, explained them.”
“Some dead woman’s.” Goodry waves a dismissive hand. “You’re perfectly healthy. It’s a shame really, that it’s going to be cut short now. You could’ve lived a very long time. You all could have.”
My blood, already cold, freezes. “Others?” I ask, my voice wavering. I always thought no others stayed. But what if they did and…
Goodry’s laugh is a gargle. I want Needler to rip off his other ear. Tear out his tongue. “You were all so mistrustful of doctors. Would never get a second opinion, never wonder if the results I was showing were really yours. Yet for all that paranoia, so easy to remove.”
I glance at Charlotte. She’s swaying. Pale. Her shoulders shake and I realise she’s silently sobbing.
Goodry lifts the gun. “No longer, though.” James is keening, hands clamped between his knees, bowed over. He’s glancingaround the scene like he doesn’t know how this came to be, doesn’t want to be here, or is expecting to wake up. “This isn’t ideal, Paige dear. You were supposed to be dead, and I was supposed to have time to take anything from your house that I didn’t want the feds to find. But then your damned boyfriend decided to drag me here instead…” I feel cold as Goodry lifts the gun to me, my limbs quickening with fear. But there’s nowhere to go. I put myself down in this hole.
The blast is loud over the driving rain. I gasp, losing sense of my body, not able to feel the pain.
