Page 100 of Nathan
The Tape
Nathan
My couch was crammed, with River and Liv on my left and Lumi and Charles on my right. Atlas was with us on an iPad in Lumi’s lap, and Maximum was watching via River’s phone, which was leaning against two books on the coffee table.
The video was over and had left us all quiet. I felt nauseated and out of breath. My pulse was speeding, and I was stressed out from sitting completely powerless, watching my mother’s murder.
My mind was blank as if my brain was refusing to take in what I had just watched. Rationally I knew that the little boy on the bed had been me and that the woman pleading for her life and for her son’s life had been my mother, Sandra. The monster in that video didn’t have big fangs, horns, claws, or a long tail. Conor had been dressed in expensive clothes and spoken with an elegant English accent.
It’d been surreal to hear Conor dictate my mother’s suicide letter. His expression had been one of satisfaction, as if he was pleased with his work and enjoying his power over a woman forced to make an impossible choice between killing herself or watching her son get killed.
While we watched it, I’d focused on insignificant little details like the way the wallpaper was peeling in the top left corner of the back wall, and how the yellow blinds hung crooked. It was too hard to watch Conor sitting on the edge of the bed as if my mum had invited him into our room. His left hand had caressed my hair while his right hand had held a knife to my throat.
The video had lasted almost forty minutes and ended with Conor picking me up on his shoulder and carrying me to the door. As a last thing before exiting, he’d turned around and watched my mum’s lifeless body on the bed with a quizzical look as if he couldn’t quite grasp how someone could put another’s life before their own.
“How are you feeling?”
I turned to Charles, who had been the first to speak. “Numb.”
“Was it worse than you expected?”
I didn’t know how to answer him. Twelve years ago, after we were saved from the Red Manor, Liv and Charles had told me what really happened that night when I was five, and my mother died. But hearing about it and watching it were two different things.
Last Christmas, the five of us siblings had returned to the Red Manor and walked through the empty house with so many of our childhood memories. That’s when we’d found the tape with my mum’s name on it. I’d feared watching it ever since, but now it was done.
“I don’t know what to think.”
“I’ve never watched anything that awful,” Liv said in a small voice and dried her eyes. “I hope the devil is roasting him three hundred years for every pill he forced your mom to swallow.”
“Conor is in hell for sure,” Atlas said through FaceTime on the iPad that Lumi was holding.
“Do you regret watching it?” River asked me.
“Again, it was like my brain didn’t really wanna have an opinion about anything.”
Lumi placed the iPad with Atlas on the coffee table so he could see us. He said, “I think it was brave of you to watch it, and I’m glad you didn’t do it alone. None of us wanted to see the content of that tape, but the thought of you doing it alone would be worse.”
“I wish I could give you a hug right now.” Maximum’s voice came through River’s phone. She had turned it around, so I was facing him as well as Atlas.
“I’ll do it for you,” River said and leaned over to hug me tight.
When she released me, the others came to hug me too.
“My mum was very pretty,” I muttered. “Even though she was so scared and crying and begging, I still found her incredibly beautiful.” My voice cracked as I said the last word.
“Gorgeous,” Liv agreed
Like a powerful tsunami, emotions came rolling in that made me cover my face and cry. I could feel hands on my shoulders and sense that they were all gathering around me, but none of them said anything. They just allowed me to grieve for my mother, who had sacrificed her life for me.
“What twisted demon would do something that sick?” My voice was muffled by my hands covering my face and my tears making my throat ache. “He kidnapped me... Why did she move in with him to begin with?”
Still, no one said a thing. Everyone in this room had met Conor O’Brien and knew how charismatic and kind he could seem. Five of us had been given no choice, as we’d been children when we were brought into the cult – Atlas and Maximum as sons of Conor O’Brien, and Lumi, River, and I as children of his disciples. Charles had been an adult when he joined. He’d been lured in by the strong sense of community that he had lacked throughout his childhood. Liv was the only one of us who had known from the beginning that she was entering a cult and that Conor O’Brien was a psychopath. If not for her willingness to put herself in danger by going undercover, we probably wouldn’t have survived.
Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm my breathing, but my heart was racing from the injustice I’d just watched, and anger rushed through my body. “If only I had a time machine, I could walk into that room and protect my mum. I don’t care if I had to spend the rest of my life in jail, I’d beat his sorry arse for putting a hand on my mother.”
Back then, I had been five years old and as helpless as my mother, but now I had the strength, the skills, and the anger to destroy a man like Conor.
Atlas’ voice was stern and solemn when he cut through. “You wouldn’t have to because if such a machine existed, I would have gone back to kill him before he could kill anyone. I have nights where I dream that I get to face him and punish him for what he did to others.”
