Strange in Skin (35 page)

“Why are you keeping her here? I’m taking her to the hospital,” my father shouted out in a
demanding tone.

Lauren stepped in between him and me in a bullying manner. “She’s not going anywhere.”
“Are you going to throw me down the stairs, too?” The two men eyed each other warily.
“If I have to,” Lauren threatened.

A soft chuckle escaped from Mrs. Anderson’s throat. She smiled as she now stood beside the two
of them. “Now, now, let’s not do anything drastic here. This can be discussed rationally. Shall we go
upstairs and talk over tea?” she suggested.

“No,” my father snapped. “We can’t just leave her here all alone.”

Lauren sighed as if my father were being totally unreasonable. His mother gave him a look of
disapproval.
“That’s fine, John. You just have to understand the situation she’s put us in.”

“There’s no excuse for what she’s done by breaking into your house and all,” my father stated. “But
if Lauren tried to kill her …”

“If I’d wanted her dead, she’d be dead.” Lauren put his hands on his hips.
“That’s enough, Lauren. Maybe you should go upstairs and take some time to cool down.”
“Fat chance of that happening,” Lauren said, his eyes still focused on my father.
She shook her head. “Fine. The girl can’t leave, John, and I know that you know why.”

He backed away from them and leaned against the bottom railing of the stairs. His eyes darted
about at everyone around him including me as if trying to think of some form of persuasion, some sort
of offer, yet coming up empty handed.

“And certain things should not be discussed in her presence either,” Mrs. Anderson added, giving
him a gentle reminder.

 

“Yes, I’m aware,” he replied sounding as if he had already surrendered to her intentions.

I wondered what they were talking about. What was happening to Emry? What had they done to
him? My mind swarmed with all kinds of terrible thoughts, and now suddenly I was the one panicking.
I had to get out of here. My father had to get me out of here.

“What’s going on?” I asked before thinking. “What have you done to him?”

 

No one turned in my direction though. They all ignored me as if I hadn’t said anything at all, as if I
didn’t matter, because in their eyes, I didn’t.

 

“Okay.” My father stood straighter for a moment. “I don’t understand though why you can’t take her
upstairs and put her in one of the bedrooms.”

 

“No way,” Lauren said without taking the suggestion into consideration.

 

“That’s out of the question, John. She has a greater chance of escaping up there. Only down here
will we have peace of mind that …”

 

“These conditions are ridiculous!” he shouted. “Would you want to be down here like this, a cot in
the dirt with an IV? This is insane.”

“Is it?” She walked around in a small circle, hands now clasped together behind her back. “She
broke into my home, John. She was digging around for information on him. If she gets out, she’ll ruin
everything. She’ll stop at nothing.”

“You have to get me out of here!” I shrieked. They were scheming against Emry. They were going
to try to kill him, I was certain of it.

 

“Do you see, John? See how she’s acting.” Mrs. Anderson stopped moving and stood directly in
front of him, blocking his view of me. “It’s proof that he’s got her under his spell.”
“His spell?” I could feel the tug of pain in my ribs as I attempted to sit up. I fought through the pain
so I could get a better look at her. “You’re the one who has everyone under a spell, you witch.”
Mrs. Anderson ignored my remarks. She simply sighed and continued to watch my father’s reaction
to the scene before him.

 

He clamped his fists together at his sides and looked down at the floor. “Are you going to check on
her?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“I mean, really check on her, make sure she’s fed and given plenty of water along with the pain
medication?”

Mrs. Anderson flashed him a warm smile as if he were being silly by asking such things. “Of
course, John. Please don’t worry. Everything will be okay. Everything will work out, and all of our
hard work will not have been for nothing. You’ll see. Just trust me, John. You do trust me, don’t
you?”

He frowned.
“John?”
She was so annoyingly persistent in the way she acted with him.
“I trust you to do the right thing.”
She nodded and placed her hand on his arm as a gesture of extra reassurance.

“I don’t know about Lauren. Seems like a loose cannon to me.” My father met Lauren’s eyes as they
exchanged nasty glances again.

Mrs. Anderson raised her hand motioning for Lauren to calm down. “I will handle him.”
Lauren snorted as if her words were a big joke to him.

My father looked at me then, and I knew he was going to leave me here with them, all alone. I
already felt so lonely and abandoned, though he was still in the room with me. He had barely
defended me, barely put up any sort of struggle with them. I knew I didn’t deserve his defense, but I
needed it. He had been my only hope. I know he felt that I had failed him. I had failed Emry as well. I
had failed everyone.

“She’ll be free to go after it’s all over,” she told him.

He remained very still and silent for a few moments taking everything in and running it through his
mind. “Your mother is worried sick,” he told me harshly. “You’ve broken her heart.” And with those
words, I watched him turn away from me and walk up the basement stairs. I heard his footsteps for a
brief period of time on the floor overhead and then the front door open and slam shut. He was gone.
He had actually done it. He had left me here in this forsaken place with these murderous people.

Mrs. Anderson and Lauren then headed up the stairs also without saying anything further to me. I
wondered if they would take care of me as they had promised my father. I wished Richard wouldn’t
have intervened. I wished he would have left me to die. I didn’t know what was going on with Emry,
but I could only imagine their intentions for him. I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach every
time I thought about what their plans could possibly be. My poor, sweet Emry Logan. How long had it
been since I’d seen him? How I longed to be in his arms again. I had repeatedly pushed his memory
far from my thoughts for months now. Had he done the same? I was tired of trying to figure out his
thoughts when I knew so very little about him. There was no way of knowing, and there was no way
I’d ever get the chance to find out either. I couldn’t believe it had come down to this.

My eyes scanned the dark walls around me. They settled on the locked door at the other end of the
basement. I couldn’t even walk, but it was so tempting to try to escape. I knew if I tried, and if I got
caught, which I probably would, they’d surely kill me without hesitation. They’d tell my father I
hadn’t made it through the night, that they’d done everything they could but to no avail.

I laughed out loud. At least I was thinking things through, trying to get an angle on what
could
happen and that there were consequences to my actions. Perhaps Lauren had really taught me a lesson.
I wasn’t used to my mind working like this. I barely thought through my actions ahead of time
completely. Exhaustion started to settle in as I looked out the small window and saw that it was
already dark. I wondered what time it was, what day it was, how long it had been since the actual
surgery on my leg. I gave up and didn’t try to fight my heavy eyelids any longer. I felt them shut and
then stay closed. I just didn’t have the strength left to keep them open for another minute longer. And
then I fell fast asleep.

Chapter 18

The next few days were blurred together, partially by the pain medication that made me groggy and
partially by the fact that I no longer had a sense of day or night. Sometimes loud footsteps coming
down the stairs would stir me awake. It was always Lauren, never Mrs. Anderson, who brought me
trays of food and glasses of water. He never spoke to me and always gave me mean glances when
he’d come. It was against my better judgment to ingest anything they’d brought to me. I was fearful it’d
be poisoned, but then I’d end up eating it anyway. I had to get my strength back. I wouldn’t give them
the satisfaction of dying down here. Not now. Sometimes he’d change my dressings and check my
temperature for a fever, but that was all. He’d give me no more information or even question how I
was doing. He didn’t care. He was only doing what he was told to do by Mrs. Anderson who was
only nursing me back to health because of her relationship with my father, which still confused me.
She seemed to be more affectionate with him than he was with her the last time they were together
down here. I knew they had to have had a strong friendship as I strongly believed she had him
brainwashed in some fashion, but on the other hand, I was starting to doubt the affair I was once
convinced they were having. Perhaps it had been all in my mind, twisted by the images I had seen of
the two of them together. Perhaps it was merely a friendship of some sort, probably connecting on a
level that suited both of them, but maybe no boundaries had been crossed. Maybe they had only been
spending so much time together to really be scheming against the so-called evil in Seneca, aka Emry
Logan and his black magic and satanic ways that Mrs. Anderson had convinced him if left alone,
would begin to corrupt and pollute their beloved community like some sort of virus.

If it were true that they were just friends, nothing more, only something more created by my warped
mind, how much pain and suffering I had caused by the misinterpreted communication I had seen them
share. I felt a twinge of guilt inside me as I wondered if I had been wrong about the entire thing. I felt
remorseful and embarrassed at the same time. What a horrid accusation if it hadn’t been true, and to
even put that kind of bug in my mother’s ear about her husband. What a monster I had been.

As I became less sleepy throughout the days and more aware of my surroundings, my injuries less
intense in their pain, I found myself utterly bored out of my mind and so helpless. There was nothing
left to do but wait, and even then, I wasn’t sure what it was I was waiting for. Something was
happening out there, something involving Emry. It was killing me not to know. It just surged my
obsession with him into an intense, uncontrollable fire that burned within me. The more I was kept
away from him, the greater my desire was to be with him. I wasn’t sure what was worse, the pain I
had felt initially after being tossed down those stairs, or the desperation of needing to know what was
going on with the only man I had ever and would ever truly love.

I occupied myself with replaying every memory I had of the two of us together in my head, trying to
remember every detail of his facial features and his body, the way he moved, the way he spoke ever
so softly, his words luring me in. I found it disheartening that his face was slipping from my memory.
He became a distorted figure in my mind, and I became angry with myself for forgetting such a
beautiful creature as Emry Logan.

When the emotions became too unbearable, I would travel to Evadere in my imagination and try to
retrace my steps of the brief period of time I had been able to spend there with him. I would
remember the beauty of that world and the mystical atmosphere of the seductive caves and glorious
golden grasses. I tried to imagine what life would be like if everything had worked out differently, if
Emry and I had met under different circumstances, under more normal circumstances. I pictured us
actually dating and getting married. We could’ve lived on Evadere forever with no one being able to
come between us. It would have been beautiful, our life together, our love and the world we lived in.
And perfect. No Mrs. Anderson to intervene. No violence or scheming against him or me, just us
together, forever. It was such a shame that all was lost. Happiness just wasn’t in the cards for us. The
rest of my life certainly would be one of constant misery and of living in a past that seemed to have
gone by so quickly like a whirlwind, leaving me overwhelmed with a love too strong to break and a
life too desperate to forget. I hated to think about what the future held for me now without any
possibility of Emry in it. It seemed so desolate. What a cruel play of fate. I would have to be content
with a life of loneliness.

It felt as if I were in this hole of hell for weeks, though I was sure it had been just days, left alone
with all my thoughts as if I were slowly losing all remains of sanity within me. My ribs weren’t
hurting quite as badly, and my healing ankle was beginning to itch. I began to wonder if pins had been
placed in the ankle and if so, when exactly those should be removed. I was tempted to ask Lauren
about it one day when he was down here, but his grim expression made me decide against it. It felt
like it’d be more a waste of breath than anything else, so I didn’t say anything to him. I ran a hand
through my greasy hair and wrinkled up my nose in disgust. I needed a shower badly. I was sure they
could probably smell my stink upstairs by now. And I was sure they didn’t care either.

The basement door opened, and I heard footsteps coming down. I sighed as I wondered what
Lauren wanted now. He had just given me food not too long ago. The steps were a little lighter than
usual. I looked up, knowing it had to be Mrs. Anderson and wondering what she was going to tell me.
I was completely shocked by the face that turned to look at me from out of the shadows.

“Holy crap.”

 

“Carlin?” I had never thought I’d be so happy to see her as I was at this very moment. I sat straight
up in the cot.

“What have they done to you?” She rushed to my side and quickly assessed my injuries.
“Lauren threw me down the stairs.”
She looked horrified to know such information. “I didn’t know all this.”
“What are you doing here? How’d you get in?”
She shrugged. “I figured if you could do it, so could I.” She grinned.

I laughed. I must really have lost my mind if I was happy to be having a normal conversation with
my aunt.