We Were One Once Book 1 (23 page)

She turns away and perches
on the chair I spent the night in, her hands clasped in her lap,
her chin lowered. I have no idea where to begin. My mind is going
to a million places at once.

I sit on the bed.
“Grace?”

She still won’t look up.
“How do you know about all that?”

“I first saw you over a
year ago. I followed you. I told you it’s what I do. I was going to
grab you and bring you here.” That all seems like so long ago, like
we were both two different people then.

“To sell me.” She looks up.
Her eyes are bright but no tears fall. She’s amazingly quiet and
soft. I’m the one that’s a coiled up mess of tense muscles and
clenched fists. I’m trapped in her steady gaze.

“Yes.” Only when she looks
back down am I able to speak again. “I lost you when you didn’t
return to Chinatown. It wasn’t until I saw you again, randomly,
that I knew about your place in Potrero. I tried to find out more
about you, but you’re pretty good at hiding.” She smiles
slightly.

“Not good enough
apparently.”

“I didn’t figure out the
rest until this morning.”

“The rest?” Her eyes slowly
look up. The fear I thought I wanted to see has her breathing a
little heavier. Now, I’d give anything to make it go away, but I
have to know.

I can hear myself saying
the words, as crazy as they are, “Your different
personalities.”

She looks back down. “Oh.
That.”

I laugh. I expected her to
deny it or call me nuts or jump up like the wild animal she was
yesterday. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

Her voice is so quiet, but
she finally breathes out, “Yes.”

I bring my hands up to the
sides of my head, staring at the ceiling. I’m frozen like this for
a long time. I can’t even get my thoughts to stop bouncing around.
I had a theory; I examined all the things I knew about her last
night, but I couldn’t imagine what it would mean if I was right. I
finally pull my hands away when Grace stands up. She moves slowly
and with tiny steps, like she’s waiting for me to stop her. I just
watch her as she gets closer.

She finally sits down next
to me, putting her hand over mine gently. I had one thought last
night and today that kept circling all the others. I tell her
before she has a chance to say anything, “I want you to stay.” Her
hand squeezes mine.

“You can’t.”

I laugh a harsh, low
rattling of my automatic response, “Don’t ever tell me what I can
or can’t do, Grace.” I rub my thumb over her fingers. “You said you
wanted to stay.”

“That was
before…”

“I told you that I wouldn’t
give you a choice.” And I still mean it.

“That was before
too…”

“Well, nothing’s changed.”
I’m glad that my voice is back to sounding strong and commanding at
least.

She looks up at me and
smiles. “You’re a bad liar, Simon. Everything’s changed, and you
know it. You don’t want me here. How could you?”

I turn to her more, putting
both my hands to the sides of her face. “I do want you. I said that
this morning
after
I’d already figured you out.”

“You want me as your
slave.”

I smile at how the word
sounds from her sweet mouth. I let her face go. Taking her hand
instead, I avoid answering her. I’ll need more time to figure out
what all this means, what her staying would mean for us. “I want to
help you.”

“I don’t need your
help.”

I laugh again. “You think
you can go around bouncing between different homes, being different
people…for how long?”

“I can take care of myself,
Simon.”

“You were living in a rat
hole as one person and fucking everything that moved as another.” I
say this louder than I intended. She recoils and tries to take her
hand away, getting up. I grab her wrist and yank her back onto the
bed. “I’m not judging, Grace.” She stops trying to pull away, but
she won’t meet my eyes.

When she’s sitting quietly
again, I ask the questions that have been racking my brain. The
ones that I thought about last night, remembering the small amount
I learned in psych class. “Do you have any control over it? How
long are you able to stay one personality? Do you all know about
each other?”

She laughs this time. “I
have some control. More since…” But she doesn’t finish. “I’ve had
more control over the last few years. For the most part, we know
each other pretty well.”

“Have you seen a doctor?” I
keep thinking that I should be getting her to one, not sitting on
my bed chatting about it.

“Yes. It helped. A little
anyway.”

“Is
this
the real you or is
Red?”

She laughs again. I’m still
startled at how calm she looks during this insane conversation, how
calm I am. “Both. Neither. We’re both just a part and whole on our
own.”

“Do you know how many...you
are?” Wow. It just keeps getting crazier.

“Five.” Because she’s
watching me closely, I keep my shock in check. “I think you’ve met
all of us.”

I think back to each
encounter with her. I think she’s right. I have seen five
distinctly different versions of her. “When did this
start?”

“I’ve always been like
this. We have been five since I can remember. I’ve always had the
others to…to step out when needed.”

“To protect
you?”

“We protect each other.”
The craziest part is this makes sense to me. I remember that this
disorder usually stems from early abuse. A strong mind will protect
itself, splitting to compartmentalize the experiences. It was one
of the abnormal behaviors that I found most fascinating when I was
in school—how a person without any hope of survival can survive
even the worst conditions at any age.

“Why did you agree to come
here, to be with me, Grace?”

Her sweet smile. “We like
you.”

“But I told you that I’m
not nice. I warned you. I told you what I planned to do to you.”
Her smile doesn’t change. “Look at how I hurt you
already.”

“You didn’t hurt me this
morning, Simon. And you’ve asked me to stay.”

“Yes. But I think for your
own good, you
should
leave. I want you to stay, but
I
can’t be good for you.” She shakes
her head, and I pull her face towards to me, keeping her from
moving. “You should be in the care of a doctor, not a
sadist.”

Her fingers are cool when
she covers my hands with her own, her sweet smile is replaced with
a determined look. “I’m through with doctors, and I’m through
running. I will stay if you’ll still have us.”

“You’ve been hurt enough,
Grace.” I get up, needing the distance from her to say what I know
I must. “And I’m not the guy you think I am. I didn’t hurt you this
morning, yes, but that doesn’t change who I am. I
like
causing pain. That’s
not going to change.”

“I know that.” Her
wide-eyed look is so fucking sweet, it hurts for me to look at her.
“I’m not asking you to change. Are you asking us to?”

I laugh at the question.
It’s like the start of a bad joke. The sadist and the crazy chick
walk into a bar…

“I’ve only just figured you
out, Grace. Hell, I don’t even know your real name. I’m not asking
you to change. I wouldn’t, but I can’t ask you to stay here and….”
I don’t finish what I was going to say. The words ‘and take my
abuse
’
die in my
mouth.

I’ve never really thought
of what I do as abuse. Sure, I’ve kidnapped and tortured women, but
in the end, they’ve been better off. Luanne was starving and living
in a dump without power when I found her. She was days away from
being evicted and killed by a crazy ex-husband she never would’ve
been able to get far enough away from on her own. She’s much better
off as Troy’s toy. She has everything she’d ever want. And it’s all
thanks to me seeing her potential as a perfect submissive for a man
who could pay any amount to have exactly what he wants.

I’ve never been wrong about
a girl. It’s a special gift, I suppose. I’ve always been able to
pick the ones that truly want and need to be dominated. All of my
products leave me with a deep understanding of their innate need to
succumb to their dark desires; each one understands that my
training, no matter how cruel, only brought out those
desires.

Raquel was unfortunate. I
didn’t kill her. I just failed to see how fucked up she was. She
was my first after all. I learned from my mistake.

Grace is
obviously
fucked up, and I can’t do
this to her. I said I wouldn’t give her a choice, and I
won’t.

“I want to stay with you,
Simon.
We
want to
stay.” I laugh at how crazy she sounds, how crazy all of this
sounds.

“Too bad. Get dressed. I’m
taking you back to the city.”

San Francisco: Miles
Vanderson

Work is a distraction. I
stare down at the reports on the table, but the charts and numbers
have lost meaning for me today. Maybe this was why my father threw
all of himself into work. He needed to stay distracted from his
crumbling dreams.

My own dream of finding
Gillian and returning home quickly is proving to be just that, a
dream. Spencer and his team haven’t found her. He has a lead, the
boyfriend’s brother. Yet another lead!

The tension in my neck is
getting worse again. I rub the spot and walk to the windows. I’m
tired of the view in this city. I miss the peace and quiet of the
northern woods, but I refuse to leave here without her. I was so
certain when I came here that I’d have Gillian back where she
belongs. I have to hold on to that certainty.

Of course, I was also
confident that she was happy with me. I believed her lies when she
professed her love for me. I’ve tortured myself with every memory
of her from the moment we met, through the strained year that our
love grew under her mother’s watchful eye, throughout the year I
had her all to myself, then finally the night before she ran from
me.

The memory of that last
night is as detailed as the rest. It’s a memory worn thin from so
much handling just like all the others. I’ve tormented myself with
all of the ways I could’ve prevented her from leaving. If only I’d
known her plan. If only I’d known her deception.

She kissed me as always
that night. She slept in my arms, as always. She begged my
forgiveness for angering me earlier in the day, as always. She took
her punishment, as always. She was sweet and loving, as
always.

I was perhaps a little
angrier with her than I should have been. I was perhaps harsher
than I usually was with her. Perhaps I applied the whip a little
heavier than normal…

But it was for her own
good. I told her that night that she was going to be my wife as
soon as she finished school. She had to learn to control her mental
states. Her outbursts and indulgences into child-like behavior had
to stop. At the very least, she needed to become more adept at
hiding them.

The specialists I’d hired
said they had helped, that they’d given her ways to pull herself
together. They all talked in circles about how her need to protect
herself overpowered her need to merge her memories and shared
experiences. All psycho-babble excuses for why I overpaid them and
Gillian wasn’t improved.

That last night, I made it
clear that my patience with her behavior was over. I made it clear
that I expected her to stay in control, to stay my sweet, loving
Gillian. I made it clear what I would do if her other personalities
showed themselves again.

I smile at my reflection in
the window. The sky is already darkened from the fog that stole in
quickly while I mused through my memories. I smile remembering
Gillian’s screams that night.

I’d forced her to stay
present during her punishment. I forced her to not turn herself off
like she was so capable of usually. I forced her to feel every lick
of my whip, but I didn’t let her enjoy it either. I wouldn’t let
her turn herself over to her masochistic desires, the personality
that took all of her punishments before.