Ethan, though, had no intention of giving his mind over to the meds. He was sleeping fine, and what they called anger he called strength—why would he give that up? So, instead, he would wait until Habal had her back turned, and he would sneak into the bathroom to vomit.
She never caught him, and, once she trusted him, she stopped checking for the pills. That was when he stopped swallowing them.
She still watched him take the pills and swallow the water, but then she’d just ask, “They down?”
“Yes,” he’d say, with the pills hidden in all the places she’d told him about.
It hadn’t taken Ethan long to figure out that getting out of Ridgeview meant convincing the doctors that he fit their definition of sane. So he played along as well as anybody could.
He told the doctors about his childhood abuse and how it had made him feel. “But I think I’m getting better,” he said to Dr. Stark at the end of his second month.
Ethan did all of his private sessions with Dr. Stark. Stark had been a professional therapist for more than a decade and had a receding hairline that made him look older than he was. He also had gentle eyes that made him easy to lie to.
Ethan could stare straight into those aqua green pools of simplicity and tell him whatever he thought Stark needed to hear. “I think I’m ready to go home.”
“Let’s just take it slow,” Stark said. “You almost killed Norma last time you saw her. If that happens again, you might end up in jail instead of in here.”
Stark was right, as always. Norma hadn’t pressed charges only because Byron had pleaded with her not to. But in a nasty letter—the only time she attempted to communicate with Ethan during his stay—she said she would see him rot in jail if he ever tried anything like that again.
Then she had wished him the best of luck with his therapy (which she only did because she feared for her life, Ethan thought), and closed the letter with just her name.
No one could blame her for being angry. She had nearly died from the beating and had to get reconstructive surgery to put her face back together.
All Ethan wished, though, was that’d he’d finished the job the first time.
“You’re right, Doc. Like you’re always fuckin’ right. Take it slow.”
With just a flash, the demons clashed in Ethan’s head again. They had been a regular fixture since he had arrived at the hospital. He and Dr. Stark had talked extensively about them. Stark had explained they were merely his pain visualized, an effort on behalf of his subconscious to externalize and, in doing so, minimize his suffering.
Stark even seemed to think he could talk them away. But he didn’t know that every day Ethan’s mother lived Ethan hated her more. He didn’t know that Norma represented all that was wrong in the world.
There was no talking away that sort of pain.
“You’re thinking about them again, aren’t you?” Stark asked.
“No, it’s nothing.”
“You have to talk to me if you want to beat this thing.”
Ethan sighed, leaned forward in his chair. “I guess I still see them sometimes . . . or hear them.”
NOW
AND HEAR THEM he did—especially now. It had been days, maybe weeks, since he’d last heard the demons’ wings flapping around in his head. But now that they were back, they were louder than before, louder than they had been in the hospital.
Shut up, Cynthia had said. Shut up. As if she had any right to tell him that.
He took a step closer to her, and Cynthia took one back. Just to needle her, he asked, “Are those breasts real?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Just curious. I’d bet a high-priced cutie like you has done a little nip-and-tuck. Got to keep that figure.”
She could tell by the quiver in his voice, the twitch in his eye, that he was growing more and more unstable by the moment. But she didn’t know why—it all seemed so sudden. She didn’t know that he had a history of unexpected outbursts, or that when he looked at her he saw a girl who’d turned away Martin’s love, a mediocre actress, and—in the right light—a woman called Norma whom he desperately wanted to kill.
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“What happened to working together?” Cynthia said, taking another cautious step backward. She wanted to turn around to see where she was going but didn’t dare take her eyes off Ethan. “What happened to getting out of this place?”
“Don’t be stupid. We weren’t all getting out of here alive, anyway.”
“You’re insane!”
“Apparently, I’m not.” Not according to his release papers.
“Martin!” she screamed as loud as she could. But she knew Martin—now crawling through his own narrow tunnel—was too far away to hear her.
Then she stepped on uneven ground and stumbled to her left. That was the opening Ethan had been waiting for.
He grabbed her by her arm and pulled her to him. “We can do this any way you want,” he said.
Cynthia screamed and swung a fist at his face.
Ethan caught her hand before she could connect, twisted her arm around her back, pushed her to the ground. Then, with her on her stomach and his knees locking down her shoulders, he tried to unfasten her pants.
What little doubt she had before was gone. He was going to rape her—rape her and kill her if she let him.
She threw her legs in the air, trying to kick him in the face, but she couldn’t get close enough. Then she realized how close her mouth was to his thigh, and she bit into his flesh as hard as she could.
Ethan’s head twisted upward, teeth grinding to restrain a scream. Cynthia used the distraction to push him off her. She hopped to her feet and kicked him in the groin before he could stand.
Then she ran, without thinking, deeper into the
