When the heat in his body turned to chills, she wrapped him in her arms, covered them with a blanket and held him.
“I know you had something you wanted to tell me, so I need you to wake up and try, okay?”
Her voice seemed to soothe his fever-ravaged mind and body so she kept talking.
“You call me Peaches. Did I ever tell you how much I like that? I never would’ve thought I would, but I really do. It makes me feel...special. Cared for.”
His body shuddered again, and she pulled him closer, hooking her leg over his hips to bring him even closer, kissing his forehead.
“I know you’ve been talking to me and asking me questions. Trying to get to know me. And I know I avoided them a lot.”
She knew there was very little chance that Ren was understanding her, but she still wanted to get it all out.
“But I’ll tell you, anyway. I married a monster. I was nineteen years old, pretty much alone in the world, and fell for the first guy who showed me attention.”
She brushed hair off his forehead.
“You asked me if I knew what he did. I didn’t. I really didn’t at first. But it didn’t take long for me to put it together. He was a criminal. Sold things on the black market. I’m not sure exactly what. Weapons, I think, maybe? Technology.
“I should’ve gone to the police. The first time I suspected something, or at the least the first time he hurt me. But I had nowhere else to go. He convinced me that nobody would believe me about the abuse.”
Talking about this hurt so much.
“But I think maybe he knew I was going to go to the cops, anyway. Before I even knew that was going to be my plan. That’s when he changed everything. He fired all the live-in staff who worked at the house, so there was no one around but us.
“Then he told me he was going to train me to be perfect. Teach me how to be the perfect wife. For two and a half years I never saw another living soul but him in that house in Grand Junction. I never stepped foot outside it unless it was some sort of punishment. Like...like the snow. Buried in the snow until I was sure I would die.”
She wiped the tears that leaked from her eyes.
“That day it was because I’d forgotten to put the lid back on the toothpaste and clean out the sink. But really that was just an excuse for him to torture me. If it hadn’t been that, he would’ve found something else.”
She rubbed her hands up and down Ren’s arms. Arms that had never once been used to do anything but bring her pleasure and comfort.
“Eventually I just gave up. Gave in to him. He wanted the perfect puppet, I realize now. Damien’s always been the master puppeteer, getting people to do what he wants. I became an empty shell of a person filled up with the desire to be perfect for him.”
Ren stopped shuddering. She almost hoped he could hear her, could process what she was saying, so he would understand. Even though she knew it was probably better for him if he didn’t know anything about Damien if the police asked him.
Or, God forbid, Damien coming after Ren himself.
Because telling him this didn’t change anything. Didn’t change the fact that if Damien discovered she was alive, he would search the world over for her and kill anyone who got in the way of bringing her back to him. Ren included.
“I completely lost myself. Didn’t know who I was anymore. Once I was that perfect shell, he could start bringing me places again. A restaurant. The opera. I never talked to anyone, and just sat by his side, the perfect dutiful wife. One day he took me to the bank with him.
“For most people, getting caught in the middle of a bank robbery, getting grazed by a bullet in the head, would be the worst day of their life. For me, it was the best.
“I still couldn’t even tell you exactly what happened that day in the bank. Robbers. A SWAT team. Yelling, shooting. I got shot. Well, a bunch of people got shot, but I think my wound actually came from the good guys. Or at least Damien was screaming something like that.”
She trailed her fingers along the gauze covering Ren’s wound.
“There was blood. So much blood everywhere. Even more than what you lost today. I thought I was dying. Everybody thought I was dying. Damien jumped on a SWAT team member and started hitting him and then got detained, although he didn’t get arrested.”
If they had arrested and processed him, they would’ve realized what a criminal they had on their hands. But they’d thought he was just a guy hysterical that his wife had been shot, so they’d let him go.
“Miracle of all miracles, I got brought to the wrong hospital. The closest, but one that was having some sort of biological pathogen scare and was turning away patients. The CDC had been called in and it was complete chaos. I was just sitting in a corner of the ER since everyone had bigger problems than me. I’d stopped bleeding and obviously wasn’t going to die. CDC personnel stopped right in front of me, discussing how anyone who had died in the last four hours in the emergency room needed to be immediately cremated because of contamination concerns.”
She could swear she almost felt Ren’s arms tighten around her. His shuddering had completely stopped. She kicked the blankets off them a little so neither of them would overheat.
“I was sitting there with my own medical file in my lap and knew this was my only chance. Nothing like this was ever going to happen again. I saw the CDC guys tell an orderly to take a woman I was pretty sure was dead, somewhere, and I followed. To make a long story short, I looked at her chart, copied what was said about needing to be cremated. Put my medical file and jewelry in a metal box next to hers and ran.”
