What happens if I don’t want to be rescued anymore?
Not by him.
Not by me.
The drive stretches on, and the evening grows darker. Benji doesn’t say anything else; he focuses on the road. Or maybe he does say more, but I can’t hear him.
I could tell Benji to keep driving. I could tell him we need to leave everything in our apartment behind. I could tell him we need to run away so the deranged doctor won’t be able to find us. I could tell him we need to go now.
My lips don’t move. I press my forehead against the window.
Benji is safe. Our life is balanced.
But I want to go back to the asylum and wait for Dr. Ambrose’s insane training, and he’s probably my father.
Maybe that’s why this is okay. It’s natural for me to want to be close to my only living parent.
No, no, no! This is not fucking okay!
“What’s the plan now?” Benji asks. “I ran a few errands while you were testing.” He points at the small pocketknife in the cupholder. “I sharpened it again and made sure you had enough pills in the container.”
My voice is a whisper: “I think he’s my father.”
The car swerves. Benji straightens his steering, then turns to me, his hands still on the wheel, the car moving forward.
“Your father?” He blanches. “You can’t be serious.”
I never admitted it out loud, but I’ve known the possibility we’re related for a long time now. For some reason, I didn’t want Benji to know. I guess I didn’t want to confront what that would mean.
Bile bubbles in my throat. I try to get the words out as fast as I can.
“I don’t have DNA proof, but my mother’s physician and psychiatrist were unavailable during her treatment, which means she was solely in the custody of Dr. Ambrose. But if he’s not my father,” I ramble, clinging onto the hope that he’s not, that maybe someone else with similar handwriting wrote the note about me returning, and that maybe my father is out there, someone I can find after I kill Dr. Ambrose. “Then Dr. Ambrose probably knows who my father is. I just need to ask him a few more questions. In a couple of weeks, I’ll call you, and?—”
“No,” Benji says.
Shock punches my chest. I reel back in my seat. “No?”
“You can’t go back there.” He glances at the road, then back at me. “Damn it, Violet. I’m trying to support you, but if you go back there, I can’t help you anymore. And if he’s your father, then he raped your mother and killed her, and he’ll do the same to you. I saw everything through the mirror?—”
“I liked it,” I blurt. Tears fill my eyes. It’s so messed up, but the truth is ingrained in my flesh. I can’t deny it anymore. “I liked everything he did to me. I didn’t want to like it, but it felt right. And now I’m closer to finding out where I belong, and?—”
“You’re a good person,” Benji pleads. “You need to move on. Let go of this. He’s preying on your need for acceptance?—”
“Preying on me?” I gasp. Rage bubbles to the surface. “Even if he is preying on me, I’m the one who came to him. I’m the one who wants this!”
The car engine rumbles. Benji faces forward, his brow furrowed, his features twisted in disgust.
“You’re not serious,” he says quietly. “You can’t want this. He’s obviously manipulating you.”
“I do want this,” I repeat. “I do want this! I have to. I want to. I do!”
“You want to kill him?”
“Yea—” I start to say, but the word fades like mist.
Benji’s jaw drops. A beat passes. Then his fists grip the steering wheel tighter.
“You’re into him,” he says. “The man who raped and murdered your mother.”
