She nods solemnly, looking down at her drink and back to the sea before she lets out a deep sigh, speaking of her beginning intoxication.

  “You’re so rich already,” she says. “Why do you keep working so hard? Is it a Samaritan thing? You like to help people?”

  It’s hard to read the look she’s throwing at me now. She looks shy and cautious, scared to ask the wrong questions, despite the curiosity that pushes her to probe further. It’s endearing, to say the least.

  “A Samaritan,” I repeat, chuckling. “Is that what you see in me?”

  She shakes her head. “No. You’re too expensive for that.”

  Her bluntness amuses me, causing me to laugh before I empty my drink, the last for a while.

  “Then you must know that I’m not suffering from some kind of helper syndrome. If I were, I’d do these things for free.”

  She clears her throat, lowering deeper into the lounge chair and taking a final swig from her glass before she gathers the courage to continue.

  “So, you simply enjoy it then?” she asks without looking at me.

  “Maybe,” I say. “It seems to be my calling, a skill like that, no matter how hard it is to work with it in a safe way. It’s hard to stop.”

  That’s only part of the truth. Erasing specific memories from a person’s mind is hard, even when you know how to go about it. It consumes me, and every time I do it, a part of me is taken away just like the memory I was asked to eliminate. I need weeks, sometimes months to recover from each client who comes to me, depending on the memory, its age and intensity and the client’s mental state. The longer a person has carried and suffered from a certain memory, the harder it is to wipe it out.

  It was easy with her, back then. Her memory was a fresh wound, not even processed by the time she came to me. She was still shaking from it, still crying the very same tears that were caused by the incident itself.

  “It’s scary what you can do,” she says in a low voice, making sure to avoid eye contact.

  “Of course it is,” I respond. “And it’s risky, too. There’s a reason why I charge the way I charge.”

  She turns to me, catching my eyes with an expression on her face that resembles guilt.

  “Christopher thinks it’s sick and twisted,” she tells me. “And so does my dad. They’d freak if they knew I’m here and alone with you.”

  She doesn’t have to tell me that. Her father made it very clear that I was to stay away from her, even though I told him that I couldn’t. There was no way of knowing how she’d handle the procedure, I had to keep an eye on her, possibly for years, especially since she was so young when it happened.

  At least that’s what I told him. That’s what I told myself, too. Because the truth was too distressing.

  How could I fall in love with a child? A girl who I barely knew—who barely knew me? And my first patient, too. It’s wrong on too many levels.

  Yet, here we are.

  “I can see why you wouldn’t tell your father,” I say. “But how come you didn’t even tell your boyfriend that you’re here?”

  I hate the undertone of jealousy that laces my voice, but I can’t stop myself from it. For the past four years, that boy has had the privilege of being around her as much as he wanted, sharing everyday life with her, seeing her every single day, allowed in her company no matter how many people saw. While I had to stay in the shadows, always causing a wave of worrisome gossip every time I was seen with her because too many people know about what I did to her—and how oblivious she is about it.

  “He’s not my boyfriend!” she insists, regarding me with an indignant look that eases my pain more than I’d like to admit. “He’s just a good friend.”

  She leans over to me, fixating me with a surprisingly intense and serious gaze. “He’s a close friend, a school friend. There was never anything between us, not like that. And I don’t want you, of all people, to believe anything different.”

  “Why do you say that? Me of all people?” I ask, careful not to show how much her words flatter me.

  She blushes, her eyes widening as she bites her lower lip in a burst of sudden embarrassment. But the drinks have lowered her inhibitions enough to admit something I never dreamed of hearing from her lips.

  “Because I’m attracted to you, Jayson,” she says. “Isn’t that... obvious?”

  The color on her face darkens even more and she lowers her eyes down to the empty glass in her hands, visibly seeking help at the bottom of it.

  “And I... I feel close to you, and grateful and... connected,” she stutters, creasing her eyebrows at the last word. “It’s odd, isn’t it? Christopher and I, we basically grew up together, we went to school together for most of our life, we spend so much time together, while you...”

  She dares to look up, a feeble suggestion of fear lacing her expression as she continues.

  “You’re around. You show up, we talk a little, and then you disappear. We barely ever spent more than ten minutes together ever since we first met. And still... there’s just. I don’t know. I feel like...”

  Her eyes widen with worry before she concludes. “Like there’s something between us.”

  A question is drawn across her expression, hoping—no, begging—for reciprocity. She has every right to be confused, because so am I. But our confusion isn’t built on the same grounds. Hers is caused by lack of knowledge that I possess, while mine is nothing more than an aftertaste.

  She gets tired of waiting for my response, and my heart skips a beat when she gets up from her chair, placing her glass on the ground between us before she moves over to me. I can’t help but watch it happen.

  I know I’m defenseless against her.

  I don’t stop her when she straddles me.

  I don’t stop when I feel her weight on my lap, her summer dress moving up her thighs as she spreads her legs on top of me.

  My hands find their way on her hips while my eyes are glued to hers.

  I know I shouldn’t do it. But I’ve denied myself for so long. For years, I’ve been watching from afar, fearing for her, worrying to lose her when I’d never owned her.

  She’s about to embark on a journey that will enable her to build a life without me, far away from here. And I sent her on that journey. I helped to make sure she gets everything she deserves.

  But now she’s offering me a taste of what could have been.

  And I’m not fucking denying myself this time.

  Chapter 54

  J

  “You were inside her room while I was gone?”

  My voice thunders through the hallway, making her jump up from the kitchen table, where she’s been sitting with the newspaper and a cup of coffee.

  Malia stares at me through wide eyes, displaying the face of a guilty person. She knows she got caught doing something wrong, and for a moment, I see delicious fear scurrying across her face. The kind of fear I expect to see in a situation like this, the kind of guilt-ridden anxiety that will make a person bend and apologize, pleading to better themselves in the future.

  But Malia has never been this kind of person with me. Unlike many, many others, she’s never been struck with awe by me in the same way. I always respected that about her, and it’s one of the reasons I thought we could work well together.

  But today, right now, after she betrayed me, being so underhanded and negligent, I expect this kind of discernment from her.

  And I grow even more furious when I don’t see it written on her face. There’s a streak of fright when she first sees me, but it’s more caused by my sudden outburst and the volume of my voice, and not so much by the fact that she’s scared of what I might do to her now that I found out about her betrayal.

  She has her arms crossed in front of her chest and one eyebrow raised by the time I close in on her at the table.

  “We had an agreement!” I bark, pointing my finger at her. “You are not supposed to be in there without my knowledge, and even less when I’m not inside the house!”

  I take a breath, trying to keep it together as her provocative stance drives me up the walls.

  “How the fuck did you even get in there?” I want to know. “Where did you get the code?”

  She laughs at me, only worsening the agonizing fury that’s taken a hold of me.

  “Oh, you just hate this, don’t you,” she snarls at me, casting me a sinister smirk. “You have to control everything and everyone around. All the freaking time! It’s a sickness, Jayson. You’re no mysterious genius like they claim, but a psychopath who lives for the control he can exert over others. It’s sick! You are sick!”

  I take a deep breath, curling my fists as I pierce her down with a threatening glare.

  “How. Did. You. Get. Inside?”

  She pauses for a moment, pressing her lips together as she gathers the courage to respond. Despite her unyielding attitude, this obviously still takes a lot of effort for her. But it needs nothing more than a few breaths before she’s back at it.

  Malia rolls her eyes. “It’s not that hard to figure out, Jayson. You punched it in about a hundred times in front of my eyes. A fourth grader would have been able to memorize it after a while.”

  I flare at her, boiling with rage so violent and hot that it makes me sick.

  “You weren’t supposed to! I strictly forbid it—”

  “I didn’t do anything!” she cuts me off. “I didn’t tell her anything she isn’t supposed to hear, I didn’t give her anything she isn’t supposed to have, and I didn’t even think about letting her out.”

  She scoffs, shaking her head as she shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

  “Even though I probably should have,” she adds, lowering her voice just as her gaze. “With what you’re doing to her...”

  I frown at her, jutting my chin forward in question.

  “You knew what this was—”

  “No, Jayson, I didn’t know!” she interrupts me again, taking a step forward as she glares up at me. “I didn’t know you would beat her up! I never agreed to that! I never said it was okay to treat her this way, and I didn’t know that this is what you wanted her for!”

  I close in on her, moving so close that my breath makes her black curls dance. Any other person would be intimidated enough to retreat, uttering an excuse while trying to hide in the shadows of distance. But not Malia. She remains, narrowing her eyes as she stands her ground.

  “We warned you,” I hiss at her, closing what is left of the minimal distance between us. “Her and I, we both told you that you might be uncomfortable by some of the things you’ll see.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No but, Malia,” I cut her off. “We agreed. We signed a contract, all three of us. I’m not doing anything to her she didn’t sign up for her. She wants this—”

  “No, she doesn’t!” Her voice is trembling and the look on her face tells me that she’s not quite sure about the truth behind her words herself.

  “No one could ever want something like this,” she adds, sounding even more insecure.

  I sigh. “She does. You know it. You talked to her. You tried to talk her out of this.”

  I pause, trying to swallow my anger at Malia’s treason to divert to another tactic with her, one that might get me further than yelling furiously.

  “Look,” I say, lowering the tone of my voice to a calmer level. “She may be your best friend, and I know you’re worried about her. But you must know that there are some things about Petal you may neither know nor understand.”

  Malia’s black eyes flicker with disdain. “Her name is Liliane. Not Petal.”

  “In here it isn’t,” I insist. “She gave up that name when she signed the contract.”

  She rolls her eyes at my words, letting out an exasperated sigh.

  “I can’t do this anymore, Jayson,” she says, the expression on her face tensing. “This is going too far. She’s desperate, confused, and suffering on a level that is just... too much.”

  “The contract we signed is legally binding. If you break your confidentiality, we could sue you.”

  “We?” she repeats, arching her eyebrows. “You think she would sue me for getting her out of here? For saving her from a lunatic like you?”

  My chest tightens. Quite frankly, I would love to know the answer to that question.

  How would she react? Would she be glad? Would she be disappointed? How would she feel after I help her remember? How much of her memory would I have to restore to sway her decision in my favor?

  What would I have to do to remind her of the feelings that brought her to me in the first place?

  “Besides,” Malia adds, tearing me out of my contemplations. “I’m pretty sure Christopher would see things very differently. And he is the police. Don’t you think it would be up to him to decide in this matter?”

  “Don’t you dare threaten me, Malia,” I warn her, my eyes turning to slits as I lock her in place with a malevolent look.

  “I’m not threatening you, Jayson,” she replies. “I’m just reminding you of the reality you like to ignore while you’re playing your sick games in here.”

  She huffs, walking in a wide circle as she moves past me, heading toward the door.

  “We all make mistakes,” she says without looking back at me. “And I’m beginning to think that there have been a few too many here.”

  I watch as she marches toward the door, a dark frown on my face as I clench my fists.

  She opens the door, and I don’t move.

  She walks out the door, and I don’t move.

  My mind is racing, jumping back and forth between options as I try to decide what to do about her.

  Should I let her go and trust that she remembers our deal once she’s calmed down? Should I follow her and make sure she’ll never tell a living soul about this?

  My feet move before my decision is truly finalized.

  I hope I don’t regret this.

  Chapter 55

  Petal

  I’m starving.

  My hunger has never come to an extreme like this. The hollow feeling in my stomach may have been pretty bad on my very first day, but it was overshadowed by so many other emotions then. Ever since I adapted to my situation, I have been provided with meals on a regular basis. As simple as they were, there was always enough to keep me fed and not suffer from an empty stomach.

  Until now.

  The girl hasn’t been back ever since she brought me that delicious stew, and while I can’t say for sure how long it’s been since then, it feels like it must have been at least an entire day. A long day.

  I slept in between, but I’m not sure whether it was just a short nap or a full night’s sleep. It’s funny how little I can tell these things, even after discovering the tiny peek into the world outside. I held my hand up to the window several times, not finding a hint of light every single time.

  Does this mean it’s been night this entire time? Or is the weather outside gloomy and lacking sunshine bright enough to pierce through the small crack?

  I wish I knew. I wish I could get an answer by asking, but even if I could hope for a simple response, there’s no one around to question. I haven’t seen him in a while either, ever since he stormed out of the room. He was mad, but his anger wasn’t directed at me. The expression on his face changed when I told him that she’d brought me food that day. I didn’t think much of it, but it appears there’s more to it than I suspected.

  She told me he was out of the house, that’s why we were able to talk. Did she break some kind of rule by visiting me then? Did I accidentally tell on her?

  I feel terrible for it, especially because it seemed like there was some kind of ruckus, shaking the walls of this house, right after he left my room. There has never been any kind of noise that was able to penetrate the walls and door of this room, but I feel like I heard something going on shortly after he left me with that furious expression on his face.

  Movement. Voices even. A door being slammed? Something shook the walls, and there was some ominous thumping, making me believe that he was about to return to my room, but when I sunk down on my knees, awaiting his return, it was for nothing. He didn’t show up.

  He still hasn’t.

  The rose keeps wilting, time keeps passing, but for me, it may as well stand still. I may not know how long it’s really been, but I know for certain that I’ve never been by myself for this duration. I’ve never grown this hungry, and my mind has never been this idle, lacking any kind of external dissipation.

  I wander, I sleep, I climb up the bench to check the crack on the window—and then I repeat. I inspect the room, unsure what I’m looking for. I try the door to the hallway and the door to the dungeon, knowing that both of them are locked.

  I miss him.

  At some point, I even called for him. I stood in the middle of the room, knowing that there are hidden cameras somewhere but still not in the know of their precise location—and I called out his name. It was a deliberate move of disobedience. I wanted to provoke him, unsure whether I’m already being punished for something or if the answer for my long solitude was a different one. He always announces and explains his punishments before they happen, so I doubt that this could be it.

  Is this about my dependence on him? He is starving me on more than one level, denying me food just as much as the things I’ve come to enjoy with him. It may be carnal, just like my craving for food, but I’ve found myself yearning for his touch more than once. I fantasized about it, imagining myself tied to the cross or the bench, or bent over on the floor while he had his way with me.

  It’s more than lust, more than simply being horny. I crave him in all his essence. His voice, his eyes, his scent, his hands, his cock. His appearance was a dark solace from the beginning, if only because it promised change and dissipation. But it’s come to a whole new level ever since he played my body like an instrument, evoking not only sounds but emotions that are overwhelming and addictive.