I nod, fighting to hide the grimace that wants to steal over my face. I tense in anticipation, allowing the nurses to prop me up. Everything hurts. There’s a dull, pain-filled ache that runs through my body. It’s insistent, demanding to be made aware of. Hell, even breathing hurts. The pain that’s the most cause for concern is the one radiating from my abdomen. With my good arm, I run my hand over the burning sensation radiating from my stomach. There’s some sort of bandaging there.
My eyes slam shut as memories of metal piercing my skin flash in my mind. They’re so vivid, I’m reliving the pain at that moment all over again. The way the cool metal pierced my flesh, ripping apart my skin. It felt like someone was tearing me open with fire and dry ice. It burned, leaving the curdling, rancid taste of pain on my tongue.
With a reserved air surrounding her, the silver-haired doctor watches me process. Her head cocks to the side only a few centimeters, but I see the cogs churning again, and I don’t like it. Uncomfortable with her scrutiny, I run my hand over my hair, trying to tame it. Anything to make me look less crazy. I’m sure my current hairstyle fits right in with that of a mental patient.
Dr. Aster smiles at my attempts, and once again, it’s that smile that I’m beginning to despise.
“I’m going to ask you a few simple questions before we go any further. Sound good?”
I nod. Even the small movement has pain ricocheting down my spine. I’ve yet to look at my reflection in the mirror, but the pain I currently feel throbbing from head to toe, I can imagine what I look like just fine.
She pulls up a chair to the foot of my bed and takes a seat, crossing one of her legs over the other. Placing a chrome clipboard on her lap, she gives me her full attention. “Can you tell me your name, and anything else you want to share about yourself?”
“Mackenzie Wright. I’m twenty-five. Originally from Ferndale, but now I live in New York. I’m a freelance writer and sometimes journalist.” The doctor purses her lips and nods, scribbling something down on the clipboard.
“Perfect. Can you tell me what happened the night of the accident, Mackenzie? Do you remember much?”
I pause, uncertain if I should tell her everything. The last thing I need is to be kept here forever. The less crazy I seem, the less likely they are to keep me here against my will.
She reaches out between us, patting the cast covering my leg reassuringly. “You have nothing to worry about. This is just to make sure you remember what happened that night. We’re trying to put the pieces together, and we need your help to do so. You have nothing to be afraid of. This is a safe space.”
I narrow my gaze, wary of her and the nurses hovering near the door. It’s like they’re just waiting on the sidelines for me to say one wrong thing before they pounce on me and strap me back down. I trap my bottom lip between my teeth and chew as I process, unsure if she’s just saying that so they have a reason to keep me here or if she really means it. I’m sure it’s the former, so I lie.
“I don’t remember much. I just remember being in the car one minute, and the next, we were going off a cliff.”
There. Vague.
Not crazy.
“Right. So you said ‘we.’ You’re referring to Vincent Hawthorne, correct? The man you were with in said car.”
I freeze, my eyes widening ever so slightly, at how much she knows. How the hell does she know who I was with? Goddamn police reports. I’ve yet to speak to the authorities again since that last day I woke up in a hospital room. I’m sure it’s because of what I said that landed me in here. That was enough for them to leave me alone, for now at least.
“I, uh, yeah. Yeah, I was with Vincent,” I mutter.
She writes something else down, before looking back up at me expectantly. “Do you remember why you followed him back to his hometown?”
My forehead puckers, and my stomach dips at the unsettling comment. I open my mouth to refute that statement, but the words don’t come. No. She has it wrong. He followed me.
I shake my head, feeling the need to clear my name. “No, he followed me. I grew up in Ferndale. I went to visit my sister’s grave that night, then I went into the woods. He was following me.”
She frowns thoughtfully. “Did you feel cornered? Like you had reason to be afraid of him?”
“Yes!” I blurt, raising my voice. “He was dangerous! He is dangerous.”
“If he was so dangerous, why would you allow him in your car? Why would you drive with him? Were you angry? Is that why you drove off the cliff with him?”
“What?” I scoff incredulously. My chest heaves violently, as I work to control my anger. “No. No, you got it all wrong. He tried to kill me. He had a gun, for fuck’s sake! That was the only reason I got in the car with him. He forced me to drive at gunpoint. I’d never willingly get in the car with that asshole!”
“A gun?” She pauses her hasty scribbling. “It was his gun, or was it yours?”
“Are you kidding? It was his! Where would I even get a gun from?”
The doctor lowers her pen, slowly taking in my angry expression. “Hey, remember I said this is a safe space. You don’t need to get angry. I’m just trying to understand.”
“Well, I’m sorry if I feel like I’m being attacked,” I retort, heat rising to my cheeks, and my chest rising and falling rapidly with the force of my anger.
She purses her lips and shifts, crossing her left leg over her right. “Do you feel that way often? Like you’re being attacked?”
I pause, thrown off by her quick shift in topics. “What? Yes. No. Maybe?”
“Hmm.” She begins her scribbling again. “Now the cliff, do you remember what happened up there?”
“I already told you. One second, I was on the road, and the next, we were going over the cliff. I gave the police my statement. Why are you asking me?”
“And you were the driver?” she asks, ignoring me.
“Yes.”
“Do you think, in the back of your mind, it could be possible that you wanted to go over the cliff that night?”
“Of course not,” I lie.
The corner of her mouth ticks up as though she can read right through me and my lies. She makes a point of pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, then clasping her hands in her lap. “See, the thing is, the tire marks along the road are inconsistent with someone losing control. In fact, they tell a different story altogether. It’s almost as if you wanted to drive off that cliff. You accelerated instead of swerving to save the both of you.”
I open my mouth to respond, but no words come. She’s got me. And fucking hell, there’s nothing I can do about it. I lick my suddenly dry and cracked lips, trying to appeal to some part of her.
“Look,” I say, trying to lean forward and shift, but all I do is cause a ripple of pain to shoot through my body. “That night, I had put all the pieces of my sister’s murder together, and all of it led back to Vincent Hawthorne, Zach Covington, Marcus Whitehorn, and Trent Ainsworth. That was the reason I drove into the woods. I dug up her bloody shirt they had buried in the ground nine years ago. I had it. I held it in my hands before Vincent got there. If someone can just go back to where I was, I’m sure they can find some kind of evidence that there was a struggle.”