“No!” she wails. “No! No! No!”
“Hear your cat suffer, girl. Listen to your beloved pet pay for your crimes. Listen to the suffering it must endure.”
Ember collapses against me and cries out in the most heart-wrenching and devastated way imaginable.
I kiss her head. I hold her close. I hold her ears so she doesn’t have to hear the cat struggle.
I try to soothe her as she claws at me in a desperate need to be free. But I refuse to let her hear. I refuse to let her experience this any longer if I can ease it at all.
“Pine Cone!” she cries out. “No, no, no.”
And then the room grows silent.
No more victims.
No more deaths.
All that remains are the ghosts of the murdered haunting us all.
Finally, Richard speaks. “I will untie you now. I trust you to find your way back to the schoolhouse. I have to finish cleaning up the mess you both made and hide the Jeep and all signs of the couple.”
He moves toward us with pistol in hand in case I choose to do anything. And if it weren’t for the gun, I’d plow into his body, driving him into the pit myself, not caring if he pulls me with him.
“I will burn down your entire world. I swear this,” I spat at him, not caring about the consequences. How much worse can they be? What I just witnessed was far worse than anything a sane person could imagine.
He nods, pats an inconsolable Ember on the top of the head. “What I did was harsh,” he says. “I had to in order to make sure that the two of you don’t ever make this foolish mistake again. God expects me to watch over the two of you. My family. Always my family.”
The man needs to die at whatever cost.
But for now, as the rope is removed and Richard leaves us, I focus all my attention on the broken woman beside me who hasn’t stopped crying. She can barely breathe between her body-wracking sobs.
“Come on, Ember. Let’s get back,” I say softly as I lift her to standing. Devastation has weakened her, and I worry if she’ll be able to walk at all. “It’s freezing, and we need to get back to where it’s warm.”
I somehow get us back to our four-wall prison, though we both walk in a daze. I wonder if Ember will ever stop crying, and I wonder if I will ever feel like a human again.
Did I do this?
Am I to blame for the deaths?
I want to say no. I want to blame Richard, but I’m the one who forced Ember to leave. I brought my crisis to the innocent couple. I made their problems my own. I expected them to help even though it cost them their lives.
She hiccups, chokes on her tears, and then starts the morose melody all over again. She allows me to rub heat back into her feet by the wood burning stove, but doesn’t speak, doesn’t make eye contact, doesn’t acknowledge me at all.
Her blonde hair hangs in her face, covering her red-blotched, tear-soaked face, and I have never wanted to hold someone as much before. I also want to scream and rage against Richard, but I don’t know where Ember’s breaking point is, and I worry one more harsh word will send her over the cliff of sanity never to return again.
“Pine Cone,” Ember moans as she curls up on the mattress after I stoke the fire. “My Pine Cone.”
I crawl up behind her and spoon her body next to mine. Wrapping my arms around her, I kiss the back of her head and try to comfort. “I’m so sorry, Ember. So sorry.”
“Why would he do this? Why?” Her cries intensify.
“Because he’s a bad man. He’s crazy.” I’m careful not to allow my rage to show through and manage to keep my voice even and calm.
I want her to face the facts, but I know I must be easy and tentative in getting there. The only thing good that could come from this nightmarish incident is that Ember may finally see her father for the psychopath he is. She may not resist me so much in planning our escape. She may even become a willing participant once her nearly paralyzing grief subsides some.
Her body shakes as her sobs fill the empty space of the room.
“I promise you; I’ll get us out of here. I promise.”
She spins away from me and sits up with outrage in her eyes. “Like last time?” she screams. She points at me accusingly. “You didn’t listen! I told you what would happen. I told you that we’d get caught. I warned you!”
Fury blazes in her eyes and her sobs blend with her screams.
I reach out to her calmly. “I’m sorry. If I could take away your pain, I would.”