Page 52 of The King (Masterpiece Duet 1)
He pauses, as if he doesn’t want to frighten me. Too late, too late.
“Forty years ago they thought they could cure what was wrong with his brain.” Damon waves a hand at the abandoned hospital. “That enough heat or electricity or water could shock the crazy out of him.”
“That’s barbaric,” Avery gasps.
Gabriel examines the poker, its tip red and hot. “And ineffective.”
“Then why are you doing it?”
He tosses the poker down to the dirty floor. “I’m not trying to cure him.”
“You’re torturing him,” she says, her voice thick with tears. “It’s one thing to kill someone in self-defense. Even revenge. Another to hurt someone like this, to destroy them, to mutilate his body.”
Gabriel looks as cold as Damon. As broken. “Have I shocked you again, little virgin?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
I touch the back of her hand, my heart aching. I’ve only just found this family and it’s already breaking apart. “He’s trying to save you.”
She looks at me, uncertain. “How?”
“Yes, how?” Jonathan Scott says, looking almost playful. All those years ago I thought it was Damon who looked like his father, who sounded like him, but now the tables have turned. Now it’s Jonathan who looks eerily like his son, jovial and haunting. “Tell her how Gabriel Miller bought her and fucked her and keeps her locked away from the world, all in a desperate bid to save her pretty tits.”
“Get them out of here,” Gabriel mutters.
I’m not sure who he’s talking about until Damon steps towards me.
I take a step back. It’s Avery who says, “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You really shouldn’t see this,” Gabriel says.
“It shouldn’t be happening! You’ve caught him. You have him. You can turn him over to the cops.”
“The chief of police is dear old Dad’s drinking buddy,” Damon says, his tone bored. “They liked to torture animals together while they watched the game on Sundays.”
Avery gasps.
“Did I say animals?” Damon says, glancing at me with a dark expression. “Sometimes dogs. Sometimes girls. Anyone who would scream.”
“Sometimes you,” Avery whispers.
He looks sharply at her. “He doesn’t deserve your compassion.”
“Maybe not, but what about Gabriel? What do you think this is doing to him?”
“You can’t save him, little virgin.”
“You should get Penny out of here,” Avery says. “She’s been through enough.”
He takes a step toward me. I back up, but he keeps coming. His hand grips my wrist.
“Come,” he mutters, dragging me behind him.
“I guess I was useful, after all,” I say as he leads me down the cracked path, taking me away from the mental hospital for the second time. It’s a small improvement that I can walk this time around. I know without asking that it’s not a coincidence.
“What?” he asks, his voice curt.
“I was the bait, after all,” I say, my voice small. “Not the one you used to find your father. The one he used to find you.”
Damon doesn’t answer.
It’s hard to say who actually won that battle. Damon may not be the one strung up by his wrists, his body tortured and raw, but his eyes look dead inside.
* * *
Damon brings me to the diner, which is about the strangest thing that’s happened to me in days. Which is really saying something. It’s surreal to see the flickering overhead lights and the cracked linoleum that were once so familiar.
“Why are we here?” I manage to ask.
“You must be hungry.”
“No.”
“When’s the last time you ate?”
I’m not sure I’ve actually eaten anything today. I was too nervous about the plan, too busy keeping an eye on Avery in case she tried to escape without me. “I’m not sure.”
His smile is a perfect baring of teeth. “Then let’s just say I’d like to feed you.”
He holds the door open for me in a parody of chivalry.
If he were truly a gentleman, we wouldn’t be in this place. It’s where people go when they’re tired and they can’t be bothered to go anywhere else.
With a gallant sweep of his arm he gestures to the corner booth.
The same booth where Jonathan Scott once ordered pie. A coincidence?
Swallowing down my disgust I sit on the hard booth, trying not to think about who once sat here. I know a million people have been here since then. A million people before him. It doesn’t stop the shiver that runs down my spine.
“Why didn’t we go to Gabriel’s house?” I ask, my voice low.
“This is closer,” Damon says, which is true.
But not the whole truth. “I won’t be going back there, will I?”
“Why would you? There’s no threat to you anymore.”
Jessica leaves the kitchen and sees us, her eyes wide. She grabs two mugs and a coffee pot from the counter, bringing them straight over. “What can I get you?” she asks, keeping her tone neutral. As if she doesn’t know how huge it is that I’m here with him.
“We’ll have a slice of pie,” Damon says, his voice clipped.
