This isn't as crude/violent as the past few chapters have been because Alison is starting to get her control on things again. But it does still contain some aggression.

/-^1^-\ Georgia. Same week. Saturday. /-^1^-\

Alison knocked on the door and turned around when it was opened. She was pleased to see it was Patricia and sickened at the same time. Patricia glared in shock and horror. Alison held the airsoft gun up.

"Alison," she gulped, "what are you doing?"

"Get inside and shut up."

/-^1^-\

"Guessing something brought you out to Georgia. You didn't leave for New York, didn't you?"

"Yes," said Patricia, eying the gun. "I won't call the police. Just put the gun down."

"I can't do that. Sometimes, it's not so easy to shake off a threat that hangs over your head. Or at it, in this case."

"Alison, you can't do this to me."

"I can. And I am. I'm carrying 20 years of regret that I can call to my mind on my back. That is as early as it started at. That's so unfair. I'm still bitter, naturally. Still mad I never got the chance to be my own person. I'm so stripped of any meaning. And you turned your back when you had the opportunity to extend your hand to me. We should have been so close. You threw it out because you were afraid but you weren't nearly as afraid as I was! I never knew, if I was coming or going. Why did you turn a blind eye?"

"I didn't mean to. I saw what she did. I didn't want to be in that position to-"

"James helped me."

"James is dead."

"I know. And so is Dad, never gonna bring him back, I know. Boo-hoo... don't deflect what I asked. You didn't want to help either."

"Would you?"

"Yes! I'm a psychologist. I'm helping the police with criminal profiling because I care. And I'm TRYING to help."

"This is an offence-"

"The brutality I have experienced is also an offence and nobody came to my rescue! And you're in that bunch of people who knew and did nothing; just passively stood by!"

"And I'm sorry Alison-"

"No!" she screamed, "you are not! IF you were sorry, you'd have done something about it when you could! Instead, you let me fall into troublesome habits! You didn't care. You waltzed off to live your fancy life here and didn't spare a second to think about me!"

"I heard about Mum's attack on you, we never saw you again. Mum said you were gone. I was led to believe you were dead!"

"I don't believe you. You know, after all the hell I've suffered..." said Alison slowly, "why not turn the gun on myself?" she asked, pointing it at her head. Patricia looked panic-stricken. "I should, shouldn't I? Mum hates me, sister doesn't care, brother's dead, Dad's dead. I mean, soon you might even be dead-"

"Please don't do it."

"Agnes will certainly be going soon. I should follow the trend!"

"ALISON! DON'T!" pleaded Patricia, "I'm sorry, okay. I didn't mean to let you get hurt, I didn't mean to sit by and watch you suffer I was just way too afraid to do anything about it but watching you destroy yourself would hurt me more. I love you, Ally. I never meant to abandon you-"

"You don't love me! How dare you!" snapped Alison, turning the gun to Patricia. Patricia held her hands out pleadingly and clasped them together in a prayer motion. Alison felt sickened.

"You don't have to do this Alison; you'd be throwing away your life you're building. You've made your point."

"You're going to make sure I hold on to my career as well."

"How?"

"You're not going to say a word. To anyone."

"I promise."

"Are you married, Patty? Got kids?"

"No. I was married. We divorced. I don't want kids..."

"Do you have much to live for?" asked Alison, cocking the gun. Patricia got down onto her knees.

"Oh God, please!" she whispered. Alison grabbed her hair and yanked her head up, gripping tightly. Patricia's whole face contorted as she let out a yell.

"How can you pray to a God after what you have witnessed. If you believed in it so much you should have been benevolent and helped me!"

"It was a figure of speech. A plead! I don't want to die!" wailed Patricia, tears down her face, make up running (and her nose) as Alison held the gun in front of her face.

"No, of course you don't. I'm going to haunt you though. For the rest of your life. And it'll be much more painful if you have to remember every day how you turned your back on me. I'd rather you suffered that psychological torment, just like I did," said Alison, firing the gun at the wall. Patricia screamed only to discover it wasn't a real gun.

Her sister was a psychopath.

/-^1^-\

Jonathan grasped the gates, ready to pull them back but stopped. He hadn't stepped in the house for many years.

"It still belongs to the family, though no one lives here. I'm not really sure why," he said, "Alison, I don't mean to be so anal, but I like everything the way it is in this house, and I don't want anything to be disturbed as there are particular memories within this house of mine that I am not ready to lay down."

"You're telling me not to touch anything," she laughed, nodding. He glanced at her, feeling honestly bad he wasn't prepared to let her of all people have a poke around. But he just couldn't.

"Exactly," he grimaced, pulling the catch up. "There are only a few rooms that are truly out of bounds however," he said. Because there is research is in them..

"The lands are very big. Is this by fortune or by inheritance?"

"Inheritance. We were not a rich family, nor really a wealthy one. We were, in fact, quite poor. We put together what we could for our meals and rationed ourselves. And I was the one who laboured in these fields. It was only my Granny and I out here. I can only guess there was some disagreement between her and the rest. How I ended up in the middle, I don't know. But she never spoke kindly of the rest of the family," he said, gazing through the bars of the gate a moment longer.

So many times, he had taken back routes and alleys to make his journey home from school longer but also risk free. Never wanting to venture through these gates, only to receive one more day of punishment he never knew how he earned. Did he earn it, really?

"Sounds like you have demons of your own," she whispered. He grasped her wrist, nearly furious for a moment. Stop! It's Alison!He pulled her close instead and nodded.

"But it's no worry," he said.

"I told you my story. I'm not saying you have to tell me yours, but where better to lay your trust," she smiled.

"I trust you unlimitedly," he said warmly, "I just don't feel it needs discussion but I won't hide it, obviously."

He pushed the gates open and ventured down the path, glancing at the window on the far right. His Granny used to watch him, and he knew it. She made sure he wasn't up to anything from the distance she could see too. He was smarter than that. But he was never up to anything. Somehow, the memory of it projected there still and made him cautious. His stomach knotted and writhed but he had hold of Alison's hand.

"Is that a chapel there?" asked Alison.

"Yes. And also an aviary."

"... Aviary?" she questioned, looking pale... paler.

"There's no birds in there or anything of that type. But we don't have to go in if you don't wish," he promised. Alison was afraid of anything with wings, just particularly terrified butterflies. She disliked birds, bats, bees, flying squirrels, flies, wasps, dragonflies and the like. She shuffled closer to him, clinging onto his arm.

When they reached the front doors, he pushed them open and wandered in, linking arms with her. He quickly showed her around the bottom floor, explaining that if any room was used, it was the downstairs bathroom. Everything else was preserved.

Then they went upstairs and he immediately showed her the library.

"I too, was banned from the library. Except, I had no granting ever to go inside," he explained.

"Did it ever make you want to go in more?"

"All the time. And I paid the price."

"Paid the price?"

"My mother gave me up, my grandmother didn't care and my great-granny was apparently a sadist. With the first two women fleeing, it seemed... I was the only one left for her to take it out on."

"Jon, I understand... I've been there..."

"Oh, you have. But she wasn't nearly as bad as what your mother was. I had to walk on eggshells, and her favourite weapon of all was fear... but we all know what a captivating emotion fear is.

"You got it so much worse. Don't tell me I'm wrong just because I wasn't there. You knew she didn't love you, she hurt you physically and mentally, she inflicted fear upon you and it came to force how you are now.

"All the time, I find myself wishing I could take your anger, pain and terror away. Every time I see anything in your eyes that I know upsets you. I just want to change all the bad things that have happened to you but doing something like that might change everything about you... and I love you as you are, you do know that?"

She nodded, not verbally answering his question. She didn't want to. Her lips were parted to kiss him, which she did as he cupped her cheek and shut his eyes, getting... so close...

"How do you manage it?" he asked, "I somehow can't, it's seeded into my mind and influenced everything about me." Everything. She frowned and shook her head.

"I don't know, I'm not managing. I'm a stroppy wailing mess of a woman-"

"No you're not," he grinned as he protested. "You're so strong. It took 2 murder attempts, a break-in, harassment, an assault and a death to finally cause you to have a moment of depression and even then, not good enough for misery to win because you're overcoming it! So, you're angry, you cry... don't you think you earned the right to?"

"Who made you so charming?" she laughed. He lightly pecked her cheek and took her hand.

"My room," he smirked, "oh, how fun that would be out of context..."

It sure made Alison grin. He guided her upstairs and went to his room which was all the way on the third floor of the manor. For a child, it was quite a walk and the stairs seemed so big. He did wonder how he'd done it, since he had spent most of his day labouring and was exhausted by the end.

His bedroom had actually been an isolated and serene space for him to go. Sure, he spent most of his nights sat at the end of his bed and gazing out of the window, feeling so hopeless. But it got him alone.

Maybe he was stronger than he thought he was. He had the will to continue life this far, he'd been educationally successful, he'd got a very successful career as a result... and now he had Alison.

He had honestly questioned his sanity however. Maybe Alison wasn't real, he'd thought, and she was just pretend. A figment of his imagination he had made to create the perfect life on the exterior, whilst keeping the madness beneath at bay. But if she weren't real, would so many people respond to her so normally, most of all Batman? The Batman would have Jonathan locked up if he suspected Jonathan was mad. He was fine.

"Awwh," grinned Alison at a toy rocking horse. "This room is pristine..."

"I try keep it that way. As it were when I was younger. But I like to keep everything the same," he said, taking the rocking horse down and placing it into her hands. She felt so honoured.

"This looks very old."

"It is. A lot of my ... all of my toys were hand-me-downs. Some of them are so old they're about to turn into dust. They're all up there," he said, pointing up. He wandered over to the window and glanced out a little, chuckling to himself. "There is a bit of the ledge missing. I tried to climb out one night; and it broke off. I quickly scrambled back in not wishing to take my chances. I dared to hope that Granny didn't hear, but she did. She came up to my room and it was like she knew. She wasn't happy."

"What did she do?"

"Punished me. With solitary confinement I guess."

"Solitary confinement?"

"Yeah, the evening all alone," he grimaced.

"Not anymore," she pointed out.

"I know," he grinned, taking her hand and pulling her up close. "I never imagined kissing a girl in my bedroom," he remarked, sealing his lips to hers. "I also never imagined being happy. Who knew?"