Sonny's hands are shaking. The cold filling the air cuts right to the bone, and nausea hits his stomach, rising in his throat. Forcing it back down, he shoves the door open.
Sonny stumbles, and even as Will tries to catch him, falls on his knees.
"He's coming in, drunk. I don't want him in here, but he's not going away. Everyone says how similar he is to Tom, but they've never looked in his eyes. I need to make him go away, away from my baby. I wish Henderson didn't go to meet Michael. I don't want to be alone with Santo. He scares me, but I don't want him to know that."
Sonny's eyes are glazed over, smoke behind glass on a face that's pale as a corpse.
"God, Sonny, please, come back. Come back to me." Will squeezes his hand hard enough to feel bones against bones.
"He's grabbing me, but I got away." Sonny's voice is breathless. He's still on his knees, a broken man with sun streaked hair, wearing a tuxedo with a loose tie. A man with a dead woman's memories, a woman's terror crashing inside him.
"But I can't leave my baby. I'm grabbing a fire poker. I'll kill him myself if I have to, if he goes anywhere near me or my baby. Oh god, oh my God."
As Will's knees give out, Will sinks on the floor right next to Sonny, trying to wrap his arms around him.
"He's stronger than me. I'm screaming so loudly, but nobody ever comes. He's been drinking and he's crazy. He's crazy and he's been drinking. He's knocking me down, and he rips my clothes. I can't get away. My baby's crying, but I can't reach him. I can't stop Santo."
"Oh my God." Shaking, Will tries to hold Sonny, rocking him back and forth. "No, no, no, no, no."
"He's raping me." Fire burns him in right in the gut. Pain, so much pain, the terror. My god, so much terror. "I'm calling for help. I'm calling for you, but you're not here."
Sonny's voice is wracked with tears. "You didn't come when I needed you."
"Stop, stop, stop." Is all Will can say as he clings to Sonny.
"He's hurting me, but I'm fighting him. I'm trying to stop him, but he just doesn't stop. I'm so scared, so terrified, but I already know he's not doing it because he wants me. It's because he hates you."
Sonny turns his head, those dark eyes soaked. "He hates you so much. And because I'm your wife, he has to ruin me. The way he always ruined everything when you were young. I'm begging him to stop, but he won't. He's trying to make me shut up, but I won't. I won't. He's closing his hands around my throat."
It makes Sonny double over, that awful pressure, the terrifying loss of air. "I can't breathe. I can't breathe. My baby needs me, and I can't breathe. He's killing me. While my baby is crying in his crib. Our baby. While he's still in me. He breaks me like a toy that belongs to his brother."
Sonny lifts his head, looking at Will now. When he speaks, his voice is so laced with grief it's a wonder they both didn't choke on it. "You never came. I called for you, and you never came."
"I'm so, so sorry."
"She's coming." Sonny gets shakily to his feet. "She's coming and seeing what he did to me. She's looking down at me like I'm just a stain on the rug she needs to clean up before guests will see it."
Sonny's eyes are now dry, narrowing at the doors slamming. "Her house, her children, and I was the Grayson trash that invaded their home. I watched her turn her nose down at me. It's like a dream, that look. I'm watching her tell Santo to carry me out, towards the bedroom, while she cleans the blood, and the wax from the candle. He's taking my body out, but I'm watching her walk over to my sweet baby boy, i can hear her thoughts as she wonders if she should smother my baby. She's seriously considering it, and I know if she even tries, there's enough strength in me left to strike her down like lightning."
Sonny walks back to the door. "She thinks I was weak, but she couldn't be more wrong. They may have taken my life, but they'll never be rid of me."
"Sonny, stop."
"No, I can't stop." Sonny walks down the hall, towards Alice's bedroom. "He put me on the bed, right here. And wept for me. No, not for me, for himself. What's going to happen to him? I was violated and murdered by his own hands, but he's thinking about himself. Still thinking about himself. Because he's still in this house. Him and Adelaide. Walking and waiting in their own man made hell."
Sonny crosses over to where the armoire used to be, opening the door he sees in his mind. "They're taking my clothes.I had my dress in there for the party. I was so proud of it. I wanted to be so beautiful for you. Make you proud to be my husband. She drops the necklace, but she didn't see. She's having Santo wrap me up, with a suitcase of my things. They're getting things to weigh me down, and carrying me out."
"It wasn't easy. Even by the light of the moon, the cold, it's hard carrying all of that. Santo made himself sick, but she's not having it. They're going to say I ran off with someone else. They'd let people spread the rumor about my baby being a bastard, and passed off as yours. She's telling Santo exactly how it's going to be as they tie up my body and push me into the river."
Sonny looks back at Will. "And you believed them."
"No." Will's crying now, shaking his head. For Sonny, for Alice, for himself, for Tom. "No."
"Not initially. You were scared for me. You looked everywhere for me. I tried to reach out to you, but you wouldn't let me. Because a part of you was already beginning to believe their lies. I loved you so much. With all my heart, soul, my everything. I died for you."
"I couldn't stop any of it. I wasn't here when I should've been."
"No, you weren't here that night. And you were never really here since. Not for me, or our baby. You broke your promise, that vow you made to me in that bed the night he was born. Not even death compares to knowing that's what broke us."
"How?"
"You promised to love our baby, to always be there for him. I never strayed from you, Tom. You need to know that."
"I do." Will closes his hand over the lapel watch in his pocket, feeling the weight, the grief, and the sadness.
"How could you abandon him? How could you turn your back on him? You were everything he had. You promised me!"
"I don't know. I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't as courageous or as honest as you. Maybe...I think you were the one who made me me, and when I lost you, I don't know how to stay me."
"You had Bill."
"I loved you too much, and him not enough. Please forgive me. Forgive me for what I've done, what I wish I'd done. There's no going back and fixing it."
Will pulls out the lapel watch, holding it face up on the palm of his hand. "No matter how many times sand passes through our fingers, it always runs out. If I could, I'd never leave you again. I'd take you and our baby away from here. I'd do anything to take back what happened to you."
"I loved you. My heart ached every moment since they forced me away from you. With grief, then with hope, and then sorrow. You chose to die, Tom, instead of living. You chose loneliness over loving again. How am I supposed you forgive you when you can't forgive yourself? Until you take that step, they win, and the mansion that was supposed to be ours still keeps them here. We'll never be free, until you decide."
Sonny turns, opening the doors to the veranda and walking outside.
The door slamming makes Wil flinch. It's almost, Will thinks, like schadenfreude.
He purposely ignores it, and steps outside, then takes a deep breath.
"Sonny."
