He stayed with her, as he always did since her arrival. Amanda had become used to his presence, even used to him seeing her naked. By now, she knew that he wouldn't hurt her when she was like this. It wasn't even something that she consciously thought about so much as an awareness of this fact. Knowing that John would not try to rape her or kill her was as obvious to her as the fact that the sky is blue, or clouds are white, or the grass is green. Despite her terror on the first day, it was something she easily accepted.
Had someone else come in and seen this, Amanda probably would have wondered if they showed any uneasiness.
It was the same way with the headrest. She acknowledged it as something John had made for her, out of kindness, but certainly not something that was meant to harm her, or even could be used to harm her.
It came as a shock, then, when she nearly twisted her neck using it that morning.
Amanda had blamed John at first, but it had been the surprise that had caused it opposed to something he had done. She knew, even as he assessed the damage, that John wouldn't hurt her on purpose. Her test, which still haunted some of her dreams, had been incredibly fair and deliberate. There were no loose ends to tie up, no tricks. Once Amanda found the key, the lock had opened easily, and the bear trap came off almost as easily. Based on what the police had shown her regarding previous traps, the other tests had been just as straight forward. Varying degrees of difficulty, naturally, but still easy to understand, though clearly almost impossible to complete.
Amanda was relaxing in the water, eyes closed, when John spoke.
"I have something I want to talk to you about," he said quietly and deliberately.
On impulse, Amanda tried to sit up, but forgot to press the release button. Her neck ached as it fought against the metal bottom, and droplets of blood formed in the water. She shrieked, more out of surprise than terror. She tried to move again, but once again forgot to press the button, and her head would not move.
Her arms flailed and she was sure that she was drowning. Her heart raced as she let out a scream. Her initial fears seemed confirmed, and Amanda knew that it was a trap, and she was going to die.
John's hand reached into the water, pressing the button, and Amanda's head fell beneath the surface. Grabbing onto her back, he pulled her up and she started coughing and gasping. He held onto her until she regained her breath and was able to talk. His fingers ran over her back as Amanda fought to recover from what happened.
"Are you all right?" he asked finally, still supporting her body.
Amanda coughed again, spit showering the water and John's arms, and tried to speak. "You scared me," she accused. Her voice sounded weak and raspy.
"I know," John soothed. "It was my fault. I'm sorry."
She fell into a coughing fit as she tried to speak. "God, that was scary." She tried to laugh. "I thought you were trying to kill me."
"Me? Why?" His eyes narrowed with disbelief, and his tone had turned harsh.
She shook her head, inhaled deeply, and exhaled. "I forgot the button. When I couldn't get my head out of there…"
John laughed softly, understanding. "You know I would never hurt you."
"Yeah," she smiled, "but when you're drowning it's kind of different."
John appeared to accept this explanation. "Let me see your neck. Lean back…good. Now forward," he instructed. "Hold up your hair."
Amanda obeyed, still shaky, and waited for the diagnosis. "How bad is it?" she whispered. It was easier to speak softly and besides, it didn't seem like something that could be asked in a regular voice.
John barely heard her. He touched the surrounding area gently. "Let me know if anything hurts."
"Okay," she whispered.
He pressed his hands around her neck, starting at the top and stopping just above her collar bone. Amanda had been determined to say nothing unless it was unbearable—she didn't want to sound like a baby—but ended up letting out a small noise whenever he hurt her. Finally, he was finished.
"I'm finished. You can hold your neck normally." He paused. "There shouldn't be any problems with your shoulders, but does it hurt anywhere else?"
"Just my chest. Am I okay?"
He smiled. "You're fine, kitten, as far as I can see. The cuts are just scratches. You're just scared."
She tried to stand up. "I'm finished here," she said shakily, trying to laugh it off.
Nodding, John handed her a towel and she dried herself vigorously as she stepped out of the tub. John unplugged the water, which had taken on the faintest pink tinge from the blood, and watched Amanda with the eyes of a concerned father.
It had scared both of them, but John wondered if maybe it had been more of a coincidence that just when he was about to bring up continuing his work, Amanda's near accident had occurred. Jigsaw told him to wait until later in the day, and then approach her about it. John said that it would have to wait until Amanda knew him more, and that what had happened was proof of her deep rooted fear.
On this battle, John won out.
Amanda brushed her hair carefully, wincing every time she pulled at a knot. After a few minutes of watching her struggle, John took the brush from her and began to run it through her hair.
She sighed. "I'm not five."
"I enjoy it," he replied. It was true—it had a calming effect on him. It seemed like the right thing to do, parental, even if his adopted daughter would be twenty-four in a few weeks. "Do you mind?"
She sighed again. "Not really." She paused. "You said you had something to talk to me about?"
"Oh, yes." John wracked his brain for a topic. "Your birthday is coming up soon. It's in the first week of May, isn't it?"
"The 8th," she replied.
"Is there anything you want, or anything you'd like to do for it?" he continued, finishing with the last piece of hair and setting down the brush.
"I'm not a birthday person," she replied. "It's not a big deal."
Technically, Amanda guessed that this was true. Her parents never really celebrated it with her when she was growing up. At school, the policy was a standard chocolate cupcake (free) which didn't taste as bad as some of the other things they served, but was nothing she looked forward to. She had only started to get used to celebrating them with Mike, on his insistence, when Matthews had her arrested. The last one must have been four years ago.
She opened the drawers of her dresser and easily located a bra and a pair of underpants. After putting these on, she began the much harder search for a low cut t-shirt and her new favorite pair of jeans. John studied her carefully, viewing her backside, but could tell that Amanda was hiding something. He couldn't see her face, but he recognized her body language.
Once dressed, Amanda turned back to face him and forced herself to smile.
He sighed. "You're lying."
"So what if I am?" she replied defensively. She knew she was being ridiculous. It wasn't the most personal of questions. John was probably just asking to be polite. He expected her to say she wanted to have another day in the park with him, or she wanted them to watch a movie together while she could eat as many pineapple gummy bears as she wanted. She should have said something like that.
Why hadn't she?
John didn't say anything. He just watched Amanda, waiting for her to speak. He took a seat on the unmade bed that had shared.
"It doesn't matter," she said lamely, wanting to look away from him.
She started to walk past the bed, but he caught her by the arms. It didn't hurt, but it aggravated her all the same.
Why does he have to be so damn good at catching people?
She tried to pull out of his grip, and succeeded. She started walking towards the door, a smile playing at her lips. He wasn't that strong. She could take him down, after all. He had lost most of his mental power over her.
She could feel John's stare burning into her back, making the smile vanish. She turned around.
"What?" she asked grumpily.
"Sit down next to me. I want to talk."
"Well, I don't," she grumbled, aware that she sounded like a petulant four year old.
She couldn't quite bring herself to walk away, though.
"Amanda." His tone was soft, gentle. Perhaps deceptively so.
She sighed, walked over, and glared at him. "Move over," she ordered.
John obeyed. She plopped down next to him, arms folded. "There. I'm sitting. Are you happy?"
He picked up the stuffed cat. "Would Amanda like to play with me?" he asked in a squeaky voice.
"Give me that," she grumbled, taking the cat. "Brownie does not talk like that. Honestly."
She said the last part in her "Brownie voice".
He laughed and then wrapped his nearest arm over her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Brownie," he apologized.
Amanda shrugged off his hand. "It's okay," she "made" Brownie say.
John inhaled, then slowly exhaled. "Amanda, what's wrong?" he asked gently.
Amanda paused before speaking in a short, annoyed tone. "We didn't really celebrate them growing up. Later, yeah. Then I got arrested and that kind of ended things."
"I see," he replied.
"It's not something I like to think about," she tried to explain. "Makes me remember stuff I want to forget."
"About being in jail?" he questioned, putting his arm around her shoulder again.
This time, Amanda let him.
"That and other things." She sighed. "I don't like thinking about it, much less talking about it."
"Maybe talking about it would help," John countered. "One way to move forward in life, and gain happiness, is dealing with and letting go of past regrets."
"I've done nothing I regret," Amanda replied. "Not like that, anyway. It's what's been done to me that I don't want to go into."
John put another arm around her shoulder, forcing her to look at him. Amanda wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn't. She was too scared of what she might see.
"You need to let go, or you're just giving them more power."
"And how the fuck do I do that?" Amanda snarled. "Let go, let go," she mimicked. "God, that's what I hear all of the fucking time but no one says just how to go about it."
Hot tears burned in her eyes, impairing her vision. She blinked, and a few fell down her face. John gently wiped them away with his second hand. More replaced them. As John brushed those away, he spoke as gently as he knew how.
"I don't have the answer to that, but the first thing you can do is talk about it," he murmured, rubbing her shoulders.
"It hurts," she sniffled. "I just want to forget everything."
"Shh," John whispered, hugging her tightly. "It's okay. I just want to help you."
Amanda tried to take a deep breath, but only managed a shallow one. She felt like something was caught in her chest. She tried again, and the second one came out a little stronger.
"I hate seeing you like this," he sighed. "Please…let me help you."
Maybe it was the sincere, begging tone. Maybe it was because Amanda was tired of rebelling.
"Okay," she said, surprising herself. "What, exactly, is it that you want to know?"
"Tell me everything," he ordered, but his actions did not match his harsh words. He was pulling a blanket over Amanda, still managing to prop her against him, maintaining support.
"Everything?" Amanda feigned confusion, as there were certain parts of her life she hated to recollect, let alone speak about.
John smiled despite the situation. Amanda was a terrible liar. Her emotions were her weakness.
Well, one of her them.
"What was your family like?" he asked, staring at her with those piercing eyes.
"Awful," she replied. She tried to speak as though she was giving John a basic, irrefutable fact. Perhaps if she could answer his questions objectively, the emotions surrounding the events wouldn't come through. He had to see her as weak, but this might make him respect her.
John paused before continuing the interrogation. "Explain."
"My mom worked all the time. My father—" She paused, hating to use that word to describe that ever present figure in her life. He had only been there to hurt her and, to a lesser extent, Liz. He wasn't like the other loving parents belonging to her classmates, ones who picked them up from school, took them for ice cream, and asked them about their day. "He was a jerk."
Sensing that Amanda wasn't about to continue, John prodded further. "How so?"
"Mom worked hard. She worked a few jobs because he couldn't get his lazy ass out of the chair. Except when he used the money to drink and gamble. There was never enough. He'd hurt me and lock me up in…" She paused again. "In dark small rooms. I was so scared of the dark, but he'd leave me there for hours. Felt like days." She shut her eyes. "He also raped me."
Having said this, it was easier for Amanda to talk. The words seemed to spill out of her. Sometimes, John would interrupt to ask a question, and Amanda would find herself moving in another direction, seemingly meaningless, until it got back to the original topic.
Hardest was talking about Mike. Much harder than talking about Detective Matthews and the time she had spent in jail. She wasn't sure why, but she thought it was because he now meant so much to her. Her life had never been normal but living with him was probably the closest she got to a regular adult life. It wasn't something she needed to hide from people. Not like taking heroin, cutting herself, or going to jail.
Amanda talked until she could feel herself growing hoarse. She coughed a lot near the end as an attempt to clear her throat, but she might as well have done nothing because her throat just began to hurt after the tenth time.
Finally, she stopped talking and looked up at John for the first time since she began. Amanda had been studying her hands as she ranted, finding them easier to focus on than this deranged murderer.
At first, John didn't say anything, and Amanda couldn't tell what he was thinking by reading his expression. As soon as she started to feel scared, he spoke, startling her for the second time that morning.
"I want you to continue my work after I'm dead."
A/N: I know it's been awhile since I've updated, but I only got three reviews on the last chapter. I wouldn't even post this until I got more, but it's been awhile and I decided to make an exception for once. From now on, though, I really need five reviews if you want the next chapter. I probably won't even start writing the next one until I get the reviews, but I can promise to have it up soon after I receive the fifth. So please, please, PLEASE review this…it really only takes a few minutes. Thanks.