A/N Hi, thanks for the messages and support. Especially to JJ for the encouragement! Also to the guest reviewer who has been leaving very kind messages – I so appreciate it and glad you are enjoying this story xx
I hope you enjoy this chapter – their time together. Next chapter life begins to change xx
Chapter 4
When Red comes down the next morning she's already in the library, looking out at the view. He brings her tea and waits while she drinks it, hardly removing her eyes from the world outside.
Lizzie is exhausted, another sleepless night leaving her with a feeling of lethargy and despondency, an isolated detachment. When she blinks it feels like her eyelids scrape her eyes. If sleep wasn't so elusive she wonders if she would indulge in it, or if the memories of her flight through the woods would still haunt her. The combination of everything she is feeling is again leading her to a calm indifference.
Maybe it's the idea of her imminent death that's liberating. Lizzie pretends it's that at least. She doesn't want to analyse it, she doesn't want to acknowledge the reason for her surrender. But what is left to live for when your husband turns out to be the hired help, the only father you've known is dead, your biological father lives a life like you don't exist and the man you love intends to kill you for revenge?
Somewhere in her sleep deprived brain she's aware of Red, waiting, watching, standing guard.
"You don't have to watch me" she says, surprised at the sound of her own voice as it breaks the silence. "I have no intention of escaping, if that's what you're worried about".
"Why don't we get something to eat" Red says, ignoring her prickly comment, knowing it's the exhaustion talking.
Again she follows him where he leads, finding herself back in the dining room, this time set up for lunch; has the day really progressed so far? In front of her there is a bowl of soup and to the side a warm bread roll. She sits still as the soup begins to cool but then without prompting she uses her knife to cut the roll, lifting a small piece and eating it. Red would let out a sigh of relief if he didn't think it would disturb her.
When they finish he goes again to retrieve a sweater, bringing it to her and they go outside. This time they walk all around the extended gardens of this house, enjoying the view of the sweeping lawn from each side.
When they return she surprises him by staying downstairs, going back to the sitting room where he'd waited for her that first night.
He enters, seeing her settled in the seat she'd occupied previously.
"Would you like a glass of wine" he offers.
"Yes please" she says in response.
He pours them both a modest glass. She hasn't slept; this small amount alone would be enough to leave her inebriated.
Together they sit in silence, drinking the wine he has poured for them.
"Did you buy these clothes?" she asks after a long silence. She herself cannot believe that this is what she's asking, given all the questions she could have started with but it's been on her sleep addled mind.
"Yes. Are they not to your taste?" He asks.
"No. I mean yes. They are beautiful. Really great but I'm not sure they're me. I think I'm not cut out for Chanel, if you see what I mean" even to her own ears she sounds a little tipsy. She's noticed all of the clothes have designer labels; she wonders why he's concerned about how she's dressing.
"Remember what I told you Lizzie. Chanel suits you just fine" he says.
Her head spins from his words; it's the first time they've acknowledged the night of his departure. Red looks at his watch, it's only early evening but he thinks sleep would do her more good than dinner.
"You haven't been sleeping; it may be clouding your thoughts. I have some rather potent sleeping pills if you would like to try them" he offers.
Ordinarily she's not a sleeping pill type of person, she hates the residual drowsiness they all too often being, but in her state of exhaustion it's too tempting an offer to pass up so she nods her head.
He nods in response and she hears an almost imperceptible, "good".
They walk upstairs and she sits on the side of the bed in the room that's not hers but that she's been using. Red returns carrying a glass of water and two small pills. He passes them to her and for the briefest of moments their hands touch. She's forgotten how electrifying contact with him can be. Even in this state of exhaustion she blushes at her foolishness. He feels nothing for her yet she's still affected.
She takes the pills and lowers herself onto her side, then lifts her legs onto the bed. She's still dressed but she doesn't care. Red wishes her a good night and she closes her eyes against the exhaustion, the wine and now the pills, and he takes a moment to watch her.
When she hears the door close it rouses her slightly, she slips the sweater over her head, leaving it on the bed beside her and immediately slips into sleep. Despite how elusive it's been on the past few evenings, tonight is comes easy and she drifts quickly into a deep slumber.
But the memories that have been keeping her awake the past few nights come to visit her quickly and strongly. In moments she's in the grip of the terror that's been plaguing her, that's she's fought so hard to suppress. She's running through the trees it a desperate bid to escape yet all too quickly she's caught and in the cabin. She can't see but she can hear The Stewmaker as he moves around. She feels the excruciating hot pain as he inserts the needle into her shoulder. She screams, her head dipping back until she sees his face, but it's not Stanley Kornish, tonight the face of her torturer is Red.
She wakes, the scream from her dream a reality. It echoes around the room, carrying her worst fears, her anxiety.
"Lizzie" Red says already making his way across the room, approaching the side of her bed.
"It was just a dream" Red says, reaching out to touch her, to comfort her. But his touch brings a wave of terror and prompts another involuntary sound, not as loud as before but as expressive. It leaves her panting, panicked.
"It's over" he says.
She scrambles from the bed, retreating from him, closing and locking the bathroom door and only just making it to the toilet, her body intent of purging the sparse content of her stomach.
"Lizzie" Red says from the door, concern in his tone. But she's groggy, sleep deprived and terrified. Tears stream down her face as she shakily makes it to her feet.
"Lizzie, I'm coming in" he says just as calmly but she hears his word like a threat and starts to look around the room for any sort of protection.
Instantly she's knocking things from the shelves, panic clouding her judgement and her vision. Finally she grasps the glass beside the sink, smashing it on the wash hand basin and clutching the largest shard as Red opens the door and steps into the room.
"Don't come any closer to me" she threatens.
Red lifts his hands', showing her he's empty handed and poses no danger. He can hear her fast laboured breathing and he knows she feels cornered.
"I'm going to go out to the bedroom and I want you to come out when you're ready. Leave the glass in the sink and I'll clean it up" he says stepping away and leaving her alone.
She continues to panic but the peak has passed and before long she feels the sting from her palm, the sharp glass having lacerated the skin in several places. Still she stands there, breathing, adjusting, and allowing the worst of her terror and the memories of the dream to seep away.
Slowly she turns to the sink, wincing as she opens her hand, dropping the substantial fragment into the debris. She walks to the door, pausing slightly before she sees Red. The adrenaline is leaving her body so she doesn't even have the energy to worry what he thinks, let alone be embarrassed about her actions. The memory of her dream and her knowledge of the future is affecting her body, making her tremble.
She rests on the door frame, looking at him. He stands passively at the other side of the room, hoping to give her space while wanting to tend to her. She walks to the bed, sits on the side again, blood trickling through her fingers and dropping to the floor.
He quietly walks passed her and goes into the bathroom to get the things he needs to clean and dress the cuts to her hands.
When he emerges she's sitting the same as before, her eyes downcast, fear and sorrow written all over her face.
"Do you want to talk about it?" He asks.
She just closes her eyes, her breathing breaking into a sob that she immediately regrets.
"Lizzie, I'm going to touch you. I need to see your hand and see how deep the cuts are" he tells her then waits a moment before he makes contact. She doesn't flinch, he's glad of it, his warning was obviously heard despite the detachment he sees in her countenance.
He doesn't know what to do for her, he doesn't know how to ease what she feels or help her through this so he does the only thing that he can think of. He tells her the truth. The unadulterated, unedited, honest truth about how they are connected and how this whole situation came to be. It's the very least he can do for her. So as he starts to tend to her he starts to tell her about the past.
"Your biological father and I were colleague of sorts, friends even, at least at one time. We trained alongside each other at the Naval Academy, rising through the ranks, making a name for ourselves. However it was me who graduated top of the class, received offers of positions on elite task forces, coveted positions the two of us had always talked about. I was being groomed for Admiral, a position he so desperately wanted and he knew that I had no desire to attain. He never tried to hide his disgust; your father always was a bitter man. Greedy, sadistic and immeasurably bitter. He hated to be outdone but as you can well imagine, nothing stopped me from getting what I thought I deserved." Red stops there, moving to get a towel, and then continuing with his task.
"After my family vanished he contacted me, it was the first I knew of his involvement, he wasn't directly involved in the operation but he instigated and had full knowledge of it. He provided falsified evidence that left those responsible with no choice but to move against me. For a long time he took great pleasure in taunting me with supposed details of their gruesome deaths. Years of torture, my dreams filled with the visions he created; my days spent in a futile search to prove him wrong. Before it happened I would never have thought him cunning enough but he struck just before I became too powerful, before I was beyond his reach. Everyone else involved has been dealt with, only your father remains and it is personal to me. What he told me may turn out to be lies but years of not knowing have left me as bitter as he."
"Why keep me here? Why keep me alive? If you want me dead then kill me Red. Do you want to do it in front of my father? To have him see? He won't care, don't you see that? I'm sorry you won't get the satisfaction you deserve, kill me and take what you can from it but you won't be causing him any pain." She says, her voice a hollow empty shell.
"He doesn't care, you're right. But your father is as proud as he is bitter, and you are blood of his blood, flesh of his flesh. It may not hurt him but believe me it will wound him". Red tells her.
She just continues to stare off, her eyes glazed over.
"Lizzie, why did you come here?" he asks her again, still in the dark about her motives.
"Is there anywhere I could have gone that you wouldn't have found me? We both know there isn't. Besides, I felt like I owed you, after everything you've done for me. And I feel like my father owes you, after everything he did to you" she says finally meeting his eyes. "What have I got to live for? No father to speak of, no husband, no child, no Red" as she says the last words her voice drops away.
He marvels at this woman. Willing to sacrifice herself for a man she doesn't know. Giving herself to him because it seems just in her eyes. Yet this isn't her; this is fear, sleep deprivation and exhaustion talking. His Lizzie is stronger than this, coming to him to meet her fate head on. He regrets ever involving her in this but he's only part to blame, it is her father who arranged for her to meet her husband, for the life she led to be a lie. At some point they'll all have to pay for their crimes.