Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
I feel at peace as I leave the gym. I’m almost glad those idiots tried to bring me to heel. It has been a long time since I’ve had a good excuse to be this bad.
Laura
I am not sure what to do with myself, or anyone else for that matter. I didn’t want to go back to work. He made me go back to work. Now he’s telling me I’m not allowed to go to work, and I want to go. It’s very contrarian of me, really.
I can feel his darkness wrapping around me again. I am being drawn down into the void that is particularly unique to him. It has a flavor of sorts, a kind of… it’s impossible to describe. It’s like a shadow I can taste, and it is all around me even on this bright day.
It might be that I am just getting over being drugged and told what to do, and generally controlled in ways that remove my ability to make decisions for myself, which is really the only freedom I ever had.
“This sucks!” I curse to myself, stamping off to find some food.
“I’m sure it does,” a dry voice responds.
I am not alone in the house.
Dr. Black is sitting in the kitchen, with a small dog at his feet. The dog goes absolutely ballistic the moment she sees me, shrieking at me with a small fury that is really quite admirable, or would be if she wasn’t also backing away behind his legs as she does it. She’s got a little terrier face, curly gray coat, and small, but presumably brutal canines.
“Easy, Cerebus,” Dr. Black says.
“What are you doing here?”
“Babysitting,” he says.
“I’m hardly a baby,” I reply.
“Not you. The dog,” he says. “I have to look after it for a friend.”
“You have to look after it for a friend in Sam’s house?”
“It’s so strange hearing him called Sam,” Dr. Black muses. “The man really doesn’t seem like a Sam most of the time. More of a Lucifer.”
I laugh, but I don’t add to that train of thought. There’s a real chance Sam can hear us. I bet he has every inch of this place under surveillance. I also bet Dr. Black is not the only professional here right now. This house feels oddly full in a way it didn’t the first time.
I go to the fridge and take out some cheese. The dog is still intermittently shrieking. Whenever she quiets, I toss her some. After a few minutes of that she decides I am much less of a murderer than she first thought, or maybe I am a murderer, but the upsides of knowing me are worth it. I can understand her thought process entirely.
“How long are you going to be here?”
“I’m making doubly, triply sure that you experience no ill-effects from the whole incident. You won’t, of course.”
“I won’t?”
“No, it’s completely out of your system. But I’m here because it makes Sam feel good and making Sam feel good is an integral part of staying intact.”
I can’t quite tell if he’s joking or not. He does have a very deadpan sense of humor. I do think Sam is worried about people coming for me again. I don’t know who, and I don’t know why, because apparently they just drugged me and did absolutely nothing to me.
“What is his deal?” I ask the doctor.
“Samuel’s deal?”
“Yes.”
“What are you really asking?” He asks me the question while his little dog runs around the kitchen in a chaotic sort of way. I like the way dogs make places feel alive even when the place is mostly empty.
“Is he a psychopathic murderer?”
“Yes,” he says simply.
“Oh. Is he going to murder me?”
“He’s put a lot of effort into keeping you alive, so I’d say you have a better than average chance of survival.”
“What else does he do? Is he for hire? Does he work for the government?”
“Sam does what Sam does,” Dr. Black says. “And I’m not saying that just to avoid the question. I don’t know his business. I am sure it runs deeper than I care to imagine, and deeper than you should.”
“So he’s a bad guy.”
“Good and bad are concepts that don’t really apply to Sam. He’s too intelligent.”
“So if you’re smart enough you can do whatever you want?”
“If you’re smart enough, you can’t help but do whatever you want. Rules are like fences. They keep simple animals in. But smart ones, like goats? They go through fences, under fences, over fences.”
“So Sam’s a goat?”
Interesting that Dr. Black went to a farmyard reference. Maybe he’s a country boy at heart. I feel as though I know more about this guy than the one I’ve been in bed with for weeks.
“Sam is whatever he wants to be, and whatever he needs to be,” the doctor says. “I hate to say what I’m about to say, but it’s true and you may as well come to terms with it. There is no escaping him. Not now that he has decided you belong to him.”