The Hell that Followed by RJ Law

Author:RJ Law [Law, RJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-08-04T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

In the small living room, a large candle soaked one far corner of the plain white drywall with a honeyed glow, the shadows born from it lunging and retreating and undulating, like spirits confine; their prison a paltry one, lowly and unpretending.

Ellie sat processing, her legs crossed, a bare foot bobbing, her expression concealed within an impregnable silhouette. Tom sat across from her with his forearms on his thighs and his hat on the couch cushion beside him. He almost spoke, wanted to, but there wasn't anything more say, save for questions to answer.

Ellie's black shape ran its hand over its head.

"So what happens now, Tom?"

The voice she used sounded foreign to him.

"I'm still waiting for him to get in touch with me. When he does, I'll give him what he wants, and then it will be over. We can leave or we can stay. It will be whatever you say."

She said nothing for a while.

"I'm so sorry, Ellie."

"Don't," she said. "Why?" He watched her head shake slowly. "What good does it do now?"

He lowered his head.

She looked into the kitchen and saw that it was two in the morning.

"Christ," she said. "I have to be at work in a couple of hours."

His head sunk lower.

"I don't understand this, Tom. Not any of it. But of all things, you waited this entire time without telling me, and then you decide to jolt me from sleep and spring it on me just hours before I have to go to work? What in God's name were you thinking?"

He looked at her, his eyes wet.

"I don't know. I couldn't hold it in any longer. I was worried."

She shook her head, again, and looked away.

"Madelyn," she whispered. "You unbelievable bastards, all of you."

He didn't speak.

She ran her fingers over her lips as she thought.

"So what's to keep them from doing that to me, Tom? Are you going to follow me around all day?"

He shook his head.

"That was Edgar's fault, Ellie."

He leaned forward and put his hands together.

"That's not going to happen to you. I promise."

She looked away.

"Don't," she said. "Just don't."

He examined mutely the cheap brown carpet.

She rocked in her chair and studied him: as despicable as any man irresilient to the shallow temptations of this life, and yet, he also, a lovely creature, selfless as any she had ever known. And she knew the man she saw was the same who'd coaxed her back to life when but one will existed between the two of them, his eyes and his voice, a comforting fixation throughout the uprising within her body. And amidst the cold irrefutable logic, when they'd carved her breast from her being, he had not allowed her to recede into self-loathing, but instead, lifted her from the sour comfort of despair through unyielding and intimate dedication. And this had bound her to him, and if there existed occurrences potent enough to dissolve such a bond, she knew that this thing did not wear the markings.

Her foot stopped its manic waggle, and she spoke, her tone more delicate than before.

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