Lisa Unger - Black Out

“No,” I say, looking into those dead eyes. “No.”

“You belong to me, Ophelia,” he says quietly, moving closer, reaching out his hand.

This has been the truth for so long. Since the day I met him, I have been clinging to him or running from him. I have allowed him to control my heart and my mind. I have loved him madly, and I have lived in terror of his return. And yes, I have hated him. Briggs’s words come back to me: Because you hate him, Ophelia. I saw it on your face in that diner. You think you love him, but you know how evil he is, that one day he’s going to kill you, too. That you’re going to be a body someone finds in a motel just like this one.

Marlowe Geary did kill me, and I was his willing accomplice. Gray found my body in that New Mexico hotel room and brought me back to life. Now I am responsible for bringing myself back to wholeness, to heal myself so that I can be the mother my daughter deserves, the woman I deserve to be.

I remember then that he’s Victory’s father, that because of who we were together, she exists in this world. The union that has made me weakest has produced the union that has made me strongest. It seems a raw truth, so odd that it’s almost funny. The universe has a sense of humor, a taste for irony. But this is a private joke I don’t share. He has no right to know her; he has nothing to do with her.

“You belong to me, Ophelia.”

“Not anymore.” And I find I have nothing more to say. There is not a moment of hesitation, of conscience now that he is injured and unarmed. I do exactly what I have come here to do, what Ophelia has been trying to do for years. I take the gun from my waist and open fire. I see his body jerk and shake with the impact of the bullets. I keep firing until it is empty. When I’m done, he’s on the ground, his arms and legs spread wide and so still, an oval of blood spreading around him. I walk over to his body and see his staring eyes. A river of blood flows from his mouth. I stand there watching for I don’t know how long, until I’m certain beyond any doubt that he is finally dead.

In those moments I remember all the girls I watched him kill-I see their heart-shaped necklaces, and sparkle-painted nails, their miniskirts and cheap tattoos. I hear them screaming, hear them crying for their mothers. I couldn’t help them then. I can’t help them now. There’s only one little girl I can save. There’s only one cry I can answer. I feel a sharp pain that starts in my neck and spreads into my head. A bright, white star spreads across my vision then, and I am gone.

When they found Detective Harrison, everyone was shocked. He was such an upright man who’d done so much good in the community, a good husband and a father, a good cop. No one could believe that he’d picked up an underage hooker on the outskirts of the city, did some heroin with her, and then passed out in his car to be found by police responding to an anonymous tip made from a nearby pay phone.

How terrible, they said. Rumor has it that his wife threw him out. He must have had some kind of nervous breakdown; there was no history of this kind of behavior. No drugs, his friends were sure. Not even much of a drinker, they added. There were rumors of a gambling addiction. Suspect deposits in his bank account. How sad.

He ranted and raved as they took him in and processed him as they would any perpetrator. The cops who had been his friends were unable to meet his eyes. He told them the whole story about the gambling debts, my false identity, what he’d learned about Grief Intervention Services and Alan Parker, how Ella Singer had Tasered him at the Powers home. This was a frame-up, he yelled, to keep him from getting any closer. But he sounded like a maniac. No one listened. He just came unglued, the other cops whispered in locker rooms, in bars after shifts ended-it must have been the stress from the gambling addiction, problems with his wife, a new baby.

The judge went easy on him: drug treatment, community service. He had come to his senses, admitted to his drug problem as his PBA rep instructed him to do, admitted to his gambling addiction, too. He enrolled in a place they called “The Farm,” a facility outside town where cops with addictions are sent to get well. He was suspended without pay pending the results of treatment. The PBA rep said they couldn’t fire him because the department views addiction as a disease-treat, don’t punish. Of course, everyone knew that his career was over.

But Harrison found he could bear it all-the humiliation, the weeks of treatment for a drug addiction he didn’t have, and all that time to reflect on what was wrong with his life, the inevitable loss of the only job he’d ever wanted to do. Even in the throes of despair he experienced as he lay in the uncomfortable bed, missing his wife and baby, thinking about how badly he’d let them down, he found he could live with the things that were happening because Sarah believed him. She looked into his eyes and knew that he was telling the truth. And she still believed that somehow, together, they were going to make everything all right again.

I feel a small, warm body next to mine, smell the familiar scent of Johnson’s baby shampoo. I’m afraid that it’s a dream. I feel her shift and move, issue a little cough, and my heart fills with hope.

“Mommy, are you still sleeping?”

I’m in a room flooded with light, so bright I can’t see. I close and open my eyes until they adjust. I see Gray slumped in a chair, staring out the window. I hear the steady beeping of a heart monitor.

“Mommy.”

“Mommy’s sleeping, Victory,” says Gray, edgy, sad.

“No, she isn’t,” Victory says, annoyed. “Her eyes are open.”

He looks over at us quickly, then jumps up from his chair and comes over to the bed where I’m lying.

“Annie,” he says, putting his hand on my forehead. He releases a heavy sigh, and I see tears spring to his eyes before he covers them, embarrassed. My lungs feel heavy and my head aches, but I have never been happier to see any two people.

“He’s dead,” I try to tell Gray, but my throat feels thick and sore. My voice comes out in a croak. “He’s gone.”

He shakes his head and looks confused, as if he isn’t sure what I’m talking about. He kisses me on the forehead. “Try to relax,” he says.

“Mom, you’ve been sleeping for a long time,” Victory tells me. “Like days.”

I look at her perfect face-her saucer eyes and Cupid’s-bow mouth, the milky skin, the silky, golden puff of her hair-and lift my weak arms to hold her. I feel waves of relief pump through my body. She’s mine. She’s safe. Victory.

“Are you all right, Victory?” I ask when I can finally bring myself to release her. I examine her for signs of trauma or injury. But she’s perfect, seems as happy and healthy as ever.

“What happened?” I ask Gray over her head. “How did you get her back?”

But then the room is filled with doctors and nurses. Gray takes Victory from me, and they stand by the window as I am poked and prodded.

“How are you feeling, Annie?” asks the kind-faced Asian doctor. She is pretty and petite, with a light dusting of lavender on her eyelids, the blush of pink on her lips.

“My chest feels heavy,” I say.

“That’s the smoke inhalation,” she says, putting a stethoscope to my chest. “Breathe deeply for me.”

“Smoke?” I ask after I’ve drawn and released a breath with difficulty.

“From the fire,” she says, hand on my arm. “I’m afraid it will be a while before we know if the lung damage is permanent.”

“I don’t remember,” I say, looking over at Gray, who offers me a smile. There’s something funny on his face, something worried, anxious. I know this look. It makes me feel suddenly very uneasy.