Karin Slaughter - Blindsighted

"Sara," Jeffrey said, one hand around her jaw, the other holding her up by the arm. "Look at me," he demanded. "Sara."

Her body went limp, and she was conscious of the fact that Jeffrey was pulling her back toward the shore. His arm was hooked across her body, under her arms, as he did an awkward one-handed backstroke.

Sara put her hands over Jeffreys arm, leaned her head against his chest, and let him take her home.

LENA wanted Jeb. She wanted him to take the pain away from her. She wanted him to send her back to that place where Sibyl and their mother and father were. She wanted to be with her family. She did not care what price she had to pay; she wanted to be with them.

Blood trickled down the back of her throat in a steady stream, causing her to cough occasionally. He had been right about the throbbing pain in her mouth, but the Percodan made it bearable. She trusted Jeb that the bleeding would stop soon. She knew he was not finished with her yet. He would not let her choke to death on her own blood after all the trouble he had gone through to keep her here. Lena knew he had something more spectacular in mind for her.

When her mind wandered, she imagined herself being left in front of Nan Thomas's house. For some reason, this pleased her. Hank would see what had been done to Lena. He would know what had been done to Sibyl. He would see what Sibyl had not been able to see. It seemed fitting.

A familiar noise came from downstairs, footsteps across the hard wooden floor. The steps were muffled as he walked across the carpet. Lena assumed this was in the living room. She did not know the layout of the house, but by listening to the distinct noises, making the connection between the hollow taps of his shoes on the floor as he walked around the house and the dull thud as he took off his shoes to come see her, she could generally tell where he was.

Only, this time there seemed to be a second set of footsteps.

"Lena?" She could barely make out his voice, but she knew instinctively that it was Jeffrey Tolliver. For just a second, she wondered what he was doing there.

Her mouth opened, but she did not say anything. She was upstairs in the attic. Maybe he would not think to look here. Maybe he would leave her alone. She could die here and no one would ever know what had been done to her.

"Lena?" another voice called. It was Sara Linton.

Her mouth was still open, but she could not speak.

For what seemed like hours, they walked around downstairs. She heard the heavy scrapes and bangs as furniture was moved around, closets searched. The muffled sounds of their voices sounded like a disjointed harmony to her ears. She actually smiled, thinking they sounded like they were banging pots and pans together. It wasn't like Jeb could have hid her in the kitchen.

This thought struck her as funny. She started to laugh, an uncontrollable reaction that shook her chest, making her cough. Soon, she was laughing so hard that tears came to her eyes. Then, she was sobbing, her chest tightening with pain as her mind let her see everything that had happened to her in the last week. She saw Sibyl on the slab in the morgue. She saw Hank mourning the loss of his niece. She saw Nan Thomas, eyes red-rimmed and stricken. She saw Jeb on top of her, making love to her.

Her fingers curled in around the long nails securing her to the floor, her entire body seizing up at the knowledge of the physical assaults against her.

"Lena?" Jeffrey called, his voice stronger than it had been before. "Lena?"

She heard him moving closer, heard knocking in quick staccato, then a pause, then more knocking.

Sara said, "It's a false panel."

More knocking came, then the sound of their footsteps on the attic stairs. The door burst open, light cutting through the darkness. Lena squeezed her eyes shut, feeling like needles were pressing into her eyeballs.

"Oh my God," Sara gasped. Then, "Get some towels. Sheets. Anything."

Lena slit her eyes open as Sara knelt in front of her. There was a coldness coming off Sara's body, and she was wet.

"It's okay," Sara whispered, her hand on Lena's forehead. "You're going to be okay."

Lena opened her eyes more, letting her pupils adjust to the light. She looked back at the door, searching for Jeb.

"He's dead," Sara said. "He can't hurt you-" She stopped, but Lena knew what she was going to say. She heard the last word to Sara's sentence in her mind if not her ears. He can't hurt you anymore, she had started to say.

Lena allowed herself to look up at Sara. Something flashed in Sara's eyes, and Lena knew that Sara somehow understood. Jeb was part of Lena now. He would be hurting her every day for the rest of her life.

JEFFREY drove back from the hospital in Augusta feeling like a sol dier returning from war. Lena would physically recover from her wounds, but he had no idea if she would ever recover from the emotional damage Jeb McGuire had wrought. Like Julia Matthews, Lena was not talking to anybody, not even her uncle Hank. Jeffrey did not know what to do for her, other than give her time.

Mary Ann Moon had called him exactly an hour and twenty minutes after they had talked. Sara's patient's name had been Sally Lee McGuire. Moon had taken the time to key the surname into a general search of the hospital staff. With a specific name, it only took a few seconds for Jeremy "Jeb" McGuire's name to come up. He was doing his internship at the pharmacy on Grady's third floor when Sara worked there. Sara would have no cause to meet him, but Jeb could have certainly made it a point to meet her.

Jeffrey would never forget the look on Lena's face when he busted down the attic door. In his mind, he recalled the photographs of Sara whenever he thought of Lena lying there, nailed to Jeb's attic floor. The room had been designed to be a dark box. Dull black paint covered everything, including the panels of plywood nailed over the windows. Chains through eye hooks had been screwed to the floor, and two sets of nail holes at both the top and bottom of the restraints showed where the victims had been crucified.

In the car, Jeffrey rubbed his eyes, trying not to think about everything he had seen since Sibyl Adams had been murdered. As he crossed the Grant County line, all he could think was that everything was different now. He would never look at the people in town, the people who were his friends and neighbors, with the same trusting eyes as he had this time last Sunday. He felt shell-shocked.

Turning into Sara's driveway, Jeffrey was aware that her house, too, looked different to him. This was where Sara had fought Jeb. This is where Jeb had drowned. They had pulled his body out of the lake, but the memory of him would never be gone.

Jeffrey sat in his car, staring at the house. Sara had told him she needed time, but he wasn't about to give it to her. He needed to explain what had been going through his mind. He needed to reassure himself as well as her that there was no way in hell he was going to stay out of her life.

The front door was open, but Jeffrey gave a knock before walking in. He could he ar Paul Simon singing "Have a Good Time" on the stereo. The house was turned upside down. Boxes lined the hallway and books were off the shelves. He found Sara in the kitchen, holding a wrench. Dressed in a white sleeveless T-shirt and a pair of ratty gray sweatpants, he thought that she had never looked more beautiful in her life. She was looking down the drain when he knocked on the door jamb.

She turned, obviously not surprised to see him. "Is this your idea of giving me some time?" she asked.

He shrugged, tucking his hands into his pockets. She had a bright green Band-Aid covering the cut in her forehead and a white bandage around her arm where the glass had gone deep enough for sutures. How she had managed to survive what she did was a miracle to Jeffrey. Her strength of spirit amazed him.