Rekindle

23

The next day the table had disappeared, leaving an impatient and moody Anderson sitting in the measly office chair. I supposed it was a regular thing, those sessions of ours. He looked down on me, degradingly. "Three minutes. Go."

I quickly shook myself awake, the usual load of questions pouring in, grief subsiding for just a minute. Long enough to stay sane and composed, at the very least. I asked the first thing that came to mind: "When did Bridget sell out?"

"Eight months earlier. Easy buy."

"How'd you get the footage of Asher?"

"Dexter Shayegan got it for me."

Dexter Shayegan, Dex. He said I shouldn't have trusted him, he said it himself. Dex, Tom, Bridget, damn the whole bunch. Damn them to fucking hell for pulling such a shitty move. Asher was worth more than all three of those assholes put together. He should've been alive. They should've been dead. But ultimately, I was to blame.

I shouldn't have brushed Ash off after that last kiss on the fire escape, before even knowing Bridget was still alive. Even then, I could've just sat down and calmly explained her and I to him in that apartment. I could've just taken my own knife out and solved everything for myself, or run away, found a happy medium somewhere—there were endless routes I could have taken to save him and I didn't. All those options, and I didn't utilize a single one.

No other questions had come to mind, and with a great, disappointed sigh, Anderson stood and offered me the chair again. I crawled toward it and pulled myself up, pathetically. Ah. The fourth stage of grief.

Depression was not fun. Depression consumes, like running down a hall with the lights shutting off, one by one, darkness chasing at your heels until you're engulfed. Denial, I had gone through that stage. Anger I was mostly over with. Bargaining, not so much, but the crippling knowledge of knowing I wasn't good enough weighed on my back the most. I wasn't good enough to save him and myself; that was fact. And, about to collapse under the pressure of it all (again, somehow), Anderson paced and started a lengthy explanation.

"I know you know I purposefully sent Asher to Bridget to die. You know she didn't foresee you showing up, and like the naïve teenager she is, she got distracted." He gave me a hostile stare that I was too tired and depressed to even react to. "But, she assured me she'd get Malloy one way or another.

"Bridget never told me about you in your guys' little one month run either, by the way. Claimed she just wanted to get her ducks in a row, make sure everything was perfect and foolproof before she went in for the kill. That is, until you went rogue. Then she couldn't shake you off her tail.

"So, she planned on abandoning you at the site of your last little expedition and leaving you to the authorities, tying the Lacey Strauss legacy up in a pretty little bow right under my nose, but you two ended up getting into a cat fight instead. And you got away, because that dipshit Charlie pulled a kamikaze."

"He wasn't stupid," I said. Anderson continued as if he never heard me.

"I was very disappointed after hearing Malloy still wasn't dead, and that she killed Charlie on top of it all, but that girl wanted to prove herself so badly, my. So so so badly. I wanted to see how far she'd go."

"I want to speak to her," I asked. Again, disregarded.

"Bridget had a solid ambush in the works, but I just decided to have my guys take them instead. You know, cut out the middleman. They picked up on someone else living in the apartment that I pay for with your clothes everywhere."

Resent laced his tone. Embarrassment spilled through me.

"So, they get your name out of Asher, et cetera, stuff you already know, whatever. Unnecessary measure, it turns out. Bridget was more than willing to give you up." Anderson paused his explanation to chuckle.

I burned hot with anger and cold with depression then.

"We took Alex and Asher here, separated them, and you know what happens on your end from there too. There's an excellent account of the incident on file if you'd rather consult that."

"What about Ash?" I sheepishly asked. "After releasing him, what did you—"

"We let him move into Bridget's abandoned headquarters for the moment, since he requested some peace and quiet after learning you and Alex were dead. He stayed there—"

"We weren't dead," I interrupted. "You lied to him."

"—Jesus, can I get through one explanation without getting cut off?" Anderson suddenly demanded, nearly yelling. "Can I?"

I cowered and nodded in fear, scared into submission by the wells of eyes. He returned to examining the woods.

"Anyway, we told him you two were dead. He stayed at that mansion while Shayegan monitored his activity. Mr. Dipshit's surveillance had a hell of a code on it."

Charlie, I thought to myself. Anderson's egotistical tone didn't faze me from the fact that Charlie was ruthlessly killed. And Anderson was a filthy liar. He lied to Ash. Asher wrongfully thought he had no one left.

"Bridget wanted to just go in and kill 'em then, but I knew what I was doing. That priceless expression after telling him all the people he cared about were dead? Oh, I knew he was a goner. Especially after that bloody kill that had him shaken up so badly. And they recently found out their father was dead too." Anderson paused to yawn. "Crushing."

I was about to ask how he knew all of that, but remembered to bite my tongue. I thought about how much torture Alex could handle before spitting out blood with information as Anderson continued.

"The nervous ticks, paranoia, depression, it all added up to PTSD pretty easily. Sad, truly, but I needed him gone. And therefore—" Anderson turned to me with half a smile on his face, bringing his hands together like true villain, smiling, drumming his fingers against themselves, "—I used it to my advantage."

He walked toward me in slow, deliberate steps. I pressed against the back of the chair, unsure if I was becoming ice or burning white hot.

"I let the disorder fester inside him like a disease, Lacey. In that big house, with complete freedom. Alone. Restriction would've meant violence, so if I gave him space, he'd think himself to death. He'd do whatever he wanted. And he did do—" Anderson grabbed the arms of the chair and yanked me toward him, forcing me to handle the unsettling smile, "—whatever he wanted."

I shook my head. "You made him commit suicide."

The wires in my head were connecting once more. Sparking. Rekindling. The threat of fire rising from the ashes.

"Oh, god no!" Anderson refuted, mocking hurt and pacing again. "I didn't push him off the ledge. I just left him to his own devices, and that was the outcome. I am sorry for your loss, by the way."

"Bullshit," I said, voice cracking and hoarse, hands shaking uncontrollably. "That's all bullshit. You killed him. You let him do it. You let it happen."

Anderson approached me once more and crouched down, leaning in, face inches from mine. Panic replaced the fire as the holes of brown eyes bore into my own. "Yes I did. And everything has finally fallen into place. He's off the map, we've got a replacement for Charlie, and I've got a remote island waiting to be inhabited by yours truly. So you're the last scab that needs to be picked off, my dear." He stood and backed away, headed toward the door. Before leaving, he held up and finger and cheerfully announced, "Your execution is set in one day's time."

An imaginary bat swung into my chest, hard. "H-how?"

Anderson stopped and turned to face me. The signature, chilling smile spread across his face, wide as the Cheshire cat's. "Bridget's choice."