It’s like being home-schooled, never mingling with other kids, never building up your immunity to the sniffles and sneezes that everyone else takes for granted, and then you go out in the world and a common cold knocks you flat on your back. Maybe my oh-so-normal life meant I wasn’t ready for trauma, that I wasn’t—as I joked to Lorenzo—inoculated against it.
The poker game … I crept down that night after a bad dream. They were talking, and I sat on the step to listen, because it was stuff about police work that Dad never brought home. They were discussing a crime scene—a suicide—and how the man’s brains were splattered on the wall, and it was then, as they said those words, that Dad spotted me on the step. He raced over with “You shouldn’t be down here, baby,” and I said, “What does that mean? Brains splattered on the wall?” and the look on his face, the horror that I’d overheard, wiped away fast as he scooped me up and said, “It’s just an expression,” and “Hey, guys, Riley’s down here, okay?” and they stopped talking, and he said, “Come on in and get some chips, and then we’ll take you back up to bed.”
Brains splattered on the wall.
It’s just an expression.
I’d heard it a dozen times since then. In a TV show, back when I could watch cop shows, before they only reminded me of my dad, every shot making me see him in front of it, the gun firing, Dad flying back, me wondering exactly how it happened—because no one tells you exactly how it happened—how long did he live, was he in pain, was someone with him? I really hope someone was with him.
Brains splattered on the wall. I’d read the line in books too, because even after Dad died, I could read those scenes—they were just words on a page, no sound, no image to trigger thoughts of my father, of the bullet hitting him.
Was someone with you, Dad? Did they hold your hand when you died?
I’d even heard kids at school say it, when a boy shot himself.
Brains splattered on the wall.
It’s just an expression.
Only it’s not. Not just an expression, Dad, but I know why you said that, because the truth … the truth …
When the bullet to Aimee’s chest didn’t kill her, Gray shot her in the head. In the forehead, a perfect hole between her wide brown eyes. And I see the wall. I see …
Brains splattered on the wall.
And it’s not just an expression.
I’m staring at it, and I hear my biology teacher’s voice, me madly scribbling the notes I would review again and again until the words were emblazoned in my memory.
The brain is composed of three primary sections. First, the forebrain, which contains the hypothalamus, thalamus and cerebrum. Next, the midbrain, which is the tectum and tegmentum. Finally, the hindbrain: the pons cerebellum and medulla.
Which parts are these? What am I seeing on the wall?
A person’s life. A person’s self. That’s what I’m seeing. We can talk about the heart and the soul and “what’s inside,” but it comes down to this: our brains. Everything we are is in there, everything we’ve been and want to be, and now it’s splattered on a wall like someone spit out a mouthful of oatmeal. A life reduced to this.
He shot her between the eyes. He walked over to her as she looked up and said, “Why?” and he shot her. Let her see the gun coming. Pulled the trigger and splattered her life and her self on the wall behind her. While he looked her in the eyes and watched her die.
“Riley?” Max is beside me, leaning down, temporarily blocking my view of that horrible wall. He’s checking to see if I’m still there, if I’ve teetered over into a flashback.
I blink. He nods and moves away, and I see the wall again and say, “How can someone do that?”
“Hmm?”
“How can—?” I cut myself short and shake my head. “We need to go.”
“No, we can …” He looks around. “There’s a room over there. If you want to talk.”
I’d laugh at that if I could, and if it wouldn’t be horribly cruel. We’re running for our lives, but if you’re feeling traumatized right now, Riley, we can talk.
It’s sweet, if inappropriate, and maybe it’s a little bit of shock too, Max not thinking clearly, and when I look at him, he’s staring at Aimee’s body and there’s a horror in his eyes that makes me realize just because I’m the one with PTSD doesn’t mean he isn’t suffering some current traumatic stress right now.
“Lorenzo,” I say, and his head jerks up, gaze wrenching away from Aimee.
“Right,” he says. “Lorenzo.” The reminder that the clock is ticking for Lorenzo, and we need to get that phone for him, and neither of us can afford to freak out until we do. Save the therapy for later. It’s time to move.
CHAPTER 12
The therapy room door is wide open. There’s been no sign of Gray or Predator. We’re constantly listening for them. Even without asking Max if he is, I know the answer, because whenever we hear footsteps, he glances that way, tracking them even as we move.
A moment ago I heard footsteps on distant stairs. Heading up to the second floor.
How many sets of stairs are there? We passed near one, and I recall Aimee saying something about another when she showed me around.
I wish I’d listened more when she showed me around.
I wish I’d listened to her more in general, not just the therapy but when she tried to talk about herself, her life. The other therapist never did that. He’d drawn a clear line there. I am your therapist, and this is all about you. Aimee had taken a different tack. When I withdrew, she’d tease me out with talk about herself, trying to distract me from my inner monologues. It had never worked because …