CHAPTER TWELVE

Clumsy Confession

That evening, Rogan tried to make things pleasant between us. He made jokes and fed me the best food. Three things hindered it from being as pleasant as it might have been.

The first one was that his hand was gone. Actually, I was very impressed at how well he coped with not having a hand and I wondered repeatedly how long it had been missing. He cut mushrooms like a second hand would have made things harder for him. It was unbelievable how he got them to balance on their curved tops. He fed me grilled mushrooms with brie and toasted French bread. It wasn't that he acted incapable. It was that I felt that his mutilation was a crime against nature. Why disfigure the most perfect man? I felt sick thinking about it.

The second thing was that I wasn’t sure if we were going to be together after we rescued Brandon. He hadn’t promised me anything other than the weekend. He said we would finish the rescue operation before my classes on Monday, but what would happen afterward? Would we be together?

The third thing, and it was very disconcerting, was that he kept disappearing down the hall, unlocking a door, going in and coming out again. He’d lock the door, which he inevitably accomplished with considerable rattling, since he had to do it with only one hand. After a while, I was forced to conclude that a living thing was in that room and he didn’t want me to see it. There was no noise from inside the room so whatever it was, human or animal, it was too ill to utter a sound. Sadly, I admired him for that, too. Whatever was behind that door, nurses in hospitals checked on patients less often.

As we sat at the table, I suddenly got the urge to tell him a secret. “I think I’m obsessed with you.”

He glanced at me but kept chewing his dinner. “Oh?” He wasn’t surprised in the least. “You must know, not only am I not Christian Henderson, but I’m not Rogan Cormack either.” He outlined his face with his fingers. “The things that are me in this picture are few. When you discover what I really look like, how will you feel?”

“I’ve been preparing myself for it. Will you show me?”

He hesitated. The possibility of seeing what he really looked like hanging in the air between us like a lit firefly. “Not today,” he said flatly. “There are already too many new things for you to accept today.”

“Could you tell me what you’re like when you’re yourself?” I had ravaged the plate of food and there were not even crumbs left.

He glanced at me lovingly. I was wearing him down. Finally, he said, “I’m old.”

“How old? Old enough to be my dad?”

He groaned. “If only.”

“Then how old are you?”

“Old. I’m scared to give you a ballpark number. Not only that, but it’s been so long since I’ve been myself, I can hardly remember. When I’m Christian, I have to seem like a playboy who isn’t interested in taking care of my adoptive daughter. At the same time, I want her to have every comfort.”

That was true.

“When I’m Louis, it’s usually to get information from people and to meld into the crowd. No one remembers exactly what Louis looks like. I don’t usually get on airplanes dressed like him.”

“Charles?”

“When I played Charles I had this fierce little love for you. I say ‘fierce’ because a boy his age understands little about love beyond attraction, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real to him. I wasn’t surprised in the least when he fell for you in Scotland. Of course, he did. I say ‘little’ because he loved you without understanding you. If he got to know you in-depth, he wouldn’t like you.”

“Why?”

“Because you love Christian. He would hate that above all things. He can’t match Christian.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s scrawny with freckles and it only takes a droplet of doubt to disturb his pool of confidence.”

“What about you?”

“I’m an ocean of confidence. A man as old as me doesn’t have any use for doubt.”

“So, when you were playing Charles, did you actually feel any of the things he was feeling?”

“Of course. That’s what I’m saying. When I play a character, I use that opportunity to feel what they would feel to make my performance more convincing.”

“So, as Charles, you really did love me?”

“Sure. If you like that juvenile kind of love and you might.”

“You make it sound so small,” I mumbled, disappointed.

“It is small. Especially when placed beside some of my other faces. A boy loves deeply enough to get into a fistfight. Some of the men I’ve played have loved so deeply, they would allow their heart to be cut out. And sometimes, I’ve happily played harder games of love than a one-time shot. I’ve spent years in hospitals cleaning the foulest messes the human mind can fathom out of pure love. If you stick with me through this adventure, you’ll understand the difference between a childish infatuation and real love.”

I felt like smacking him. “If? You think I won’t?”

He shook his head. “I think you’ll be tempted by these people when you come face to face with them, and that scares me. I want to send someone else, but involving someone else is more dangerous than involving you.”

He wasn’t going to tell me anything more about himself. He certainly wasn’t going to tell me what he looked like without his makeup, and he wasn’t going to tell me more about his personality. There was only one thing left. “What’s in the room down the hall?”

He sputtered a bit of his drink, glanced at me, put his goblet down, and gracefully wiped his mouth with a white cloth napkin. “I don’t think you’re ready for that.”

“Try me.”

He frowned. “After you sleep. I’ll tell you in the morning.”

“Where will I sleep?”

“In my room.”

I folded my napkin between my fingers nervously. “And where will you sleep?”

“In the locked room.”

“Why would you sleep in there?”

“I don’t want you to be scared and after I show you what has happened, you will be angry with me if I’m not either with you or behind that locked door. Try not to be afraid. It’s a tragedy, not a horror movie.”

I eyed him skeptically. “Since I’m staying in your room, can I wear your pajamas?”

He quietly groaned. “You might really be obsessed with me. It worries me and delights me.”

“Which more?” I asked, bending forward.

He leaned in and met my eyes. “We’ll see. You’re about to join my little cat and mouse game where I play the prey. If the Argonauts find out your name, they will offer you what you want most—me. But I promise, you’ll never get me that way. So, you can decide if you want my blood in a tube with the same amount of ardency as my trust in you.”

“Are you saying you won’t give me anything other than your good opinion of me if I manage to free Brandon?”

He stared. “Do you want payment?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

“You.”

He smacked his lips together and looked away. “I should have seen that coming. Beth, if you ever get really close to me, you won't like it.”

I piped up. “I don’t know what you’re thinking when I say I want you, but I am talking about time. Could you spend some time with me?”

“How much time?”

“A year?” I figured I needed that much time to make him fall in love with me.

He became thoughtful and started organizing the dishes into stacks. “I couldn’t give it to you immediately, assuming everything goes well. I might be able to give you a year in sections. Like four months next April.”

“You kill me,” I said without a fleck of humor.

“If they stop hunting me, you can have me.”

The offer hung invitingly in the air. “For how long?”

“For as long as you want me. I just don’t want you to get hurt helping me, and the stakes are high.”

“You don’t have much confidence in my skills,” I said swinging my hair over my shoulder.

He opened his mouth to answer me, but a crashing sound drew our attention down the hall to the locked room. Rogan jumped up from the table. “Wear whatever you want of my clothes. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“What about the dishes?” I called after him.

“Do them or don’t do them.” Then I heard the clanking of his keychain.

***

Sleeping in his room wasn't as much fun as I had hoped. I realized he was trying to pace me and silence my fears, but in the end, he had just freaked me out by telling me there was something to fear without explaining what. I hardly slept at all. Any sound I heard in the house I imagined came from the locked room and then it would take a full five minutes to still my racing heart. By the time I’d chilled out, I heard another noise and started the cycle all over again.

In the middle of one of these moments where I was gripped by terror, I wandered out to the kitchen to calm down and met Rogan in the hallway. He didn’t scare me or anything. I would know the shape of his body anywhere, even silhouetted against the window behind him. He touched my elbow and I touched his forearm like we couldn’t stand to sleep under the same roof without restlessly leaving our beds to find each other. I wore the top of his pajamas and he wore the bottoms. It was completely by accident. Blue plaid pajamas. How had each of us found only one piece of the same set? He had on an undershirt, that put his triceps on display, which was something nice that never changed, no matter what his face looked like.

I opened the fridge and pulled out a jug of chocolate milk. Rogan met me at the table with a clear clamshell full of chocolate chunk cookies. Even with one hand, that man knew how to stock a pantry. I got the glasses and we sat at the table in near darkness.

“Tell me more,” I whispered.

He broke his cookie in half and dipped it in the chocolate milk. After taking a bite, he began slowly, “Of all the people living in the world, I have only ever met one other person who is blocked from death.”

“Who is it?”

“Brandon.”

“He lives like you?”

“No. He hasn’t needed to. He’s less ostentatious, less interested in the world around him, and therefore, less involved with the world. He doesn’t disguise himself, because most of the time, he lives as a hermit. Until lately that is, no one knew about him and no one chased him. I told you that people want to experiment on me. I’ve been experimented on so many times I’ve lost count, but he hasn’t had to live like me. Charles betrayed us, and Brandon was captured for the first time. These guys who took him have been a bit more reckless than what I’m used to.”

“What do you mean?” I asked edgily.

“I mean that what they did to him has never been done to me. Scientists are not usually this gutsy. It's unforgivable.” Rogan’s mouth was dry as he went on. “I keep saying this, but if having you here now was just for me, I wouldn’t let you stay. If it was just me, or if their experiments were more normal, I wouldn’t accept your help.”

He was taking too long to explain what was going on. Each of his words was like a marble rolling down a two-degree angle.

“Okay,” I said, trying to speed him along. “They hurt him. Did they cut anything off him?”

Rogan nodded.

I rolled my eyes. At the one juncture I would have liked him to be outspoken, he was stumbling. I was playing guess-the-body-part. “Was it a leg?” I asked, afraid to delve deeper on my first try.

The idiocy of the situation seemed to snap Rogan into some semblance of behavior. “You have to understand that what they removed from his body is unimaginable. No normal person could live.”

“But you and Brandon are not normal?”

“No. We can’t die. No matter how far you want to extend the violence, we can’t die.”

I stared at Rogan, into his deep blue eyes and my voice failed me. I bit into my cookie and looked away. I did not know how to react to his declaration. A part of me thought he was testing me to see how far down the crazy train I would go before I told him to shut up and stop spouting crap. Another part of my brain dared him to prove he couldn’t die, but my mouth couldn’t say those words. I didn’t want him to hurt himself to satisfy some idiotic challenge.

Instead, I shoved all that aside and asked directly, “You’re telling me that Brandon is the one in the locked room?”

“Yes.”

“I thought he was kidnapped.”

Rogan swallowed uncomfortably. “Some of him is still kidnapped.”

I felt rotten, but so far the ideas were still abstract, so I was able to ask my next question without stuttering. “That means he’s missing something vital, but he’s still alive?”

Rogan nodded.

“What’s he missing?” I asked, trying to keep the quiver out of my voice. I decided it was going to be an organ because it would have to be something that would take my faith to believe in. He was going to place me in a situation where I was just going to have to take his word for it. I didn't like that as I waited for him to do the unveiling.

“His head,” Christian said slowly, gauging my reaction.

“That’s not possible,” I said firmly.

“For most people? No, it isn’t. There is a loose scientific explanation, but it doesn't change that no one knows why we’re blocked from death. What I do know is that this is possible. It's happening.”

“Can I see him?”

He waved his hand. “Not yet. I need to explain a few things about his current condition.”

“All right. Explain.”

Rogan knew I didn’t believe him. He didn’t expect me to believe him, but like a school teacher who hates you with the same amount of venom with which you hate him, he was going to talk and I was going to listen.

“His neck was severed. I put tubing in his windpipe to keep him breathing. The rest of his neck bleeds, so I have it covered with gauze, but it needs changing regularly and he’s leaking several other awful liquids at the same time. Just because he can’t die doesn’t mean he can’t get an infection, so I’m feeding him antibiotics.”

I stayed silent with my lower lip protruding. What sort of nonsense was he trying to pull? I had to make sure I didn’t let him trick me because I was squeamish. “So you're squishing pills though his severed esophagus?”

He rubbed his eyes. “It's convenient. I'm feeding him painkillers and muscle relaxants too. Just because we don’t die doesn’t mean we don’t feel pain.”

“Well, I know I’d hate to be the test dummy for a guillotine,” I said snottily.

His glare was like a whip. “Quiet, Beth. I know this is hard to accept, but try not to ridicule me too much. You’ll scream when you see him. It’s actually fine if you want to do that. There’s nobody to hear. Not even him.”

Rogan was so determined; I let him finish without any more smart remarks.

“I don’t think his body is in a particular amount of pain other than the wound at his neck. It’s his head that is suffering since all nerves lead to the brain. I’m feeding him so he’s still passing waste, but his body is in shock. I have to keep him tied down. He keeps flailing around.” Rogan shook his head like he was done talking to me. “And since his head is not with me, I don’t find it peculiar that he was able to get a separate message to you.”

“You mean, you think he’s still talking with his severed head?” I gawked in revulsion.

“Sort of. Do you want to see him now?”

“No, but if you say I’m the only one who can help you, I guess I’ll have to.”

“Good girl.”