CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

The Heartless Man

With strength, Christian pulled me to him and gazed penetratingly into my eyes, as if to discern if I had uncovered his secret. His gag was still in place, but one of his eyebrows was slightly lower than the other as he tried to gauge the damage.

I couldn’t think of what to say to him.

He never held me. All those years, all through the closeness we had always shared, I was never once close enough to him to feel that his heartbeat was gone. I thought of what he said, that he couldn’t love, that if I ever got really close to him, I wouldn’t like it. He had to keep me at arm’s length if he was going to keep the truth hidden from me. Because of what he had done, he couldn’t even hold me, let alone love me.

“Do they know?” I whispered finally. “Do they know your secret?” I asked, looking meaningfully at the middle button of his shirt, because I could not return his gaze.

He nodded, barely moving his head. He groaned and he pulled his gag free from his mouth and let it fall in a soggy circle around his neck. “They pieced it together the last time they examined m-me,” he stuttered. “I can’t. I can’t undo it,” he said and the look in his eyes terrified me. This was Christian’s worst nightmare. He had suddenly become helpless and didn’t know how to meet me.

I knit my eyebrows together, getting courageous. “I don’t understand. You saved me. I owe you everything. Why are you so afraid of what I’ll think and how I’ll act?”

“Beth, I feel sick. How could a little needle have left me unguarded enough that I spilled my secret to you so easily? I never wanted you to know what I had done. You were meant to lead an ordinary life.”

“You mean, I was meant to die at age fourteen,” I said.

“No. You were meant to live a life where your lover/boyfriend/husband/partner was not me.”

“Without you, I’d be dead,” I corrected sternly.

“Perhaps, but when you woke up healed, didn’t you feel that you suddenly adored me?” he suggested, like the answer would be as distasteful as a plate of worms.

“No,” I said impatiently. “It wasn’t sudden. I adored you before the surgery. A heart is not actually the home of all our emotions. Why would you think my feelings changed after the surgery?”

His left hand went to his chest. “Because of what I felt.”

I exclaimed my surprise in a gasp. He didn’t have an empty place in his chest where a heart should have been. He had exchanged hearts with me! He had my shriveled broken heart in his chest and it wasn't beating.

“Did it ever beat for you?”

“It did, and when it did, I was happier than I can remember. I was in love and it was a love I never expected to feel. Just looking at you, I knew that what I had done changed everything.”

I gave him a shadow of a smile. “You never said anything.”

“How could I say anything? You were fourteen. Even though it has been completely acceptable to fall in love with a fourteen-year-old for most of human history, it isn’t now. How could I confess to loving you?”

“I would have felt less lonely,” I argued dully.

“I had to make it clear to anyone who saw us that there was no romance between us. The whole world had to know that your guardian, Christian Henderson, was without fault. It didn’t work well. The older you got, it didn’t matter how appropriately I behaved, people believed the worst of me constantly. It was almost like it was true when I couldn’t let it be. I had my own troubles...” he said, rubbing his chest where my heart was. “This heart has not worked well.”

“Of course it wouldn’t,” I said numbly.

“It beat on and off for several years, but it eventually stopped altogether. I remember the last time it beat. It was that last day in Scotland when I sent you away and the car you were in went out of view. It stopped and then the pain came. After all these years, it hurts more than ever.”

My eyebrows flew upwards. “That was the last time it beat? When I left?”

He nodded.

I looked at him and tried to put the pieces together in my mind. I thought of Brandon and how he had lived when he was headless. I remembered the tubes in his neck that kept air flowing to his lungs and what was happening in his body when he had no brain connected to send commands. He wasn't connected to the system and he could still transmit instructions. Was that what was happening now? I had Christian’s heart in my body and it beat because he told it to?

Then I wondered if the individual cells in their immortal bodies could respond to other commands, other than muscles and tendons. Could Christian order his blood cells to receive the oxygen he brought into his lungs? Ask those same blood cells to circulate throughout the body, not under the control of the heart pumping them, but under their own control? There would be no heartbeat, but there would be red and blue blood moving along the veins and arteries, moving oxygen and forcing life, because each one of those cells did as they were commanded?

It was only a theory, one I didn’t feel comfortable running by him at the moment in which we found ourselves, but I felt the truth burn in my heart. He was alive when he shouldn't be because he was better at organizing his own cells.

“Beth,” he breathed, allowing the slightest sound to escape from his lips. “Have you figured out why you’re here?”

I stared at him, uncomprehending, for a moment. I was locked in a room, no one was interviewing me, and when they had talked to me in the conference room they gave me Christian’s history and decided they didn’t need to talk to me anymore. I just had to be locked up.

“I’m scared to talk because they’re listening,” I muttered angrily.

“Whisper, Bethie. Whisper in my ear,” he said, finally drawing his body closer so we could talk.

For the first time since he took charge of me, he drew me as close to him as I could go and with our arms wrapped around each other tightly, we put our heads together and began to quietly conspire like the closest of allies.

“Are they doing the first experiment where they see how long it takes for me to heal? Except they didn’t have to cut me because I was already cut?” I asked.

Christian nodded.

“They think I’m immortal because you gave me your heart?”

He clenched his jaw and nodded again.

“Do you think I am?” I asked.

Sliding his fingers in my hair, he tilted my head and spoke gently into my ear. “I haven’t been certain. Brandon says you are. He’s been saying you are since Scotland, but Beth, if you are like us, it isn’t a good thing.”

“Because of all the running?”

“Yes, because of all the running, all the torture and all the hangups that go along with how I have to live. I recognize I may be guilty of glamorizing a normal life, but this kind of life is undoubtedly more dangerous. Everywhere you go is a figurative minefield. Brandon says that not everyone who receives an organ transplant from an immortal donor becomes immortal themselves. I hoped you wouldn’t be one of them.”

I listened. When he was finished, I whispered to him. “What does it mean for us if I am or if I’m not?”

“If you aren’t, I can’t be with you. I’ll only bring harm upon you, in the form of people like Dr. Hilliar who can’t let the question of why I can’t die rest. Even if we kill each and every one of these people, there will be others.”

“And if I am?” I asked gravely.

“Then I did my best to give you a taste of the normal life before you had no choice but to join me in this… thing I do.”

The corners of my eyes crinkled with amusement at how he managed to diminish a gift most people would consider to be priceless. “What will that be like? Will you finally give me what I want?”

He chuckled. “I shudder to think of all the girlish fantasies you’ve concocted regarding me. I’m more normal than you make me out to be. You’re bound to be disappointed when you discover I’m pretty much like any other man, except for my face and the perpetual pain in my heart.”

“Can’t we do anything about that?”

“You could give me my heart back. My chest would feel much better.” He gave me a sideways glance to make sure I knew that what he was suggesting was a joke he found rather tasteless.

“So, if I am immortal, we’ll finally be able to love each other? You won’t be off-limits anymore?”

His breathing became staggered. “Darling, it has been hard enough for me to keep my hands to myself. You can have me, but I promise you, it will come at a grave price. Being with me can only end in misery and that’s true whether we finish this day in this locked room or if we don’t. Immortality is irrevocably joined with misfortune.”

“Because my heart won’t beat for you?”

He muttered his next words under his breath, “Yes, but also because I have lived too long. I don’t know how long I’ve worked, how many wives I’ve had, how many children I’ve fathered, or how many different lives I’ve led. A body like mine is perfect. The only way I could forget would be if I…”

“Damaged your brain on purpose?” I suggested, thinking of how empty headed he generally was in regards to his past.

He nodded. “Living forever means seeing a million things you wish you hadn’t. Their cut test is a legitimate way to test the truth. If we stay here longer than a day, their questions about you will be answered.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want them to find out. How can we get out of here?”

“They know me. They know what I can do, which is why I’m not bound hand and foot. It wouldn’t surprise me if we started reefing on the walls, we’d find a steel cage on the other side of the drywall. I’ve escaped many different rooms, broken many locks, shattered windows, jumped from high places, and they would have prepared for the things I’ve done in the past. I’m gonna be honest, I’m not sure what’s left to try.”

He pulled me closer to him, but after touching my back, his face suddenly fell. He rubbed fresh blood between his fingers and thumb. “You’re bleeding. Didn’t Dr. Hilliar stitch you up properly?”

“The excitement of last night and this morning have torn it open,” I admitted, before explaining what happened.

“Let me see.” He got off the floor and led me to the bed like Prince Charming leading his princess onto the dance floor. He helped me down on the mattress, face down, and with my permission, he lifted my shirt to see my wound.

He gasped. “You’re not healing. You've torn out quite a few of your stitches. You are going to need more bandages. You shouldn't have been moving. Clearly, I should have accompanied you out last night instead of merely pointing you in the right direction.”

“It’s okay. Brandon got your finger and his tongue before he escaped and I was recaptured.”

“Of course.” Christian procured some clean pillowcases from the closet and cleaned my wound with what oddities he could find in the bathroom. “Way to kill the mood,” he joked.

“You seem like you're all better from the drugs they gave you. Even the bruises on your face look better,” I countered.

“Yeah, all better,” he said, stroking the side of my face with his four-fingered hand. “Do you want a clean shirt?”

“I'm not changing my shirt. I'm going to roll around on the carpet in a second, and then I'm going to let my blood pool up and I'm going to write, 'help me' in blood all over the walls. If I stop bleeding, I'll cut myself and keep going.”

“What exactly do you think that will do?” he asked, perplexed.

“When you tried everything, did you try this?”

He shook his head in the negative.

“I am a hostage, not a guest. I'm not going to sit nicely and watch TV like I was fine with being here. I want whoever looks in this room to think that the people who kept me here were monsters. I already started a hunger strike and I haven't had a bite to eat or a sip of water to drink since they brought me here. Now, let's make a mess. How's my blood, is there a lot of it?” I didn’t dare think of what a lot of blood might mean for our future.

He lifted the pillowcase bandage. “You're bleeding afresh.”

“Great,” I said, wetting the tip of my finger and starting to write the letter h on the wall.

Then suddenly a voice came on a loudspeaker I hadn't known was there, but then, all microphones were also speakers. “Bethany,” my father’s voice said. “Stop that. We aren't torturing you.”

“Yes, you are!” I exclaimed. “I have asked repeatedly to be released and you have kept me here against my will. I have been brought here with a gun to my head thrice. Let us go.”

“Christian was caught trespassing and thieving!” my father retorted.

“Then turn him over to the police,” I snapped. I turned back to the sound and finished my h.

“Bethany,” he said, not knowing that hearing my name pronounced that way made me hate whoever was speaking. “We want to measure how fast you heal. That's all we want. If you would please stop hurting yourself deliberately, we could be done a lot quicker.”

“Shut up!” I snapped.

“I think we should check the news,” Christian suddenly said slowly, picking up the remote control.

“The news?” both my father and I questioned at the same time in the same tone. I flinched angrily. I hated having anything in common with him.

“Yeah. Felicity-Ann should be missing you. I told her if you went missing for more than two days, she needed to report it, and she should report Charles Lewis as the culprit. I wouldn't be surprised if the Edmonton police are looking for you.

The speaker went dead as my father and his goons went to see if such a thing had happened under their noses. I glanced at Christian, still pacing. He hadn’t turned on the TV.

“Did you know this would happen?”

“I've been in a lot of these scrapes. A Google search will be faster than channel surfing, so they’ll know whether it happened or not in minutes. Just to warn you though, it might be hours before your father and Dr. Hilliar come back with an answer. They'll disagree and talk amongst themselves to figure out the best thing to do.”

“Then there’s plenty of time to make a mess.” I shook my head and continued to write in blood.

“Are you just doing that to annoy them?”

“It obviously does annoy them, otherwise my father wouldn't have spoken to us at all,” I fumed.

“Your back is bleeding alarmingly, and most of it is soaking into your shirt, so you're not using it for your mural.”

I growled and rolled my shirt up, so my midriff was bare.

“Doesn't it hurt?”

It didn't, but I didn't like to say anything about it not hurting. That seemed abnormal, which was exactly what these psychos were trying to learn about me. I also didn't feel hungry or thirsty and I really should have been both after everything that had happened. Instead, I felt energetic, but wasn’t that wrong? I pulled my finger away from the wall and pretended to feel sapped of my strength. It was an act for them.

“Are you all right?” Christian moved to catch me if such a thing was needed.

“I need to lie down,” I muttered. Whatever the truth was, I had to hide it from them.

Five minutes later the door swung open with my father on the other side. He flicked the switch on his armrest and wheeled in the room with a sour look on his face.