Alice flinched at the booming sound, the echo of pure menace that buoyed throughout the room.
Her breath held in her lungs, she studied the woman in front of her, her eyes looking past the sack that covered the woman's head, down farther to where the ends of long, stringy blonde hair fell limp beneath the dirty brown sack. Trembling at the feet of a monster, the woman was dressed identical to Alice, her body a touch thicker, her curves more feminine.
It was a body that Alice knew well.
Tears burned at the back of Alice's eyes, understanding slipping into the confusion, recognition stealing what little breath remained in her lungs.
She looked up at Max, locking terrified eyes to his, her voice stolen by the realization of what he planned to do.
A sick smile creased his sculpted lips, his gaze burning with anticipation and pride.
"Do you know why the whipping boy worked so well to control the prince, Alice?” A menacing grin touched by a soft voice. “Do you?"
The tears she'd fought fell down her cheeks; thick and hot they were ice cold by the time they reached and rolled along her trembling jaw.
"The whipping boy worked because he'd been raised with the prince. Because of their shared love and affection, each injury the boy received hurt the prince as well. Just as each injury this woman receives will be yours."
The room grew quiet, the weight of the situation crushing the rebellion remaining in Alice.
"Fight me again, and I'll hurt you. Forget to obey, dishonor me in any way, and this woman will pay your price."
He smiled, the gleam of his white teeth bright beneath the lights of the room.
"I promised I wouldn't harm you, Alice. But never forget I warned you that I do have ways to make you hurt."
12:30 p.m.
Gray walls.
Black table.
Plastic, fake red roses.
Everything in place.
"Alice? ... Ms. Beaumont? ... Alice Beaumont ..."
"Yes, Doctor."
"It's your time. Are you ready?"
Nodding her head, she rose from her chair in the waiting room, the soft notes of classical music drawing her attention to a speaker at the top of the wall. She'd not noticed it before, nor the paintings of different landscapes that sat at equally spaced intervals beneath it. Black frames, simple so as not to distract from the beauty of the paintings themselves.
Five steps across the room, three steps over the soft, patterned carpet. Four cushions. A white throw draped loosely over the armrest.
Alice sat down.
Crossing one leg over the other, the doctor pulled his notepad from the side table to his left, placing it in his lap before clicking his pen and scribbling out a note Alice couldn't see.
His gaze shot up, his eyes hidden behind the shadow of the low lit room, the metallic frames of his glasses flashing beneath the scant bit of light that touched them.
"How are you today?"
"I think I'm better," she answered, curling her legs up against her body, her arms wrapping around her bent knees. "I'm tired. I feel empty.” As an afterthought, she said, “But I think that's good."
The doctor regarded her closely, the clock ticking off the seconds he waited before asking, "Why would being empty be good?"
"Because I'm not heavy. The weight I've been carrying, it's absent." She paused, fighting desperately to gather her thoughts to herself, to make sense of what she wanted to say. "Not entirely, but I feel lighter. Does that make sense?"
He nodded, his pen scraping softly across the pad in his lap as he jotted his notes. "Your last session was a bit traumatic. The dream you described for me was much more violent than the others. Much more disturbing. Perhaps a weight was lifted simply to get that particular dream off your chest."
Alice gave him a sad smile. She'd barely begun to tell him the sequence of dreams and, already, he was concerned by the images in her head. "Did you see her? Do you understand now how Delilah fits in? Had I gotten that far?"
The dripping sound of the faucet filled the silent space between them, each drop punctuating the anxious tension building inside her.
"There was another woman in the dream you described. Do you believe that woman is your sister?"
Flipping through pages, he reached up to resettle his glasses on his nose. "From what you told me, she had some type of sack covering her head. The features you described were only the ends of her hair, the body type and the fact that she was dressed similar to you."
"She was dressed identical to me. The dress, the shoes: it was the same. But it wasn't her features that made me realize it was her. It was what he told me."
"He? As in Max?"
Alice flinched at the sound of the man's name. Even knowing the dreams were nothing more than illusion, that Max was nothing more than a symbol for the true monster that took her sister, Alice still experienced a visceral reaction to his name.
"Yes," she answered, her voice a haunted whisper, "Max."