Ghosts ✔

046 • Maddox

He had expected the cold to creep back into his body, but it didn't. He appreciated her honesty. And well – it wasn't out of the blue. He knew he had done things he never should have done, but at those moments his conscience had been silent. His actions had felt nothing but logical, justified. He had always been that way and he knew that would never change. He didn't even know if he wanted to change. He had achieved a great deal, he was satisfied with himself. She was his weak spot and here, where they were alone, he didn't mind. But outside the island... he needed to be hard, needed to be immune to the pain of others. For that was what his whole existence was built upon. Empathy had always been foreign to him – she was the only one who could elicit such feelings. And that was conflicting – it always had been. 

"You feel pity for me?" he asked. "Is that the reason you stay with me?"

She let out a disbelieving sound, something between a huff and a cynical laugh. "I stay with you because you have locked me up. Because I have no choice."

He suppressed a sigh. He hated it. That she wouldn't stay with him if he gave her a choice. He wanted her to choose to be with him, he didn't want to lock her up at all. But then he would lose her.

"I'm sorry," he said, and he meant it. "I wish I could give you that choice, but I can't. I would regret it and all this would start over. I can't do that to you again." His hand glided across her baby bump. "And our child... our child will need its father. We will stick together. The three of us. Forever."

"I know that, Maddox. That's why I try to deal with this whole fucked-up situation. That distinction between your dark and light side... I need that to stop hating you, so I don't feel the need to stab you in the neck, every time I'm buttering my bread." She laid a hand on his hip and rolled him forward, so he was lying on his side again and she could look him in the eye. "That's why I brought it up. If I can... name your light side, I might be able to tore it away from all those dark memories. Then you will no longer be Maddox... then you will be someone else. Someone with whom I can laugh, with whom I can talk without being strangled, whose touches don't chill me to the bone. Leave Maddox in that office of yours, I'm not allowed to go in anyway. And outside that room... just be someone else. The person you are now, who is such a contrast to the man who murdered my baby girl."

Maddox thought about her words, tried to understand them. Maybe it would help him too. Distinguishing the two persons he seemed to be now, who were always fighting. 

"Aaron," he said. "My real name is Aaron."

"Aaron?" she repeated, surprised. 

"I was called after my dad. I hated him, he was weak. When I turned thirteen, I let everyone call me Maddox."

"Why was he weak?"

Maddox looked past her. He had never spoken about that day, with no one. Not even with the many therapists he had been forced to go to. "Some things better stay buried."

She came a little closer, laying her head on his shoulder. Absent-minded, her hand glided up and down his side. "You never told me anything about your childhood. Casper and you... you both refused to say something about it. I've asked about it so many times. Why don't you tell me now? If that part of your life belongs to Aaron and you want to become Aaron now, I will have to get to know him."

Maddox sighed. Hearing his real name leaving her lips... it chased a shiver down his spine. It called up a deep, displaced fear making his breathing fall, and he concentrated on her warm body to calm down a little. 

If he told her... would she understand why he was the way he was? Showing her his weakness... It conflicted with everything he had fought for the past years, it kicked the legs of who he had wanted to become from under him. But at the same time he felt the longing to connect with her on that level too.

His arm glided around her and he pulled her closer, his lips touching her forehead. 

"I was four, Casper was a baby. I was playing in the sandbox when the garden door opened and three men entered the backyard. My mother yelled that I had to come inside. Before I could get on my feet, one of the man lifted me up, carried me inside and put me on the couch." He swallowed, taking a deep breath. "People were screaming. My mother was furious with my father. It was about money – blackmailing... I never found out who they were or what they wanted. Anyway, the men wanted money and my father couldn't give it to them. As payback, they tied my mother to a chair, drenched her with gas and burnt her alive. I was forced to watch; there was a guy sitting next to me, pushing the point of a knife against my neck every time I closed my eyes. Her screams... the shaking of her body as she tried to escape, the smell of her burning flesh..." His voice died away and he was silent for a while, trying to recompose himself. There were only short flashes he remembered. "They gave my father a week to get the money together, if he failed I would be the one on that chair." He looked at her eyes, saw how wide and shocked they were. Her fingertips stroked his cheek soothingly. "A week later he still lacked the money and hung himself. For years I was afraid that the men would return to burn me alive, but I have never heard from them again. I hated my father for getting involved with people like that, for his inability to protect my mother, for not avenging her death and killing himself. He left Casper and me to die. He should have found a way to get them the money, rob a bank or something. But he did nothing. He was a coward."

Dana was silent for a long time. There were tears in her eyes. "That's horrible," she said eventually. "I never expected such a thing. I can't believe you've kept it to yourself all this time." 

He shrugged his shoulders. "It's been a long time ago. I've put it behind me."

"It's still consuming you," she muttered. "Your hunger for power... the fact that you lose your mind the moment you lose control... it can all be traced back to your trauma. You make sure that you pull the strings now, you've made enough money to have anything you want so that the lack of it will never cause you pain again."

He leaned back. "I've moved up in the world. Maybe I should be thankful to my father. If he hadn't been such a miserable example, I might never have tried so hard to be his counterpart."

"And now you want me to call you Aaron? Just like the man who you hate so much? Who turned you into the man I hate?" She shook her head. "What's your mother's name?"

"Ruby."

"Hmm." Her fingers stroked his chest. "What about Ruben?"

His nose stroked hers as he softly kissed her lips as if he wanted to taste the name that had just rolled off. "Ruben... sounds good."

She rolled on top of him, keeping his glance. "Then you'll be Ruben from now on and you will leave that ruthless Maddox in your office, okay?"

He wrapped his arms around her. Never before it had felt so good just to hold her. "Okay." He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I love you, Dana."

She rested her head on his shoulder, her blonde hair tickling his face. "I'm glad you are still capable of loving someone after what they did to you."

Ruben closed his eyes as he heard her fragile voice. "And I hope you will be capable of loving Ruben one day, despite the things Maddox did to you."