Deviant

Epilogue

Elias

Three years later

“This way, Mr. Scott,” Anton, the coordinator of the mental facility ushers in his thick Austrian accent.

With my hand on the small of my woman’s back, we walk through the spacious corridor, taking in the various natural light-filled rooms in the facility.

“We must say it was a surprise when we received your call earlier this week. Not many donors are as eager as you are to visit our facilities.”

“I’m the kind of man who likes to see firsthand where his money is going,” I reply with a clipped tone, gaining a side-eye glance from the love of my life.

“Yes, of course. And it’s very prudent that you do so. We hear horror stories about people being scammed out of fortunes when donating to various obscure charities all the time.” The man shakes his head. “Out of curiosity, what is it that you do exactly?”

“I fail to see how that is your business.”

“What my husband means to say is that he dabbles in the stock market. He has a thing for numbers and has always been very apt at judging how things will play out before they actually do.”

Husband.

Fuck, but I love it whenever she calls me that.

We’ve been married going on three years now, and that shit never gets boring to me.

“Ah, exciting work, I’m sure.” Anton nods seeming impressed.

If by exciting, he means me quadrupling Rowen’s Scourge winnings just by pushing a few buttons on a computer, then yes, I can say it has its merits.

“And what do you do, Mrs. Scott?”

“Oh please, call me Harper,” my Roe says sweetly, batting her eyelashes at Anton as the real Harper would have.

When we went underground, we had to choose different names just so those fucking dipshits of the hosts wouldn’t find us. I really didn’t care what the rest of the world called me, just as long as my woman would always shout my real name when she came. But one day, when we were walking the streets of Buenos Aires—just one of the many locations we hid out in—Roe suggested something.

“I think our permanent names should be Andy and Harper. If anyone deserved a happier ending than the one they got, it was them.”

“So each day, they’ll get to live the life they always wanted. even if it’s through us, is that your plan?”

“I could think of worse ways to honor our friends.”

“So could I, sweetheart. So could I.”

Later that week, when we boarded the plane to fly to Spain, Andy and Harper began living their happily ever after, and they never looked back.

“I dabble here and there on a few projects.” She smiles with a mischievous glint in her eye.

And by projects, she means trying to get the word out on the shit that happens in Blackwater Falls without getting caught. Reddit is filled with conspiracy theories about our small town existence and what happens there, largely in part because of Rowen slipping information to True Crime junkies. So far, she hasn’t had any real success in putting a stop to The Scourge since its organizers are very good at clearing their tracks and making sure that Blackwater Falls is nothing but a mythical place, but that doesn’t keep her from trying.

“But my real passion is philanthropic work. Like being a donor to such facilities like yours that deal with those struggling with their mental health.”

Anton’s eyes light up, finally understanding that she’s the one he should be smooching up to, not me.

“Well, please, ask me anything that you’d like. I’d be most happy to answer any of your questions.”

Rowen throws me a discrete wink as she falls in line with Anton’s steps and asks him a bunch of questions.

I, in turn, trail behind them and take in the sight that is my wife’s perfect ass. It’s the only distraction worth a damn since after you visit one of these types of institutions, you’ve visited them all. I’ve been through this rodeo too many times to count. She’ll ask harmless questions first, questions where he’s allowed to boast about the facility’s success stories. She’ll laugh and flirt a little if she has to, something that ticks me off, but I can’t complain about it since the end goal is bigger than my bruised ego. Once she has her mark completely eating out of her hand, she’ll then ask about his most troubling cases and if she can be introduced to that patient.

She’s got the whole routine penned down.

After having his ear for twenty minutes, she walks back to me, her luminous smile making my heart jump back to life.

“He says that his most troubling patients are usually outside at this hour, either painting or just enjoying the sun. He also doesn’t mind that we take a peek as long as we don’t disturb any of them.”

I pick up her chin with the pad of my index finger and crane her face upward to mine.

“Too bad for him. Cause my little doe-eyed girl is going to disturb the fuck out of some people, isn’t she?”

Her hazel eyes sparkle back at me, true love beaming in her gaze.

“I love you,” she says, needing to say the words out loud so I never forget them.

“Not as much as I love you,” I promise.

“You always say that but you can’t know something like that,” she coos, placing her palm to my cheek. “Who is to say that I don’t love you more?”

“I’m a lucky fucker, either way, sweetheart. Now how about you kiss your husband, before I take you into one of these rooms and make you.”

Not having to be told twice, she wraps her arms around my neck and presses her lips to mine.

It’s hard to conceive that there was ever a time I was too scared to kiss this woman.

Now, I’d happily live out my days with her lips attached to mine.

When she pulls away, her cheeks are that pretty pink color I love so much, and her eyes are burning with want.

“Now, now, wife, you can’t look at me like you want to get fucked and then complain when I do just that. Eye on the prize, baby. Eye on the prize.”

The little pout that she makes has my cock twitching, and it takes everything in me not to say fuck this shit, find a room and just fuck my woman’s brains out.

If I didn’t have a gut feeling that this is the place, I would have done just that.

“This is it, Roe,” I whisper to her just in case someone passes by and overhears us. “You’ve done your homework. You’ve connected all the dots. This is the place.”

“I’m nervous,” she says, going to the root cause of her procrastination. “Not just that, I’m scared.”

I wrap her in my arms and hug her tightly to me.

“I know, baby. I know. But if this goes to shit, you still have me. You’ll always have me.”

Her tense muscles instantly relax in my hold, my words like a comfort blanket wrapped around her heart.

“I don’t care what you say. I love you more. There is no way you could love me as much as I love you,” she whispers, slapping my chest and pretending that her tears aren’t threatening to come out.

I don’t refute her or antagonize her by saying that shit is very unlikely.

I let her believe what she wants to believe because the truth of the matter is, no one in history has loved a woman as much as I love my Roe.

Our love story might not have started off pretty—Fuck. Who am I kidding—it started off like it was right out of a horror novel, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t transform into something beautiful.

To imagine that I wanted to kill the one person who brought such life back into my very drab existence is inconceivable to me now. My world was dark and grey when she flipped it on its head. She gave it color. She breathed life into it. There was life before Rowen and after Rowen. And I thank my lucky stars every day that I got to be a part of her after, too.

For all our talks of good and evil that we’ve had over the years, one thing is clear—without The Scourge, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with my soulmate. I would have probably pushed her off Grove Bridge, or maybe she would have gained the courage to jump, and what a tragedy that would have been.

What a waste of two lives that were always meant to find each other.

“Hey, hey, where did you go?” she asks worriedly, immediately sensing where my head is at. “No. No. Look at me, Elias” she coos, cupping my face in between her palms. “I’m here. You’re here. We are both here. Together. Always and forever.”

With my eyes closed I nod, not wanting to ruin today’s plans with my own trauma.

That’s the other thing no one explains to you. When you go through something like we did, it scars you. It scars you’re very soul. Too many times has my sweet wife had to remind me that we are alive and safe, at the most inopportune moments. Rowen’s trauma manifests in nightmares, screaming bloody murder, her body still shaking after I’ve managed to wake her up from it. Of course, once I’m able to settle her down, I fuck her long and hard for hours on end, making sure that all that negative energy is replaced with our love. I only relent after she’s too exhausted to even move, knowing that is the only way the nightmares don’t return.

We might give money to places like this, but we can never commit ourselves to them. Though we know we need it, therapy is just a luxury we can’t risk taking. I mean they’d lock us both up for good and throw away the key with half of the shit that keeps us up at night.

Still, there have been those who seemed to have worked around it.

“ Mr. Scott. Mrs. Scott. I can take you out into the backyard lawn now,” Anton announces, alerting us to his presence.

“Are you good?” Roe whispers.

“As long as I have you, I’m always good.”

“Sweet talker,” she teases before kissing my lips again, just to ensure I’m okay.

“Is everything alright?” Anton asks concerned.

“Everything is perfect,” Rowen says a bit too exaggeratedly. “My husband suffers from low blood sugar. I was wondering while we peruse the lawn, is it possible they you could get him an orange juice?” She bats her eyelashes at him.

“No pulp,” I add.

“Well… I…” he stammers, since he’s the big man around here, and such errands are usually done by lower-level staff. But he’s savvy enough to realize if he wants my half a million dollars than he’s going to have to work for it. “Yes, alright,” he finally concedes “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.” She pats his arm before hooking hers around mine and strolling into the lawn.

When we go outside, the view is absolutely breathtaking. Mountains as far as the eye can see, with a clear blue sky above us.

“This place is giving me ‘The Sound of Music’ vibes. You know when the nun is singing on the mountaintop? Yeah. That’s what this looks like,” Rowen says, completely in awe of her surroundings.

“None of what you just said rings a bell.”

“You’ve never seen ‘The Sound of Music’?”

“Does it have car chases and guns?”

“Kind of, though it’s mostly based on the Second World War in Austria. It’s a musical.”

“A musical with a nun? Pass.”

“You’re such a guy,” she teases.

“And you, dear wife, are stalling again.”

“Damn it,” she curses under her breath, hating that I know her so well.

“You can do this, baby. I got you, remember?” I reassure as we walk through the large lawn, watching people paint on canvases and scribble on notebooks.

She chews on her bottom lip before shaking her nerves away and scouring every face here.

It wasn’t always like this.

In the beginning, she wasn’t afraid to get her hopes up anytime we came to a place like this.

She would say, ‘This is the one. I can feel it,’ but her heart would break every time it wasn’t.

However, this place is different. I did all the research with her and even went on a few dubious dark web sites just to be sure the clues were all adding up, and all roads led to Austria.

This has to be the place.

But like always, after a few dozen people that she meets, sorrow and disappointment start to mar her beautiful face.

“This isn’t it,” she says after a while.

“Be patient, sweetheart. Look,” I point out to a few people who are just sitting on park benches below a tree. “There. Look. You can’t leave until you at least try and talk to them.”

“Elias—”

“For me. Do this for me. Please.”

She concedes because her beautiful heart could never deny me anything. We cross through the large lawn and go to an oak tree that stands proudly at the side. Rowen circles the tree, her hand behind her back as she smiles to the patients that are staring into the void. And that’s when it hits me. These must be the patients that have lost touch with reality, their bodies prisoners of their minds.

Shit.

But just as I walk behind her to pull her away, I see my wife on her knees in front of a woman with long chestnut hair and a few gray streaks.

“Hi,” my sweet girl greets, placing her palms on the catatonic woman before her. I rush to her side, placing a protective hand on her shoulder as Rowen’s eyes begin to well up. “Hi, mom.”

It’s like I’m looking at my wife thirty years from now. But while my Roe will still have life sparkling in her eyes, her mom does not.

“Mom,” she tries again… softer, gentler. “I can’t believe it’s really you. That I finally found you.”

Still no response.

Watching tears stream down Roe’s cheeks as she holds out for hope is fucking breaking my heart.

“I know that wherever you are, it’s hard. It’s so hard, isn’t it, mom? But I’m here now. I’m here. And I promise I’ll take care of you.” she vows passionately. “I don’t blame you for leaving. I know you couldn’t have come back to Blackwater Falls after everything you had been through. I know you left a different person. I know that, because the same thing happened to me. I’m not the same, either. But while you were alone out there, I had Elias,” she sobs, looking at me like I’m her savior when in fact, she is mine. “We had each other. Our love kept us sane when the ugliness of this world wanted to break us. So, I understand why you couldn’t come home then. But now you can, mom. You can. we’ll be your home, if you let us.”

When Sarah doesn’t so much as blink, I fear that maybe we’ve come too late. That her mind is too shattered by The Scourge to ever be put back together again.

“Baby, maybe that’s enough for one day.”

“But—”

“We found her. That’s a win, Roe. We spent years trying to accomplish this and here we are. We found your mom. That’s reason enough to celebrate. The rest will come with time. Be patient, my love.”

Rowen’s gaze bounces off me and her mother, stuck between wanting to take her mother home with us and knowing that this is the best place she could leave her in, in order to receive the care that she so desperately needs.

“Tomorrow is a new day, sweetheart. We can come and visit her again tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she nods throwing her mother another loving glance. “I’ll come back tomorrow, mom. And the day after that. And the day after that. I won’t leave you. I promise. I love you, mom.”

She then leans down and presses a kiss on each of her mother’s hands before standing back up.

But just as we are about to leave, Sarah doesn’t let go of Rowen’s hands, holding onto them to her so fiercely, as if afraid my Roe might vanish.

“Elias,” Roe sobs, her tears now freefalling, as her mother keeps her hold onto her hands, a single tear falling down Sarah’s cheek.

“I see it, baby. I see it,” I say, wiping my own tears from my eyes.

It’s a start.

It’s a damn good fucking start.

Because that’s the thing with nightmares and other horrors.

Sooner or later, they all must come to an end and surrender to something far stronger than they could ever be—hope.

The End