Chapter 17 - The Darkness in the Ravine
The screams from the woods did not last long.
Natalie had never spent a single night of her life outside the climate-controlled comfort of luxury penthouses, five-star resorts, and designer boutiques. She didn't know how to run on slick, root-tangled Vermont granite in designer boots.
Less than ten minutes after the K-9 unit was deployed, the handlers emerged from the tree line. Natalie was between two female troopers, handcuffed, her trench coat torn to ribbons by blackberry brambles, her face streaked with black mud and running mascara.
She wasn't screaming anymore. The manic grandiosity had evaporated, leaving behind a shivering, pathetic shell of a woman who was finally realizing that the world was not a stage built for her amusement.
As they walked her past the front steps toward the waiting patrol car, our eyes met.
I didn't yell at her. I didn't gloat. I didn't display a single flicker of triumph. To give Natalie anger was to give her significance; it was to acknowledge that she still had the power to wound me. Instead, I looked at her with pure, unadulterated indifference.
"Ellie," she whimpered, her teeth chattering from the damp cold. "Ellie, don't let them take me to maximum security. Please. Mom... tell Mom to call the governor. Dad has connections... Ellie..."
My father walked out onto the porch, standing beside me, wrapping a heavy wool blanket around my mother’s trembling shoulders. He looked down at his youngest daughter—the child he had spoiled, forgiven, and bailed out a hundred times over.
"You have no connections here, Natalie," my father said, his voice thick with a father’s profound, final grief. "You made your choices. God help you, because I cannot."
Natalie stopped walking, her breath hitching in her chest as my father turned his back on her and walked back inside the warm house.
"Ellie!" she screamed, the desperation finally boiling over into pure terror as the troopers guided her into the cruiser. "You stole my life! You stole my baby! You stole my future!"
"No, Natalie," I said quietly, though she could no longer hear me through the reinforced glass. "You gave it all away for fifteen minutes of attention at my anniversary party. And you will spend the next fifteen years remembering every single second of it."
The patrol car pulled away, its red taillights disappearing down the winding driveway into the thick autumn fog.
Julian walked back up the porch steps, wiping a smear of road mud from his sleeve with a linen handkerchief. He looked at me, his sharp features softening as his eyes searched my face for any sign of fracture.
"Are you alright?" he asked gently.
I looked at the porch, where the gasoline smell was already being washed away by a cold, sudden autumn rain beginning to fall from the midnight sky. The rain beat against the wooden planks, scouring the dirt, washing the residue of Eric and Natalie down into the soil where it could never poison us again.
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"I'm more than alright," I said, reaching out to take his hand. His fingers closed tightly over mine, the platinum ring on my finger catching the faint interior light. "Let's go inside. The cider is getting cold."
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