“Did you follow us here?” I asked her.

“Obviously,” she said as she rolled her eyes at me.

“Why?” I asked.

“Where are Adam and Rob?” Michael interrupted.

His tone was becoming more and more agitated. I turned and put my hand on his chest to try to calm him. I wanted to know where the guys were too, but if we angered Naomi further, she wasn’t going to tell us anything.

“Why did you follow us here?” I asked her. “I thought that you liked The Sanctuary.”

“It’s okay enough as far as institutions go, I suppose,” she said. “I’ve been in several, so I consider myself to be a good critic.”

“Then why did you leave it?” I asked as calmly as I could while I tried to keep my voice steady.

“How would you like to be in a cage?” she asked.

“Is that why you left? You felt like you were caged?” I asked. “Is that why you locked us in here? So that we would feel caged too and understand?”

“Oh no my dear,” Naomi said.

Her mouth twisted into a smile that cut straight through to my bones. It wasn’t a good smile, it was the creepy, contorted kind of smile that you would expect to see on the face of a crazed clown in a horror movie. “I have an entirely different reason for why I’ve locked you in there.”

And as I stared into her unrelenting eyes, clouded with hazy indifference, I knew I had to get out of there.

Even if it meant killing my aunt in the process.

12

I thought that I had been able to get through to my aunt. I thought that Naomi had become better. I guess I was wrong.

Michael was now standing so close to me that my back was pressed up against him and he had one arm wrapped tightly around my waist as he glared at Naomi.

“Aunt Naomi,” I said. “Please tell us why you are doing this.”

“I’m helping you, my dear. Your mother is gone now and I’m all that you have left. I understand what you want now, and I want to help you. You had the chance to kill me, or to cast me aside, and you didn’t. Instead, you chose to try and help me. At first, I was irritated beyond belief; I’m not going to lie about that. But then I realized that you are just like your mother, except you are all the best parts of her. So I decided that instead of trying to help you in the way that I thought you needed, I am going to help you in the way that you want.”

“What way?” I asked. I was quickly reaching the end of my patience too, just like Michael.

“You want love. And even though I disagree with that entirely and would prefer you to steer clear of men and their untrustworthy ways; if that is what you truly want, then that is what I will help you with.”

“I don’t understand,” I said to her. “I don’t need any help with love. I don’t understand what it is that you’re trying to do for me.”

“I’m helping you to be happy.” Naomi waved her hand toward Michael who had protectively not moved from my side. “This is the boy you’ve chosen. Anyone with eyes and ears in that house can see it. You want to be with Michael after you’re done with all the rest. Isn’t that correct?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to step carefully since I didn’t really know where her questions were leading me.

“Those other boys are just extra distractions. One boy is bad enough, but three? Really now, Lisette, three?”

“What are you saying?” Michael asked.

“I’m saying that I am eliminating the two extra boys so that Lisette can be happy. That should make you happy too, I would assume, since you’re the chosen one.”

“Eliminating?” I asked with a growing sense of panic and dread. “What do you mean you’re eliminating them? Where are Rob and Adam?”

“Gone,” she said.

The look on Naomi’s face seemed as if she was almost proud of herself and as if she expected me to be proud of her too. She stood there smiling and waited for me to give her some sort of thanks.

But, as I became shell-shocked, Michael’s voice started growling. “When I get out of this greenhouse, I’m going to—”

“Careful,” Naomi warned as she interrupted Michael’s threatening growl. “You’re on my good side for the moment, simply because my niece is in love with you. But that still doesn’t hold a lot of water with me, so don’t give me a reason to eliminate you too.”

“But I love all three of them,” I pleaded with her. “Please let Adam and Rob go, or tell us where they are and let us out of here.”

“No,” she said. “You’re just being ridiculous now. No one can love three men. It’s sick enough to love one. I’ll let you have one source of perversion, simply because none of us are perfect. This is your chance at everything that you’ve wanted, and I offer it to you as my gesture of goodwill and peace between the two of us, Lisette. You can have the man you love, and that sanctuary to fulfill your mother’s wish, and you and I can be friends. The rest of the extra stuff needs to be trimmed away. I don’t even want the money anymore. This is a chance for both of us to finally be happy.”

Naomi was mentally unhinged. She honestly thought that she was helping me, and that by getting rid of Adam and Rob, I would be happy and we could be friends. She saw the drama at the house between the three men and me, the jealousy, the push and pull of a love triangle that was sometimes perfect and sometimes torture. She thought that she could “fix” it by getting rid of them. She was sick, and it wasn’t even her fault. I realized that the only thing I could do to save us now, and hopefully not be too late to save Adam and Rob, was to get out of this greenhouse. And there was only one way that I knew how to attempt that.

I loosened Michael’s grip from around my waist and pulled away from him so that I could walk toward the front of the greenhouse.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

“Do you trust me?” I turned and whispered back.

“Always.”

“Then be ready.”

He didn’t know what he was supposed to be ready for, but Michael was good about acting and thinking on the spot under pressure. He stayed behind me at a careful distance so that he could still reach out for me if needed, and I walked toward the locked glass door to talk with my aunt.

“You’re right,” I said to her. “Thank you.”

Even though she had wanted a show of gratitude and understanding from me, she was completely taken aback and suspicious of me when I said it. I could tell by her furrowed brow that she didn’t quite believe that I was being sincere and wondered what I was playing at.

“I am the happiest when I am just with Michael, like we were tonight. I get so torn and indecisive when there are too many men around. I can’t seem to pull away from Rob and Adam myself, but now that you have pulled them away for me; I can see that you are right. I do want to be happy with just Michael, and to run The Sanctuary, and to be friends with you. You are my last living family member. But I still don’t want Adam and Rob to be hurt. They’re not bad people, despite them being men.”

I was really hopeful that my words would sound believable and convincing. They didn’t sound that way to me, but then again, I knew that I was lying.

“Tell me that you didn’t kill them,” I asked as I braced myself for whatever answer she might have given.

“They’re not dead,” she said. “I didn’t even hurt them at all. I just put them away somewhere so they won’t be able to bother you or interfere anymore.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. They weren’t dead and they weren’t hurt. I believed her. She had no reason to lie about it because she was the one with all the power right now.

“Okay,” I said as I conceded to her delusions. “Then I accept and appreciate your help. What would you like to do when we get back to The Sanctuary tonight?”