It’s been three months now, but I’d be lying if I said I was delighted with his progress. He tried to fight me at first when he woke up in the new storage room in the garage, found his hands and feet bound, and realized I wasn’t going to set him free. At one point he refused to eat or drink because he’d figured out I’d been giving him more clonazepam to keep him calm, but after almost three days without anything, he begged for water and I was happy to comply. Like I said, I don’t want to hurt him.

It took him a while to accept Lily was gone, but I assured him I was gentle when I laid her to rest close to Celine in a quiet corner of our grounds, where nobody will ever find them. Not as long as we live here, and I’ve already told him he’ll never leave.

In time, maybe I’ll let him move back into the house, but for now he’s comfortable in the double-insulated storage room, the little nest he helped build for himself. He still has to have his hands and feet tied, I can’t trust him enough yet, but the benzos make him relaxed and manageable. I had to increase the dose while I finished the work on the rooms in the garage, and I didn’t want to try to put him in the room below. Believe me, I’m not the devil.

The first thing I did was add a steel-reinforced door to the storage room and switch the hinges around to make sure Ash couldn’t get to them from the inside. Next I worked on the bathroom, sealing up the original door and thickening the walls with bricks, but not before I’d cut a different opening, giving Ash direct access from his room. After all, he has to be comfortable and able to use the facilities whenever he needs. The work was easy to do once he was passed out, although all this medication still makes him confused, but we’ll get there. Soon enough he’ll understand this is what’s best for him. I promised I’d be patient. We have all the time in the world. Nobody’s looking for him.