I’ve gotten good at suppressing memories, but the one I’ll never forget is the feeling of wanting to wash everything away, to be clean again. After months of torture, being pushed far beyond human limits—I didn’t want food, I didn’t want water.
I wanted to feel clean.
The funny thing is, I can’t even remember what it was like taking that first shower, having those first normal moments of being back. The early months all blend into each other, a gray swirl of darkness in my mind.
The kitchen door swings open, and I catch Hale’s reflection in the darkened window above the sink. My best friend knows more about what I went through in captivity than anyone else, but even he doesn’t know all of it. There are things no one will ever know.
He respects me enough not to coddle me though, and to allow me to do my job. I’m one of the best interrogators in the Novak Syndicate.
I’ve learned a lot about torture in my life.
“You want a drink?” Hale offers. He’s got a bottle of whiskey in his hand.
I turn off the sink, looking out the window. We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere; mountains tower over the house on the west side, capped with snow. It’s still early in the evening, but it’s completely dark, the full moon not yet fully risen behind the mountains.
Grace…
Hale is standing close enough to me that I catch her scent. I frown, confused. When I turn to look at him, nothing about him appears different, but he…
Hale smells like Grace.
It’s an intoxicating scent, even when it’s dulled on his skin—jasmine and sandalwood, something exotic. Something her. It seeped into my nostrils, implanted in my brain while I was stitching her up. A smell you could become a slave for.
Why does he smell like Grace?
My eyes narrow as I watch him take a drink, a knot forming in my chest. I’m not sure if I want to know why he smells like our prisoner or how that came to be, but I don’t like it.
“You all right?” Hale raises an eyebrow, cocking his head at me. “Ciro?”
“Yeah… I’m fine.” I take the bottle from his hand and down a quick shot. The warmth of the drink steadies me, but I’m careful to set it aside. There was a time when drinking was an escape for me, after everything happened. I won’t go down that road again either. “The guy didn’t last long. Couldn’t get much from him.”
“How long are you going to wait to give him a second round?”
“Can’t.” I grimace, handing the bottle back to him. “After the injuries he sustained at the church, there wasn’t much left in him. I patched him up as best I could, but he didn’t last all that long. Didn’t talk to save his life either. Whoever he was, he was well trained in keeping his mouth shut.”
Hale makes a noise in his throat. “They were all well trained. At the church—that wasn’t just a group of bounty hunters or deadbeats thrown together for show. They were well armed, their positions well placed. That attack was planned, just like ours was.”
I had been thinking the same thing, and I know Zaid and Lucas have too.
“I’m sorry for not being able to break him sooner.” I shake my head, guilt rising up in me. I take my fucking job seriously, and I know I did everything I could to break the guy. But still…
“Not your fault, Ciro.” Hale holds up a hand, cutting off my self-recriminating train of thought before it can even get going. “I trust you. I know you did your best. We’ll figure it out another way. There are more where he came from, and not everyone in that church went down in the gunfire. Next time, we’ll get someone who’s not already a walking dead man.”
There’s a beat of silence, and I nod at my friend—the only person who’s never looked at me differently or treated me differently after my months of being held prisoner. He treats me how he always has, but he also knows when to push me to talk and when silence is what I need. Zaid and Lucas have slowly been able to figure me out again, but Hale is the only person who didn’t seem to have to re-learn how to interact with me.
But my mind still spins. Why do you smell like Grace?
“Well, I’ve got to go finish things up.” I push away from the counter.
By that, I mean I have a body to dispose of.
Leaving Hale in the kitchen, I make my way back down the stairs and into the interrogation room. Ignoring the heavy, unpleasant scents that linger in the air, I lean down and go through the man’s pockets.
I find a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, but that’s it. No identification or markings that could tell us more about where he’s from or who he works for. When I strip his body of his suit and check his tattoos, it’s the same story—nothing special to tell us who he belongs to. I toss his personal belongings aside and wrap him up in a sheet, slinging him over my shoulder.
I don’t walk far into the darkness to dispose of him—just far enough away from the house that it isn’t offensive. The cold and animals will eat away his flesh in only a few days, bones buried under layers of melted snow and ice. We’re too far away from civilization for any hiker or local to find him, and we won’t be staying here long anyway.
Besides, I doubt he’ll be reported missing to the cops.
My steps are lighter on the way back inside. The bite of cold air in my lungs clears out the lingering scent of death, and the darkness that surrounds me is comforting.
Even though it’s only eleven, I’m already tired, longing for my bed and a book. We all have our vices, our guilty pleasures. For Zaid and Lucas, it’s women. I’m not sure what Hale likes, but we all know he’s addicted to work. I just like to quietly enjoy a book without any interruptions, distract myself from the world around me.
But when I get upstairs, my feet turn without thinking toward the room Grace is in. I need to see her again, for reasons that are beyond me. I know we’re all curious about the girl we grew up with, but this isn’t just that. There’s something in me that burns to see her—that makes it impossible to do the rational thing and just shove her out of my brain like I do so many other thoughts.
No one stands guard outside the bedroom. I decide I don’t want to know what happened to Zaid, who was watching her earlier, or Hale, who was mysteriously followed by her scent. The door creaks as I push it open, taking a cautious glance in.
The room is dark, but my eyes adjust quickly, scanning her form on the bed. She’s asleep, lying still and quiet with her arms bent over her head. The ropes are still around her wrists, binding her to the bed and keeping her from escaping.
She must be tired as fuck to sleep that way. It’s an uncomfortable position that only lets you sleep when sheer exhaustion steals consciousness away.
I sit at the foot of the bed and look at her, wondering why she makes me feel the way she does.
It’s a strange sort of feeling, one I’m not going to try to work out. I don’t do that. I don’t examine my feelings. I bury them. But out of curiosity, I let this emotion linger for a little while, not knowing what to make of it.
It’s not attraction, though Grace is a very beautiful woman. She always has been. I used to watch the way she moved, the way she laughed, the lines and curves of her body—she’s always been effortlessly graceful, as if her name was chosen to match who she is on the inside. What she’s made of.