He lets me go. I move away from him. But I don’t run to the exit. There’s no point. He’s right. Where would I go? Besides I’m outnumbered. Not to mention they have guns.
“Matthaeus,” the one claiming to be Dante says as I sink onto the floor and hug my legs. I close my eyes, hide my face in my knees and think about the song Flora taught me. It helps a little at least. If I can see the words and hear her sing the song. I just have to see the words and listen for her voice.
“Mara.” Dante’s voice sounds urgent. He’s close but I don’t open my eyes. Not even when I feel his big hand cup the back of my head. He’s gentle. But some pretend to be gentle and those are the ones you really have to watch out for. They’re the ones who hurt you the most.
“Here.” Another man says. I still don’t open my eyes.
“Just a pinch, Mara. It’ll help relax you and when you wake up, I’ll be there with you,” he says as the hand that was cupping my head pushes it slightly to the side.
I register his words then. They creep in along the edges of the song, and I realize what he means. What he’s going to do.
The pinch. An injection.
The one that makes sure I don’t fight.
My eyelids fly open, but when I try to push my head back and get away, his grip tightens and a moment later, I feel the prick of the needle and I know it’s over. I’m done for.
3
Dante
Her body relaxes, arms falling away. I wrap her in my arms as she slouches. I stand. She weighs nothing. Like a little bird. A broken little bird.
Dried blood smears her face. Her lips are parted just slightly, hair hanging over my arm. It’s long and needs to be washed. Golden strands are crusted with the blood of the asshole I killed in that bedroom. One of her arms rests on her stomach and the other hangs limp.
“Shit,” I mutter.
“You had no choice. It’s better if she sleeps anyway, given what we need to do. When she wakes up, she’ll see she’s safe,” Matthaeus says. He’s been with me for the last five years. Cristiano hired him as a bodyguard when I couldn’t defend myself and he’s become a friend. Someone I trust.
“I don’t think it’s going to be as simple as that,” I tell him.
“When is anything simple?” he asks. Never when it comes to me, I think. “But you have her back. Get her settled then I need to look at your arm.”
“It’s nothing. The bullet grazed me. Idiots have bad aim.”
“Still.”
“Fine. After.” Matthaeus has some medical training which, given what we do, is a good thing.
The men start the music again, but it’s not as loud. I carry her into the back bedroom. My room. It’s the quietest and the most comfortable. Matthaeus lives here too, and the men have rooms when they need them. It’s our base in the northeast. My uncle used to own the building. I should burn it down, except that I like this one.
But wait. No. He’s not my uncle. I have to get used to calling him dad.
A feeling of disgust turns my stomach at the memory of Uncle David. The only image I can ever conjure up anymore is that of him sitting at the desk in that hotel room. His hands pinned to it with a steak knife and a letter opener, head blown half off.
I did that.
Patricide.
Although does it count as that if you hadn’t really processed that the man you killed was your father, not your uncle? That he’d been lying to you all your life.
That he’d raped your mother.
Which explains some shit at least. Not that I can blame mom. She tried to love me. Maybe she even did.
Fuck.
My steps slow as I grit my teeth, steel my spine. I shove those thoughts aside. Now isn’t the time to wallow. I need to take care of her. She needs me. And I haven’t been there for the last fifteen years when she really needed me. I need to get my head out of my ass and be here for her.
I open the bedroom door and step in, closing it behind me. Inside is a large mattress set on crates with a heavy comforter. The makeshift bed is unmade. Instead of a nightstand I have a crate turned upside down but most of my shit is on the floor. A charger for my phone. A laptop. Another gun. Candles too. Sometimes the power goes out here.
The walls are bare brick, the beams exposed, and there’s a decent size bathroom attached. Instead of a dresser I have my clothes stacked on a table set against the far wall. Shoes underneath it. Two chairs, shoved against another wall beneath the huge windows, hold my books.
The furniture David had in here was very different. Top-quality custom-made shit. Just like in all the rest of his houses we had no idea he owned. Ever since the reading of his will, where he left me everything, I’ve celebrated my inheritances with a bonfire. I have one at each property I claim. First the furniture. Then, after I’ve looked through every possible place he could have hidden more information from my brother and I, the houses themselves. The two penthouses will be harder to set fire to, but I’ll figure it out.
I lay her down. She really does weigh nothing. Her head lolls to the side a little, but otherwise, she doesn’t move. God. I haven’t seen her in fifteen years, but I swear, out there, when her lip began to tremble and the dimple on her chin deepened, I glimpsed the girl she was. The little girl with the crush on her best friend’s big brother.
Cristiano used to laugh when she’d come to me for the slightest thing. When she and Lizzie fought over a toy or when she fell and hurt herself. She rarely went to her grandmother. Always came to me instead as if I were her hero.
But that was a long time ago. She doesn’t remember me. Not to mention the sight of me probably scares her half to death now. And I can’t blame her for forgetting. Some days I wish I could forget. Or at least I used to. Now, I make myself see it all again. Make myself remember. Because what happened, happened because of me and I owe it to them to remember.
I take my gun out of its holster and set it on the makeshift nightstand then think better of it and put it on the stack of books across the room. I put my dagger next to it.
I look her over, her small, bare feet pale against the dark bedding. She’s too thin, I can see it even with the dress on, her face gaunt. Even so, she’s beautiful. There’s no hiding that. And I remember how bright and blue her eyes were just moments ago. Full of life. Full of fire.
But I also remember how she crumpled after her attempt at an attack. How quickly she gave up.
With a shake of my head, I walk into the bathroom, switch on the lights, and run the tap. I scrub my hands and splash water on my face, studying myself in the mirror but only momentarily. I never look at myself longer than I need to. I pick up a washcloth and soak it with soapy water, then return to her.
I clean her face first. I can’t wash her hair until she’s awake but at least I can clean the dried blood off her cheek and lips. I take in her features, see how she’s developed. I notice her high cheekbones, wide forehead, eyebrows shades darker than her hair, lashes thick and black and impossibly long. Her lips are parted slightly, the top lip fuller than the bottom. She looks like a doll. An angel. Fucking beautiful. A sleeping angel who has woken up to a nightmare every fucking day for the last fifteen years of her life.
My mind returns to what they did to her. How they took the innocent girl and dirtied her. I swallow hard, almost choking on the lump in my throat. The green dress is stained with blood and dirt. At least the blood isn’t hers.