42 Stand by for Visitor #2
An ember of the body’s cruelest emotion sparked in her chest’s center.
Who would be visiting her? During her first awful days in the prison, she’d been delusional enough to believe Spie might come.
Or even Nix. But with the passage of each silent, lonely day, Temmi’s fledging hope had crashed to the cold earth.
Of course Spie wouldn’t come. They weren’t anything to each other, not really.
A handful of stolen, secret moments over the course of a few weeks meant nothing.
If Temmi’s father could leave her mother after ten years and two children, then why would Temmi ever expect Spie Expani to fight for her after one month and a triple murder conviction?
Spie would turn her back on Temmi as easily as everyone else always had. And the sad part was Temmi couldn’t even be angry about it. This was the inevitable turn that love always took.
“ Stand by for visitor, inmate 844591. Place hands and feet in wall re straints .”
Her cot squeaked in protest as she heaved herself to her feet. Despite having definitely lost weight from a complete lack of appetite the last two weeks, her body felt heavier, denser. Every step and movement seemingly took twice the effort.
As though sensing her proximity, the dangling intestine-like restraints wriggled to life. When she reached them, the meshy ends snaked around her ankles and wrists, binding tight enough to hurt. She was left with about a foot of space to maneuver herself to face the front of her cell.
Kalvin stood in the corridor on the opposite side of the glass. He wore an immaculate black-and-white suit, his hands clasped primly behind his back, as though he were overseeing a routine scene on the manor’s set and not visiting a prison inmate.
A gut-punch of mixed emotions tore through Temmi’s core. Her throat closed up. Her arms trembled in their restraints. She hadn’t actually believed Spie would come, so why was she still hoping? Why desire the impossible?
A loud series of clicks and a distinct whoosh preceded the opening of her cell door. But instead of swinging outward or inward, the front panel of glass simply vanished. Kalvin cleared his throat, glanced one way, the other, and stepped through.
“Ambassador Ialan.” His voice betrayed no emotion whatsoever, but his gaze flicked upward to where the red blinking lights of the cameras had disappeared. “Artemis.”
More clicks and another whoosh and the glass wall reappeared, sealing him inside.
“Come here to gawk?” Temmi spat. “You fucking asshole. How many times did you tell me to trust you? How many times did you tell me you’d keep me safe?”
Temmi tugged against her restraints. The mesh reacted by yanking her backward. She slammed sideways against the wall, shoulder first, head second. Her ears rang.
“Ow . ” She tried to stand fully upright, but her bonds had retracted, pinning her like a dead insect against the wall.
Apparently, one tug was all it took to lose the foot of freedom she’d been granted.
Funny how something so little as a foot of space could become a dream.
She twisted her neck to glare at Kalvin.
“Do I look safe to you? You know I didn’t kill those girls.
You know I’m innocent. But did you say anything in my defense? I fucking doubt it.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I’ve come to explain.
” He unclasped his hands and smoothed them down the front of his buttoned suitcoat.
“I believe you deserve far more—an apology, to begin with. But an apology without action is hollow. Therefore, an explanation is the most I have the power to afford you.”
“So you can sleep easier at night when I’m dead?”
“I stopped sleeping easy thirty years ago.”
Temmi’s neck ached from her contorted position. She grimaced. “Who killed them, really? Do you know? You must know.”
She’d thought about it incessantly these past two weeks.
Who was the real killer? It had to be someone with enough power to get the entire manor to turn on Temmi.
To falsify testimony. Her best guess was still Cailin.
But the motivation of killing off fellow contestants felt too weak.
Otherwise, why hadn’t she tried to kill Temmi?
No, it had to be someone else. Perhaps someone with a stake in taking down the reality show itself? But who? And why?
In two long strides, Kalvin closed the distance between them. His gaze burrowed into hers, and she thought she saw, for a moment, sorrow in his black eyes. But the moment didn’t last.
“I could be executed myself for what I’m about to tell you,” Kalvin said. “I only share it because I believe in letting a soul rest. And I hope, in some way, that this understanding will help yours in the life to come.”
“Didn’t know you were religious,” Temmi said.
Kalvin said, “The prince has an affliction. He wears gloves to protect others from accidentally encountering his bare skin.”
“But Nix and I kissed. More than once.”
“An anomaly. A rare immunity.”
“Oh okay, sure, Nix has murder-hands, yeah, that explains a lot. Thanks for absolutely nothing; can’t wait for how fucking peaceful my soul is gonna be after I dust-off tomorrow.”
“Let me rephrase. The prince has a genetic condition. He—and his sister—are not entirely human. But of the two, only His Highness bears the affliction. Your role in all this was decided before you ever set foot in the Diplomacy Manor. That of a scapegoat.”
You ever heard of the Midas touch? It’s an Old Terran myth.
Temmi’s memory dredged up that night with Nix in the manor’s observatory.
The way he’d removed his gloves as though his hands were a delicate instrument.
The starved sensation of his mouth on hers.
The horror on his face after he ended their kiss, the apology that fell from his lips, his inexplicable retreat.
Temmi stared, unblinking, at Kalvin. The rotors of her mind burned hot, grinding back through her memory of the show.
Reevaluating every interaction she’d had with Nix Expani, beginning with the moment he’d invited her to be cast as X72’s contestant.
A tremor overtook her restrained wrists, causing the intestine-like cables to lock her even more tightly against the cold wall.
Her neck twinged unbearably. Her lower back ached. Moisture pricked at her already-swollen eyes. But her physical discomforts paled in comparison to the dreadful sensation slamming through her: the hot, razor-sharp cleave of betrayal.
“You’re lying.” Had the restraints not been holding Temmi up, the weight of the revelations would’ve brought her to her knees. “Nix wouldn’t— We were friends— He liked me, he—”
But her mind was making sense of things that had never made sense. Hadn’t she just surmised that the killer could only be someone with power? And who had more power than one of the heirs themselves?
You called Spie a narcissist. I like you.
From the very beginning, Nix had lied to her. Every word out of his mouth, every kiss, every ounce of affection. Nothing in their friendship had been real. He’d used her, just like Scot.
The worst part was that even if she hadn’t returned Nix’s feelings in their exact shape and flavor, she’d actually trusted him. Had been willing to marry him.
She could no longer see through the tears running the gamut of her face. “You knew, didn’t you?” she said. “The whole time. You were never there to help me. Fucking nebulas, I’m such an idiot. I can’t believe I trusted you. I can’t believe I trusted Nix.”
Call me Temmi.
It’s Nicky.
“No,” Kalvin said simply. “I was never there to help you. But that doesn’t mean I don’t wish things could’ve gone differently.”
“Well, that means fuck-all now, doesn’t it?
” Temmi tried to blink away tears. They dripped to the glass floor.
“Why’d you do it? I thought—I thought you were like me once.
Just a kid from a fringe system who worked their ass off for a better life.
Or was that a lie too? How can you be okay with this? ”
“I never said I was okay with it—but I understand the necessity. I’ve known the emperor since before she was the emperor.
I’ve known her children since the day they were born.
I never had children of my own. They are as close as I’ll ever come.
Why’d I do it? Because it’s what Nix needed done.
Same reason why you came on Love Galaxy . Because it’s what your family needed.”
“Did Spie know?” Temmi whispered. She raised her neck as far as her restraints would permit.
“Did she—” Temmi could barely even think the words, let alone say them.
The truth might break her, but then again, she was already broken.
What did she care if the remaining pieces scattered?
“Did she pay me to come on to be her brother’s scapegoat? ”
Did she care for me, at all?
“No,” Kalvin said softly. And the word was like a life raft. “The princess never knew—has never known—what she and her brother are. Her agreement with you was an endeavor all her own. I never even told her mother about it.”
Temmi closed her eyes. “What are they, exactly? Nix and Spie.”
“Goodbye, Artemis,” Kalvin said.
She heard the faint echo of abruptly departing footsteps, followed by the click click click and whoosh announcing the glass door of her cell returning. When she reopened her eyes, he was gone.
The restraints around her wrists and ankles fell away.
The unexpected force of their retraction caused her to stumble, and she landed with a thud on her hands and knees.
She looked up. Her cot, only a few yards away, seemed impossibly far.
She couldn’t summon the strength or will to stand, to walk—even the idea of collapsing exhausted her.
So, she curled into a ball right there, wrapped her arms around her shins, and tucked her forehead against her knees.