Chapter 44
Davian
The Main Target
Forest Woodlands
The Guild of Ambience
Tony eagerly reloaded his rifle before aiming at the target in the distance, while I – with my arms crossed in front of my chest, leaning against a noble, carved wooden pillar – watched him and wondered why I was actually here.
He was the shooter, spending his time here every weekend – after the usual gentlemen's gatherings at the local golf club – when he wasn't roaming the hunting grounds of Maplecrest, sometimes with Joseph.
The moment he pulled the trigger and the shot rang out, birds immediately flew out of the oak trees surrounding the shooting range of the hunting club villa.
As always, I ignored the antlers hanging everywhere, just as I ignored the German sayings on the small brown wooden plaques, which I had learned to read and understand over the past twenty years.
It was Saturday, and I actually had student papers to grade and a debate to prepare for Monica and Quill, but it felt right to leave the house for a day, to put some distance between myself and Quill.
I was good at pretending to her that we were nothing more than friends, because that was all the rational part of my mind wanted. But the rest of me was willing to ruin us. Every second we were alone.
Something inside me was confident that I would get used to her presence, but every morning when she sat in our kitchen eating buttered toast, that feeling of pleasant familiarity nestled inside me.
Added to that were those moments when I was doing the dishes and my gaze would wander out the window to the garden, where Lara and Quill were playing with Streusel, and my eyes could rest undisturbed on her radiant smile, so full of life.
But the worst was when she read books. When she read Batteries of Ink...
God, I wanted to snatch it out of her hands, beg her not to smile every now and then before turning a page and jotting things down in her notebook as if she were analyzing the book.
What was she doing? Did she know something? Had Lara told her something?
Of course, I had asked my daughter, but she had sworn to keep it to herself. And that was how it should stay. It was enough that she wanted to get me to write and was literally pushing me to the brink of overcoming my reluctance.
This morning, I had brought Quill a desk into her room so she wouldn't have to write on her bed anymore. And where had I found her? On the damn floor, her feet in the air, trying to write with her left hand.
I had asked her if she couldn't possibly take a break from writing for two weeks, until the bandage was off and she could move her fingers again without pain.
Her answer?
“Every day without writing is a day without life.”
How had I lived the last few years?
The truth: I had merely survived.
And now I had met this woman who rubbed that fact in my face every day, making me crave writing more and more, so much so that I had already caught myself three times writing lines in my notes during seminars that had no business being there.
Eventually, I had told her that she now had a desk, for which she had thanked me – as she did for every little thing – not without mentioning that she always worked on the floor and liked to change positions while writing.
Until now, I cursed my imagination for what her choice of words had triggered in me.
Quill, lying on her stomach in her bed, while the rays of the setting sun explored her naked body.
Her legs bent, her slender back arched, accentuating the curve of her butt as she looked down, focused on her notebook, the end of one of my ballpoint pens between her slightly parted lips and her nipples lightly brushing the lower part of her paper.
All my life I had believed I was not easily aroused, but in her presence I felt trapped in the body of a far too young man.
Just bandaging her hand every evening pushed me to my limits as soon as my gaze happened to fall on her lips or my hand accidentally brushed against her arms and hands.
I made sure not to give in to the temptation of my own hands, forbade myself from touching myself, even once, which sometimes resulted in pain, but I had to push through it.
Whatever was going on inside my body whenever she got too close to me couldn't be fed.
And maybe this withdrawal was the only way to get used to her.
“When I find out who my sister is sleeping with, I'll finally be able to put all this training to use.”
Anthony's words, or rather the shot that followed, brutally dragged me back to the present.
He had asked me to come because he had wanted to talk urgently, probably about the issue that had been making him so tense while jogging over the last few days.
Now I knew what it was. And I wanted the ground to swallow me up.
The mere fact that I had touched her this summer and that he had entered the library a few minutes later was enough to make me press my lips together every time.
“Why do you think she's sleeping with someone?”
Pull yourself together and play the oblivious friend.
“Because she told me.” He reloaded the rifle hastily, his face tense. “And on top of that, she already did something like that at sixteen when her raven mother locked her out.”
When Quill had told me the details at the cemetery a few days ago, I had almost lost my composure.
For two years she had slept with complete strangers who had done God knows what to her.
I didn't even want to know, wanted her to forget, wanted her to get rid of that feeling of emptiness that sex seemed to trigger in her because she hadn't experienced it the way every woman deserves to.
That one took the time in the world with her while exploring her body, driving her to the brink of ecstasy with sheer tenderness before bringing her to the climax of her life.
I gritted my teeth until it hurt.
Who was I to even allow myself the right to think about her sex life, to judge, and to wish such things for her as if it were any of my business?
Ashamed, I stared into the void.
I wanted the best for her. But I wasn't the one who could give that to her, never would be.
If Tony hadn't come to the library that day, I could have become one of those men. And I wasn't proud of it. It ate away at me, made me wander around my bedroom at night like a pathetic stray.
“What is she thinking? That I'll tell Father and he'll regret something? As shitty as it is, that will only make him angrier.”
Was it concerned anger? Or anger that had something to do with the potential decline of his family's reputation?
The truth left me with a bitter aftertaste.
“She could have lied to you.”
Tony laughed and pulled the trigger, but when I checked the target through my binoculars, I only spotted one bullet hole. He must have missed.
“Why would she lie to her brother about something sick like that?”
“Maybe because she's mad that you brought her there.”
He raised an eyebrow and eyed me as he reloaded the rifle.
No. For his sake alone, I should never get close to Quill again.
“Did she talk to you about it? I mean...” He raised the rifle and aimed at the target again. “...I was wondering how she is with you anyway. Now that you’re kind of her mentor. Whether she plays the tough rebel or talks to you about Father.”
“We talk about the debates, and I assured her I will keep my mouth shut.”
That wasn't the whole truth, but it seemed to be enough to satisfy Tony.
“Are you actually planning on answering one of Father's calls or not avoiding him at work? He gets upset every night that Quill ruined your relationship with him.”
“He ruined it.”
Tony fired, hitting one of the middle rings this time.
“It doesn't even have anything to do with the two of you,” he sighed, obviously repressing an important detail whenever it came to his father. “He never treated you badly. God…” He laughed before reloading. “He loves you more than his own children.”
Something I never asked of him.
“He knew very well that I care about how people who are kind to me treat others. Especially their children.”
“He…”
“I’d like to end this conversation.”
Tony aimed at the target again.
“Fine, okay. Then at least help me find out where Quill lives.”
“Maybe you should relax.”
He jerked the rifle down, his gaze as twisted with rage as I had last seen it fourteen years ago when he had discovered that someone had stolen one of his weapons from his collection.
“I'm definitely not going to relax! Just imagine Lara sleeping her way through the neighborhood.”
My expression darkened.
I knew it was just a comparison, that Tony was like an uncle to her and that the two got along well, but did he have to say something like that?
“She's the same age as Quill. Still far too young for things like that.”
Except that Lara acted like an eighteen-year-old and, unlike Quill, hadn't had to grow up far too early.
“Did you know that the two of them have recently become friends?”
“Mm-hmm,” I replied, deliberately looking away, across the shooting range, to the long gray gravel driveway, where a black Mercedes with a silver star on the hood, all too familiar to me, was pulling into the parking lot, causing my mood to drop even further.
“Lara and I have been friends for much longer,” Tony grumbled. “And yet she's keeping quiet for my sister. I'm sure she knows where Quill sleeps.”
Fading Hours
Ahmet Kenan Bilgic, Turgut Mavuk
The man in black pants, a white shirt, and a black vest got out of the car, took off his aviator sunglasses, pulled the black case out of his car, and headed in our direction.
“What's he doing here?” I growled, unimpressed.
“He must have heard that I came here without Father.”
Of course Troy tucked his tail before Joseph.
“Rydell and Richter,” laughed the snobby jerk, who, outside campus, like every other rich person in this town, acted like he was better than everyone else.
Unlike Thadd?us Faber, he left his philistine side at home. But he was an asshole to people, especially women.