Chapter 27 Assassin’s Prerogative
ASSASSIN’S PREROGATIVE
In three days’ time, returning from my chores in the communal kitchen, I once again found Einar sitting on the bed with his face buried in his hands. The only thing that disrupted my sense of déjà vu was a glass of whiskey on the nightstand. Knowing him, that in itself was a very bad omen indeed.
“Finlay’s started getting ill, hasn’t he?” I enquired carefully, stopping near enough for him to be able to reach me, but without touching him myself.
I could smell the liquor’s sweetly pungent odour from where I stood, and my stomach turned unpleasantly.
Einar straightened up. His hard-set jaw was dark with stubble, and there were bags like bruises under his eyes.
The sun had almost set outside, and there were no candles lit in the room.
In the dim light, the uncombed strands of his hair seemed darker than his usual shades of ash and gold.
In response to my question, he just nodded wordlessly.
“It could still be a coincidence,” I said feebly. “ People do get sick this time of the year.”
Lips pursed to a thin line, he closed his eyes briefly with a frown and shook his head.
“Oh, Einar, I’m so—”
He stood up and took a step closer to me, but without taking me in his arms. He was crowding me, towering over me, a simple strategy I well recognised by then as one of his go-to intimidation techniques.
With a lurch of anger somewhere in the pit of my stomach, I resisted the impulse to back away, and I bore the razor-sharp scrutiny of his glacial eyes.
I didn’t have to wait long for him to tell me what it was he wanted from me.
“You’ll have to do it,” he said simply.
I figured out just what he meant by ‘it’ almost instantly.
“Einar, no! I can’t! Just think what it is you’re asking of me!”
I did retreat then, recoiling from him in horror until I was backed up against the wall. He approached me, entrapping me until my head swam with claustrophobia and dread.
“Someone needs to, and you’re the best person for it. You did it for Lucas, and you did it well.”
I was close to tears, and yet he didn’t touch me, only glared at me with indifference that was as effective as it was cruel.
“Not the same thing! Lucas was in agony!”
Ignoring my protests, he merely told me in a voice that ran like an icicle through me, “If you think that Finlay’s not, then you’re coming with me to see him right now. This is not a request you can refuse, Ren. I will carry you there by force if I have to.”
The windows were wide open, and it was freezing in the room, curtains swaying to and fro in the wind. Still, the sharp tang of vomit and faeces was perceptible in the air, and I tried my best not to look at the contents of the foul-smelling bucket.
It was dark, save for a candle on each nightstand, and when we first walked in, Finlay was nothing but a shape huddled by the radiator. Immediately, he lunged forward, though, as far as his chains would let him, and his face came into the light.
Gone was the conventionally handsome man. He was pale, his skin was slick with sweat, and his eyes were bloodshot to the point of appearing red.
“Hey, Fin,” I said gently. “How are—”
“Came to gloat as well, ’ave ye, ye cunt?!”
I froze. The impact of his words was akin to being slapped hard across the face.
“No ... I ...”
“Why else would ye come tae stare at me? Ye bitch, ye and that lavvy-heided wankstain who pretended tae be a friend of mein.”
“I didn’t pretend, Fin,” Einar said mildly, suggesting he knew there was no point in arguing.
“Come and unshackle me, then, ye dobber. Or would yer hoor prefer tae do it? I’d rather have her do it, that’s fer suire! Come close, ye clatty wee tart, set me free.”
The nimble candle flames danced in the wind. My hair flew madly around me. I kept trying to smooth it, grabbing at it with my hands to keep it still.
“And what would you do if she set you free, Fin?” Einar asked dispassionately.
“Well, well ... ye, ye bawface, I’d just throttle ye and snap yer neck for doing this tae me.
Ye ’ave no right to keep me ’ere, ye wee shite!
I’d kill ye and tear ye apart for it in a minute!
But her? Hee-hee.” He laughed nastily. “Och, I’d like that just fine, aye?
I never kent why ye alone got tae enjoy that feine arse.
Now it would be me turn. Oh, and I’d push her tae the ground and tear her clothes off and yank her hair so hard some of it would stay between me fingers.
I’d grab those perfect, big tits and crush them with me hands till blood spurted out of her nipples.
And then I’d fuck her hard in the cunt and the arse until she would bleed and cry and beg me tae stop.
And I would bite into that juicey arse and those milky tits until I would taste blood, until I would tear flesh oot . ..”
Finlay strained against his chains, as if to lunge at me.
The radiator creaked but held fast in the wall.
I felt frozen to the spot. Tears ran down my cheeks, my heart hammered in my chest, and my stomach was doing somersaults.
I noticed that Einar was looking at me, not at Finlay, and I wanted to claw his face for his fiendish yet transparent cunning.
“You’re not well, Fin! Can’t you see what’s happening to you?” I asked, voice shaking. “It’s freezing in here, but you’re sweating visibly. You’ve been throwing up and ... had diarrhoea. And the Finlay I know was always kind to me and would never say anything like this to me or anyone!”
He swung his hands madly, and the chains rattled. He snarled at me, teeth moist with saliva, bared in the gash of his mouth, red like blood in the whiteness of his face.
“Let’s chain ye like an animal and see if ye’re yerself, ye glaikit cunt.”
“Fin ...” A sob escaped me.
“Och, I havena finished yet. After being done with ye, and ye lying at my feet half passed out and bleeding, I’d grab yer hair and yank ye up and shove my cock deep in yer mouth. So deep I could choke ye with it—”
“That’s a stupid idea, Fin.” Rage suddenly erupted deep within my chest. “You’d regret that. You’re not the only one who can bite, you know?”
Both he and Einar laughed, albeit two very different kinds of laughs. I turned on my heel to walk out, but Einar grabbed me by my shoulders and held me fast as I struggled against him. All the while, Finlay continued yelling abuse at me, but I no longer paid attention to its content.
“Let me go right this minute,” I hissed at Einar. “I’ve seen enough.”
“Have you, though?”
“Let go of me.” I struggled, attempting to break free, rather like Finlay straining against his chains with impotent wrath. “Let me go or I swear I’ll ... yes, dammit, I’ve seen enough!”
He released me at last. I rushed out of the room with a bang of the door, pounded down the stairs, and sighed with relief as I reached the fresh air outside.
Then, without knowing I would do so, I collapsed on the ground, crying.
The asphalt was hard like ice, and I felt as if I were being swallowed by the dark, impenetrable as it was, without any artificial light to illuminate the streets.
“Get off the ground, Ren. You’ll catch a cold, sweetheart.”
Einar hoisted me up with ease. He made to embrace me, but I fought against him. After an entirely hopeless attempt to push him away, I pummelled his chest with my hands.
Then, in one unthinking moment, I slapped him across the face. Feebly and without conviction. The impact barely made a sound. I froze, not daring to move. My skin bloomed hotly with shame.
Einar made no move to retaliate and simply stood motionless, waiting for me to say or do something with a cocked eyebrow. There was no anger in his expression, nothing but mild impatience.
“I’m so sorry! I can’t believe I did that,” I stammered breathlessly.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“No, that was really unacceptable. I am so sorry ...”
The gash on his jaw had scabbed over, the dark red of the wound only faintly visible through the coarse hairs of his stubble. I laid my palm across it gently. Then I finally let him pull me close.
“It’s alright. You can slap me as many times as you want if you agree to do it.”
I groaned, but more from desperation than in mutiny.
“Why don’t you do it yourself?” I asked, making sure I didn’t sound combative.
Einar breathed in deeply and closed his eyes.
“What do you think, Ren? Because I can’t, that’s why. He is one of my oldest friends, after all.”
I shook my head, suppressing a bout of nausea.
“Then why does this feel like one of your sick power games?”
He exhaled sharply with annoyance but replied to me levelly: “I don’t know, Ren. Why does it feel like one of my sick power games?”
A fresh gust of freezing wind assaulted us, and I wrapped my arms around myself.
“Because I’m so used to you being able to cope with anything that it didn’t even occur to me you may have limits.”
Einar chuckled sardonically, as if to dispute my observations. It was the first time I had seen him smile in three days, and it was over before I knew it.
“It feels like you’re just testing me. To see how far I’ll go for you.” I met his gaze and held it firmly.
“And if I am?” he asked, his voice colder than the wind that continued to burn on my exposed skin. “Does that change anything?”
For a moment, I pondered his question in silence. The tip of my nose and my earlobes were numb, and I breathed into my hands to warm them up.
“It does,” I finally replied. “Because if I’m going to do it, I want to be clear on what I’m doing it for.”
He straightened up, his lower lip curling with admiration.
“And are you going to do it?”
“For you? Yes. But let’s not pretend that it’s for Finlay.”
Later that night, I disentangled myself from the covers of our bed and Einar’s embrace.
I wore nothing but his T-shirt, and my teeth began to chatter immediately.
It was a full moon, and we hadn’t pulled the curtains, so luckily it wasn’t completely dark in the room.
I put my trousers on, not bothering with socks or underwear.
I tied my hair. Then I picked up my bow and the one quiver of arrows I always kept nearby.
Scarcely breathing, I walked carefully on my tiptoes, willing the floor not to creak beneath me.
Crossing the street as if in a daze, almost unsure whether I was awake or dreaming, I soon found myself unlocking the door to the room where Fin was confined.
I closed it behind me carefully. Thankfully, the hotel had clearly been refurbished in the not-too-distant past, and the door jambs were well oiled and silent.
The curtains were also pulled there, which meant I wouldn’t need to light the candle I had brought.
Finlay was asleep but twitched and jerked restlessly as if he were having a nightmare.
I nocked an arrow. I couldn’t pause, I couldn’t hesitate, or else I wouldn’t have been able to go through with it. I aimed, straightening.
Finlay’s eyes opened. Nothing but a brief look of surprise registered on his face, barely perceptible in the dim light.
Knowing I was seconds away from his screams of protest, I released the arrow, focusing only on the movement of my fingers. On the physical act of letting the arrow fly and nothing more. The strings’ vibration ran through me, reverberated from my fingertips, spreading through my whole body.
The tentative silence lasted precisely until the first choked sob clawed its way out of my throat.