Chapter 5 A Sin-Blackened Soul
A SIN-BLACKENED SOUL
JAKOB
That's it?
That is what all the fuss is about? Holding hands?
My impulse is to snort at her, but one look at her face tells me that for her this is no laughing matter. She's gnawing on the corner of her lower lip and glancing at me sideways, assessing my reaction, waiting for it, nervous for it.
I honestly assess myself—it's an interesting idea.
And that's when it occurs to me: I've never in my life just…
held someone's hand. Touch has always come with a purpose.
Never just because. Never just for comfort or pleasure.
I don't mean ill intent or always out of manipulation, but…
for a reason. To accomplish something, to communicate something.
This woman, though. She draws things from me. Elicits reactions I didn't know I possessed, elicits feelings I didn't know I was capable of. I say things I shouldn't, find myself feeling things I didn't think I could feel.
All sorts of weird feelings keep cropping up in the atrophied remains of my sin-blackened soul—nascent seedlings of hope, tiny green shoots of tenderness, fragile sprouts of protectiveness.
All of them regarding her.
There's tension in her brow, written in the furrows and carved in the lines. Worry eats her.
"This means something to you," I murmur. "The hand holding."
She nods, but otherwise doesn't reply.
"Why?"
"I answered your question. It's my turn again."
We're finally crossing the bridge—albeit in fits and starts, like glugging molasses. "Alright," I say. "What's your question?"
"Why did you kiss me?" She looks at me, her expression too complicated to read. "In the alley, after you plowed into me and then used me as a human shield."
Irritation rifles through me. "I did not use you as a human shield, Brys."
"Close enough, and you know what I mean." She holds my gaze, hers unwavering and clear—but full of emotions in a chaos of conflict. "Why did you kiss me?"
There is no option but the truth. "I wish I knew," I speak over her protest. "It's the truth.
I didn't plan it, didn't intend it. I just…
you were—" my utter inability to articulate any manner of logical explanation irks me to the point that I bite down on my stammering, my teeth clicking together audibly.
"I was what, Jakob? You're an educated, articulate man. Surely you can explain yourself."
"You kissed me back," I point out. "Thoroughly."
She acts offended. "I did not. And that was not a thorough kiss. Wasn't even a top ten."
My lips curve into a facsimile of a grin. "Is that so?" My voice is a predatory purr. "Noted."
"That wasn't a challenge!" she protests. “You don't have to prove me wrong."
"I had to," I say after a moment; it's the god's honest truth, too. "I had to kiss you. I didn't have a choice."
"I don't know what that means," she says.
I frown at her. "You've never felt that way?"
"I have never felt the urge to shove my tongue down a stranger's throat, no."
"I don't believe you," I say. "You have. You may not have ever acted on it, but you've felt it."
We're stopped again, three-quarters of the way across the bridge; I feel antsy, feel the unsettling prickle of being watched, even though I know we've lost our pursuers for the moment.
She's looking at me, staring at me hard, her unique, intense eyes piercing mine. "Absolutely not."
With traffic halted, I put the car in park and turn to face her. The lie is written all over her face. "You're a bad liar, Brys."
"Fine—I've had the impulse. And no, I've never acted on it. Because I'm an adult with impulse control."
"In almost every aspect of my life, I possess an iron will." I roll a shoulder. "Kissing you like that was extremely out of character."
"Kissing you back was extremely out of character for me, as well," she says. "I don't even really like kissing all that much, for the most part."
This makes me pull a face. "You don't?"
She shrugs. "No, not really. It's…wet, and weird. It's awkward. My nose gets in the way, and I don’t know what to do with my tongue, and it feels weird when someone tries to French kiss me." A sigh, a shake of her head. "I don't know. I just…I don't know."
"Felt to me like you liked it just fine."
Her cheeks turn red. "It was okay."
Moving slowly and deliberately, I reach out and take her hand.
I'm not sure why. Just like when I kissed her, she resists at first, stiff and tense and unyielding.
And then, gradually, by degrees, the stiff tension in her hand ebbs, slackens.
Her blue-green-brown eyes search mine, flicking and sliding this way and that, hunting, darting, intense.
"Why?" She breathes. "Why mock me like this? I answered the question honestly."
"Mock you?" I echo, frowning. "Who's mocking?"
"Then why?"
"I'm curious," I answer—truthfully, I realize. "I've never held hands before."
Brys snorts. "Oh, bullshit. Everyone holds hands. My first 'boyfriend', and heavy quotes on the term boyfriend there, all we ever did was hold hands. Granted, we were twelve at the time, and it felt pretty daring."
I shake my head. "I never experienced that."
"What, were you super sheltered or something? One of those 'no touching girls till marriage' situations?"
I lick my lips, put the shifter into Drive, and follow traffic forward once more; we are still holding hands.
"My upbringing was…nontraditional, at best. And whatever childhood I may have had came to what one might accurately call a rather abrupt halt.
I was not a child at the time, technically, but…
" I trail off, the rest lodged somewhere between my esophagus and stomach.
Isabel is the only one I have ever told the whole story to, and I just do not know how to put the story out into the world again, how to trust anyone else with the truth.
With the sordid reality of who I am—who I've been, perhaps more accurately.
I'm losing my sense of self, somehow, lately.
If I'm not Caleb Indigo anymore, and I’m not sure who Jakob Kasparek is anymore, then who am I?
Brys stares at me for a moment, then frowns when it becomes clear I'm not offering any further information. "You really aren't going to say anymore?"
I rub my forehead with a fore knuckle. "Sorry, but I'm not exactly raring to divulge my whole life's story to someone I just met."
She wrinkles her nose. "I suppose I can sympathize with that a little.
I don't go around telling people all my secrets on the first date either.
" She winces, eyes widening and darting to me, then away.
"Not that this is a date, or anything like it.
I just…" She sighs. "Never mind. I'm shutting up before I eat my whole entire foot. "
I chuckle. "I know what you meant."
"You're still holding my hand," she points out.
"No, you're still holding my hand." I smirk at her as I say this.
No snarky comeback, just silence. But she also doesn't let go of my hand, and neither do I.
And so we cross the bridge and begin the trek across the outer boroughs in a strange silence—not awkward, entirely, but not easy exactly or companionable either.
It's a unique silence, one I've never experienced before.
I am comfortable with silences of all kinds.
I use them to great effect in interviews, negotiations, and interactions. But this is…different.
I tend to wield silence like a weapon, or perhaps merely a tool.
Silence can be a device for eliciting a desired response.
It's basic psychology. But with Brys, it's a silence without intent.
We are each laden with things to say, but aren't saying them.
Yet despite the weight of all the unsaid things, it's bizarrely easy to say nothing.
To simply sit beside her and ruminate on all the things I've never told anyone, not Isabel, not Inez—sorry, Sophia—not anyone.
It's bizarrely easy to just hold her hand and weave my way through the Bronx northward toward Yonkers, leaving behind the glass and concrete jungle of Manhattan.
It's not silence with a purpose; it's just… silence.
At some point, I realize the silence is because she's fallen asleep.
Yonkers. White Plains. Sleepy Hollow. Ossining. Peekskill. Barely an hour outside the city, but it feels like a different world. For all the years I spent in NYC, I rarely ventured beyond the confines of the five boroughs.
I don't have a destination in mind. I'm just getting out of New York, away from the crowds and surveillance. Out here, I can spot a tail—so far, so good.
I do need a change of clothes—these are crusty and stiff with blood; we also need to switch vehicles. And I need a fucking nap.
I know we're not off scot-free—whatever the hell that means—but we've bought some time to come up with a plan, at least.
For now, I keep driving north. It's not until a construction detour takes us westward that I realize where I'm taking us: Rochester. Pugli's last known location.
Beside me, Brys continues to sleep, mouth slightly ajar, head tipped against the window, one hand curled beneath her chin.
Her eyelashes are thick and dark, swept against her cheeks.
Her lips are plump and pink—she took her makeup off, and is all the more beautiful for it.
She was a sophisticated bombshell when I ran into her—wrapped in an expensive dress, wearing unutterably rare and expensive shoes, carrying an equally unutterably rare and expensive handbag, hair done just so, makeup perfect—smoky eyes, dramatic red lips, delicate, skillful contouring.
Breathtaking. A sleek, lovely, elegant New Yorker through and through.