19. La Noir #2
“Edward works for Ara,” William said impatiently, with a purse to his lips like he resented being reminded of this earthly plane. “He’s involved in the philanthropic tedium.”
“Whereas we do the artistic tedium,” Atticus announced with a theatrical toast, a familiar performance of flamboyance to ease the tension in the room.
I could see, though, that he looked fearful and drawn, eyes never leaving the gun.
He looked twenty years older without the usual crowd of sycophants twerking in his radius.
This was never a party. But then again, we all knew that.
“Have a drink,” said William, gesturing to my glass as he sidled up to me. “We’re celebrating.”
I glanced at Fred, who took a sip from his own drink, what looked to be a whiskey, one finger hooked through the trigger loop of his gun.
The muscle around his jaw seemed to jump repeatedly with half-restrained rage, as if an unresolved disagreement still lingered in the courtyard, permeating the atmosphere like a thick and heady wind.
I thought of the voices I’d overheard before, how little they all thought of me, the way Jude was so sure that Teddy had done something violent to me purely by virtue of revealing the truth of my …
I shivered, clocking the smell again from William’s breath.
Blood.
“So what does the ritual involve, exactly?” I asked. “Let me guess. There’s some kind of torture involved.”
Fred shot to his feet, like he’d grown restless and tired of waiting. He’d begun to pace, or to prowl. He spun the gun around one finger, clumsily. It dropped and clattered to the ground, landing at his feet, near where I sat with William. Atticus jumped at the sound, but Emmanuelle did not.
William, meanwhile, kicked it away, toward Fred, like its presence did nothing to trouble him. He flicked his tongue over his teeth when he smiled, leaning into me as if I’d said something flirtatious, offered some coquettish remark. “It’s true that production can be a kind of torture, definitely.”
Fred had retrieved the gun from the ground and was spinning it again, presumably for my benefit, to remind me of my proximity to violence. How expendable I was, how valueless, how easily consumed.
Beside me, William was drinking so casually he almost seemed to be hitting his marks. Then his hand brushed over my spine, sending a chill up the notches of my vertebrae.
There’s a devil on your back.
I wish I could say that the epiphany was bodily, visceral. That too late, I finally thought: Maybe the monster wasn’t Jude. Maybe the monster had never been Jude.
But the truth is I knew this already, and on some level, I’d known it for some time.
I still didn’t grasp the nature of my involvement, but it is possible to intuit something you can’t yet understand.
As I glanced between William and Fred, I knew some things with certainty: I would not be going home, not if they had their way.
Left to their devices, I would not be leaving the villa alive.
Fortunately for me, I did feel I had one crucial thing at my disposal, which was the fact that I’d been miscast. I wasn’t soft-hearted and I certainly wasn’t virtuous. I wasn’t a heroine.
I was part of a pattern. But this time, I wanted to know why.
“Have a drink,” William said. Fred stood motionless nearby, the gun finally stilling in his hand.
William’s thumb paused at the nape of my neck, stroking the bone before coming around to curl below my jaw.
Another prayer, this time to the devil. If I fail—
The contents of the glass met my lips with an arctic burn, a slick chill descending my belly like a flood of desire, or rage.
A shock of wind enveloped me, the noose of my own making.
My vision blurred, my grip on reality knocked loose by the depths of my longing, by the nearness of my madness. By starlight and ocean tide.
William’s mouth on mine was a lifeless, brittle peal of mocking, more to prove a point than to take any pleasure from my supplication in his hands.
I felt myself fading into nothing, a slow but unignorable descent.
They would say that I asked for this, that I deserved it.
They would say the corruption had come from me, and no one could ever tell them they were wrong.
Goodness was inarguable, and I’d already long forsaken mine.
“—told you she’d be easy—”
“—knew there was something about the eyes—”
Gradually, the voices grew more distorted, distant.
“—didn’t I? took you so goddamn long—”
“—right under your nose—”
“—ld you just shut your fucking—”
But the old voice in my head was the most important. Built unfailingly into the code of what I was, it whispered something I needed no help to interpret.
Could I Survive It?
Blearily, Emmanuelle caught my eye. One finger lifted to her lips.
An old game, with so much practice, the question that defined me more than anything else I’d ever believed.
Transcendence, higher than what all other voices would or could say.
I knew this answer, yes. Safety was out.
Safety was up. No miraculous, life-saving pigeons materialized before me—so much for that escape hatch, Grandma. I would have to do this myself.
Hard to lift myself to my feet with all that churning in my stomach, bile coating my tongue, staggering upright, up, up,
—little lives, imperfect time—
“—’s he doing awake? Get Hodel—”
“—told you, fucking told you he couldn’t be trusted—”
“—et that thing out of my face—”
—this is a message, this is a haunting—
“Anya darling, go!”
Step into the darkness, into vastness, reach out for something and grab on.
Hold it tight, knuckles white. The horrors may have claimed their next victim, but I’d been heading toward a calling long before they came along.
A prayer, motion ebbing gradually away, a shiver in the sudden emptiness of cold, déjà vu,
“—forgot who you’re talking t—”
“—all this for some fucking—”
“—told you to shut your goddamn mouth—”
The echo of my longing could have only been called a monster.
—listen closely now, closely—
“Quiet, Anya. Quiet.”
—you can hear it on the wind.
Ocean eyes, a spectral tide. I found you. I came back for you.
The last thing I see before the stars blink out.