Natalya #3
He gives her an apologetic smile and nods.
“Can you somehow manipulate this?” I ask him eagerly, but he just exhales as if he’s exhausted of his own thoughts.
“I don’t have that kind of power,” he says, his eyes still scanning the screen as if a solution might magically appear there.
“Who has it then,” I insist.
“The person who had that kind of power is probably lying in a morgue right now while someone tries to piece his skull back together.”
Oh.
Silence swallows us once again.
My heartbeat spikes as I roll up the sleeve of my shirt, turning away so no one notices what I’m doing. Then I look down at my forearm.
At the phone number Lucien wrote there with a marker while I was re-stitching his wound in the middle of the night. The numbers stare back at me like they’ve been waiting patiently for this exact moment.
I let the sleeve roll back down before turning back to my brother.
“So does that mean,” I begin slowly, and everyone’s gaze immediately shifts to me, “that Lucien would have that kind of power now?”
I’m met only with surprised stares. And then one very angry one. Kas stiffens, only his jaw moves, locking into place.
“Hm?” I raise my eyebrows innocently.
“Maybe,” he finally admits through clenched teeth.
“Well then,” I shrug lightly. “Kiara, give me your phone.”
I hold my hand out to her. She hesitates for a second, then places the phone into my palm.
Kasien, on the other hand, shoots up from his chair and grabs it before I can even touch it.
“So you know where he is the whole time?” He grits out.
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t feel like sharing that information?”
“Not really. It would’ve been funny if I broke him out of here first and then sent you his location after, no?” I say impishly.
When he doesn’t answer, I reach for the phone again, but the idiot lifts his arm high above his head like we’re twelve years old and playing keep-away, so I can’t reach it.
“Are you serious right now?”
“You’re not contacting him.”
“Oh give me a break already! He’s not that bad, and he’s not so different from you!”
“You’ll never see him again,” he snaps. “You’ll never hear him again and you’ll never even say his name out loud, understand?!”
“Lucien Lucien Lucien Lucien Lucien—”
“Fuck off, Natalya. I’m not letting you speak to him,” he shouts.
I close my eyes and exhale slowly, trying to swallow the creeping urge to punch him.
“You don’t know him,” I say, my face burning with fury.
“I do.”
“Not like I do,” I fire back. “Look at you. Look at Eric—he’s scared of you. But that’s because he doesn’t know you like I do.”
He drops his arm back down.
“He kept us all apart all these years,” he replies, his voice weaker now. “He kept you away, lying to you, manipulating you.”
“But I was still there of my own free will,” I retort.
“That’s what you think,” he insists, and that hits exactly the wrong nerve.
“Could you all stop telling me what I think or feel?” I snap, the words ripping out of me as I shove his chest so the message lands where it’s supposed to. “I might be labeled as crazy, but here’s a fact—you all are!”
“Nat—”
“You left me for six years!” I shout over him. “So stop playing big brother now, okay?”
His gaze shamefully drops to the floor.
Then he suddenly thrusts the phone into my hand and turns away, kicking a chair across the room like some aggressive, frustrated child.
I run out of the tech room and lock myself in the bathroom. As soon as the lock clicks, my back slides down the door and I end up on the floor, staring at my forearm—at the number he gave me before I got him out.
I clutch the phone in my other hand, shaking too much to dial it.
He said he’ll be on this number. He said he has an apartment that no one knows about in the city.
When I finally gather the courage to dial the number and press the phone to my ear, I close my eyes and stop breathing.
Please be there. Please help me.
There’s the dial tone, once, twice… too long.
Even though my eyes are closed, I feel the pressure building behind them until they crack open and the tears finally spill out. And then, just when I’m sure the call will end in that final empty sound of an unreachable number, he picks up.
He doesn’t say anything at first.
A broken sob escapes me with a small, helpless whimper.
“Natalya,” he croaks out, his voice ragged. “Talk to me,” he says slowly, forcing every word out through the damage.
“Did you mean what you said last night?” I say quietly.
“Yes.”
My pulse speeds up violently. Even after everything, my body still can’t stop being afraid of him. It still remembers how cruel he could be, even if I was the one who lit the fuse.
“Can you prove it to me?” I ask confidently.
He’s quiet for a moment.
“I know what happened.”
A wave of indescribable relief washes through me, warm and overwhelming, like stepping into hot water after freezing for hours.
My head falls back against the bathroom door and a smile breaks through the tears.
“He did it. He killed your father and freed you,” I say firmly. “Now save him. Bring him back to me, and I’ll forgive you for everything.”
“Fine.”