She gives up on that position and lies on her back, same as I am now. My gun and knife are both on the bedside table beside me. While I am a deep sleeper, I don’t think she’d be able to get to them without me waking. She’d have to crawl across my body to do it. And I doubt she even wants to try. I can see the weariness etched into her profile. I remember the sound of her vomiting – not from illness, but from the violence of this night. She probably wishes all of this was over.
She probably wishes this night had never happened at all.
“Do you wish he wasn’t dead?”
The question surprises both of us, and Aurora turns her head to look at me. I don’t have a fucking clue why I’ve even bothered asking it. The Messina son of a bitch is dead as dead can be. What’s the use in talking about it now?
Between the snowy, muted daylight outside and the bedside lamp I haven’t yet turned off, Aurora’s eyes are so clear and vivid I find myself lost in them for a moment. That brilliant, silvery aqua, ringed by thick, pale lashes.
“I don’t wish for things,” she says with a quietness that somehow seems to hurt me.
She used to. She used to wish on all kinds of shit when we were kids. A fallen eyelash. A shooting star. A frangipani petal on the wind. Even something as mundane as a shell or rock that happened to catch her eye on the beach was worthy of wishing upon. She’d pick it up and hold it between her tightly clasped palms, like she was praying, her lovely face serene, her eyes shut.
I never asked her what she wished for. I probably wouldn’t have understood her anyway, nor her me. But I did learn the phrase from her that summer. The English words I wish.
“Why not?” Once again, I surprise even myself with the question.
Her voice falls to a whisper. “Because they never come true.”
I don’t like what she’s saying. I don’t like that she’s lived a life of disappointments, stacked up against each other like dominos, each one tipping the next and leading straight to the ruination of this night.
“One did,” I say. “One came true.”
Her brows pucker with confusion. I roll onto my side, fully facing her, our arms bound between us.
“You wished for a monster,” I tell her, the words grating with strange harshness in my ears. “You called me, Aurora. You called me. And I came.”
She takes a shaky breath.
“You would have come anyway,” she says. “You were already there. You had the clothes for me, the passport…”
I close my eyes and roll to my back again. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I don’t want to talk about the reason I was waiting like a wolf outside her goddamn door. Don’t want to talk about how I already had the knife. How I already planned to kill her new husband.
Don’t want to talk about why I was there in the first place.
Because, at this point, I don’t even fucking know. I thought I just couldn’t stand the thought of another man, especially an old fuck like Messina, having her for the rest of her life. But the true why of it, that deep burning in my bones that even killing men can’t fix when I think of losing her, is something even I don’t understand.
After a few minutes, I feel Aurora’s body relax. She thinks I’m asleep, and is no longer waiting for me to answer her. She’s still for a bit, then she starts wiggling. Subtle jostles meant not to wake me up.
I know what she’s doing at once.
“Don’t bother,” I tell her, freezing her with my words. “You can’t get the handcuff off without the key.”
“You don’t have to do this,” she says. “I really won’t do anything. I promise.”
I know she does.
But promises are like wishes.
In the end, they don’t mean a fucking thing.
Chapter 8
Aurora
It’s hard to tell when Curse actually falls asleep. His breathing seems just as rhythmic and even when he first closes his eyes as it does fifteen minutes later. But eventually, I know he must have dropped off. He drove all night and into the morning. Anyone would be shattered after that.
I’m exhausted, too, but not sleepy. I got enough sleep on the drive that I can’t let myself escape into it now. So instead, I just lie there beside him, my nerves strung out, my empty stomach roiling. When Curse was awake and we had things to do – hands to wash, cars to drive, countries to flee – it was easier not to think about everything that has happened. Because it was all about moving forward, moving on. But now, we’ve stopped. That sense of stasis constrains me. I want to fight it. I want to do something, despite my weariness, my weakness. I want to get out of this room and run.
