I yank up her shirtsleeve to expose her forearm, and though she tries to fight, she has zero chance of escaping my grip.
"If I were you, I'd stay still. I've had a long day, and my hand's shaking a bit too much," I tell her, flashing a fake smile.
"When I don't return to Warsaw tomorrow, all the secrets, all the information will end up in the hands of people who'll make sure you're hanged by your own Council," she says with a triumphant smile.
Because that's how she stayed alive. With so much information, the Council forbade me from taking any action against her, just so certain things wouldn't come to light. Withone condition: I couldn't be the one to attack. But since she came here, no one will expect her to be forgiven.
“Jan's dead. Your files are stored somewhere safe," Cas says from behind me, and I turn toward him too.
What the hell is he talking about?
"Excuse me?" she asks, but her voice is weak.
Jan was her right hand. The man who found connections and helped her plan each victim. I think he was also her lover, but I didn't bother looking into it.
I watch as she realizes her only card has disappeared, but I still don't like that I didn't know this detail. Cas is going to have some explaining to do. Then I remember what she said to Roxanne, and pointing the blade at her chin, I bring her gaze to mine.
"Who is The Bloody Dahlia?"
A crooked smile takes over her face, and I know she'll do what she's always done—sell her secrets for power. Except this information is just a bonus, not her salvation.
"Let me go and I'll tell you," she says, and now it's my turn to smile.
"I'm going to cut your Achilles tendon, then work my way up to every ligament in your knee. I'll peel the skin off your face piece by piece and attach them to your body. I'll make sure you're conscious. Don't test my patience, Mother."
For a few seconds she just studies me, and I could swear it's on the tip of her tongue, but at the last moment her stubbornness wins and she turns her head away, drawing her own scratch with my blade.
So be it then. And I let years of training do their work.
While her screams echo through the hangar and her skin falls onto the cement, I think of Berna, of Roxanne, of Cas, of me. OfSarin's hollow eyes. Of all her victims who didn't deserve the fate they received.
The process is so mechanical—I've done it countless times before—that I don't need to pay much attention to how deep I insert the blade or how much I cut.
Casimir approaches with a rag in his hand, and opening her mouth, he shoves the cloth down her throat.
"For my mother, who hasn't had a voice for thirty years," he says through clenched teeth, and I have to swallow the lump in my throat.
Berna has gone entire months without uttering a word, barely eating and drinking just enough water to survive. And even though my sister doesn't seem to register my nephew's existence, I know that somewhere, buried deep in her soul, is the love she holds for him. He's the reason she never put a noose around her neck or slit her wrists in a bathtub.
After I finish cutting, I collect all the pieces of skin and slowly attach them to her neck and face.
"LET ME GO!" I hear the muffled words through the rag, and I smile.
I move closer to her, pull the cloth from her mouth, and turn my ear toward her.
"Say it again."
"LET ME GO!" she screams and tries with her last strength to thrash.
My eyes fall on the tray where I've placed the pieces of skin I cut from her, and I see there's exactly one left.
Damn, I missed one.
I pick it up and have to suppress a shiver at its texture. I grab her cheeks, forcing her mouth open, then shove the piece of fleshdown her throat. I clamp her mouth shut, and her eyes widen until they're about to pop from their sockets.
"I was ten when you forced me to swallow a piece of skin. It belonged to a soldier who'd dared to intervene for Berna when one of your associates wanted to hurt her. That man intervened for your daughter, and you decided he deserved to die. I vomited for three days straight until Vasili stole an IV from a pharmacy and, without knowing what he was doing, saved me."
I watch her throat contract as she swallows the piece of flesh, and then her whole body enters a series of convulsions.
