I finish the first orange standing there, juice running down my chin, grinning like a mad woman, then reach for a second. The taste is heaven. Pure, uncomplicated pleasure after a day of nothing but fear and rage and hunger.
I eat two more, then grab three others and hide them under my bed, tucked against the wall where they won’t roll. Emergency rations. Insurance.
He thinks he controls everything. But I found food he didn’t offer. I found a weapon he doesn’t know about.
Small victories. They’re all I have right now.
I don’t change clothes. Don’t shower, even though I can smell myself after hours of fear-sweat and unwashed skin. The henley is wrinkled, the jeans stiff with dirt, but they’remine. The last pieces of my old life, clinging to my body like armor.
Tomorrow,I think, climbing back into the silk-sheeted bed with orange juice still sticky on my fingers.Tomorrow I’ll figure out more.
My hand slides under the pillow. The caliper is still there, cold and sharp against my palm.
One day down.
I haven’t broken.
8
VIOLET
Iwake up when the door opens. No knock, no warning, just the mechanical click of the lock and then he’s there, filling the doorway like he owns the space. Which, I suppose, he does.
I’m still in yesterday’s clothes, the henley stiff with dried sweat and orange juice, and my hair a greasy nest I haven’t touched in days. I probably look like something that crawled out of a dumpster, and I want that to bother him. I want him to flinch at the smell, wrinkle that perfect nose, show some flicker of disgust I can use as a weapon.
But he doesn’t comment. He just pulls up a chair and sits down like we’re about to have coffee. Like this isnormal. Like I invited him.
“The villa dates to 1547.” His voice is conversational. Pleasant. “The original structure was a fortified manor house, but the Baroque additions came in the late seventeenth century. You’ll have noticed the frescoes, Tiepolo’s workshop, though not the master himself. Still remarkable.”
I stare at him.
He crosses one leg over the other, perfectly at ease in his charcoal suit. The collar of his white shirt is pristine, not a hair is out of place. Meanwhile, I’m sitting on silk sheets in dirtyjeans, my stomach cramping around the memory of three blood oranges.
“The marble in this hallway is Carrara, of course, original to the eighteenth-century renovation, which, honestly, is remarkable given what this region went through. But the real treasure is in the east corridor. There’s a Caravaggio sketch. Preliminary study forThe Calling of Saint Matthew. “
What the fuck is happening?
“Get the fuck out of my room.”
He smiles. Not bothered. Not even slightly ruffled.
“I’ve been thinking about the bas-relief panels in the chapel.” He continues like I haven’t spoken. “Fifteenth century, gorgeous work, but the moisture’s been eating them alive. Lime mortar’s failing in at least three sections, maybe more.” He pauses, and when he looks at me his eyes are actually bright. Eager, almost. Like a psychopath showing you his butterfly collection and waiting for you to clap. “What would you recommend?”
I can’t breathe. My brain can’t hold both things at once, him asking about mortar composition while I’m his prisoner, starving in dirty clothes on his silk sheets.
“Go fuck yourself.”
“That’s not an answer to my question.”
His tone is mild. Interested. Like I’ve made a particularly thought-provoking point about conservation ethics.
“The Japanese tissue method has its merits.” He shifts in the chair, settling in like he plans to stay awhile. “But I’ve always found ethyl silicate more effective for limestone substrates. The penetration depth is superior, and the?—”
I grab my pillow and hurl it at his head.
He catches it. One-handed, without breaking eye contact. Sets it down on the mirror-polished marble floor beside his chair.
The marble is white, unblemished, and I can’t help but wonder how many people have bled on these floors?
