“Punishment?” Karia presses as Sanford stares at me.
“For being weaker than my son.” He smiles coldly my way, revealing a full mouth of straight teeth. “He started with what he believed was a lesser sentence, of course. His tendency toward cold, quiet violence escalated when Juliet…” For the first time, emotion that is not bitterness or madness or rage shines through. He closes his eyes for a moment, his lips pulling downward, tugging on the skin around his mouth.
The name is not familiar to me. But none of his words are.
He clears his throat, that familiar, newspaper-crinkling sound echoing through the room as he glances down at his lap, two frail legs pushed together in the chair. “My wife died on these grounds.” He does not look up. “She fell from the thirteenth floor window. They weren’t always made with those kinds of things in mind. Or perhaps Gates enjoyed the idea of death so close, if he had anything to do with this hotel’s construction. Her scream echoed through the corridors. We had a suite there for a Writhe gathering. I was meeting with my Duo, but I ran, as soon as I heard the noise. And there he was…” He closes his eyes again, lines etched deeper into his face. He takes a shaky breath and does not look anywhere but inward. “Stein, standing at the half-open glass, peering down. When I called his name from the doorway, he turned to me, and I heard Juliet’s body break at the same time his impassive face curled up into a smile.” He finally opens his eyes, a haunted expression staring back at me. “He was eleven, then.”
“We found a knife in the room; Stein’s room. It probably explained the deep gash on Juliet’s cheek, a carving in the shape of an S.” He swallows hard. “The rest of her wasn’t much better. I wonder why she didn’t scream then, when he hurt her, but I think I know. She loved him, despite my apprehension. She loved him so much she died for him. And I knew every woman would, if they got too close to him. It was a death sentence, and when he met your mother…”
My gut twists into sharp knots.
I don’t breathe.
I remember the sounds Mom made when Stein killed her in front of me.
I will never forget them.
“I tried to warn Mercy, the best ways I could. She was a good person. She was not like the rest of us. But there was only so much I could do, being in my position, with Stein set to take my place when I could no longer lead. He caught on, though. When I sent my own personal guard to Mercy to discreetly explain that my son was dangerous, he intercepted the communication, and I woke up the next day in total… darkness. That was the beginning of my burial.”
Karia’s hand comes to my thigh. All at once, out of nowhere. She squeezes me, and I don’t know why, and I don’t ask.
I hear my mother’s screams inside my head.
The sound of Stein fracturing her skull with a knife block.Anything can be a weapon.He taught me that.
“Why did you cut the power?” Karia asks quietly, jarring me from my nightmares, the question so strange inside my brain. “Today? Why did you do that?” There is an urgency in her low voice.
My pulse quicken. I was lost in the story, the history of my own blood. The idea that maybe it wasn’tmewho repulsed Stein so much and instead, it waseveryone.That I had the misfortune of being born to a man like that, and not the other way around.
Sanford looks at Karia with a vacant expression. It is eerie, how his pale, lined face loses all emotion. As if he has just seen a ghost and is deciding whether or not to believe it. “Stein was intelligent enough to communicate the news of my vanishment in a way that no one questioned him. This is Writhe, after all,” Sanford says, still looking at her, but speaking as if she didn’t. “Things happen. Peopledisappear.And he had his own guards,his own circle set in the sights of his manipulation. They ensured I could not escape, no matter how loud I screamed or how many nails I broke, trying to claw my way free of the tunnels built beneath the newer hotel at my own grandfather’s command. You see, he wanted to keepthisone for our more devious secrets, and the modern chain for business, spreading a good name, branding a better image. And I was there forever doomed while Stein Rule assumed command of Writhe. He kept me there, because he never wanted me too far.”
“Why did you cut the lights?” Karia asks again, leaning closer, like she might spring from this couch and demolish Sanford. “Why are you here? You said you couldn’t leave. How did you now?”
Sanford smiles as he turns his focus to me.
My stomach twists again.
Karia’s fingers dig deeper into my muscles.
“You should never have let her come so far with you,” Sanford says slowly in the way Stein used to when he was keeping a secret. Drawing out a punchline.
“He didn’tlet me,” Karia snarls. “I chose to follow him, and I will never stop.”
My heart races. I feel dizzy, hearing her words. Wishing I was somewhere else to savor them. To demand she say them again and again while I bite her skin.
Sanford frowns, but he doesn’t look away from me. “Much like Juliet. Always willing to throw herself into any flame for me, even if it was Hell itself.” Then, suddenly, he stands, taking a staggering, strange step toward Karia, but his eyes are on mine. “I did tell you we didn’t have much time,” he says softly.
I mirror his action, immediately stepping forward, putting myself between him and my girl.
“You are foolish,” he adds quietly. “You should have left her with me. I could have fixed this. Righted all the wrongs that led to Juliet’s death. I could have?—”
“Why did you cut the power?” Karia tries to nudge me aside, but I reach behind me and grab her wrist sharply, keeping my body in front of hers andherin one place. “Why did you come here? Why?—”
There is a knock at the door, behind us.
I am in the wrong place. The wrong position. I should be putting myself between her and that fucking door. I?—
There is a creak.
