My head sharpens in an instant. “Overnight?”
His color heightens; he shakes his head. “I only mean that I can help take care of you.”
I turn away in response, staring into the middle distance as my heart pounds. In less than twenty-four hours my life has been so rearranged as to be unrecognizable. Soledad is dead: a cause for celebration. And yet I’ve been freed from one aggressor only to be shackled to another.
Never again can I hold Sebastian at bay, enduring him one month at a time. I can’t even reject his proposal without being accused of insanity—or worse, disloyalty. Who but a traitor would reject an opportunity to leave the pit?To marry into wealth and prestige? To never know hunger?
And then there’s Clara.
If you married Sebastian, things would be better. They’d lift the sanctions. You wouldn’t have to pretend we have food in our cupboards every morning.
I nearly startle when Sebastian reaches for my hand again, his eyes softening when he says, “You don’t have to give Zadie your meal vouchers, by the way. Clara will be fine. She knows you’ve been given a new assignment, she knows you’ll be off the island for a while, and she knows she’s being transferred in the morning.”
“What?” A cold wave crashes through my body, dulling my brain, slowing my pounding heart. “Transferred where?”
“I’m having her moved to my mother’s house. She’ll have a dedicated nurse and around-the-clock care while you’re gone.” He grins. “I’ve already gotten approval.”
A fossilized fear inside me slackens, threatens to buckle. It feels almost like relief, which seems like a trap. I study the soft lines of Sebastian’s face; the subtle stubble that tells me it’s getting late. His eyes are earnest.
“But you’ve never cared for Clara,” I say.
“Can you blame me?” Sebastian’s smile is self-deprecating, as if he’s said something charming. “The simple fact of her existence is killing you. She’s parasitic.”
The instinct to shut down is reflexive.
I feel it happening almost without my permission, senses powering off until my very body feels foreign to me.My hair feels like someone else’s hair; my skin feels like someone else’s skin. I hear myself say, from faraway, “Then why would you care now?”
Sebastian steps forward, and I’ve withdrawn so deep inside my mind I hardly feel it when he pulls me close, rests his forehead against mine.
“I’ve always loved you, Rosa. After everything that happened with your family”—he shakes his head—“I’ve only ever wanted to take care of you. Even if that means taking care of your sister.” His voice deepens, softens. “I feel like we’ve been waiting our whole lives for this. I still can’t believe it’s happening. After all these years, we’re really going to be together.”
Sebastian pulls a ring out of his pocket, and a carousel of memory sweeps through me, pushing me deeper into the abyss: the taste of blood I vomited while he looked on; the sound of his saccharine voice, echoing;You’ve disappointed us, Rosa, you’ve disappointed all of us; the blinding pain in my right arm; the disjointed sounds of my own screams;You’ve disappointed us, Rosa; the scrape of stone under my knees; the gasp of ragged breath;You’ve disappointed all of us; the quiet violence of the gold band he slips onto my dead finger.
I study it, glimmering against my skin.
By inches, I lift my head to look at Sebastian. A glaze of blue light winks across his dark eyes, and I realize I don’t know how many people are watching.
Only criminals need privacy, Rosa.
“I know you can’t wear it while you’re gone,” he whispers.“And I know we’re not married yet. But I want you to take it with you, so you’ll remember what we’re fighting for.”
He smiles at me with genuine, unbridled affection, and I am stunned, not for the first time, by Sebastian’s ability to live in a dreamscape forged entirely of delusion.
He wasn’t always like this.
Over the years I watched him give his mind away in pieces, devoting himself to the cult of the collective opinion—offering up blind faith in exchange for fraternity. Sometimes, when I drift safely under the veil of near sleep, I find I can be generous with my thoughts. In the twilight of consciousness my heart expands enough to remember Sebastian as he once was, enough to pity the man he is now. The feeling never lasts long enough to provide comfort.
If I fail this mission, I’ll be out of options.
Sebastian will loom over me always, killing me softly for the rest of my life.
James
Chapter 11
I wake up the way I passed out: pissed off.
Heart thudding, head sluggish; I open my eyes to a blur of color, squinting through a glare of light. There’s blood in my mouth, in my ears, caked in my hair, crusted across my skin. Pain radiates in my joints. I blink, my vision still clearing. The blues and greens of the forest come into sharper focus, the blaze of morning sun fracturing through a screen of branches. I let my eyes fall closed, already exhausted, and run an unsteady hand down my body, feeling for broken bones. Only when I confirm that my limbs are fully intact do I exhale with relief.
