A joyous screech floated through the cracked-open window, jolting my diaphragm, and I searched for the source. But this high up, the glass gave you a glimpse only of the flat, concrete-colored and brick-red roofs of our compound. Cotton-like clouds swam in the bright blue sky, hovering above the mountains looming on the horizon.
“Kali.” Gedeon roughly spun me around until my ass collided with the counter. My towel fluttered to the tiled floor. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” Everything.
“Do not,” he growled, “lie to me.” Crowding my space, he stared me down. “We talked about this. No more lies.”
“Okay.”
“Not okay.” The two creases above his nose deepened. “Come back to me. I can’t protect you if you get lost in your head.” He cupped my face, the touch so tender it unlocked the chains restricting my joints and lifted the mist clouding my thoughts.
I blinked. “You’re alive.” It was a statement, a declaration, a proclamation, a bout of fury well overdue.
A faint smile painted his reply. “There you are.”
“I’ve always been here. It’s you who’s been gone.”
That banished his joy as he staggered back. With my towel pooled around my feet, I was left on display. He scrutinized my body, lingering on my thighs and waist. His jaw feathered. “Where are these from?”
I almost laughed at his concern about the bruises marring my body. “It’s not important.”
“Who, Kali? Tell me who laid their hands on you right this second.”
“Who do you think? You were on the roof with us last night.” I folded my arms. “Sometimes, to win a fight, you have to let your opponent close in on you. Bruises are the price of it.”
Nothing was free in life. And the cost often took the shape of a human body. For years, I had paid it by bending over a table or kneeling for the depraved pleasure of others. At least now I could do it by sustaining injuries necessary to win a fight.
“See this?” I pointed to the wound on my cheek. “You left it yourself. I remember what you said when you first took me, Gedeon. You threatened me. Promised that if I didn’t drop my weapon, you would mark me the same way I had done you.” I clutched the edge of the counter, ignoring my nakedness. It had ceased bothering me a long time ago. “And that morning in the clearing? I’d slashed your cheek before stabbing you.”
He rubbed at his face, his expression so twisted the sun itself couldn’t provide enough relief to untangle the contortion. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“No,” I said. “You wanted me to recognize you.”
22
KALI
The ultimate truth was that Gedeonwantedto return.
“I won’t deny it. I have dreamed of coming back since I woke up.” He stuck his hands into the front pockets of his pants. “But the question is, what doyouwant?”
My silence stretched in the bathroom like a rubber band.
I snapped it.
“I want to climb you and kill you at the same time.” Because the way he’d fucked me in the forest had felt like the last time. For some reason, such a notion invoked a sense of wrongness in me. “I want to feel you next to me when I sleep and smother you with my pillow simultaneously.” I pushed off the counter, heading for the door.
Entering my path, he stopped me. “You want a fight.”
“I want a punching bag.”
He spread his arms wide. “Will I do?” The bathtub behind him sparkled in white—a stark contrast to Gedeon lingering like a black stain.
Resolving not to second-guess myself, I lunged. Squeaky-clean floor tiles provided the much-needed traction as I swiveled, punching his side. The fleshy parts of a human bodywere perfect targets for raining damage on organs with minimal effort.
A grunt escaped him, but he didn’t try to defend himself. As still as a tree, he patiently absorbed my kicks as I twirled around him, concealing the hints of where I would strike next.
The flames in my ankles spurred me on, and I peppered him with a new set of blows. His stumbles carried him from the bathtub to the sink, the toilet, the towel rack, back and forth, all over the bathroom.
