Sam
The next night passes in a series of flashes.
Sam and Sebastian find Zhukov, the man who had shot Will, nodding off at his office desk at a small finance company belonging to Lumines, working late. Sam sends a surge of melatonin through him, knocking him unconscious, and Sebastian carries him to their car.
They drive back to the estate. Sebastian doesn’t say anything for the entire ride. It is the kindest thing he’s done for her so far. In the back seat, Zhukov lies slumped against the seats, his head lolling with each bump in the road. Sam sits rigidly in the passenger seat with her eyes closed. Then she opens them and watches the passing scenery, focusing on anything she can so that she doesn’t have to focus on what she’s doing. Her memory continues to record everything, as if it is a video in her head. Maclan’s body, lying motionless and mutilated on the bathroom floor. Blood on the urinals and the tiles. Sebastian’s impatient voice.
The fuck you waiting for!
Does Ari do this? Has he ever taken a life? She tries to picture Ari standing over Maclan’s body, blood on his hands, eyes vacant. It seems impossible, until she recalls him pointing the knife at her throat, the way he’d seized her wrist.
He had let her go. But would he ever do it again? Would she, to him?
Hanover meets them inside the gate. Together, they haul Zhukov’s limp body out of the car and up the steps, until they’ve brought him to the lowest floor in the guest complex, to a Confession Room.
Will is already there. Beside him, flanked by several guards, is Diamond. The woman may be gaunt, but she is as properly dressed as ever, in a flawless suit and tie. Sam takes one look at her and knows immediately what is happening here tonight.
The basement feels like it’s closing in around her.
Sebastian deposits Zhukov on the floor, where he is slowly stirring to life. Diamond doesn’t greet them. Her face is instead turned down at the man, and when he pushes himself laboriously into a sitting position, blinking in bewilderment, Diamond bends down to rest her elbows on her knees, her eyes level with his.
Zhukov recognizes her immediately. He begins to tremble as Diamond studies him.
Sam looks at Will, and Will returns her look with a slight shake of his head. It’s a warning to stay out of Diamond’s way tonight.
When Zhukov speaks, his voice is trembling so badly that Sam doesn’t recognize it at all. He sounds like a different person than the man on the night of Will’s attack.
“Please,” he begs at last, his voice pathetic. “It wasn’t up to me.”
Diamond doesn’t say anything. She just keeps staring, and it’s enough to bring tears to the man’s eyes. When Sam looks down, she sees urine puddling on the floor around him.
An assistant comes into the room, bearing a tray full of tools and a camera on a tripod. He puts the tray on the floor beside Diamond, then sets up the tripod in front of Zhukov before turning the camera on. Zhukov’s cowering figure appears on the camera’s screen, his eyes fixed on himself.
“You’ve done a bad thing, Zhukov,” Diamond says softly to him. “So, I’d like for you to see what happens when you touch my son.”
She is going to make Zhukov watch himself die. And in the gravel of that voice, Sam suddenly realizes that she’s only ever seen the lady with a heart, the one who will help you if you can prove yourself worthy of her time.
She has never seen the other Diamond Taylor, the one who built Grand Central.
The woman reaches toward the tray of tools, picks up a pair of gloves, and pulls them on. Another wave of nausea hits Sam; she remembers that Diamond isn’t an alchemist. She is going to do this with her own hands.
“Thank you for your hard work tonight,” she says to Sebastian and Sam. “Get some rest.”
It’s a dismissal. Sam follows Sebastian out of the room, nauseous over what is about to happen, weak with relief that she won’t have to watch. Hanover is waiting for her at the end of the hall, where at last she gets to separate from Sebastian, who heads back to his apartment. Hanover leadsSam up the stairs to her own place. There, without a word, he hands her a sleeping pill.
“I’ve cleared your schedule for tomorrow,” he says. His voice is soft and kind. “Sleep late, eat a big breakfast. You’re not needed until next week.”
“Thank you, Hanover,” she whispers, taking the pill from his hands.
He turns to go. “You’re going to be all right, Miss Lang,” he reassures her, but there is something solemn in his voice too, as if his declaration is less a promise and more an order. She has to be all right. There is no other option.
Sam takes a shower, collapses into bed, and sleeps a dreamless sleep, her mind gifting her the small mercy of shutting down.
Elsewhere on the estate, the property is quiet, the stillness punctuated by the chirp of crickets. If there are sounds coming from the Confession Rooms, no one can hear them.
Sam has no idea how long Diamond takes with Zhukov.
She doesn’t wake up until afternoon, when the sun finally shifts to stripe her bed with golden light. There is a missed call on her phone from her mother, followed by a couple texts.
