Anya is still by my side. That’s the only thing keeping me sane, knowing that she’s okay, at least physically. She has eased from trembling to still.
Anya. She consumes my thoughts.
She’s six, and she witnessed?—
I don’t let myself finish the list of what she witnessed, but she saw enough. She cried. Sobbed, actually. But within an hour, she had her sketchbook out.
I watch her draw, and I wonder how many times she has needed that anchor.
The thought makes my stomach sink.
Afraid I’ll burst into tears, I shift my focus to Rolan.
I’ve been constructing a story about him since that first night, adding details as they arrived, adjusting the frame to accommodate each new piece of information.
The frame broke tonight.
The burning in his eyes that had no bottom. The way he saidnowand the room contracted around the word.
I’ve been afraid of men before. I know the texture of that fear, thanks to Landon and the men who came to my door.
What I felt looking at Rolan in that foyer was not the same.
It was worse.
What does he mean to me?
The question surfaces, and I let it sit without answering it. I’m not ready for that yet.
Will I ever be?
Mikhail arrives some minutes later.
“It’s clear,” he says. His face is composed. I’m sure Rolan told him what happened, but even so, he acts like it’s breakfast time. “You can come up now.”
I look at Anya. Her eyes meet mine. A tiny thread of understanding passes between us.
She closes her sketchbook.
I prepare to shield her eyes on the stairs. My hand is already near her face, ready to block or turn, the reflex that operated in the foyer now available on demand.
We come through the door to the main floor, and I stop.
Clean.
The foyer is — it’s not perfect. I can see the remnants of what happened if I look carefully: a section of wall near the east corridor that’s been freshly repainted, the slightly off shade of new paint against old. A gap in the floor molding near the staircase. The metallic smell, underneath the cleaning products, of fluids I don’t want to name.
But the bodies are gone. The blood is gone. The horror of what covered this floor three hours ago has been removed, systematically, by people who clearly know how to do this.
Anya walks through the foyer and keeps her eyes fixed straight ahead.
I look at the floor.
How many times?How many mornings have I come downthese stairs and walked across this marble without knowing what had happened here before?
The thought follows me up the stairs to Anya’s room and sits in the corner while I get her settled.
My own bathroom. My own shower.
