“Do you love her?” Mary moves from Valeria, takes a step toward me. “This…Sophia. Do you love her?”
It’s the only question that could slow my thoughts, my rage. One question, and I feel the whole engine of me stall somewhere between one breath and the next.
“Yes.” The admission of ultimate vulnerability. The kind you can’t unsay. It just stands there, between you and the people who heard it, like a wild animal. Beautiful, incomprehensible, and sharp with its own teeth.
Valeria watches me, even now, with her ruined neck. I try not to look at her, but it's impossible not to. It's a compulsion, like the wound inside me wants to keep staring at whatever hurt it in the first place.
Mary closes her eyes. One tear. Then another. Then the kind that doesn’t stop.
Something shifts. Something I don't like. Then she crosses the room and runs into my arms.
I don't move. Don't reach for her. Just stand there while she crashes into my chest and her hands fist in my shirt and she cries the way she used to cry when we were children — before this house, before all of it — with her whole body.
My arms come up slowly. I don't decide to hold her. I just do. Muscle memory older than anything Valeria built in me. Older than the karambit and the marks on my arms and years of becoming something I don't recognize. It’s the little boy's arms remembering what they were for before they learned everything else.
“I’m so sorry, Reth.”
I press my lips to the top of her head. Hold her. Eyes fixed on Valeria’s face wearing an expression I’ve never seen before.
For the first time in thirteen years of knowing this woman — in every basement, with every man, every job, every room designed to unmake me — the composure has slipped entirely.
“Mary,” Valeria warns.
My sister steps back, pivots to face her. “You promised me you’d never hurt him again.”
Again?
“Mary, don’t be a fool.”
“You promised.”
“Does he look hurt to you?”
“Yes,” she snaps, cheeks glistening. “He’s finally found someone who can make him happy, but you’re keeping him away from her.”
Cold slithers through my bones. “Mary?—”
“He hardly knows her. I'm protecting him from himself. From making a mistake.”
“I’m the one who made a mistake by trusting you.”
I run the calculation. I always run the calculation. And for the first time, I don't know what I'm trying to solve.
Valeria steps closer, eyes narrowed. “I gave you everything. Gave you a home. A husband. A bank account large enough for you to not work a single day in your goddamn life.”
"Mary." My voice comes out strange.
“You swore to me?—”
“Mary!”
She stops.
"Look at me."
The silence is deafening.
“Look at me, Mary.”
