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I raise the blade. My hand trembles and he sees.
“Still afraid,” he says.
“Yes.” The truth lands cleanly. His expression shifts.
“I am afraid,” I tell him. “I am shaking. I am sick. I will probably dream of this room tonight and hate myself for giving you even one more moment of my life.”
His breathing grows shallow.
“But I am here.” The knife presses against his chest, just beneath the ribs. He inhales sharply as I lean close enough that only he can hear. “You wanted a doll.” His throat works against the stitches. “I will give you one.”
Then I slide the blade smoothly across his skin, cutting thin slices as he screams in agony. I continue slicing the pieces from ribs to torso, then begin cutting pieces off of the sensitive portions of his flesh. Not wild or frantic. Not the elegant brutality of my old kills. Slow and careful enough for him to understand. Like he is porcelain. I hear small steps as the other portion of my final act arrives. Thanatos.
Sicaro brings him down, his head bobbing with her pace as she places him on the floor in front of The Collector. He continues to whimper and cry, but once his eye settles on Thanatos, they widen with terror. I place the knife beneath his ribs and wait to angle it upward with precision. I whistle for Thanatos to deliver his signature move as he begins attacking the Collector's groin. His body jolts, mouth agape with high pitched screams. When I tire of his nonsensical noises after several minutes, the blade angles through the intercostal. No sound comes from him. Good. Let silence become his too. I hold the handle with both hands and keep my eyes on his. Thanatos continues ripping apart his flesh.
“You painted me still,” I whisper. “You fed me still, dressed me still. You wanted porcelain.”
Blood darkens his shirt. His remaining eye rolls with panic.
“So now you will be still.”
His body shudders and a wet sound escapes him. The men do not move behind me. No one interrupts or tells me to stop, continue, or hurry. My kill. My choice. Mine. The Collector stares at me as the life drains from him. He looks terrified, not powerful and definitely not elegant, a dying man in a chair and nothing more. When his head slumps forward, I step back. The knife slips from my hand and clatters to the stone, as Thanatos dances on a piece of flesh.
My heart hammers so violently I press one hand to my chest. I did it. I killed him. Edward is there before I hit the floor, but he does not grab me. His hands hover politely. “May I?”
I nod once. Then I am in his arms. Lazarus moves to my other side, face wet, eyes fixed on the dead man in the chair as though he is memorizing the shape of justice. I wait for triumph, but strangely it does not come. Relief comes instead, though my body is still screaming. My hands still remember the room where he touched them. My stomach still knots, skin still crawls beneath fabric that no longer traps me. The scar near my eye still aches, and I suspect I will cry soon.
But the Collector is silent. Forever. That matters. I look at the body, he is pathetic now. Nothing like the creature who haunted my sleep.
Edward’s voice comes near my ear. “You did it.”
I shake my head. “I did not feel brave.”
Lazarus answers softly, “Bravery is rarely considerate enough to feel good while it is happening.”
A broken laugh escapes me, then it transforms into half a sob.
Alcott steps forward. “Olive.”
His eyes are Alcott’s now.
“I am sorry,” he says. For a moment, I do not know if he means for what Darkness did, for what happened in Austria, for not finding me sooner, for all the impossible things none of them could control. I nod.
Edward helps me sit on the stone steps near the wall. Lazarus kneels before me and takes the knife carefully from the floor, cleaning it with a cloth before placing it on the step beside me. Not taking it away, returning it.
“This is yours darling,” he says. Mine.
Again. That word. The revenge is complete, my healing is not and I understand that now. Killing him did not return the part of me he took. It did not erase the scar, the nightmares, the flinches, the days when my body becomes a locked house, but it opened one door and closed another.
46. Trembling, Barefoot, Beautiful and Free – Edward
Impose
One month after the Collector dies, Olive asks to return to the stage. She says it over breakfast while Lazarus is buttering toast, and I am watching Olive stir honey into her tea.
“I want to dance tonight.”
The knife in Lazarus’s hand stills. Alcott lowers the paper, and I forget how to breathe for half a second. Olive does not look at any of us but continues stirring her tea. One circle. Then another and another. The spoon chimes softly.
