Behind The Hands That Kill

TEN

Apollo smiles largely, close-lipped; he holds that smile for a long time, without saying a word. It is unnerving.

And then, breaking apart his hands and opening his arms wide at his sides, he says, “And yet here I am. Alive and well. Did you ever wonder why you couldn’t find me to kill me?” He laughs, shakes his head. “I mean, surely it’s been bugging the shit out of you after all these years. Come on¸ be honest with me, Victor!” He smacks his hands together excitedly.

“Yes,” I admit. “I have thought about it from time to time, how you could have eluded me.”

Apollo stands, smacks his hands together again; the smile never diminishes but only seems to broaden. Then he begins to pace back and forth in front of my cage.

“The first few months,” he says, “it was as simple as me being on vacation in Rio de Janeiro, partying my ass off—wouldn’t doubt a few kids of my own were conceived during that time.” He smirks at me. “When my brothers were killed, I didn’t think much of it—people die in my family all the time—but when my parents were offed shortly after, I knew something was up. So, I had a guy get in touch with another guy, who hired some other guy, who found out that my brother, Osiris, had put a hit out on everyone but my sisters. I knew I was next, so I left Brazil and laid low—”

“Tell me again,” I cut in, “why I am the one in this cage, and not Osiris.”

Apollo holds up his index finger.

“I’m not done, Victor,” he says, scolding me.

He continues pacing.

“Now, I understood why Osiris did what he did,” he says, pursing his lips. “Mom and Dad treated Osiris like a red-headed step-child; I mean, sure they beat the shit outta all of us from time to time. But Osiris, being the oldest and all, got the worst of it. I knew one day he’d fuckin’ explode. Osiris loved his sisters though—Hestia was to him like Artemis was to me—but he hated me, and he hated Ares and Theseus. Osiris was jealous of us because the boys in the family were the favorites. But not Osiris. It’s why he was protective of our sisters; he felt more like one of them than one of us.”

“So then why did he put that knife in my hand that night fifteen years ago?” I interrupt again. “If he loved Artemis so much, why did he want me to kill her?”

Apollo smiles, and then rolls his eyes with irritation.

“Because he was using my sister against me, getting revenge for what I did in retaliation for what he did.”

“And what did you do?”

“He was offing our family, and I was next, so I killed his wife,” he answers matter-of-factly. “I—well, I fucked her first, and then I killed her. Needless to say, Osiris was not a happy man. But an eye for an eye, I thought.”

“And you never thought he’d retaliate by coming after Artemis,” I say, figuring it out on my own.

Apollo nods once.

“Yeah,” he says with regret. “Never saw that one coming. But I should’ve. Hell, if he was crazy and cold enough to kill our brothers—who never did shit to him, I should add—then I should’ve known he’d use the only person in the world who I loved—my twin—to get back at me for killing his wife.”

“You are all disturbed,” I say. “Your entire family. And I thought my family had issues.”

He shrugs again. “Yeah, well,” he says, “I guess I can’t really argue with you on that one.”

I step up to the bars, peer at him with focus. “Still, none of this explains why I am the one here, paying for his betrayal. It is not much different than killing the messenger. I did only what I was commissioned to do—by your brother.”

“Ah, but you didn’t,” Apollo tries to correct me, and I fail to understand. “You did something far worse. And you’re just as guilty as he was.”

I am thoroughly frustrated with all of this. More-so with myself. It never takes me this long to figure out the most complicated of puzzles. Quite frankly, it is, as Izabel might say, pissing me off.

Apollo takes a seat again, and props his foot on his knee and his hands on his stomach, just like before. Then he nods at me and says, “Finish the story, Victor. Tell me what happened that night when Osiris got to you before I could.”

“Tell me where Izabel is first,” I demand. “You want to know this story desperately enough—tell me if she is still alive, if she has been hurt.”

“Oh, she’s still alive all right.” He grins. “As far as what has been, or is being done to her, I can’t answer that. But she’s alive, and I can promise you one thing: you’ll see her again before this is all over.”

Nothing about his cryptic promise eases my mind. It does exactly the opposite.

“The story, Victor,” Apollo speaks up over the vociferous sound of my restless thoughts. He taps his watch with the tip of his finger. “Unfortunately, we don’t have all night.”

I tell Apollo about Osiris breaking into the house in the middle of the night after Artemis and I had fallen asleep. I tell him about how Osiris dragged his sister off the bed and held a gun to her head. And I admit to not being alert, or fast enough, to have been able to stop it; another gun was in my face before I could reach mine on the nightstand. And I tell him how Artemis’s life was used against me so an accomplice could tie me to a chair without me killing him. It was not a shining moment in my life—certainly not in my career—but it was one night of mistakes I quickly learned from and vowed never to make again.

Yet here I am again. Because, unfortunately, history does tend to repeat itself.

Osiris stood and shoved his gun into the back of his pants; his black leather jacket concealed it.

“So,” he said, coming toward me, “you’re saying that if someone above you, from The Order, was to walk in here and tell you to put that bitch out of her misery—”

“Your use of expletives,” I cut in, blood dripping from my bottom lip, “makes it difficult to take you seriously.”

Osiris’s left brow rose higher than the other.

“How so?” he said, quietly offended.

Casually I answered, “Because, quite frankly, I feel as though I am dealing with someone of, shall I say, inadequate education.” (Osiris’s nostrils flared.) “Or do you just have something against women?”

I glimpsed Osiris’s fist amid the spots before my eyes, and then the world blinked out.

I was unconscious for precisely six minutes—I remembered seeing the time on the bedside clock just before he knocked me out cold. And when I finally came to, everything was as it was before. Except one thing. Artemis was also conscious again.

“Osiris, why are you doing this?” she pleaded with him; her face was bruised; blood smeared across her cheeks, glistened on her teeth. “You’re my brother! Why are you doing this?”

That was how I finally knew they were, in fact, siblings. But I was as confused as Artemis about why he was there, why he put a knife in my hand and wanted me to kill her, his own sister.

Artemis tried to get to her feet but she fell, too disoriented to maintain her balance. She reached out her hand to her brother. “Please, Osiris, tell me what this is about. Is it because of Mama and Papa?” Then she started to cry. And wail. “Oh please, God, tell me you didn’t! Tell me you aren’t the one who’s been killing everyone!” Then she became frantic. “Where’s Apollo?! Osiris, where’s my brother!”

“Your brother?” Osiris shook his head; he pointed his gun at his chest in place of his finger. “I’M YOUR BROTHER!” he roared. “I was part of this family too!”

My eyes went back and forth between them; my ears hung onto their family squabble. Artemis began to back her way toward me; I was still bound to the chair by my ankles and one wrist. My free hand still gripped the knife; I hoped for an opportunity. I cursed myself quietly for not taking the one I just had when Osiris pointed his gun away from me for that briefest of moments. But then I knew, too, that my knife-throwing hand was the one still bound to the chair, and that my aim was off by thirty-percent with the other—if it was not going to be precise, I was not going to risk it.

Osiris continued to walk toward Artemis, and she continued to walk backward until eventually she fell onto my lap. “Please, brother, let’s talk about this.”

But Osiris had nothing more to say to his sister.

He looked only at me. And the knife in my hand.

“Do you work for The Order?” I asked him.

“No,” he said, and kept his gun trained on me. “I’m the fucking client. I’m the one who commissioned your employer to kill my family.”

Upon hearing his admission, Artemis threw her head back and bellowed; instinctively my free hand held onto her around her waist, the knife blade harmlessly pressed against her ribs. She laid her head on my chest and cried against me.

But then she stopped, and she raised her head and looked into my eyes, realizing for the first time that her brother was not the only person in the room who betrayed her.

“Hestia was right,” she said; her mind seemed to know what it wanted to do—to get away from me—but her body was paralyzed by the realization, the shock. “You killed my brothers…you…Hestia was right!” Her mind finally caught up and she jumped off my lap, fell onto the floor again trying to get away.

Osiris was on top of her before I could blink; he pulled her up by the back of her hair; her nakedness on full display. She screamed and kicked and tried to bite him, but her efforts were wasted; he held on to her easily, as if she were a defenseless child in his powerful grip.

“What is this about, Osiris?” I asked, trying to buy time. “Artemis is right—you should talk this out.”

“NO!” He pointed the gun in the air toward me; Artemis continued to flail in his grasp. “It doesn’t fucking matter why I’m doing this! All that matters is that it’s done!”

“Then why don’t you do it yourself?” I suggested. “If you wanted your family dead so badly, why outsource the job? Why not just do it yourself?”

“BECAUSE I CAN’T!”

“He can’t kill us,” Artemis said in a strained voice, as Osiris’s arm put pressure on her throat. “He’ll sour his bloodline; he’ll be cursed…and his children, and his children’s children will be cursed. He can’t…kill his own blood. Not with…his own hands.”

I could not escape Artemis’s pleading eyes staring down at me from just a few feet away; that look destroyed me inside. I knew she loved me the way a woman loves a man for the rest of her life; I knew that woman would have died for me, killed for me, would have done anything for me, even still after finding out the truth that I was the one who killed her family. I knew it. And I could not look away from her eyes. Please, Victor, help me, her eyes told me. I love you more than anything or anyone I could ever or will ever love; please don’t let him kill me. Because he will, Victor. If you won’t do it, Osiris will, despite the curse, because his anger is too great. Please…

I tore my gaze away finally, swallowing a strange lump that had formed in my throat. My eyes began to sting and water. It made me angry, and I tried to push that anger down, but it just kept building.

For the…second time in my life, I did not know what to do. For the second time in my life and in my career, my emotions were at war with my duties, my nature—because of a woman. But this time, it was very different; Artemis was very…consuming.

I raised my head, looked at Osiris standing behind Artemis. “I cannot kill a woman who I have not been commissioned or ordered to kill, a woman who is not a threat to me, or to the organization I work for.” At that moment, I had hoped Osiris would not kill her himself. I wanted to calm him down, let the two of them talk, so that, perhaps, Osiris would have a change of heart.

“Then I’ll ask you again,” Osiris came back, and he shoved the gun deeper against Artemis’s throat, “if someone above you, from The Order, was to walk in here and tell you to put this bitch out of her misery, would you do it?”

And like the first time he had asked that question, I refused to answer it.

I looked over then when I caught movement in the corner of my eye. Brant Morrison, a man in The Order ‘above me’, entered the room, dressed in his typical black suit and silver tie, wearing the typical proud and confident smile he always wore. There was a gun in his hand, a piece of gum in his mouth, and a gleam in his eyes.