Behind The Hands That Kill

FOURTEEN

I step up to the bars, peer out at nothing, and I think about my brother, about Izabel’s compassion for him. And it does not take me long to think about Italy and why I sent Izabel there.

Once I vanquish the emotion from my face, I turn to see her again, ignoring the fact that the knife Artemis placed on the floor inside the cell is the same knife I used to slit Artemis’s throat. That is why Artemis said it was familiar. And that is also why I choose to ignore it, the meaning behind it.

“You are right about my brother,” I admit. “And you have nothing to be sorry for. Izabel, you and Niklas are…the same. You were both forced into this life; you were both against it, and wanted only a normal life; equally you both did what you had to do to survive; and you both followed me when you could have taken another path, a less-traveled road that leads to redemption, and not death. Izabel, like my brother, you are innocent in all of this; you still deserve forgiveness; you can still be saved.” I look beyond her momentarily, my mind captured by my thoughts. “I had hoped you would save him…I had hoped that you would save each other.”

The light has been stolen from my eyes. I don’t even see darkness anymore, only nothingness, and the two are not the same. No words, spoken or written, have ever hurt me so much, or cut so deeply; no confession or regret or truth could ever do the damage that this has done.

I feel gravity betray my body and I fall to my knees on the dirty stones; I sense Victor reaching for me, but he backs away when I deny him. “Don’t touch me,” I hear my voice say, but it sounds far off, as if coming from someone else’s mouth. “Don’t…”

Victor sits down on the floor, rests his back against the bars, draws his knees up and props his arms atop them. I can’t look at him, but somehow I can still see his every movement; even the sadness in his face. I see it. Somehow.

After what feels like a long time, after I feel in control of my voice again, I raise my head and look at him with tears in my eyes. “That’s why you sent me to Italy,” I say, pain altering my voice. “That’s why you said it had to be Niklas who went with us. It wasn’t because you knew he’d protect me, or that you knew you could trust him with me—you wanted us to be together.”

Victor sighs. Slowly, he nods.

“Yes,” he says softly. “I wanted to…save you both.”

“You wanted to save yourself,” I come back.

He shakes his head. “No,” he says, “it was not about saving me—it was about you first, my brother second, and then myself last.”

“You’re a liar.”

Victor blinks, stunned.

“I am sorry you feel that way,” he says. “But I am telling you the truth. I only wanted to save you.”

“From what?” I ask, with bitterness this time. “From your lifestyle? The dangers at every turn—I don’t believe you, Victor.”

“I wanted to save you from me,” he answers quickly. “I…wanted to save you from this.” He opens both hands, palms up, indicating this cage, this inevitable predicament.

And I look at those hands. I look at them, long and hard and symbolically, because in my heart I know they’re the hands that will end my life before this night is over.

He is telling the truth, after all: he wanted to save me from himself. Victor knew that one day he would have to kill me if our feelings did not change. Just like Marina. Just like Artemis. He is going to kill me…because he loves me. That’s why I’m still in these bonds. That’s why Victor has already told me that I’m going to die tonight. That’s why we are still in this cage together. That’s why…

Choking back the tears, I try to have some courage in my last moments, instead of cowardice, or feeling sorry for myself. This is all my own fault anyway; I could’ve left a long time ago; I could’ve chosen a different path, a different life, but I didn’t, despite all of the things that I saw and knew—I chose this.

I have no one to blame but myself.

I sigh, looking at my feet perched in the nice black shoes, and say, “Then why did you bring me here, Victor?” I raise my head and look at him. “If you were trying to push Niklas and me together, why whisk me away on a vacation, pamper me, and make love to me—why tell me how much you love me—if you didn’t want me anymore?”

He stands and moves toward me, holding out his hands, and he cups my cheeks within them. “That is what I have not told you yet,” he says, desperation evident in his voice. He pauses, softens his gaze. “I wanted—”

The door opens on the far side of the vast room. We turn swiftly to see Artemis and Apollo moving through the path of light borrowed from the hallway. They appear eager, worried even, not methodical and patient as they did when they left. It’s obvious something changed in the few minutes they were gone.

“Let’s get on with this, Victor,” Artemis calls out as she approaches; the sound of her boots moving over the stones echoes throughout the vast space. “You know why you’re here. You know why she’s here”—she stops at the bars, her twin standing behind her—“I want to hear you say it. Tell us all why you’re here, Victor…love.”

Victor steps away from me.

My heart picks up its pace, thrashing violently against my ribs; my throat is dry; I feel my palms sweating, my ears pounding, the vein in my throat hammering against my esophagus. My eyes dart between Artemis and Victor. This is it and I know it. I feel it. Then I see it…I see that flickering moment in which Victor reveals for the first time his intentions, the struggle within him that he knows won’t go his way, the downward shift of his gaze, the swallowing of his guilt—his eyes skirt the knife lying on the floor next to his feet.

Suddenly I can no longer hear their voices, or see their faces; my mind is cruelly carried off to a time that seems so long ago, a time when I barely knew Victor, but loved him enough already in my heart that I was willing to die at his hands:

He pulls my head back even farther. The gun is pressing into my stomach now.

“I’ve never been with a man that I wanted to be with,” I say. “I want to be with you. Just once. I want to know what it feels like to be the one in control.”

He’s conflicted, I feel it in the heat emitting from his skin, in his tense, uncertain movements. In one instance the gun digs deeper into my gut and I feel like my hair is about to come out within his hand. But then he relents, loosening his grip just a little, allowing my neck some reprieve. I can see his eyes now, peering up at me so deadly and yet so seductively even though I know he’s not doing it on purpose.

“You can’t be in here,” he says, also in a whisper.

I feel his eyes on me, sweeping over my body, my bare breasts, downward to where my naked thighs are latched loosely around his hips.

“I don’t care, Victor.”

His gaze moves back to my face where he studies the curvature of my lips. Then I witness something else flash over his eyes, something frightening that I’ve never seen before in him, and I tense within his grasp. He studies me quietly as if I’m something to be ravaged and then ultimately…killed.

And despite my growing fear, I still want to be right where I am, trapped in the merciless arms of a killer.

“SAY IT!” Artemis rips out the words, further proving her worry, and her impatience. “TELL US WHY WE ARE ALL HERE, VICTOR!”

Victor, standing in all his dark glory, his posture refined, his expression impassive, looks up at the tall ceiling, inhales a calm, steady breath and answers, “You want me to be the one to kill her.” Then he looks at Artemis. “You want me to take her life the same way I took yours years ago. With the same knife. With the same betrayal. You don’t want to go on, living your life, knowing that the man you loved could ever love anyone else more than you thought he loved you.”

Artemis crouches, reaches into the cell to retrieve the knife from the floor. She rises back into a stand, holds the knife out to him. “I know you don’t fear death, Victor,” she says, now with composure, and no threat or sarcasm. “I know you, what kind of man you are, so don’t for a second think this is a kill-her-or-die scenario.” She places the knife into his opened hand—tears of heartbreak, and anger, roll down my cheeks. “You, Victor, won’t die here tonight, whether you choose to kill her or not.” His fingers collapse around the knife, and Artemis’s hand encloses his. “I know it may be hard to believe, after everything you’ve put me through, after what you did to me, but the truth is, as much as I hate you, Izabel’s right…I still love you.” Now Artemis is the one crying; three tears track down her face.

Slowly she pulls her hand from his.

“I’m doing you a favor,” she says. “You know you have to do this, just like you knew when you held me in your arms and drew the blade across my throat—it has to be done; you’ve known this since the day you met her.”

Victor looks down at the knife in his hand.

I don’t move. I don’t speak. I don’t tremble or fear or ache anymore. I just am. I am the girl who fell in love with a killer, and the girl who still loves him despite knowing what he’s about to do.

I accept my fate.

I am fearless. Bold. And ready.

I am Izabel Seyfried.