Things she didn’t want to think about.
“If you see this,” he whispered softly, “you’ll run away. You’ll leave and never look back.”
She stared back at him, choking on her own breath.
He was right.
If she saw, she would run.
In all those stupid movies she’d watched as a kid, couples shared every dark secret, friends promised nothing hidden between them. They understood. They exposed each other, stripped each other bare, and loved even the ugly.
Nita was not those people.
If she saw this ugly, she would run. She would run far, and she would run fast, and she wouldn’t look back.
She didn’t want to know the darkest part of Kovit’s soul. Didn’t want to strip him of his secrets. His secrets were his to share or not. And sometimes people didn’t need to know every part of each other’s lives intimately.
Nita certainly didn’t want to talk about her dissection fetish with him. He knew about it, but she would never ever ask him to watch her take someone apart. Not because she was ashamed, but because she knew there were parts of what she did that went beyond the normal and verged on the deeply disturbing.
She’d seen the way he looked at her when she’d cut off Reyes’ thumb. The unease in his gaze, the crease between his brow.
But were they truly partners if they weren’t completely open? It wasn’t like he was lying to her. She understood what happened in that video without watching it.
She didn’t know.
But she didn’t want to lose him. And if she watched that video, she would.
Nita took her hand from the phone. “I understand. I won’t watch it.”
His shoulders slumped in relief, and he tipped his head up to the ceiling, as if thanking God. His voice was soft and scared. “I thought you were going to push.”
Nita shook her head. “It’s your past to share or hide. I respect you too much to push.”
He nodded, lips pressed together tightly, eyes closed, and released a huge breath followed by a short laugh. Then he turned a tired grin on her.
She returned it, and rose. “We’ve had a long day. We’ll make a plan tomorrow morning, after we’ve had some rest.”
He saluted. “Aye-aye, Captain.”
She rolled her eyes and went to brush her teeth.
* * *
Nita dreamed of the market.
Mirella was screaming.
In the past, Nita had been trapped in the cage when Kovit tortured the other girl. But in her dream, the cage was still shattered from when she’d escaped. And Mirella’s shrieks sounded like the skin of her throat had torn and each scream was made of blood. They gurgled.
Nita stood in front of the workroom door. Mirella and Kovit were behind it. If she opened it, she’d know everything. There’d be no going back.
She turned away from the door.
The scene changed, and suddenly Nita was in her apartment in Lima, in the dissection room. A cage was bolted to the floor, and Fabricio stared out at her, the side of his face bloody from where his ear had been ripped off.
“Why didn’t you come?” he asked.
“You were right outside the door.” Mirella chimed in.
Nita turned around, to where Mirella had spoken. The door to the workroom was open now, and the small girl lay on the metal dissection table, gray skin dripping with blood.
And standing over her was Nita’s mother.
Who smiled.
Nita woke up with a start, body spasming as she jerked out of the bed, gasping for air. Her heart slammed in her chest, and her whole body shook.
Kovit rolled over in his sleep, his dark hair falling over his face. His expression was peaceful as he slept, lips turning up softly. He didn’t look creepy at all, just human, like any other sleeping boy.
Nita swallowed, throat dry, and stumbled into the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face.
She had spent her whole life looking away from her mother’s crimes. If I didn’t see it, I couldn’t have stopped it. She’d ignored her mother, and by ignoring, she’d enabled who knew what kind of hideousness.
She’d refused to face any of the truths until she was forced. Until there was a boy chained in her room and her mother was standing over him hacking his ear off.
How was ignoring what Kovit did any different from with her mother? Wasn’t she just enabling him by pretending not to see his crimes?
For the first time, she let herself consider: was she just replacing one monster with another?
Twenty-Nine
NITA COULDN’T FALL BACK ASLEEP, and she didn’t want to wake Kovit, so she crept downstairs. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do in an empty pawnshop at night, but she knew she wasn’t going back to sleep yet. She didn’t want to have to lie down next to Kovit, hear his easy, peaceful breaths, untroubled by the things he’d done. She didn’t want to feel the heat of his body creeping over in the space between them on the bed.
Right now, she couldn’t be that close to him.
The light was still on when she went downstairs, and she opened the stairwell door and found Diana, cross-legged in one of the plush Victorian-style chairs, typing on her computer.
She looked up when Nita came in. “Oh, hey.”
“Hey.” Nita blinked at her. “It’s the middle of the night. What are you still doing here?”
Diana sighed. She’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail and taken out her mouthpiece, so Nita got a glimpse of her real teeth. They were small and sharp, and reminded her of cat’s teeth, but without the fangs. They didn’t look particularly dangerous, because they were so small, but they also didn’t look even the slightest bit human.
“I was working on decrypting the info from the phone you gave me.” Diana looked up, saw Nita staring at her mouth, and quickly shoved her fake teeth back in. There was a click as they hooked around her molars and the real teeth were gone, covered by a retainer.
Nita pretended she hadn’t noticed the teeth. “Any luck?”
She sighed. “No. Nothing.”
Diana rose and cracked her back. She put her computer down and looked outside. “I hadn’t realized how late it was. What time is it?”
Nita shrugged. “Around three, I think.”
Diana groaned and ran a hand through her hair. “Well, there goes my sleep schedule.”
Nita sat down on a dining chair across from her, careful not to knock over a hideous ceramic monkey in the process. “Did you have anything to wake up for tomorrow?”
“Not really. I’m doing some online courses in programming to get my diploma. Adair got me a new identity here, and I’m hoping I can have everything in place to go to college next year.”
Nita felt a spike of envy. She wanted to go to college next year. Even this year. Any year, really.
It was nice in a strange way, though, hearing her own goals echoed back at herself. It made her warm a little to Diana.
“You and Adair seem close,” Nita commented.
Diana looked away. “Who the hell knows with him. One minute he’s getting me a fake ID, the next he’s joking about murdering me in the basement.”
“But he listens to you.”
“Sometimes.” She sighed and looked away, changing the subject. “What are your plans for tomorrow?”