His face goes slack. “With…who?”
“What if it was your father? It could have been Jesus or...damnit, anyone! Would it matter?” He shakes his head, and I raise my voice. “Tell me, would it matter?”
His face is so taut, so unhappy, that I feel a sweet wave of relief. This is it. He’s going to walk away and I won’t be to blame. It won’t be my choice.
Instead, he strides forward and tips my face up so I’ll have to look at him, and look at him I do. I do my best to memorize him. “Don’t get me wrong,” he whispers, “this is a surprise for me. I thought that I would care. Maybe I should care. But I’m finding that I don’t. Because I want you so much, nothing else seems to matter.” There’s vulnerability in his eyes, and I’m worried—terrified and elated—over what he will say next. “Merri, I—”
“Don’t say it!” I say shrilly.
And he gets it: that I’m telling him not to love me. I know he gets it, because his face crumples. His right hand drops down to his side and as he looks at me, his features harden, showing an instant of anger before settling on something that is terribly, wrenchingly sad.
“I don’t say anything I don’t mean,” he says softly.
And that’s a shame—because in another universe, maybe we end up together.
I step to him and kiss his sweet mouth one more time. “Thank you,” I choke out. “Thank you so much, Cross.” I kiss his jaw, and then I go.
34
Cross
I LIE THERE for a long time. On my back, staring at the ceiling. There’s a fan that’s going ’round and ’round. I try to follow it with my eyes and push my thoughts away, the way Akemi taught me. While my mind is empty, the room goes dark. Next time I notice where I am, my shoulder aches. I have to focus harder to stay empty.
Eventually I get tired of the effort.
Maybe I want to feel the pain.
I turn on my side so I can smell her in the sheets.
Merri. She was right here, only hours ago.
I curl over on my side and put my hand over my face. The ache inside my chest is crushing—much worse than my shoulder. I feel…broken. Almost like when I woke up from the coma.
I wonder if this will ever go away, and then I think I don’t want it to. I’ll take Merri any way I can have her.
I turn from side to side. Minutes feel like hours. I wonder where my shirt is. I wonder who she fucked. I wonder why I don’t care—not at all. I think I know, but I keep the thought away.
I can feel my heartbeat in my shoulder.
Maybe I should go back to the brothel.
Outside, the air has cooled just a bit. I look around, in the grass around the house, but there is no sign of my shirt. I’m shutting the broken door, wondering if Merri will miss me, when I smell smoke. Dinner, I think. I turn toward the main house, and I see smoke, big, dark clouds of it, creeping like fingers between the trees.
Oh, fuck.
I hear screaming before I emerge from the trees, and when my boots hit the soft grass of the long, straight, English-style lawn, there is the brothel: glowing. The fire is contained to one back corner of the main building, but as I begin to run, I can already see it spreading. My heart skips a few beats. What if Merri’s inside sleeping? What time is it?
I don’t see the edge of the pond until I splash into it. I swerve the other way, blinking through the smoke.
Merri. I just need to get to Merri.
Terror fuels me, makes me faster. I’m past the pond. The smoke is thicker. It burns my lungs but I keep moving.
“MERRI!”
I’m still half a football field away from the mansion, but I can see shadowy figures in the smoke.
“MERRI!”
The figures are moving in a group, but I can see from here there’s not that many of them. A dozen? Fewer? Where the fuck is Merri?
The blaze is growing. It has climbed up the left side of the mansion and is eating into the middle.
I pick up speed and try to prepare myself for the possibility of going in. I will, if I can’t find her. And Lizzy and Suri.
Fuck—there’s three of them. I’m near enough to the shadows now that I can see them grouped in a circle.
Someone must be hurt. Otherwise they would be moving farther back. Escaping the smoke that’s so thick here, I’m wheezing.
Not Merri, I tell myself as I come up on them.
“MERRI!” She could be one of the onlookers. She would stick around if someone needed her.
I’m almost to them—maybe ten feet away—when the crowd splits up. One half headed toward the blaze, the other clump of figures moving toward me.
I’m confused. Are they firefighters?
And then, from a small distance, I hear her shrieking, “No!”
I can tell it’s Merri because I’ve heard her voice in every intonation this past week. I’m sure it’s her because the sound makes all my muscles tense.
“MERRI!” I run around the group in front of me, into smoke so thick I can’t see a thing. “MERRI, WHERE ARE YOU?”
“No, Cross, NO!”
It sounds like she’s moving farther away, but I can only see smoke and shadows, black against the brilliant glow of fire. I sprint forward, running into sparks now that are falling from the building, and I hear her shriek again.
With all my strength, I hurl myself into the flames, thinking that I’m running into fire when really the fire is somewhere above me. The first floor, right in front of me, is smoking like a chimney but not burning.
I’m gasping for air, trying to climb inside a broken window with only one working arm, when something grabs me hard from behind and I’m slammed onto the ground.
Before I can get my breath again, I hear a low laugh, and something sharp touches my throat. A second later, a large body drops down over mine.
I note a slew of Spanish words before I see the face, and when I see the face, I don’t think it is real. The man sitting on my chest, holding a knife to my throat and leering at me through a cloud of black smoke… It’s Jesus Cientos.
His blade draws blood. I can feel it run down my neck, onto my shoulders. He presses harder as he glares at me, and I know I’m dead. Then the knife is gone, and he’s slapping me with both hands.
The slaps turn into punches. I try to fight, but he’s got backup—several of his men emerge from the smoke and hold me down. Somewhere near the back of my consciousness, I can hear him giving orders. Talking about the house. The fire. The girl.
I’m trying so hard to stay conscious, I can barely translate.
“…convenient.”
“…whore.”
“…David.”
“…explosives.”
I shut my eyes and wonder: Where is Merri? I remember her voice fading as she neared the flames.
What if Merri’s inside?
I’m opening my mouth to try and make some kind of deal when all of a sudden, all the weight is off me and I’m thrust up to my feet. My lungs are shit. I’m coughing and my knees won’t work.
“Take him,” someone says.
A stronger voice—one I think belongs to Jesus—says, “No. I want to make him watch.”
For a couple of seconds, everyone around me is speaking Spanish: so many voices I can’t translate, especially since I’m coughing out everything I just inhaled. Then something cold and hard is pressed into my neck and someone shoves me forward. We’re marching into the smoke.