When she glances back at Reynold, she revels in the nostalgic feel of the weight of the bow, just before she brings it and the arrow together against her body.
“I was not stolen,” she whispers, “I was saved.”
“You’re insane,” her brother hisses.
And she grins, unable to hide from the truth. “Aye, and that’s what saved me.”
He dies with his mouth open, with words he’ll never say dying on his tongue.
20
Sol watches as the bow remains poised against her body, perfectly erect against her.
She was a sight to behold when she squeezed the trigger and released the bullet that pierced her mother’s chest.
But this is something else entirely.
This is Moira killing with her chosen weapon; with her preference in mind and her prey considered.
Sol sees death as a form of art. How we kill and who we kill, it’s all a part of our life’s tapestries. In Moira’s tapestry, this line, he is sure, would start with bright hues, and end off on a deep red, like wine.
That is the color of her killing.
Not torturous, the way he likes, but efficient.
She does not play with her target the way he does.
He likes to make it last.
In sex, and in death.
She exhales, a shaky one that has her bow aiming at the ground.
The room is silent, and Sol comes up behind her, his hand meeting her belly and his mouth against her neck.
She sags against him.
“I was meant to find you, girasol,” he whispers into her thrumming pulse, the truth caressing her life source.
She drops the bow and turns to face him. One of the men gathers the bow and sets it aside with her arrows.
“Is there anything more beautiful in the world than when you release an arrow?” He runs his thumb just under her lower lip. “When you kill for me, it’s like you were born to do it.”
“I killed for the both of us,” she tells him. “Not just for your cause, but for my own.”
Moira looks around the space, stopping at every face.
And then she steps out of his embrace and leaves the shed.
Moira’s humanity is long dwindling in this gilded cage.
And she worries, as she stares at her naked limbs as water from the shower head rains down on her, that she will only see death in this new life of hers.
“Moira?”
Her head whips toward the source of her name.
Ella peers down at her, a sad smile on her face. “Woman troubles?”
Moira shakes her head and rests it on her knee, not knowing what to call her troubles.
“Are ye frightened?” Ella asks her.
Again, she shakes her head.
But not because she isn’t. It’s because she can’t pinpoint the true source of her fear. She isn’t afraid of Sol. She isn’t afraid of this place.
She is afraid of losing herself so well, that she forgets the beauty life offers.
Even on her worst days, she was able to watch the rain, stare at the stars, read a favorite story. Heal herself of the hate that tried to cling to her.
“Did Sol send you?” Moira asks the woman now kneeling at the edge of the tub.
When Ella nods, the ends of Moira’s lips lift, ever so slightly.
Healing doesn’t look like it once did.
But neither does her life in its entirety.
She was once hated, once forgotten. She cannot claim those things anymore.
It reminds her of a song her nanny used to sing to her, and just as she begins to hum it, he appears in the doorway.
He is so transfixed by her sadness, she hopes it does not gather around him, collecting dead roses and laying them at his feet. She begins to sing, chasing the gloom from him.
“Is your love a laird, or is he a lord,
or is he but a caddie,
that ye sae aft call on his name,
your own dear rantin' laddie?”
Sol’s eyes don’t leave hers as he stands in the doorway, the water washing her melancholy away.
Death stains.
But not the way her own sorrow does.
“Leave us,” Sol says, dismissing Ella.
The woman scurries out, but not before she looks back at Moira, questions in her eyes.
Sol enters, shutting the door behind him. “What is it, girasol?” He stops just at the edge of the tub and waits for her response.
“What will this life with you look like?”
Rather than answer, he smiles and reaches for the hem of his shirt, tugging it over his head. He pushes his pants down and his underwear follow.
When he climbs into the tub with her, Moira sits back, making room for him. He winces as he squats down and when Moira tries to stand, he waves her back to sit.
“I was worried,” he says with a groan as he settles across from her and pulls her close by her elbows, “that you were filled with regret.”
She shakes her head, allowing him to take her hands in his. He presses wet kisses to them before tucking her hair behind her ear.
“Do you know how I obtained all of this, Moira? How I afford to pay these men?”
She shakes her head again and he stares at her for a moment, seemingly unsure of how to proceed.
It’s strange to see the earnestness shining in those dark eyes of his, to feel his concern and to see him so vulnerable with her. But she’d be a liar if she said it didn’t make her feel like a human being again.
“I’m hired to kill people,” he tells her, and it doesn’t shock her the way it might have.
She’s lived in this house for this long, witnessed his massacre.
But one question falls from her lips. “Were you hired to kill my family?”
He leans back, creating space between them. “I…if I answer, will you not ask about that anymore?”
Moira doesn’t believe this to be a fair trade. In all this time, she’s asked and never truly received an answer.
“I’ve a right to know,” she tells him.
“And you will,” Sol confirms, pressing her hands together in front of him.
“When?”
“When I know the knowledge itself won’t get you killed,” he nearly yells. “I’m doing all I can here.”
She tilts her head to the right and regards him with eyes that more than look; eyes that see. “Is this why you run from me?” Moira questions him, trying to understand even a portion of what goes on inside of his mind.
“Yes, girasol. This is why I ran from you.”
“And now that you are caught?” She rubs her calf against his ribs.
“You’re just as imprisoned in this as I am,” he reminds her, his wet hand covering her entire breast. “Or do you require reminding?”
Her head goes back, and her body follows until she’s lying and open before him. And Sol wastes no time sinking down for a taste.
21
“Wake up, little sunflower,” Sol whispers in her ear, the darkness reaching out to touch her. She sighs into wakefulness and wonders what has him rousing her.
“Oh, but why?” she asks him, content to go on sleeping.
“We believe we’ve found the last brother.”
Her eyes open and she stills.
She isn’t sure, but she believes it to be Thomas.