She clicks on her seatbelt as the man and his driver start to speak to each other in another language. It sounds so round and beautiful; robust and romantic.
“¿La vamos a matar, Sol?” the man driving asks.
The car becomes so still, she’s afraid to breathe. Something is happening and she questions if she’s in the balance here.
“Deja de hacerme preguntas. Just fucking drive.”
His words hold bite, even from his relaxed pose.
His fingertips brush against his lips again and while Moira understands there’s something that’s keeping him from killing her, she isn’t sure what it is.
She wants to ask, but the comment about lacking simple survival skills has her rethinking the idea.
It’s easier to stay alive when you aren’t a nuisance. She’d been forced to learn that lesson early on, though it was less about living and more about her pain threshold.
“You must wonder what’s going to happen to you now,” the stranger says, catching her attention as the memories of broken bones and a broken spirit fade.
“The thought did cross my mind,” she answers, tucking her hair away from her face, her elegant updo a thing of the past, her dress covered in blood and filth.
But when he turns to look at her, those thoughts fade as well.
“I think I’ll keep you, girasol.”
Keep. Keep.
Moira’s been kept before, and it did not sit well within her soul.
Her freedom is starting to suffocate her, but in the backseat of this car, surrounded by men who could very easily end her life, she swallows the claustrophobia back and exhales.
“Is this not to your liking?” he inquires.
“What do you intend to do with me?” she asks, unable to hold her curiosity back from its place in her eyes and mouth.
There’s a whisper of a smile on his lips as he gazes out of the window again. “You could prove to be very useful.” Then, he looks at her. “The girl no one knows, who looks like she wouldn’t harm a fly.”
Moira’s inhale stops in her chest and she wonders what’s in store for her. “I won’t kill anyone else,” she tells him.
But promises made are promises too often broken. And what’s reflecting in his eyes tells Moira he knows this as well.
Dungeons should be dark and heavily guarded. Does the lack of armed men and the beautiful chandelier then cancel out the idea of Moira being in a dungeon?
It was far too dark for her to know whether they’d simply driven in circles to disorient her or if they’d driven to a destination farther than she’d ever gone before.
She is the farthest from home she’s ever been. And she wishes she could call that place something other than home…but then, what would it be?
The word dungeon comes to mind again.
Had she simply traded one in for another?
“You’re sitting too quietly for my liking,” her stranger calls from his seat in front of the fireplace.
She’s been standing in the center of this ornate room full of books since they first entered.
“I doubt you want me loud,” she answers, her eyes roving over what looks too delicate and fanciful a room to house the likes of him.
Then again, the place she once resided in looked far too beautiful to be filled with such horrors.
Pretty packages, she thinks to herself. There are nightmares inside.
“Moira MacQuarrie.” The man stands, revealing himself to her again.
She can see him clearly, can witness the way the black of his hair matches that of his clothes. The slight limp in his gait, as if something once perfect was now marred.
“I don’t ken your name,” she accuses, her eyes going straight to his. They part as he approaches, and she tries not to focus on his imperfect stride.
As if he knows, he stops short, placing a hand on the back of another chair. “The Spanish language is quite…amusing.” His words are a near purr as he watches her. “My mother named me Sol, after the sun. El sol.” He gestures toward the ceiling before settling his gaze on her again.
But he remains silent, his eyes prodding as if he’s waiting for something. A flick of his wrist confirms it.
“Sol,” she whispers.
She swears she can hear air rushing through the room, as though speaking his name gives him power.
“But…as a child, I was nicknamed Solito, which translates to alone.”
“And were you?” Moira asks, wanting to look down at her feet but daring herself not to. To look the sun in its face, even if it makes her eyes bleed.
He takes a breath, his eyes squinting for a moment before he answers, “I was.” Sol pauses and then, “But not anymore.”
Moira thinks back to the moment she told him she wouldn’t kill anyone else and how he’d nodded with a small smile before sitting with her in silence until they’d arrived at what looked to be a house to rival even her family’s.
But they sit alone in this room that reminds her of royalty.
There are no other people in sight. No men, no staff, no sign of life. There is no one here to keep her from leaving. Her eyes flicker to the doorway and Sol catches the tiny movement.
“I see you know where the door is,” he tells her, his tone bored. “Of course, you may leave. But,” he utters the word so softly, “where would you go?”
“What does it matter to you?” Moira’s chin lifts in defiance and maybe she is damned for it. Perhaps she does lack the most basic of survival instincts. But she also lacks the patience to be someone else’s puppet.
“You can leave here and surely die. Or you can stay and find some use for what seems to have been a pointless existence.”
Her blood runs hot and she can no longer keep her anger still for this man. “And what makes your existence so profound? Thus far I’ve been less than impressed.”
He twists his lips in quiet fury at her words.
“Just put a bullet in me like you did the rest and my pointless existence will no longer be your problem,” she states.
It’s then that he lets out a laugh that echoes through the grand room. When his eyes settle back on hers, that fury is still there, glistening. “How can you be offended? You were being groomed to be quiet and to fuck. And that is all.”
“And I’ll do neither,” she says, loud enough that her words now bounce off the walls.
With bloody bare feet and a dress that was picked out to please a man she would’ve been forced to marry, Moira still refuses to back down.
“These false promises will get you in trouble,” he goads, his hand on the back of the chair curling into a fist.
“Aye. I am already in hell, Sol.” Now is the time to say his name. Now when he doesn’t seem as powerful anymore.
“You have no idea how much worse it can get.” He turns on his heel and storms out of the room, leaving Moira breathless.
7
There are many ways to be kept, Moira thinks to herself as she tries to lie still on the cold ground. Exhaustion is an unwelcome and unfamiliar foe; she succumbs to it in this dark room, in a stranger’s house, where death trims like wallpaper.
There’s the life she had, with a warm bed and a hand to strike her when her tongue got too sharp. But her worth kept her from harm. It made her bolder, at times, than she could truly afford to be. Her boldness, her mother had once said, came from the fire in her veins. That it was what made her hair red.