He believes them.
“Gideon—”
I find my voice too late. He’s already moved away, sitting up and swinging his legs to the floor. Head in his hands, he mutters, “Maybe I am delirious.”
This is the world ending.
My world, my darkness, about to burn in the light.
My back against the headboard, I pull my knees to my chest. My body feels light, my mind buoyant as I draw a breath and prepare to strike the match that will burn his love to the ground.
It’s better this way.
“Nate and I weren’t kept for several months. It was almost four years. Our… handler, I guess you could call him, worked for a Mexican cartel. I was fifteen and Nate fourteen when we were taken.”
Gideon’s hand rests atop mine, a steady, warm weight on my cold fingers. I stare unblinking at a wrinkle in the sheets, unable to look at him.
I might never look at him again.
“We were imprisoned in a room with boarded-up windows and ate food laced with sedatives—enough to make us docile, not enough to make us zombies. Besides that, nothing bad really happened for the first year. We had daily trainers and tutors in etiquette and liberal arts, even economics.
“When you’ve been on the streets for any extended period of time, like Nate and I had been, a cage can trick you. Even though we were waiting for the other shoe to drop, we got used to our situation. I wouldn’t even say we were unhappy. Steady meals, showers, a soft bed to sleep in, all the books and television we wanted—”
Lightheaded, I pause to take a breath. Gideon’s thumb strokes my wrist.
I still can’t look at him.
“Obviously, things changed. We had our first audition”—I almost gag on the word—“which consisted of a performance of some sort. A part of a play, a dance routine, a scripted debate… The piece was determined by our handler to entice his prospective, uh, buyers.”
Gideon makes a soft, pained noise.
“It went on for the next two years. Auditions and assignations, which we learned fast was a pretty word for rape. By the time I was seventeen, we’d tried and failed to escape twenty-four times.”
Now that I’ve started, I don’t know if I can stop. The words are poison being purged from my system. I’m not in control.
“Then things changed again. Our handler became, uh, unwilling to part with me, and became violent, which caused problems because if we were hurt, we couldn’t perform, and Nate and I were often requested as a pair—they called us—called—Day and Night because our hair—”
A flashback seizes my mind. Nate screaming, holding a stolen steak knife to his arm, threatening to cut himself—damage the merchandise—if I wasn’t released from…
Chains—
Pain—
I break out in a sweat, nausea rolling through me in waves. Groaning, I drop my head to my knees. Gideon’s touch on my hand vanishes. A minute later a cool, damp washcloth drapes over the back of my neck.
“Breathe.” His voice floats somewhere above me. “That’s it. Just breathe. I’m here. I won’t leave you.”
Gideon refreshes the washcloth two more times before the dots clear from my vision and my breathing evens out. Shaking like I’m coming down from an adrenaline high, I take the cloth and wipe lingering sweat from my face.
The end is close. So close.
“When we finally escaped, it wasn’t even our doing. Apparently the cartel wasn’t happy that two of their bestselling commodities were frequently out of commission. They came to the house to take us and kill our handler, but he… he was waiting for them and shot them first. He came to our room right after, covered in blood. We knew he was going to kill us before letting anyone else have us.”
One
last
breath—
“So I killed him first.”
34 false sacrament
I wake up alone in the guest room, the door locked from the inside. Head pounding, I haul myself from the warm sheets into the cool, pre-dawn air, dressing swiftly in my clothes from yesterday.
Before leaving, I stand outside the studio door, my forehead to the wood. The music is soft in deference to me, and I can hear him muttering in French. Talking to his muse, perhaps. It makes me smile, albeit sadly, and sigh.
I don’t say goodbye.
I drive around for two hours, numb to the morning traffic, until I’m absolutely sure no one is following me. Finally, I park not too far from Crossroads and hop a public bus to South Central, getting off five blocks from my destination.
Despite a decade of distancing myself from the past, my old skin slipped on seamlessly. It might have been different if I were in work attire, but wearing baggy clothes and battered sneakers, with my hair in a careless knot and no makeup, no one gives me a second look as I slip down side streets and through alleys to the run-down building.
The stairwell smells like piss and mold, both easily ignored. Silent footsteps carry me to the third floor and down a dingy hallway lined with doors. Stopping at the last door on the right, I fish a key from my pocket and let myself inside.
The wood groans as it swings inward on old hinges. Stale air and the scent of moth balls wrinkle my nose. A flip of a switch turns on a flickering lightbulb, revealing a narrow hallway with yellowed linoleum and dirty, off-white walls. To my right is a small kitchen with an unplugged fridge and empty cabinets. The rest of the studio is shadowed, blinds closed and curtains drawn.
Once inside, I close the door and turn all six locks before sliding the chain home.
No one, absolutely no one, knows about this place. There’s no paper trail and the name on the lease is bogus—not that anyone cares in this part of L.A. All that matters is that I pay rent by the year, upfront and in cash. None of the other tenants have seen me, and the landlord was already half-blind eight years ago when I signed a fake name.
Even as a part of me hoped I’d never need this failsafe, the streetwise survivor in me believed otherwise, and prepared for the inevitability of my past catching up to me.
Moving into the dim living area, I find the single lamp and screw the bulb into place, then turn it on. Yellow light fills the space, empty but for a plastic folding chair, a large cooler, and two duffel bags.
In the larger bag, I find clothing in sealed plastic. There’s absolutely no logical reason to change my clothes, but I do anyway, needing the symbolic action of stepping outside my life. Five minutes later, I’m wearing tight black jeans and a black, long-sleeved shirt. Boots, a ponytail, and a baseball hat follow.
I check the contents of the smaller bag: a dark composite case housing a 9mm Smith and Wesson, two magazines, and several boxes of ammo. Also in the bag is a hunting knife, ski mask, and gloves.
Because you never fucking know.
There’s also a small, prepaid flip phone. I power it up and robotically enter a memorized number, then hesitate. My skin crawls. Sweat beads out on my neck and chest. There’s no guarantee the number will work; in fact, it shouldn’t. Maybe it won’t. I don’t know what I’d do then. I’m still not sure what I’m doing now.
I sit unceremoniously on the floor, phone clenched in my fingers and held to my forehead, and rock back and forth like the broken woman I am.
A few minutes pass. Then a few more.
I think about Nate. About Gideon. About lies and half-truths and sacrifice. I think about the life I might have had with a different mother and father. All the useless musings of someone staring into the abyss.
Slowly, methodically, I empty my mind of weakness. Attachment. There’s no use putting it off any longer.
Fuck it.
I make the call.
The line clicks open on the third ring.
Silence.
The hum of a fan in the background.
Breathing.
I’m ice inside—solid and still.
Then, “Hello, Deirdre.”
My voice comes hard and sharp. “What do you want?”
“Is that any way to greet an
old friend? I’ve missed you.” A smile in the words, his sincerity ringing clear.
My gut churns, preparing to eject the coffee and muffin I forced down this morning. Bile tickles the back of my throat.
Even after all these years, this version of him triggers a Pavlovian response. Warmth. Connection. Memories of his gentle touch, his soothing voice. The only comfort after hours of horror.
The absolute mind-fuck of it all.
As a teen, I didn’t know how to recognize true mental illness. Sure, Mama was a drunk, but she was mean with or without booze.
This man was—is—different.
He has dissociative identity disorder, formerly known as multiple personalities. And in this particular case, also known as batshit-fucking-crazy.
Marco was our friend, our caretaker. A champion who promised to keep Nate and me safe, who cared for us after the abuses of clients. He swore he’d help us escape one day, that he’d punish his brother for treating us the way he did.
But there was no brother.
Only the other half of him: Julep.
The demon who called us his muñequitas—little dolls—who drugged us and pimped us out to cartel members, politicians, and wealthy elitists whose sexual tastes colored outside legal lines. Julep, the monster who was obsessed with me, who periodically chained me to his bed for weeks on end, who nearly killed me twice.
I should have killed him.
Why didn’t I kill him?
“I can hear you thinking,” Marco says lightly.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “Where’s Julep?”
“Don’t worry, he’s not here,” he whispers, then laughs. “We don’t speak much anymore.”
My stomach rolls again. It almost sounds like he knows they’re not separate people, but that’s impossible. In an upside-down world, the one certainty we had was that Marco truly believed Julep was a different person. Hated him, even. But I don’t hear the usual loathing, the undercurrent of agony.
The phone slips in my hand, my fingers damp with sweat. I grip the plastic so tightly I hear it squeak.
Pushing away the nagging sense that something is terribly wrong, I say, “You’ve broken our agreement. Why now, after all this time?”
“Don’t worry,” he deflects. “Julep doesn’t know I found you. I won’t tell him.”
But Julep does know! I want to scream. He knows because he sent that envelope. He broke into my condo. He’s stalking me!
“Did you like my gift?”
I almost drop the phone. “What gift?”
“The flowers, silly! I left them by your bed. Tuberose, your favorite. Where’s my thank-you?”
Time grinds, slows. My heartbeat is a muffled roar in my ears. This isn’t the Marco I remember. That Marco would have never done something so sure to frighten me. And that Marco never knew what my favorite flower was.
But Julep did.
If I wasn’t already sitting, I would fall. As it is, I sag against a wall, eyes closed as futile defense against the assault of truth.
Retribution.
Damnation.
Consequence.
“Julep,” I breathe.
He laughs.
Razored panic slices my skin, digs between my ribs, and pierces my lungs. My vision tunnels. Whitens.
“¿Cómo está, mi muñequita?” How is my little doll? “I have a bone to pick with you.”
He’s dropped all pretense. Deeper accent, sharper consonants. Some indefinable shift in cadence that is uniquely him. My mind races to understand the impossible—how he could have mimicked Marco so perfectly. My research years ago suggested that the merging of two “alters” was extremely rare.
“What have you done to Marco?” The question is as insane as it is irrepressible.
Julep hums in glee. “That little cabrón is locked up tight. Thanks to you, Deirdre, I’m a changed man. After what you did to me, I wound up in a fucking institution. Got all the therapy I needed. I’m better now. Integrated.” The final word is a hiss.
My ear hurts. Belatedly, I realize my hand is shaking so hard I’ve been hitting myself with the phone.
“What do you want?” I hate the weakness in my voice. The primal fear.
“The same thing I’ve always wanted.”
I grab the knife from the bag. Curling my fingers around the handle, I remind myself I knew this day could come. That my split-second decision to spare Marco’s life could—and likely would—cost me everything down the road.
Because it had been Marco I’d helped outside, let lean on me as we made our way to the secluded garden shed at the edge of the property. Marco I knocked unconscious with the butt of a gun and locked inside for the authorities to deal with.
Not this monster.
“I made you,” Julep continues, harsh and deep and with absolute conviction. “If not for me, you’d be rotting in a shallow grave somewhere, a senseless victim of the streets. If not for my money, that you stole from me, you’d be the same stupid trailer trash I found fourteen years ago. You. Belong. To. Me.”
Silence falls, the only sound his heavy breathing. My fingers ache from gripping the knife, my palm stinging where my nails have pierced flesh.
“But I’m not without mercy,” he continues, marginally calmer. “I know this is a lot to process. You may have three days, mi muñequita. Say your goodbyes. If you don’t come home, I’ll flip a coin to decide who dies first: sweet little Nate or the Ginger you’re fucking.”
Click.
“Wait—”
The word recoils, choking me with sick comprehension.
Come home.
35 PAST
18 YEARS OLD
Looking down at the man responsible for demolishing the last of my innocence and Nate’s, I flick open the Zippo lighter and run my thumb back and forth through the flame. The sensation of heat is delayed, camouflaged by the bite of ice—a misdirection of the elemental predator I’m all too familiar with.
One time as a kid, I stole a bottle of bubble bath from the corner store. I’d seen a picture in a magazine of a big white tub filled with frothy foam. It looked so nice and peaceful. I wanted it.
Mama found the bottle. She knew I stole it because I had no money—plus Daddy had taught me how to steal when I was six. My punishment was to sit outside the bathroom while she filled our old, stained bathtub with water.
When she came and got me, she was smiling. Behind her I could see the tub piled high with thick bubbles. She told me she wasn’t mad. That I should strip down and get in. She’d wash my hair and read me a story.
I should have known, of course, but I was still confused. Still believed somewhere in my little heart that my mama must love me—even just a bit.
I’ve never forgotten those first few seconds in the water. At first, I thought it was freezing cold, that yes, I was being punished, but that it wasn’t the worst thing to take a cold bath.
The scalding water tricked my mind into thinking I was okay.
I wasn’t okay.
I’m not okay now, either. But this time, I’m in control of the heat.
“You’ll feel cold first,” I tell him. “Embrace it, cherish it, because when the pain comes it won’t stop no matter how much you beg.”
Julep blinks at me with his good eye, the other black and swollen closed.
“I always knew it would be us in the end,” he rasps. “You’re the only woman who’s ever been a match for me.”
“Shut up,” I snap.
His chuckle is wet with blood, one of his lower teeth recently knocked out. “Tell me there isn’t a part of you that wants to stay with me. To rule beside me.”
“You’re a fucking pimp—a piece of filth—not a goddamn emperor. And I’m about to take out the trash.”
“I never made you do anything,” he says, his one dark eye fixed on my face. “You wanted it, Deirdre. The power and control. You brought them all to their knees and you reveled in it.”
I look away. “I’m done talking.
”
“Kill me or not, mi alma, my soul, but I’ll never leave you. We belong to each other.”
“You belong in Hell.”
A bloody smile. “I’ll see you there.”
Click. Snick.
A small, fragile flame lifts above the Zippo. Velvety orange and red. I toss the lighter onto the pool of spilled vodka. There’s a dramatic gasp as flames suck their first explosive hit of oxygen. I wait until the fire eats its way toward the piles of bedding and curtains, until smoke curls dark and stifling in the room. Until Julep starts coughing feebly and yanking at his chains.
Chains he used on me and countless others.
Feeling nothing, I limp toward the door.
“Deirdre?”
A whispered croak of sound, warm and frightened and familiar.
No! my mind screams. Don’t look back!
“Deirdre?” Rising panic. “Wh—what’s happening? Dios mío, get me out of here! Oh God, God. Please, don’t leave me!”
I look back.
36 injustice
Gideon sits in the dark living room, a glowing clove dangling from his fingers. His head lifts as my footsteps register, but he doesn’t look at me.
“The opening is tomorrow.”
“I know. I’ll be there.”
He sinks back, head falling to a cushion. The end of the clove flares as he takes a long drag.
“When I realized you were gone, I wasn’t surprised. Not after the way you shut down last night. Why did you come back?”
Because I love you.
I’m selfish.
Damned.
My voice rides currents of regret, “I don’t have to leave yet.”
“When?” he asks through clenched teeth.
God, I can’t do this.
Please…
But maybe I’m not as selfish as I thought, because I’m going to sacrifice his love and trust to keep him safe.
“After the opening.”
A short, rough laugh. “Poetic. A worthy, dramatic climax to our affair. You’re not going to tell me where you’re going, are you?”
“No.”
Art of Sin: Illusions Duet : Book One Page 15
