by Evelyn Glass
I reach down and grip the horns, wedging my hands between them and my chest, but no matter how hard I pull, they won’t budge. I begin to wonder if both of us will starve to death here, starve and starve and we’ll be found years later, two skeletons, skeletal horns locked through my ribcage.
“Richard doesn’t hit me,” I say. Or I try to say; blood pours from between my lips.
I try to speak again, but the blood makes it impossible. And the wound on my head pours more blood than I think I can survive. Everything is red and Dad is hurting me and all I want is to run, to run and get away from him and get somewhere safe. All I want is Dad to stop hurting me, to stop hitting me. All I want is to be normal. Be normal like the kids at school. But I know I can’t and soon I start to like the violence and the anger and the pain and the killing.
“Dad—”
He thrusts forward; his horns wrench something vital in my chest.
###
I wake panting, Anna leaning over me, looking down at me. “Bad dream?” she says.
I reach up and touch her face. It is free of makeup and her cheeks are red. She looks alive, vibrant, like somebody who has just stepped in from the cold. Her hair is a shaggy mess, framing her face, and her black eyes watch me closely, caring. I stroke her cheek and she reaches up and places her hand upon mine, securing it close to her skin. For a moment it’s as though I am outside of my body, watching.
A man, a killer, blood-soaked and without remorse, holding the face of an innocent woman, a lover of animals, flushed with life and excitement and a little fear. I watch myself with bemusement, wondering how I became this man who wakes from a nightmare and, instead of taking a drink or pacing or hitting something, finds solace in the simple touch of a woman.
But I don’t have to wonder for long. It is Anna, the quality inside of Anna which pulls me outside of the normal routine of my life and forces me to change. It is Anna, with her kindness and her understanding and her lack of judgement—and yes, her body, her sweet pleasure-giving body.
“Are you okay?” she says, rubbing my hand.
“I am now,” I reply, and then take my hand away.
I roll over and pick up my cell. Nine o’clock in the morning. “We have to leave,” I say.
“Leave? Where?”
“We have to keep moving. I have a place prepared for us. It’s a nice place. I think you’ll like it. And I have a surprise for you when we get there.” I’d prepared the surprise the night before with Jack, before entering the cabin.
“A surprise?”
We both stand up and start getting dressed, but as we dress, our eyes are locked on each other. I watch her body closely, memorizing every detail. I know that if we’re ever parted, I’ll want to be able to remember everything about her, the small mole just above her left nipple, the way her pale skin flushes red at the slightest provocation, her habit of chewing her lip without realizing she’s doing it. I pull on jeans and a shirt, and Anna roots through her bag and dresses herself in jeans and a sweatshirt with a picture of a wolf on the front.
“A surprise.” I nod. “It doesn’t all have to be doom and gloom, does it?”
She smiles. “Apparently not.”
I walk right up to her, taking pleasure in the way she breathes deep and quick as I do so, and then place my hands on her shoulders. “I’ll protect you,” I say. “I’ll die for you if I have to. I’ll kill for you.”
She touches my face lightly; I savor the feel of her soft, small hand. “I know,” she says.
###
We leave the house shortly after and meet Jack in the black sedan just outside. He sits behind the tinted windows. To Anna he must just seem like some ghostly man, sitting behind the wheel and never once talking. It doesn’t matter that he was there all last night, protecting her. I think about asking Jack to get out of the car and say hello, but I know he won’t. His time in the military made him skittish. I can’t blame him. War and bloodshed tends to do that. Even I, who have only ever fought in the wars of New York City and was only in the army for training, can get skittish.
I open the door for Anna and she steps in, giving me a small smile. I step in after her and shut the door.
“So,” she says, “where are we going?”
“That’s a secret.” I feel like a young boy, hopeful and happy. I know I have no right to feel like this in the circumstances, but I can’t help it. I feel hopeful and happy and I find myself thinking that life wouldn’t be so bad, driving around and having adventures with Anna. I can’t wait for her to see her surprise.
“You’re impossible, you know that,” she says.
I tap the screen which divides the backseats from the driver’s area. “Let’s get going.”
Jack doesn’t say anything, just starts the engine. He reverses away from the cabin, swerves, and then drives away from Point Lookout. Anna looks out of the back window as we drive away. I turn with her, and together we watch as the morning sunlight glitters off the ocean spray. “This place is amazing,” Anna says. “It’s odd, but I’m almost sad to leave it.”
“Maybe we’ll come back one day,” I say.
She smiles at me. I’m discovering more about myself over the course of a few days with Anna than I ever did over months with River. Like how a woman’s smile can slide into your soul and make you unaccountably happy. I want to make her smile as often as I can, want to spend whole weeks just trying to make her smile.
‘If only you’d met under different circumstances, eh?’ Black Knight laughs. ‘If only you weren’t a killer and she wasn’t a target. You have to remember, Samson, your life can’t be like everybody else’s. You’re a killer and you have to hold that close to you, own it, and never forget it.’ I know that, as usual, Uncle Richard is right. But that doesn’t mean the desire isn’t there, and growing stronger every minute.
We grow silent for the rest of the journey, except for the occasional piece of small talk. We’re both tired. Tired from the sex and the swelling emotion and the chase and the drama of it all.
After a while, Anna realizes that we aren’t driving west back toward the city, but east toward the small hamlets sometimes called the East End. She turns her gaze to me, questioning, but I feign ignorance and shrug.
“Oh, you think I’m going to believe that, do you?” she laughs. “You’re a horrible and evil man, Samson, do you know that?” She shoves me playfully.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say, but I laugh. Can’t help but laugh when Anna looks so happy, so content, so at ease. Can’t help but laugh when Anna looks like the exact opposite of what my life really is. I know she’s worried, anxious, but she appears at ease and that gives me strength.
Leaning forward, she slaps me lightly on the hand. “You, Samson Black, are a strange, beautiful man.”
“I’ve never been called beautiful before. Strange, yes, but beautiful?”
She moves her hand from mine to my knee, and then up higher on my leg. She slides it almost to my crotch and then snatches it away just as my breathing quickens and my heartbeat increases. She giggles coquettishly, winking at me. “Sorry. Do I drive you mad, Samson? Do I make you angry?”
My cock got hard when she was touching me. Even now, with her hand removed, it’s still hard. I drink in the sight of her. Fully-clothed, and yet I know what’s beneath those clothes, what fleshy pleasures. I know the shape and sight of her body naked, the feel of it. I think about tearing them away now, revealing her, losing myself in her. But then I remember Jack and decide against it. I swallow, pushing back my lust. The last thing I need is for Jack to see me making love. Making love, I think. There’s that phrase again. Not fucking or screwing, but making love.
The car drives into a high-class neighborhood in the Hamptons, dominated by five- and six- and seven-bedroom mansions. Expensive sports cars are parked in the driveways. The streets are the cleanest streets I’ve ever seen, not even a piece of gum buried in the concrete. Everything is orderly, brushed clean. Sever
al gardeners, wearing overalls and gloves, tend the long, well-kept front gardens. Moms push strollers, but these are glamorous moms wearing sweatpants with full faces of makeup, combining the act of taking their child out with a power-walking session.
I look to Anna. Her jaw has dropped and she gazes out of the window with frank amazement. “You can’t be serious,” she says. “A safe house, sure, but a safe house here? Doesn’t that seem . . .”
“Only the best for you,” I say. “Just because you’re on the run, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t live in comfort. And don’t use all your excitement up yet. There’s more to come. You haven’t even seen where we’re staying yet—ah, here we are.”
The car pulls up outside a huge mansion, at least eight-bedroom, the eaves held up by magnificent marble pillars. The front door is wide and the porch is huge, sporting tables and chairs and big potted plants. The lawn is mowed and cleaned and the driveway is spotless grey cobblestone.
“This is yours?” Anna says, look sideways at me. “This is yours . . . really?”
“Really,” I say. “Are you impressed?”
She shakes her head in wonderment. “That’s one word for it.”
Chapter Fifteen
Anna
Samson steps from the car, walks around to my side, and opens the door. I hand him my bag and step into onto the cobblestone driveway. I feel as though I am in some rags-to-riches movie. That isn’t fair, because I was never in rags, but it’s how I feel. One day I’m sitting in my one-bedroom apartment, and the next I’m being carted off to James-Bond-style hideouts and mansions you normally only see on reality TV shows. I look up at the mansion. I’m in awe of it. It towers above me, three stories at least, and the doors. The doors impress me the most, for some reason. Perhaps it’s the only thing I can focus on as a point of reference. They are wide, double doors, painted red with immaculate care, not a single chip or blemish, and the knockers are carved lion’s heads, golden, shining.
“Shall we?” Samson says, offering me his arm.
I take it, and we walk to the mansion, up the steps, past the marble pillars, and to the doors. They open wide before we even knock, and a straight-backed, clean-shaven butler bows shortly. “Sir, madam,” he says.
I look to Samson, wondering if he’ll ever stop being full of surprises, and he shrugs and grins like a child pleased with a painting he showed to his parents. He’s showing off for me, that’s the truth, but I don’t mind. His wealth . . . it astounds me.
Samson hands the butler my bag and leads me inside. The hallway is cavernous, reaching right up to the rafters in the ceiling. A double staircase leads to the second floor. Paintings are hung everywhere, abstract art, just like in the hideout. “You like this particular style, then?” I ask as Samson leads me through to the living room.
“Yeah,” Samson nods. “I can relate to it more than portraits and landscape and all the rest of it. Though I like them, too.” He shrugs, and for a moment he seems embarrassed. “I’m sure you find it strange, a man like me having a passion for art—”
I touch his arm. “Don’t be silly,” I say.
The living room is large and modern, with long white couches, an eight-inch television, and a chandelier hanging from the ceiling. I sit on the couch and look up at Samson, who stands over me, grinning that pleased grin.
“You like it, then?” he asks.
“Like it?” I wave a hand at the mansion in general. “Samson, it’s a goddamn mansion. Of course I like it!” A thought occurs to me. “What about the servants, though?”
“They’ve worked for me for two years now, and I pay them well, above what they normally get. This place is off the official record, too. The servants can be trusted, and even if they couldn’t, they don’t know about River and all the rest of it. You’re safe here, I promise.”
I trust him. I shouldn’t trust a man I’ve known for such a short amount of time, but I do, and right here and now I tell myself to stop worrying over the trust issue. He’s stopped being a killer who drifted into my life one night. Now he’s just Samson, my Samson.
“You were right. This is quite the surprise,” I say.
He looks at me blankly for a moment, and then shakes his head. “This isn’t the surprise, Anna.”
“What? What is it, then?”
I struggle to think what else it could be. A huge mansion, servants to attend me, living a life of luxury I never once dreamed I’d experience.
“Wait here.”
He leaves the room. I watch him go, and then glance once more around the room. I try to calculate how much everything in here must’ve cost. The TV, the furniture, the paintings, the chandelier . . . and this is just one room. How much money does he have? It must be more than a million, probably much more. He’s a killer, I remind myself, but that doesn’t seem to hold any weight now. He may be a killer, but he’s a good man, an honest man, a man who cares about me.
About five minutes later, Samson returns. He’s changed into a suit and trousers, his shirt opened at the collar and showing the top of his muscular pecs.
“I feel underdressed now,” I admit.
“That’s the point.” He leans down, takes me by the hand, and lifts me to my feet. “But don’t worry. You won’t feel like that for long.”
“What have you got planned?” I ask.
He places a hand on his chest, feigning innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, but he’s smiling from ear-to-ear, smiling like a madman. “I don’t have anything planned.”
“You’re a bad liar, Samson.”
“I’m not,” he says, suddenly serious. “Not usually, anyhow. But around you? Yes, I think so.”
He leads me to the front of the house, through the double doors, and to the porch. The street is empty apart from parked sports cars, a few jogging women (all of them looking like women from The Real Housewives), and the gardeners. We sit on the chairs and when open my mouth to ask Samson what’s going on, he lifts up his hand.
“Patience,” he says. “Don’t worry. It’ll be worth it.”
Ten or so minutes later, a van pulls up. Two men step from the man, both of whom have the same demeanor as the butler who opened the door for us when we arrived: straight-backed, official-looking. They walk around to the back of the van, open it, and take out boxes. They take out six boxes in total, and carry them to the porch.
“Take them into the living room,” Samson says. “It’s on the left.”
“As you say, sir,” the man replies.
All the boxes are carried into the house. When they’re done, Samson reaches into his pocket and takes out two bundles of notes. I watch as he hands them to the men, guessing that each amounts to at least five-hundred dollars.
“That’s very kind, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“What is happening?” I whisper, when the men drive away. “What’s in the boxes?”
“Follow me and you’ll find out.”
We return to the living room. The boxes are stacked neatly on the glass coffee table, six of them arranged invitingly.
Samson nods at the table. “Go ahead,” he says. “I can’t take you out on the town like I want to, not yet, at least. It’s too dangerous. But that doesn’t mean I can’t bring a little glamor into your life, does it? I guess you could say this is my way of saying sorry for disrupting your life.”
I can barely contain my curiosity. I feel like tearing into the boxes with my nails and teeth. Instead I walk as calmly as I am able to the closest one. I feel like a child on Christmas morning, my chest tight and pounding with anticipation. My world, for the moment, has honed down to one focal point: the boxes. I open one, look in, and gasp. The inside of the box reads Tiffany’s, and the box is overflowing with jewelry: pearls, earrings, necklaces, rings. All diamond, all glittering, shining, winking at me. I can’t stop myself: I open the rest of the boxes. Four of them contain dresses and shoes from Neiman Marcus and the sixth holds more jewelry.
“You can choose
whatever you want,” Samson says. “Anything. I’ll settle the bill later; I have an understanding with the owners of the stores. They trust me. Anything, Anna, from any of the boxes. Choose it and it’s yours.”
I have been focused for a long time on my studies, on making my way, and no matter what happens that will always be important to me. But that doesn’t mean I stopped dreaming the dreams most women do. Glamorous. That’s the word, and I have to admit, it’s something I’ve never felt.
I choose two dresses, a pearl necklace, diamond earrings, and a diamond ring. I show them to Samson. “Is that alright?” I ask.
“Of course,” he smiles. “Anything for you, Anna.”
I lay my selections on an armchair, and then dance over to Samson.
