“Or nothing,” I replied, too weary for a war of words with her—I knew that was what she wanted, and for once, I refused to engage. “Just don’t.”
Rani considered me for long, quiet seconds, and I knew she was thinking of all the millions of reasons she had to kill me and how she probably wished she’d done the deed years ago and I didn’t even give a fuck. Because, for real, the shit between me and Rani had gone on so long, so many goddamned years of craven brutality, that even I was sick of us.
“She.” Rani raised her eyes in Juma’s direction but remained focused on me. “She is your greatest weakness, Dutch, and if you’re not careful, she is going to get you killed.”
I felt Juma shift and perhaps she considered countering Rani’s conclusion, but she remained silent.
“You know what’s kept you alive this long? The simple fact you didn’t give a shit about anything or anyone. And as much as I’ve always abhorred you and dreamed of the many and varied ways I would enjoy bringing about your death, I’ve also always harbored a secret respect for your fuck-it-all attitude. Even I couldn’t pull that shit off as well as you’ve done.
“Until her.” Rani again flashed her eyes in Juma’s direction.
“And you know what? I knew it. I told James as much.” Rani laughed at something only she was privy to, and for the millionth time too many, I wanted to hurt her. “But he insisted no woman was stupid enough to love you, because James loved Khan and knew nothing of women and how they love to love something damaged and dark.”
Rani watched as her words settled into Juma’s bones, and she must have liked what she saw because her thin mouth curved into a crooked smile.
“Your Poocha doesn’t like being considered so common and predictable, and from the looks of her, I’m guessing it’s rare anyone dares call her common and predictable, but the fact she fell for you is exactly common and predictable. It’s expected. How could she not fall for you? What woman doesn’t fall for that face and the hint of trauma kissed with despair? But you,” Rani said as she turned back to me, “holy fuck, I never thought I’d live to see the day you fell for anything. And I liked you that way, it made my job of doing everything in my power to crush you so much easier because you never cared. Until you did.
“Until the Poocha.”
Rani leaned into the back of her chair, crossed her legs, and looked perfectly delicate and stunning, and if we weren’t all players in this game of lives—if we were regular fucks going about our business as regular fucks do—we’d probably note her pixielike beauty.
Instead.
“Your mother knew this. Truth be told, she knew it before I did because Shema was brilliant like that and always fifty steps ahead of everyone else. She should have been running The Gate instead of that dumb fuck she called a husband.” Rani spat those last words onto the table before us, seeming to lose herself for a few seconds to her rage and hurt, hands pressed wide to the table, head down, and eyes closed. “But I digress.”
“Shema didn’t know one goddamned detail about me,” I said, interrupting her soliloquy, uninterested in hearing more of her nonsense, wanting Rani to start speaking some truth or shut the fuck up.
“Oh, Dutch, for being so smart, you’re so goddamned simple.” Rani laughed to herself. It was that same laugh I’d heard so often, sometimes from behind as James attacked with his beloved blade, Everlee, sometimes to my face as Rani carried out her own acts of brutality. I knew the sound, it was part of my being, and had the effect of filling me with rage and putting me on guard because it always signaled some fuckery headed my way. “Shema knew everything about you. The killing, the torture, the women, the incessant need to walk that fine line between life and death. She watched it all from afar.”
“She fucking orchestrated it,” I said through gritted teeth as a tension headache exploded behind my eyeballs.
Rani rolled her kohl-lined eyes, and it took every ounce of self-control left in my body not to reach across the table and dig them out of their sockets myself. “Twenty years later, and you’re still going on about that teenage piece of ass, Dutch? You never cease to disappoint me.”
“That’s enough, Rani.” Avery touched my shoulder and spoke before I could. “Stick to what matters or leave.”
“Well, excuse me, Keeper Lu, but I think Dutch has made it pretty clear that Kajal Chaudhry is what matters,” Rani said with a sick smile just for me. “Isn’t that right, Dutch?”
“But she means nothing to me, Keeper Rao,” Avery replied, calm in the face of Rani’s bullshit, “and right now, this is my show, you’re in my safe house, so stick to the script or get the fuck out of here.”
“Now, now,” Rani said as she waved Avery off, “no need to be so rude. I’m simply stating facts—facts are what you want, am I right, Keeper Lu?—but this is your house and I am merely a guest, so where was I?” She touched her fingertip to the side of her head and played cute and I wondered what made her tick. Where did she get all that crazy? Was it born of The Gate or did it already live in her blood while The Gate merely acted as the conduit for its release unto the world?
“Stop staring at me like that, Dutch.” Rani turned and hissed and both of us knew what remained unsaid: She knew how to make me stop staring. But I didn’t turn away, perhaps my expression changed, shifted a bit, but my attention was solely on her and whatever bullshit she intended to hit us with next. “So back to Kajal.”
“No more Kajal,” Avery said.
“Jesus, enough about Kajal,” Frist agreed.
“Kajal is not the point.” Juma added her two cents.
Rani raised a brow in my direction and smiled. “Trained them well, I see.”
I ignored her because I got it—she could no longer physically maim me, so her next best bet was mental warfare. And I could either get sucked into her twisted shit or dance along its edges. I surprised myself and chose the latter.
“Yes, back to Kajal,” I replied, and as I hoped, shocked the shit out of her. “I wouldn’t describe myself as you so graciously did as ‘still going on about that teenage piece of ass,’ but I do think witnessing all eight of her murders—long drawn-out torture sessions that took days to end—still haunts me today, probably has something to do with the way I carry myself through this life, and remains a part of me.”
A hushed silence fell over the room as I put Kajal’s horrific final weeks into a few choice words to share amongst friends.
“And Rani, just so you and I are clear with one another—Shema participated in the flaying and raping and carnage, happily leaving her own mark with those magic hands of hers. So forgive me if I don’t share your fond memories and hold her in the highest esteem.”
I knew none of that mattered to Rani, I didn’t expect it to, but I wanted it out there. I wanted to say it, speak Kajal’s truths for her and not leave her reduced to “that teenage piece of ass.” I owed her that much. I owed myself that much.
“I know what she did to Kajal,” Rani said, and maybe I was wrong, but I swore all the menace and disdain that previously laced her voice was gone, and in its place something akin to sincerity and, if I wasn’t mistaken, a bit of remorse.
“What she did to Kajal and, in effect, you haunted her for years.”
CHAPTER TEN: DUTCH
There is the anger, that immeasurable fire that lives in your blood and fuels your most dastardly actions. And then there is the quiet, that moment you step beyond rage and you simply exist.
In white silence.
Rendered mute and immobile.
Nothing.
That was me—silent and still—as Rani spoke and her story became part of my being. I no longer wanted her dead, I was beyond wishing death upon others. Instead, I wanted something deeper, more profound.
An escape.
From it all.
I sat there in that chair and watched her dark-stained lips form words that danced around my awareness, but I didn’t speak or shudder or even breathe.
I simply
>
was
something.
And when I thought I might slip into nothingness, warmth pressed my skin, I felt heat along my side, and her scent engulfed me.
Honey.
Lemons.
Grass.
Light.
Juma.
I looked up and our eyes locked and everything I needed was right there—strength, love, laughter—and I breathed.
Deep and full, my lungs gulped in as much air as they were able to and my blood pumped hard and fast, and as dead as I was seconds earlier, I was now brilliantly boldly alive and it was fucking amazing.
She was fucking amazing.
Her mere existence was all I needed to step back from the precipice of my white hell and get lost in her everything. Juma. My magic Juma. Because of her, my anger and darkness and every ounce of my rage found a home where they could run free and wander and bump into softer things like hope and kindness and beautiful moonsets, and dissipate into something foreign and nearly unrecognizable. I loved her for gifting me that. I didn’t deserve it—that much I knew—miserable fucks never deserved the riches they amassed, but I didn’t care, I wanted it. I wanted her. All of her.
And so I stepped back. And I breathed. And she touched my shoulder and I caught her eye and for a few seconds the world was reduced to just us two. She looked sad and happy at the same time, and as much as I hated her sadness, I was also growing to love it because it was part of what made the whole her. And the whole her was goddamned fantastic.
I pulled her down and she sat, balanced, with a leg on either side of mine, hands on her knees, and when she turned back to glance at me, a gorgeous smile curved along her perfect mouth. I wanted to kiss her at that moment more desperately than ever in our togetherness because right then, right there, I fell for her.
Again.
Hard.
But I knew one kiss would not suffice, I needed to own her, all of her. So I resisted and dialed down everything in me that was begging for all of her, I put it away to return to later, and instead I turned to Rani.
Talk about a goddamned buzzkill.
“Years?” I asked, my voice breaking the silence that descended upon the room the second Rani revealed that Shema had maybe half a soul. “You not only want me to believe Shema Mathew felt any sort of remorse for what she did to Kajal—the same Shema Mathew who gave birth to me, the woman who wouldn’t know the meaning of remorse if you burned it into her skin—but you also expect me to believe she held on to that emotion for years? Years? Come on, Rani,” I said with a laugh because she was being a bit ridiculous, “you cannot be serious.”
“I am.”
“You are not.” I leaned forward and replied, resting my left hand on the curve of Juma’s hip, enjoying her closeness in the midst of the insanity.
“I am, Dutch,” Rani replied, and there was none of her usual sneer and disdain, “and I can prove it.”
Those five tiny words caught everyone’s attention as the entire room sucked in a collective breath, all of us waiting and wondering what Rani would say next. And right then I stepped outside myself and floated above it all and watched us, this motley crew of instigators and rebels and believers in good, and I looked at her in all her tiny sparrowlike cool calm and collected menace and I made a decision.
Fuck her.
“Get out.”
I stood and Juma stood and I slipped out from behind her and pulled on the back of Rani’s chair, forcing her out of it and upright before she could put two and two together.
“Dutch!” she shouted, more out of the shock of being dumped from her seat than anything having to do with me.
“Out! Now!” I ordered, and pushed her toward the back door. “None of us are going to sit and listen to another word of your bullshit, another of your lies. This is all a game for you, it always has been. First, you and James with the torture, and now you, on your own, doing your best to fuck with me. With us.”
I moved to push her again, but Rani spun fast and faced me. “Do not touch me.”
“Sure thing,” I said right before I pushed her again, this time into the back door. “Don’t let the doorknob hit you on the way out. We’re done here. No more. You’re on your own.”
Rani didn’t move, so I reached around her and opened the door for her.
“Sevyn,” the tiny Keeper said in a rush, “your wife. Keeper Suleiman. She’s a plant, a spy—all part of a plan your mother began working on years ago.”
The triumvirate of fucked-up women in my life—Veda, Shema, Rani—had become a quartet the day Sevyn Suleiman entered the picture. Until that moment, Sevyn had been little more than a blip on my radar, a capable Keeper from a renowned family of Keepers and Ren, someone assigned the tougher Poochas, someone I never had to clean up after. She stayed in her lane and I in mine and never the two lanes crossed. Until the Suleimans and Mathews decided Sevyn would make the perfect blushing bride.
I fucking hated her conniving ass.
Almost as much as I hated Rani. And Shema. And that bitch I called a sister.
“Next thing you’re going to say,” I said through gritted teeth, “is Veda is part of your Anti-Gate girl gang.”
Rani shook her head, the line between her eyes pronounced as all of her became very serious.
“Never.”
“Never.” I laughed in disbelief as I backed away from her and leaned into the counter behind me. “Never? Work with me here, Rani. Come on, this,” I said, and waved my hands as if catching the words she tossed into the air, “is nothing but layers of insanity. And I get it, you’re desperate because whatever plan you and Shema hatched went horribly awry back there in the palace. But if you expect any of us to believe whatever it is you’re trying to pull over on us right now—”
“Dutch.”
Kash stood in the doorway, having slipped in unseen, garden shears in one hand and a bunch of black-eyed Susans in the other.
“Let Rani speak,” Kash said, and nodded in Rani’s direction but his eyes never left mine. I started to protest, my mouth opened and words banging around in my head, words that sounded a lot like fuck her and batshit crazy and full of shit, but it was Kash and I couldn’t bring myself to speak those words to the gentle Keeper in the tone they demanded, so I just stared.
Dumbfounded.
And silent.
And in that silence, I discovered the other Shema Mathew.
Leader of the Junta.
Traitor to The Gate.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: JUMA
I moved around the kitchen in near darkness, the wood floors of the old space creaking their disapproval every five or so steps I took, from the farm-style table covered in plates and wineglasses and other mealtime detritus to the dishwasher with its door open and racks out like a mouth waiting to be fed. The room still held hints of cardamom and coriander and, if you closed your eyes and felt for it, the energy of love and friendship.
This wasn’t my house, but I had a thing about kitchens—I couldn’t leave dishes piled in the sink and pots on the stove. I needed them cleaned and spotless or headed in that direction before my bones settled in for the night. So after Rani revealed her many-layered truths and Dutch walked out the back door without a word to anyone and Kash pulled out a tray of shrimp biryani to feed all of us, and we ate and drank and chatted as the evening slipped into nighttime and the moon kissed the sky with her crescent lips and ethereal light and all was still but those things that go bump in the night, and I tucked Mimi and Rufus into bed as if they were my grown children and they asked me about dying and living and dying again, and I assured them I knew what I was doing and I lied about any of my pain, I had to clean.
Because even in the midst of chaos, a clean kitchen mattered.
At least to me it did.
Plus, there was something comforting in the routine of running the plate under the hot water, scraping the leftover food into the garbage disposal, stacking the plate in the dishwasher rack, and then starting again. It felt pu
rposeful and unlike most other aspects of my life, finite.
I liked my water near scalding, and with the slight chill in the night air, I was quickly shrouded in steam that kissed my face and settled on my lashes. In the dim light of the remaining taper candles burning around the room, I rinsed the last plate in the sink, gazed out the window in front of me, and searched the pitch-black-of-night woods. I sought brown skin that reminded me of summer and dark eyes full of danger and despair.
I sought Dutch.
I knew he was out there, walking the island, piecing himself back together after learning of the mother he never knew he’d had until she was dead and it was too late. It was why he left the kitchen mid-conversation, as Shema’s truths poured from Rani’s lips—he needed quiet and time to process the evening’s revelations. And I knew he was fine that nothing would happen to him that no bogeyman was hot on his trail, but I still wanted him indoors next to me, I thought to myself as I pushed the last bits of shrimp tails from the night’s meal into the disposal, turned off the water, and squeezed out the sponge.
And as if he sensed my need, felt me pulling him back, calling him home, Dutch stepped from the darkness, caught sight of me in the window at the sink, and stopped. Our eyes locked and we watched each other through the glass for long silent seconds as the ancient clock on the wall with kitty-cat eyes ticked out every beat of my heart. He dragged on his cigarette, long fingers at his lips and then not, as he flicked his ash and exhaled and for a moment became lost in the haze of the smoke as it danced with the darkness and blurred his brilliant perfection. Then bit by bit it cleared, and as the crisp of the night returned, so, too, did he: black hair like raw silk, kissing the nape of his neck and falling across his eyes in its almost-too-long state, his usual stubble now a full-grown beard peppered with the salt of his grays, the only betrayal of his age on an otherwise rugged and beautiful face of angles and hollows, and his eyes, bright in the darkness and always full of dare and mischief. Even when they betrayed unease with a side order of confusion.
Death Page 7
