by Camilla Monk
He tips his head to the bed. “Let’s sit down.”
“No. Answer me.” Also, I’m not getting on a bed with him, but that’s another matter . . .
“Anies is the man you call Aidan Keasler.”
Kovius’s angry accusation rings in my head. Anies took you. I saved you. I hate to prove March right, but my knees are wobbling, and I feel physically overwhelmed; I stagger back and sit on the bed. “Okay. So, you know him under that . . . code name.”
“Yes,” he answers, dragging the chair toward the bed to sit in front of me. He plunges his gaze into mine, and I can’t look away, can’t shut him out. I feel naked. “Island . . .”
Somewhere in the black hole that is my brain, a spark lights up in the darkness. My chest constricts like I’m standing on top of a cliff. I know what’s coming next, as if I’d dreamt that very moment before. I’m not ready.
“He’s not your father,” March says quietly.
Part of me doesn’t want it to be true. If it is, then I’ve truly lost everything; I’m just an empty shell with no past, no self. My friends, my real family—do I even have one?—I’m dead to them. I want to believe March is lying, but I can’t fight this; already my mind is reorganizing itself around this new evidence.
Like something I’d remember after having forgotten it.
I breathe fast through my nose to hold back the tears I can feel building in my eyes. March extends a hand to wipe them. I push it away and do it myself, with my sweater sleeve.
“He said my mother was dead. Is that true?”
It’s weird that once again, like a premonition, I already know—or rather sense—the truth. March nods once, and I feel my heart physically break over a loss I can’t even remember, something abstract.
“Go on,” I say, my voice cracking.
“Let’s do this another way,” he offers. “What do you need to know first?”
My mouth twitches bitterly. “You know, you can just say ‘I have no idea where to start.’ That works too.”
He sighs. “Perhaps you’re right.”
“Why?” It’s the only word I can force out. All encompassing. Why would my fath—Anies—do this? Why me? To what end?
March’s gaze drops to his lap. He’s searching his words. “First, you should also know that Anies is not a businessman. Well, certainly not in the conventional sense.”
I nod, waiting for the rest with clenched fists.
“Does the word Lions ring any bell?” When I shake my head, he goes on. “They’re a brotherhood of assassins and mercenaries. They’ve been around since antiquity, but today they’re primarily—”
“South African,” I complete, stating the obvious. I leaf through my recent memories. “They’re . . . forgotten warriors. People history must not remember. He’s one of them, Anies?”
“Yes, their commander, in fact. So he told you about them?”
“Not really . . . Sometimes he’d say things I wondered about. He keeps a lot of antiquities too. Old paintings, swords, that sort of stuff. That’s what made me think of it.”
March’s eyebrows knit in an expression of disdain. “He probably helped himself to the temples . . .”
“The temples?”
“I can tell you about those later if you’d like.”
“Okay . . .” I make a mental note to add antiquities looting to the dreadful résumé of a man I called father until last night, feeling sick to my stomach. “So, the investments, the industrial projects . . . it’s all bullshit?”
“Not entirely,” March explains. “Things have changed lately. The Lions have been branching into many sectors over the past decade, some legal, most not.”
“They’re growing,” I conclude, thinking of the shipments. “My—he told me about his factory . . . in Ecuador. He’s building something there.” As I say this, I feel the butterfly still resting above my breasts under my sweater, strangely heavy. My fingers are itching to tear it off.
“I’m not surprised. Dries used to operate a few industrial ventures too. Biltong and rusks, mostly.”
As soon as I hear Kovius’s first name, I know what my next question is. “What happened at the Poseidon? Was I there . . . with Kovius?” And you?
In March’s eyes, the nascent light instantly dies, and the lines around the corners of his mouth seem suddenly a little deeper. “You and I were there with Dries. We were trying to stop a man a named Lucca Gerone. He’s the one who destroyed the dome.”
I frown. “Not Kovius?”
“No. Anies framed Dries for flight DL504 and the Poseidon, to get rid of him.”
I’m not sure why I didn’t pick up on this before, but hearing both names in the same sentence, I see my father’s face, Kovius’s, the hazel eyes . . . almost golden when the light is right. The same eyes. It’s like a drop of water hit the surface of a very quiet, very deep lake, and in the void of my mind, the ripples are spreading, growing into waves. He’s not just a weird and violent ice-cream man with anger-management issues and a heavy rap sheet. I can’t work the idea into words yet—I can barely breathe as it is—but I know I’m gonna have to turn that particular stone, and I’m scared of what I’ll find underneath.
“Why would Anies do that? Why did he want to get rid of . . . Dries?”
“For power,” March says. “Dries used to be the Lions’ vice commander. They had different visions, and there was an old feud between them.”
Anies on top. Dries second in command. Anies. Dries. The golden eyes and the sharp features. There it is, the stone I wish I could ignore. “They look like each other.”
“Anies is Dries’s elder brother,” he replies, each word laced with sorrow.
“I understand.” Do I? I can’t fully process the implications of this news. I don’t want to . . . I look away and focus on the window. The sky is turning pink. It must be 3:00 p.m., and I gather we’ll be moving soon. I return my attention March. “So . . . you’re a Lion too? And Isiporho and Dominik?”
“I used to be. Dries trained me—he trained the three of us. I left the brotherhood eleven years ago. Isiporho and Dominik were forced to . . . retire eight months ago when Anies turned on Dries and purged all his disciples.”
“But you’re an assassin. You can’t stop.” It hurts to say it. I’m not sure why, but I can feel the words rasping my throat.
“No.” He sighs. “I suppose I can’t stop.”
“Why did you leave the Lions then?”
“Because I met you.”
I welcome his admission with stunned silence. You’re where my tape starts. The words I remembered during my last session with Bentsen suddenly take a new meaning. The room seems to be spinning around me, and I feel . . . I don’t know exactly. It’s like looking through a frosted glass door. Deep down, I already know what I’ll find on the other side, but for now, it’s nothing but blurry, distorted shapes.
When I remain voiceless, March gets up from the chair and takes a tentative step forward, his hand reaching for my arm, as if he can’t help himself. I freeze. “Island,” he asks. “Do you remember—”
“Who am I to you?” My voice breaks before I can even finish my sentence.
I look at his lips, see him swallow. “You were—you are my girlfriend.”
TWELVE
STOLEN
“I need to go to the bathroom.”
I splash my face with cold water—no time for a shower, although I’d sell a kidney for one. I can’t believe I said that to him. March looked at me, right after he’d dropped the bomb, and he waited, because I was supposed to say something. But after the accumulation of revelations of the past hour, after the base jump, the rockets, and the spider in my head . . . it was just too much. I couldn’t handle that on top of everything else. I knew I’d cry again if I stayed in that room with him any longer. So when he told me he’d left a brotherhood of deadly assassins for me, and that I was his girlfriend, I balled my fists and said, “I need to go to the bathroom.”
A round of se
lf-applause is in order.
I didn’t even look up at him as he opened the door for me—couldn’t bring myself to, really. He made it clear he considers we’re still together, but what can he possibly expect from me? I don’t even remember him—Yes, you do, a douchey little voice reminds me. As if now were the moment to think of him, of us . . . doing that. An unwelcome flashback of his lips pressed to my neck has me squeezing my eyes shut in distress.
I splash water on my face again, pat at my cheeks with a clean towel, and stare at my reflection in the mirror. My hair is a tangle of dirty auburn curls springing in all directions. I sigh. I actually have leaves in there. And a twig too . . . I do a quick job of cleaning and untangling the unruly mass with my fingers and braid it hastily, securing the end with a bit of floss I found in a cupboard when looking for a toothbrush.
Once I’m done and I check the result of my efforts in the mirror, I’m filled with a sense of unease, something that weighs in my stomach like impending nausea. Maybe it’s because of the braid . . . I don’t recognize that girl. I thought I’d gotten over this, that I was getting used to seeing my own face, but it seems that feeling of being external to my own body is back. I trace the bridge of my nose, touch my lips, my chin, wondering what March sees—the same Island he used to know or a stranger wearing her face?
A low growl in my belly rings in the end of this distressing metaphysical debate. Time to exit the bathroom and face whatever awaits me on the other side of that door. Namely, Dominik, who was apparently tasked with guarding said door. I’m not certain how to interpret his shuttered expression when he sees me coming out: on a scale of one to Guantanamo, how captive am I? To be honest, March hasn’t treated me like a captive so far. I’m on the fence about Isiporho, and Dries . . . having seen him shoot that wounded guy like he’d have stepped on a roach, I don’t want to think about it.
“You hungry?”
My head snaps up; Dominik is talking to me. An embarrassing rumble rises between us, which is probably what tipped him off in the first place.
I nod. “Um, yeah.”
“Come with me.”
I follow him back to the living room, where I’m greeted by a splash of white. March and Isiporho have ditched their black fatigues for the same sort of white gear Dominik is wearing. The magazines perfectly lined on the kitchen table and the snow-camo pants tell me we’re about to move.
“How do you feel, biscuit?” March asks, his voice tinged with concern.
There’s a pang in my chest, an ache I can’t quite place every time he uses that South African pet name. Maybe the other girl inside me regrets that past I can’t remember. Did she . . . love him? I stare at the floor intently. It’s all behind me; I prefer not to know. It’d only make me more vulnerable around him.
“I think I’m okay,” I mumble while Dominik searches a backpack for peanut butter energy bars. He retrieves two, which he tosses my way. I catch them and examine the label. “Soldier Fuel.” Huh? Yep, I need that right now.
“We’re going to need you to change too,” March tells me, gesturing to a remaining pair of camo over pants folded on a chair—whoever did that must have spent some time on it: they almost look like they were ironed.
I gobble down the last bite of my energy bar and take the pants, as well as the oddly stiff and heavy white parka he gives me—is that stuff bulletproof or something? “I’ll go change in the bedroom.”
March’s mouth opens like he’s about to object, and I’m reminded that I am under surveillance after all. Behind me though, the bedroom’s door opens to reveal Dries . . . I’m actually glad March tried to stop me from walking into the Lion’s mouth, or so to speak.
There’s no trace left on Dries’s features of the berserker rage he unleashed less than an hour ago. He’s perfectly composed as he gauges me, his gaze settling on the camo pants in my hands, the same as he’s now wearing. “Feeling better?” he asks.
I shrug in confirmation that yes, I’m alive, and I’m able to stand on my feet, at least.
“Good. Then come in. You and I are going to talk.”
I take a step back instinctively. March’s eyes meet mine, but he doesn’t interpose himself. I’m on my own. I swallow and walk toward Dries, like a lamb headed to the slaughter. He moves aside to let me enter the room and closes the door behind me. I toss the parka and camo pants on the bed, and it’s just the two of us, in that tiny space I now realize is permeated in a rich, smoky scent—he had a cigarillo in here too.
After a prolonged silence during which we size each other up warily, Dries shoots first. “You were always tougher than you looked.”
Always . . . “March says we’ve met before, at the Poseidon.”
His eyes narrow in interest. “Do you remember it?”
“No. All I have is his word for it.”
“And you believe him?”
Do I? March said I was trying to stop the Lions from destroying the Poseidon, that the two of us were helping Dries at the time. Supposing this is true, that might have been enough for Anies to cage me and nuke my brain as retribution . . . But I can tell there’s more to this. “I don’t know,” I say at last. “There’s something that doesn’t add up in March’s story.”
Dries crosses his arms. I don’t like the way he’s staring down at me; it’s too . . . intense. “Go on, little Island.”
I avert my eyes and wrap my arms around myself protectively. “All of what March said, the spider . . . if it’s true, what Anies did to me was personal. It wasn’t just about coming up with some sick punishment. He could have tortured me or even killed me, but he made me his daughter instead. He made everyone act like I was his child. He wanted something else from me.” My stomach twists at the memory of his comments about building the future . . . about Stiles.
Dries’s arms fall at his sides, his hands curling into fists. Fear surges inside me at the thought that he could hit me, but I stay still, pinned in place by the inexplicable certainty that he won’t.
“He wasn’t trying to punish you,” he says, his voice suddenly low, harsh. “He took you to punish me.”
What was it that March said? That Anies had framed Dries for the destruction of the Poseidon because of an old feud between them . . . There’s a voice inside me screaming not to go there, that if I open that Pandora’s box, it’ll swallow me whole, engulf me in darkness. But I can’t stop the movement of my lips as I ask, “What happened between the two of you?”
His expression softens. “We both wanted Léa.”
I go rigid upon hearing my mother’s name. He says it exactly the same way Anies does, her name rolling off his tongue with an accent of tenderness.
“But she chose me. Island, you are my daughter.”
I don’t understand. I mean, he was perfectly clear, and it’d be rude to make him repeat what he just said. Right? But the words won’t compute; they whirl around my head, paralyzing my lungs, my limbs. I see the hazel eyes, the gap tooth we share, notice for the first time that Dries has many little moles on his hands, his neck.
Like I do.
My body is shaking. I hear him again, howling, destroying everything in the cabin’s living room after he realized my brain had been wiped clean. The words I wanted to block back then finally register in my brain, branding me.
Dogter . . . gesteel . . . Daughter . . . stolen . . .
Stolen.
Is that what Anies did? I feel numb, my brain working in vain to process the monstrous possibility. He needed a willing doll to play the part of the child he never had, and he took his own brother’s child for that. Me. My legs are barely holding me up as the bedroom spins back into focus. In Dries’s eyes, the anger has become raw pain.
“How do I know you’re not lying?” I chew out each word slowly. They’re burning my throat. When Dries’s brow gives the faintest quiver, I add, “How do I know that any of this real?” I sniff back tears. “I thought everything was real at Ingolvinlinna! He told me about my mother too. He said he gave me
everything he couldn’t give her!”
Dries steps forward brusquely, his arms rising to pull me to him. I stagger back toward the door in distress. “I don’t want you to touch me!”
Regret swells in my chest the moment the words burst out, and I wish I could breathe them back. Dries’s arms fall back to his sides, and I don’t miss the way his hands shake a little. I’ve hurt him, and I can feel . . . I feel his distress. I care. My brain won’t hear Dries’s truth, but my body knows—remembers? I realize I’ve never experienced anything close to that kind of primal response around Anies, and that’s when I can’t contain my tears anymore. They overflow and roll down my cheeks, my neck.
The bedroom door slams open behind me, and I whirl around to find March. He probably heard me yell at Dries, and now he’s seen my tear-streaked cheeks. His hands reach for me; he murmurs my name. I don’t want any of this; I raise my palms to keep him at a safe distance. “Please leave me alone . . .”—I spot the parka and camo over pants I tossed on the bed—“I need to change. I want to be alone.”
I sense reluctance in the air, but they both comply and exit silently, March’s anxious gaze lingering on me for a second before the door closes for good. I grab the over pants and slip into them clumsily. My hands are shaking so badly I need to try several times before I manage to zip them.
I almost wish I could go back, never know the truth. Part of me is still fighting March and Dries’s version of events, secretly hoping that there’s another answer somewhere, a door I could open to magically get my life back. But what life? What is there to return to if all Anies ever told me were lies, if the only family I have are killers?
I bury my face in my hands and rub my eyes forcefully with the heel of my palm, but the headache won’t go, threatening to grow into a full migraine. Soft rapping at the door makes me jump, soon followed by Dries’s voice. “We’re moving in five minutes.”
