by Camilla Monk
A self-explanatory grimace wrinkles his brow. “I prefer your natural color.”
“Okay then.”
Once we’re finished cleaning the bathroom, and we’re back in the bedroom, sitting on our respective beds, the silence returns. This time though, there’s nothing comfortable about it. March won’t stop looking at me, so I cross my legs and stare back to unsettle him. It’s not fair that he looks so calm, and I’m jittering, my fingers drumming on the bed’s scratchy brown covers. I almost wish he’d speak first, but he just sighs and looks down at his hands.
With a deep breath, I risk a toe out of my shell. “March.”
“Yes?”
“What was I like?”
Confusion registers in his gaze, and when he doesn’t answer immediately, I clarify. “I mean, before, when you knew me. Was I very different?”
My question seems to disturb him. When he moves to get up from his bed, I recoil instinctively. I’m not sure what I’m afraid of, but he takes the hint and sits back. “Island, you’re not a different person, and I . . . I still know you.”
“How can you be so sure of that?” I ask, my voice brittle. “I don’t even remember where I first met you.”
“In Tokyo. The day your mother died.”
He might just as well have punched me. “You were there?”
“Dries wanted to capture her, to recover a diamond they’d stolen together.”
I jump to my feet. “He killed her?”
“No. Anies had one of his men shoot your mother before Dries could capture her . . . I believe that’s what started everything between the two of them.”
Everything . . .
The throbbing pain I’m so used to is back, pulsing inside my skull. I cradle my head in my hands, and March is at my side in an instant.
“Let me give you—”
I push him away. “No! No meds . . . I don’t want to take anything.”
His chest heaves. “I understand.”
“Just tell me about my mother, about Dries . . . Anies. Tell me what you know, please.”
I return to my bed and curl under the covers. March sits back too, and I listen as he speaks. He’s factual, concise; I like that. I have no idea how long we stay like this. I remember none of the things he tells me about—well, not consciously anyway—but some details make my chest tighten. He tells me about my childhood, the fifteen years I spent with my mother. He chooses his words carefully when describing her, but I read between the lines that she was part of the same world he and Dries are. A thief, a spy, traveling around the world wherever her next misdeed took her . . . with me in her suitcase.
Apparently I was homeschooled until the age of fifteen, probably because the longest we ever stayed in the same country was six months in Paris when I was eight. I’m surprised at how easily those new truths take root in my mind. Every word, every detail feels like evidence, and I come to realize that Anies skillfully blended real life and fiction to forge the lies he told me. I did spend my childhood globe-trotting, and I did learn several languages—including a bit of Romanian, obviously—just not with him. He was never part of the lives he stole. Already, his polished narrative about my perfect childhood with him seems to be fading away, like fog on a window . . .
March tells me about Simon, the man my mother chose to raise me, the other father who’s waiting for me in New York. Simon works in investment banking, he’s a curmudgeon, and he doesn’t like tapioca because it constipates him. He’s married to a woman named Janice, my stepmother, a retired economics teacher who’s into yoga and veganism. Once again, it’s a strange sensation to feel each new piece of information settle in my mind, click like a Lego brick, even when I can’t picture any of these people, their faces, their voices . . .
“Do you have pictures?” I ask March when he marks a pause. “Of them, I mean.”
“I can show you public ones; I don’t possess any personal ones. I was never . . . formally introduced.”
And I have a fine guess why . . . I give an awkward nod as he reaches for his phone in his jeans pocket.
When he hands me the phone, he’s launched an image search that returned dozens of similar corporate pictures. Always wearing a suit, the man must be in his midsixties, with gray hair that’s threatening to turn white and anxious, attentive blue eyes. There’s this tension in the lines on his face, in every pic, even the ones where he shakes another businessman’s hands or awards another some obscure M&A trophy. Simon worries too much, about everything, all the time. March didn’t say anything about that: I just know it, or rather feel it. There’s a stinging in my eyes: I wipe them with the back of my hand.
“He’s kept all your things,” March says softly. “He hasn’t given up on you.”
My things . . . Biting one of my nails, I let the full meaning of the words set in. My clothes, my books, my life. I focus again on Simon’s stern face, transfixed. “In my place, in New York?”
“Yes,” March confirms. “Joy’s boyfriend moved in so she could keep the apartment on West 81st Street.”
I almost let go of the phone. “She’s . . . alive?” Surprise flashes in March’s gaze, but I put the dots together before he can even confirm. “She wasn’t at the Poseidon with us. She didn’t die there!”
“No, Island.” March places his hand on mine. The sudden heat of his palm feels a little strange, but I allow him nonetheless. “She didn’t die. She’s well . . . and she misses you.”
I free my fingers to look her up in Google images, like I wanted but never could at Ingolvinlinna. The pics Anies showed me were real, and she does work in a law firm like he said. The simple ability to recognize her fills me with so much happiness, so much hope! She must have made me laugh all the time: her grin is infectious, and it’s hard not to fall in love at first sight with her heap of blond curls and mischievous cornflower eyes.
Dammit, I’m gonna cry again. I fight it, blink back the first tears obstinately. Seeing this, March goes to the bathroom to pour me a glass of water. I sip it slowly while he sits back. “Do you want to stop here for tonight?” he asks.
“No, no . . . I want to know everything,” I reply, gulping the last of my water. Mentally going through the list of my priorities, I remember our conversation with Erwin, back at the airport. “Erwin said Stiles and Pirate Morgan used to be CIA, and I”—a vision of a Roomba cat whirring around a nondescript living room flashes in my mind—“I think I knew Stiles . . . even before all this.”
The blue in March’s eyes darkens at the mention of his name. “You did. He used his position in Mr. Erwin’s department to earn your trust.”
He goes on to tell me about the way Erwin skillfully drew me into his net when he figured I was not only both March’s and Dries’s Achilles’ heel but also potentially the warden of my mother’s many secrets. According to March, Erwin didn’t squeeze out much from me. Stiles, on the other hand, who diligently served Anies while pretending to defend the free world . . . that piece of shit became my Facebook friend and betrayed us all—I’m blocking and reporting him as soon as I can access my account.
My stomach lurches with a sense of impending doom as I ask the one question I can already feel I’m going to regret. “And . . . Morgan?”
March marks an unusually long pause: his lips pinch, and pinch, until I fear they’re going to disappear entirely. “He used you to get closer to Dries. You were in a relationship with him,” he says at last, his tone clinical.
My head spins, and nausea wells inside me. Did I call him Alexander? No, March says I called him Alex . . . back when I dated him, unaware that he was manipulating me to get revenge. Because Dries killed his entire family in a plane bombing. Morgan’s father was a double agent who worked for both the CIA and the Lions, a frumentarius, March calls it. Dries hates those frumentarii guys since the man who shot my mother was one of them, and Morgan’s family paid the price for Dries’s grief, like countless others.
This time I just can’t. Salty tears roll down my che
eks, and a violent bout of nausea has me running to the bathroom. I lock myself in, collapse in front of the toilet bowl, and the chicken sandwich I had earlier travels back up along with the Fanta in a revolting mess. March knocks to ask if I’m all right. I say yes because I don’t want him to see me like that.
When I come out after having thoroughly rinsed my mouth, my legs are still shaking. “I can’t believe”—I wrench my hands nervously—“I mean, he always creeped me out, but I never imagined . . .”
Maybe we can start over. It wasn’t so bad, you and me, right?
Hearing his voice again, picturing the scarred flesh sealing an empty eye socket, I rub my forearms instinctively, overwhelmed by the urge to take a shower. “I feel . . . dirty. I can’t believe I slept with that asshole!”
“You didn’t.”
“Oh? Okay . . .”
March’s lips curve in a gentle, almost apologetic smile. I have a bad feeling about this.
“Are you sure? I mean, you can give it to me straight.” I mentally brace myself. Please, please let it not be anything horrible like, “You didn’t sleep with him; he raped you.”
March clears his throat. “No, to the best of my knowledge, nothing happened when you two were together.”
I give a trembling nod. “And he didn’t touch me back at Ingolvinlinna . . .” I return to my bed and hug my pillow. Anies’s innuendos about me building the future with that piece of shit Stiles ring back in my ears. “I don’t think Anies would have allowed that.”
Even so, March still looks uncomfortable, and that scares me.
“Is there something else?” I’ve been drugged for so long and my body was no longer mine. They could have done anything. I wish I could shrug out of my skin right now. “Was I”—my voice falters—“was I pregnant?”
March’s eyes widen. “No, absolutely not.”
“Then what’s your fricking problem?” I mutter.
“You . . . well . . . unless someone—no, that’s not what I meant . . . ” He draws in sharp breath. “I believe you’re still a virgin.”
“I-I’m sorry, what?”
“You’re a virgin,” he repeats, his voice a little unsteady.
I sit up. Surely there’s a misunderstanding. “But, um . . . you said you were my boyfriend.”
“Hopefully I still am.”
An excellent question, which I’d rather sort out later. No, what I need to hear is how? “Were we, like, really religious or something?” Even as I say this, I realize it makes no sense. March has killed at least ten people over the past forty-eight hours and admitted to having tortured a guy in Rio. Unless he pledged allegiance to ISIS, I’m pretty sure religion isn’t his cup of tea.
His mouth purses. “How do I put this . . . our spirits were willing, but our flesh encountered . . . a number of obstacles.”
“Like what?”
I listen, in a state of stupefaction as March goes over the many setbacks we’ve faced since the beginning of our journey. From that time he tried to kiss me in a car in Paris but a drunk bum threw himself onto our windshield—at least that one didn’t pee on it—to a long series of ill-timed or otherwise interrupted attempts. People kept calling at the worst times, then he didn’t have condoms, then his house exploded, then Dries barged into our room, then we were in an elevator and it wasn’t the best time, especially since dolphins attacked us right afterward . . .
And I’m twenty-six. Still a virgin.
After I’ve processed this news, I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “So you’ve been trying to bang me for fourteen months?”
He strokes his chin pensively. “In a way, I suppose.”
My jaw goes slack.
“I’ve been told I’m very persistent.”
“That you are. But did you never want to just . . . give up and find someone else?”
All trace of humor vanishes from his eyes. “Never.”
There’s something hanging in the air between us after he’s said this, and I don’t know if I should ask, if I’m strong enough to hear his answer.
March tilts his head, his eyes searching mine. Yearning. “Island . . . can I see your left wrist?” he asks softly.
I chew on my lower lip and eventually murmur a hesitant, “Okay.”
With slow, careful movements, he sits next to me on the bed. When the mattress sinks under his weight, I need to make a conscious effort to fight the instinct to curl, huddle, and keep my damn wrist to myself. I unfold my arm and extend it toward him, ready to snatch it back. His fingers wrap around my mine, warm and tentative. I’m starting to understand now where that deep-rooted fear comes from: I have no walls for this man. He knows my body, my mind. I can try to shut him out all I want: he’s already in.
March remains silent for a while, staring down at our joined hands before his thumb moves to stroke the pale scar on the underside of my wrist.
“It was badly broken,” I say, to break that unbearable silence. “They had to put in a plate.”
He nods. “Do you remember what happened?”
“No . . . it was during the fall of the dome, right?”
“No. We went after the Crystal Whisperer in Croatia, but Anies sent Mr. Morgan to kidnap you.”
I feel the blood drain from my face in a prickling sensation. Him . . . I think of the gianduiotti he offered me, and I’m going to be sick again. I actually ate them. “What happened?”
“You managed to escape him, but you broke your wrist when you ran away. You had a cast by the time we arrived at the dome, but”—he pauses and swallows hard—“your arm took several hits while we tried to escape the dome. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t”—he draws a trembling breath, and when he looks at me, I see the way the blue in his irises shines. He’s better than I am at holding back tears. His voice breaks though, and I can barely hear him as he says—“Island . . . I couldn’t protect you and I’m . . . so sorry.”
It’s not fair. It’s his eyes glistening; it shouldn’t be me crying. The room and March’s face turn to blurry sequins as hot tears rolls down my cheeks. I can’t do this . . . I snatch my hand back and get up from the bed. “I’m sorry. I just . . . I need time to figure this out.”
His voice is low, laced with tenderness and regret as he replies, “I know. Let’s get some sleep. We both need it.”
TWENTY-TWO
HOME
I can’t sleep.
I kept the sweatshirt on, but the linen feels scratchy against my bare legs. I fidget and toss around in my bed, replaying the evening’s events in my head. I suspect I’ve absorbed too much intel at once; my long-neglected neurons are working overtime . . . thinking of March sleeping in the bed next to mine. So close and so far.
It should make me happy. No, actually it should rock my world that I have this, someone who knows me intimately, who loves me enough to stick with me and persist against the odds of man and nature. Instead I feel lost, inadequate. I’ve forgotten almost everything about him. He’s been looking for me for all this time, he fought off killer dolphins at the Poseidon Dome for me, and here I am before him, an empty shell with nothing to give back.
I’m not even sure how I feel about him; all I know is that pull when I’m around him, equal parts fear and need. It’s like my heart is continuously breaking in slow motion, piece by piece. I fold and unfold my legs for the umpteenth time. How can he sleep so easily? I roll around and watch him in the dark. He sleeps on his side, bare chested, his back turned to me.
The street lamps outside cast a faint yellowish light that filters through worn net curtains. It caresses his skin, gilds an intriguing geography of muscles, veins . . . scars. Once my gaze settles on it, the disk of tortured flesh on his back is all I can see. It’s about the size of a Frisbee, stretching from his left shoulder to the valley of his spine. I can’t make out the details clearly from my vantage point. But you’ve seen it. Touched it. You know . . . The memory is at arm’s reach, tantalizingly close to the surface. I need to get closer.
<
br /> I slip out of the covers with excruciating care and venture a toe on the carpet. Then another. I hold my breath as I creep to his bed. I can’t shake a sense of déjà vu about all this, me standing next to a bed he’s sleeping in. After a moment of hesitation, I sit on the very edge of the mattress, like a sparrow ready to take off at the slightest threat. An odd combination of guilt and excitement sizzles through me as my fingertips graze the covers. He doesn’t react. He should: any self-respecting killer would have been awake, gun in hand by now.
“Biscuit . . .”
The quiet echo of his voice makes me jump out of my skin. I nearly fly away to the other end of the room before I steel my resolve. I need to do this. I ball my fists and sit back. His leg touches mine through the covers, heat seeping between us.
“Do you want me to make some room for you?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
Even as I say so, my hand has moved of its own volition to touch him. The heat of his skin draws me. He lies perfectly still, allowing the journey of my palm up his arm, around his shoulder, until under my fingers, the flesh becomes a rough canvas of raised scars forming a lion head. My own skin prickles, aches for him as I explore the sadistically detailed pattern: triangular ridges for the fangs, a sinewy trail sliced through the skin that looks like a river, a multitude of symmetrical dents to represent a field, perhaps.
One word booms in my mind, taking a whole new meaning. Broer. I see Anies’s hand on Stiles’s shoulder, calling him his brother. At the time, I thought nothing of it. It was nothing but a way to reward a goon’s loyalty, to tell him he was kind of part of the family too. But now that I see March’s back, I think of the blood, of the hours spent in agony as someone carved that same loyalty into his flesh . . . I take the full measure of what it means to be one of Anies’s “brothers.”
“Why did you let them do that to you?”
March sits up, his arms reaching for me, and I’m on my feet and away from the bed just as fast. I hear the husky plea in his voice as his hand extends to beckon me back. “Island, please . . .”
