Lies That Bind Us(58)

Now it’s just a matter of the pain. And the sacrifice.

I’m sweating. My breathing is thin and ragged. My heart is throbbing. My eyes have begun to stream. I think of the chimp tearing the woman’s hand off, then push the horror away.

I consider stepping out of my dress so I can use it to staunch the blood, but I don’t want to wait any longer.

I’m satisfied that the manacle can be made to move no farther, not without altering those structures in my hand, the spur of which is where the rusted iron is most clearly stuck. I’m light-headed as I stand, and the pain swells and kicks as I let go with my right hand and lean out into the darkness, all my weight straining against the chain. I rock on the balls of my feet, tipping first toward the wall, then away, building force and speed with each agonizing pull, like a gymnast on the high bars, working up the momentum for an acrobatic maneuver. I take deep, rapid breaths through bared teeth, a weight lifter bracing, then I lean into the wall over the bed so that my hair brushes against it, and then slam hard away, trying to hit the opposite wall.

Once.

Twice.

The pain is bright as a flare, hard and sharp as glass. I feel the sinews pop, the muscle tear, the bones break.

Three times.

I fall heavily against the far wall, clutching my wounded hand and sobbing.

Free. Broken, but free.





Chapter Twenty-Two

“Well, Mel is the lead singer, obviously,” said Brad, toasting her with his glass of red.

“Obviously,” said Gretchen.

“What about Simon?” said Melissa. “He’s got rock star written all over him.”

“I’m the unspeakably well-paid manager,” said Simon. “I found the rest of you playing seedy nightclubs and made your careers. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“I’m lead guitar,” said Brad, putting his glass down and doing a little air guitar solo.

“Yeah,” said Melissa. “The bad boy of the band.”

We were all pretty drunk. We had eaten, but dinner had been heavy on Greek salad and phyllo pastries with spinach and feta, served by candlelight in the villa’s formal dining room: good, but light. I was still hungry, which meant I shouldn’t be drinking, but I was. We all were.

We had moved back to the living room, since its circuits were on the generator’s power supply, and were lounging around after abandoning a game of charades because Melissa was weirdly crap at it. She was fine at guessing other people’s clues, but when it was her turn, she either couldn’t think of any suitable hints and just sat there fretting and complaining or made unintelligible hand signals and then got mad when no one could figure out what the hell she was doing. It had been funny at first, hilarious in fact, but when it went on for a while, she got irritated and sour, which pretty much killed the fun of the game. I was disappointed because I’d been paired with Marcus and it was, for a moment, kind of like old times, but once Melissa has decided she’s not having fun anymore, that’s pretty much it, and if you insist on continuing you can expect to be on the receiving end of all the passive-aggressive weapons at her disposal. If she could harness that creativity for other things, she’d be a lot better at charades.

Anyway, we had abandoned the game, which was already getting fuzzy with drink, and had somehow fallen into this nonsense conversation about what we would all be doing if we were a band. I hated stuff like this. It always made me feel inadequate and unwanted. People with strong personalities love this kind of shit because everyone immediately knows how to peg them in ways that remind everyone how cool they are. Of course Melissa was the lead singer. Of course Brad was lead guitar. What about me? The Pluto of the group. The black hole. Everyone would forget me until the end and then pretend it was really great to be the band’s accountant or ticket taker or some damn thing.

I felt the heat in my face. I really shouldn’t have accepted another glass of whatever precious wine Brad had insisted on bringing with him.

“Kristen’s backing vocals and bass,” said Brad. “All sultry and hot.”

“See?” said Melissa. “Bad boy.”

“She is my wife,” said Brad.

“Oh, like that matters,” said Simon. There was a fractional, shocked hesitation, as if time had stopped, and then he added, “Bass and backing vocals sound good to you, Kristen?”

“I’ll take that,” said Kristen, not missing a beat. Since our chat at the fortress she had gone right back to being her old self, composed and easygoing, so I thought it again: she really was a better actress than I had assumed. “What about Gretchen?”

There was quite a different kind of hesitation, which Gretchen pretended not to find embarrassing. We didn’t know her and, frankly, there didn’t seem like there was that much to know. And that’s coming from the group’s black hole.

“Drums,” said Melissa, seemingly at random.

“Yeah!” said Gretchen, delighted, starting immediately to bang away sloppily on the edge of the coffee table.

“Careful,” said Brad. “You’ll spill the bottle.”

Gretchen looked crestfallen, but Simon came to her rescue.

“What about Marcus?” he mused aloud. “Roadie? Producer? The guy who gets the sound just right . . .”

“Sitting in the booth in the dark with a headset,” said Brad, liking this more and more.