Poison's Kiss (Poison's Kiss #1)(50)
“No. I’m not willing to do that.”
“But you said you cared about him.”
“And I do,” Deven says. “But I’m not exchanging you for him.”
“Why not? You hate me and you care about Mani, so it seems like an easy decision.”
“I don’t hate you.” He rakes his fingers through his hair. “My feelings about you are complicated. I’m angry with you—but I’m not angry enough to leave you with a monster.”
“I deserve to be with a monster,” I say. “Mani doesn’t.”
Deven shakes his head. “No one deserves that, Marinda. Not even you.”
“It doesn’t look much like a home,” Deven says. We’ve been creeping through dark alleys for over an hour, and finally we’re standing in front of a charmless box of a building. The windows are dark and the front yard is a wild tangle—the weeds have choked the life from every other plant.
But until a few years ago, it was the only home I’d ever known, and I still feel a pull toward it, like if I just stare hard enough, I might see something different.
It doesn’t look like anyone is staying here, and yet I’m still praying to the ancestors that Mani is inside. And if he is—I don’t care what Deven says—I will offer to stay in his place. Even if I never see either of them again, it will be worth it to know that Mani is safe.
We try the front door first, but it’s locked. I reach toward my head for a pin but realize that I left my hair down and I don’t have one. “Is there another way in?” Deven asks. I look at him in confusion. “A side entrance? A loose window?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
He sighs. “Didn’t you spend most of your life here?”
I swallow. “Yes, but I was only ever allowed in a few of the rooms and almost never outside.”
A long silence stretches between us. It’s so dark that I can’t clearly make out his expression, but I feel like I’ve disappointed him. “I’m sorry,” I say. “If you have something to pick the lock, I can try that.”
“I don’t,” he says. He shrugs and his shoulder brushes against mine. “We’ll find a way.”
We steal around the side of the building, and Deven pulls on each window, looking for one that is loose or open, but all of them are sealed tight. The night is inky black and I brush my hand against the side of the wall to keep my footing. Deven is nothing more than a dark shape in front of me. I follow him around the corner to the back of the building.
“Found a way in,” he says softly. I hurry to catch up and nearly run into him. He’s standing next to a door with a glass window in the top half. Steel rods crisscross the window, forming dozens of diamond shapes.
“Is it unlocked?”
“No,” he says. “But I can get it open.” He pulls a blanket from his bag and wraps it several times around his fist. Then he punches through the glass diamond in the bottom left corner. The sound of breaking glass shatters the silence. I flinch, but no lights go on and no one comes running. Deven tosses the blanket to me and then reaches his hand through the opening and unlocks the door. We step into the kitchen.
The smell of ginger tea envelops me and I’m suddenly five years old again, curled on Gita’s lap listening to her whisper folktales against my ear. Deven lights a candle, but I already know what I’ll see in the flickering light. A yellow teapot painted with red elephants, a single matching teacup with a chip in the handle and the dregs of the pale tea Gita favors glued to the bottom. Gita has been here. Recently. My throat is thick with the memories I can’t swallow.
“Marinda?”
“She was here,” I say.
“Who?” Deven swings the candle so that the light dances between us.
“Gita,” I say. “She’s…” Suddenly I realize I don’t know what to call her. My fill-in mother? One of my handlers? The woman who dried my tears when Gopal beat me, but never stopped him from hurting me in the first place? “She’s one of them.”
If Gita is here, Mani could be too. I race into the dining room, where Iyla, Mani and I would sometimes be allowed to eat together. But large sheets are draped over the tables and chairs, and the moonlight streaming through the windows makes them look like huge, hulking beasts. I let go of Deven and run my hand along the fabric. My fingers come away coated in dust. No one has used this room in a long time—at least months, maybe years.
I run down the long hallway where my bedroom used to be, flinging doors open as I go. All the rooms are dark, cold and empty. When I get to the room that used to be mine, I pause with my hand on the doorknob. Please let him be here. Please. I open the door and it is cold and dark, just like the others. But not empty. My old bed is still here, draped in a gray sheet that might have been white once. Mani’s bed is here too. And shoved in the corner, bathed in moonlight, is his tiny baby cradle. It’s not covered in anything but dust, as if it wasn’t worth protecting. As if it will never be needed again. I’m overcome with a sudden wave of nostalgia. Mani became my brother in this room. For months I woke several times a night to feed him, change him and sing him back to sleep. It was so much responsibility for a ten-year-old. As I stand here, the full weight of my life with Mani comes rushing in on me. Both the burden and the blessing of it.