Spiders in the Grove (In the Company of Killers #7)(29)

I smile on the inside, deep down where she can’t see it, because if she did, she’d know I was laughing at her. Blinded to the most obvious truths…

I kiss her lips and her chin and her forehead—ah, the forehead; one kiss there and you know the love is real.

After a moment, I say, “My dark secret, the reason I am who I am, is not so different from yours, Cesara.” If she only knew…

She tilts her head, curiously, interested.

“I was practically given away to a man by my mother, when I was fourteen-years-old. I hated her for taking me to that place. And I killed her for it.” I bring my hands up between us, and look into them. “With these hands, I killed her.” I drop them between us again. “Like you—like so many women—I was violated; I was humiliated; I was lied to and loved and betrayed; and I was tired of it. After I killed my mother, I escaped the man who brainwashed me; I left that whole world behind me—and my child with it. And since then, I’ve encountered so many men like those who made me what I became. And I killed them all. And I’ll keep killing them until the day I join them in whatever hell awaits me.”

Cesara cups my face in her hands, peers deeply into my eyes with compassion and pain. “We will kill them together, Lydia; you and me, an unstoppable force.”

“We will live—truly live for once—and die together,” I say with conviction. Where’s my Oscar?!

Cesara pushes me down on the bed, and I picture only Victor’s face for the next hour.

How did I come this far? And what is happening to me? Something is happening. When I woke up this morning, I could feel the lurking hands of inevitability all around me, inside of me, and I knew that something would happen before this day was over. But…I assumed it was something else altogether; I thought it had everything to do with tonight at the final auction; I was halfway convinced it would be that I discovered the real Vonnegut.

But I was wrong about the source of that feeling.

Despite the Oscar-worthy act, I think I’ve discovered the real Izabel.





Izabel


Day Three – Late Afternoon Four hours until buyers arrive for the final auction, and I’m on edge. Not necessarily because it’s the big night, my last chance—unless I want to be here longer—to find something, anything that will point me in Vonnegut’s direction, but because I don’t know how much longer I can stave-off Joaquin’s advances. I can’t kill him. Not yet. He runs the show; he does everything important to the auction—if he’s missing, everyone will notice, and there will be no show.

With Sabine in tow, and both of us already dressed for tonight, I move quickly, but gracefully so as not to draw unwanted attention, down the long hallway toward the theatre. It’s early to be going there, but it’s full of people—workers, mostly—and anywhere with people is better than being caught by Joaquin, alone. Cesara has business of her own; something about an intruder on the premises; I imagine—I hope—Joaquin went with her.

“I-I saw her,” Sabine speaks lowly, nervously from behind.

I stop cold in the middle of the hall, and turn to look at her; my first instinct takes over, and it’s not Izel—it’s Izabel.

“What did you say?” I whisper harshly; I wrench her elbow in my hand, but I know I’m not fooling her—if I was really as awful as I’ve pretended to be, Sabine would already be on the floor wiping blood from her mouth for speaking to me without permission.

“Y-Your friend,” she says, looking at the floor, “I-I saw her.”

“What are you talking about?” This could be a trick; Joaquin, even Cesara, might’ve put Sabine up to this; as soon as that thought enters my mind, Izel finally takes over. My hand raises like a hammer and Sabine is on the floor a second later.

She scrambles backward on her bottom and her hands, shaking, blood dripping from her nose. “Please…I…I just wanted to tell you where I saw her.”

“Saw who, girl? Speak!”

“Uma,” she answers. “S-She was in the bathing room, with the other girls, and me. Yesterday I”—she wipes blood from her nose with the back of her hand—"I-I heard her talking.”

“I don’t know an Uma,” I lie. Tell me more, please; tell me everything about Naeva you know. “Are you accusing me of something, girl?”

She shakes her head rapidly. “No. I’m taking a risk. Kill me if you want; I’d rather be dead than spend another day in this place. A-At least I’ll have done something I-I feel good about.”

I turn my head swiftly, looking down the long hallway, left and right, worried someone might hear, and then I grab Sabine by the arm and pull her to her feet. Dragging her into an empty utility room used by the housekeepers, I shut the door behind us.

“Why are you telling me this?” I press her, tightening my fingers around her arm. “And what makes you think I know this girl, or that I’m her friend?”

Sabine’s eyes look bright in the dark room; the only light is coming from underneath the door. She trembles, and her face shrinks with fear, but it doesn’t stop her from talking.

“This morning,” she says, “w-when you were talking to Cesara about that girl, she said the name Uma. It was the girl’s name in the bathroom.”