Spiders in the Grove (In the Company of Killers #7)(34)

“You, Apollo, know how to convince Artemis of anything,” I tell him. “You know as well as I do that you could have stopped all of this from ever happening in the first place, but you chose to let her go through with it.” I peer in closer at him, leaning forward on the chair. “I will take care of Izabel. You deal with Artemis. Nobody dies. Everybody goes on to live the short, eventful lives we were always meant to. Do I have your word?”

He smiles, close-lipped. “Would you even believe my word if I gave it to you?”

“I suppose I will have no choice,” I say. “But remember, if either of you ever go after Izabel again, using any method at all, I will find you both and I will kill you both and nothing in this world will save you then.”

Apollo thinks on it a moment, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“All right,” he says with a short nod, “you have my word.”

After a moment of my own contemplation, further talking myself into doing this, I unstrap his legs and then his wrists.

Apollo slowly stands from the rickety wheelchair, and his legs, weak from not being used in so long, almost fail him, but he gets his balance. He stretches his arms out at his sides, up into the air; he rolls his neck side to side. And then he looks at me, and down at the gun already in my hand again.

“You really do love that woman,” he says, this time with less mocking, and more understanding. “If only you had loved my sister like that—you fucked her up, man; you tore out her heart; you created something vicious and cruel.”

“I know. And one day I hope to repay her for what I did. One day I hope she can…understand me.” I pause, making sure whether or not I want to say this. “Apollo…I never did stop caring for Artemis. I did what I had to do—what I chose to do, I know, I am guilty—but I was a different man then; I was not even a man. I was a product; a machine built by the hands of men, trained from a boy to think and act only as they taught me. It was all I knew for a very long time. I would never ask or expect Artemis to forgive what I did to her; I would only want her to understand it someday.” I lower my head.

“Ahh, so, that’s what this is about?” Apollo says; he tilts his head to one side, and then the other. “It’s not revenge because your woman left you in the dark; you…”—he chuckles—“…I can’t believe I’m seeing this.”

“Seeing what?”

He smiles. “You are a different man, Victor, that’s for damn sure.”

Then he turns and heads for the basement stairs; he stops with one bare foot on the bottom step, and looks back at me.

“I know you can’t say it,” he begins, “because it’ll make you feel guiltier than you already do, but you don’t have to say it—I see it all over you.”

“Say what, Apollo?” I swallow hard. “See what?”

He grins. “That you’re still in love with my sister.”

I say nothing. I look at the wall instead.

“I know you, Victor—Artemis knows you—and if you really wanted her dead, you would’ve already found her by now. You know she’s here, in Arizona, and you’ve known all along. And you’re letting me go because, as you’ve already said so yourself, you know she’ll listen to me. And because you want me, without having to ask, to tell her that you still love her.”

I sit heavily onto the chair again, dropping my hands between my legs; my head falls near my slumped shoulders.

After a moment, I raise my head and look at him.

“Just tell your sister to leave Izabel alone,” I reiterate. “I have put her through enough. And…I am tired of doing it.”

My gaze veers off toward the wall again.

Apollo drops his foot from the bottom step; his face is cast in shadow.

“I was wrong before, about it making you feel worse,” he says. “If you say it, it’ll probably make you feel better.”

“Leave, Apollo, before I change my mind.”

“You won’t change your mind.”

I look at him with curiosity.

“Just say it. Admit it to yourself. Out loud. It’s always realer when it’s out loud. Realer? Is that a word?”

“Apollo…if you do not leave…”

“If you want me to tell my sister the truth; if you want me to stop her, then I want you to tell me the truth. I just want to hear you say it. Say it, Victor, and I can guarantee on my life that Artemis will never bother Izabel again. Just say it.”

“No.”

“Say it. Come on, man, just say it!”

I shoot into a stand, one fist clenched at my side.

Apollo smiles; his stark-white teeth visible amid the shadow.

He steps forward, pushes his face into view.

And he waits.

Slowly, I raise my eyes to his again. And I tell him what he wants to hear: “I love Izabel…but not as much as I love Artemis.” My hands are shaking; I go even further though he does not ask, because I know I need to—I have to.

“What I did to Artemis is my number one regret, and it always has been. I think I have…been using Izabel, without knowing it, to make up for what I did to Artemis. She was my chance to make peace with myself, to start over, to do things right. But over time, I began to see that Izabel could never replace Artemis; she could never bring her back to life; she could never reverse the worst mistake I ever made. And now I have gone too far, and though I do not want to further my life with Izabel, I do not want to be the reason she is denied the chance to further her life with someone else.”