Spiders in the Grove (In the Company of Killers #7)(52)
“I don’t believe you.” I shake my head. “Maybe you will tell me, sure, but then you’ll kill me after you get what you want.”
“No,” he says. “I’ll give you everything you want—Alejandra, information on Vonnegut, your freedom, and your life—if you’ll bring Victor Faust to me.”
“I still don’t believe—”
“I’ll even give you a freebie,” he cuts me off, “as a gesture of good faith.”
“There’s nothing you can say to convince me you’re telling the truth.”
“Do you want the freebie, or not?”
I ponder it for a moment. What other choice do I have? What other potential ways out of this are there? No one’s coming to ‘save me’; I either agree to this, and at least buy myself some time, or it’s all over and I die right here, right now, never knowing anything.
“Yes,” I say, and brace myself. “I want it.”
Javier reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out his cell phone; he runs his finger over the screen in search of something, and smiles when he finds it; the dread grows in my heart.
Turning the screen toward me, I look down at the picture staring back at me. It’s a girl—a young woman. She’s wearing a hoodie, but I can see her face, and her eyes, and her hair peeking from beneath it. Confused, I look up at Javier, waiting for him to tell me who she is.
“Her name was Sela. Sela Cohen. She was your sister, about four years older than you.” He casually pockets the phone again, taking his time. “Your White-trash madre sold her to me—technically to Izel, who unsuccessfully tried to train her—when she was seven-years-old. But Sela, much like you, couldn’t be controlled. Unfortunately, she attacked Izel, and my sister killed her of course; you know how Izel was.”
“What does this…girl, have to do with me?” I really don’t care much that I had a sister; I never knew her, don’t even recall ever seeing her before, so if he’s trying to play the family card…
Javier smiles with satisfaction.
“Your mother sold you to me, Sarai,” he says, and I admit, it doesn’t affect me much. “For drugs. You wouldn’t believe how many mothers sell their daughters for a high. In fact,” he goes on, “that woman pumped out at least four daughters I know of, before you.”
“That’s it?” I ask, unimpressed by the information—OK, it hurts a little that my mom sold me, but the problem is that it doesn’t surprise me much.
“That’s it,” he confirms with a shrug. “I thought you’d be more—”
“Hurt? Shocked? Emotionally invested?”—I shake my head—“Javier, I’m nothing like I used to be.”
“You’re everything like you used to be, and more,” he comes back. “In a sense you’ve always been this”—he looks me up and down—“Izabel Seyfried. You’ve never been weak; you played me from the start; you did whatever you had to do to survive, and then eventually escape, because I never broke you—I made you. You killed your own mother; and your fake mother”—he smirks—“yes, I heard about her death; was sure it was you, and I look in your face now and I know I was right. Sarai, weak people could never kill those they love the most, not even to put them out of their misery, much less feel no guilt afterwards.” (No, you bastard—you’re wrong! He’s wrong! He’s…right.)
“You risked the life of your own child when you came back to kill me, when you betrayed me,” he continues, “because you knew, no matter what your heart tried to make you believe, that I’d never tell you where she was even if you helped me. A loving mother would never risk their child, she’d never give up hope, even if she knows, deep down, that there is no hope”—(my fingernails are digging into my palms; my teeth are grinding to dust in my mouth)—“You risked yourself and your relationship with Victor Faust to come here, right back to a place you knew you’d be…spoiled for him later. Or killed and never see him again.”
He stands up, clasps his hands behind him, and looks down at me as I feel my face falling deeper and deeper under a shroud of shame and realization and hatred for this piece of shit who dares to tell me the things about myself I never wanted to know. I never wanted to believe…
“You’re just like me, Sarai,” he says at last, and I flinch. “You’re a wolf in the chicken pen; you kill because you’re hungry, because it’s in your nature, and your remorse only goes as far as what you’re willing to let affect you. Because you secretly despise affection, companionship, and love. You crave power above all things, because up there, at the top where no one can touch you, influence you, or love you, you know you can never be hurt.”
He crouches in front of me, and he kisses my lips. “We are one in the same, Sarai,” he says, looking into my eyes but not seeing me. “And that’s how I know you did love me. Once. Because darkness is attracted to darkness. And the only reason you came here is because Victor Faust has become a sort of light in your life, and you fear it as much as he probably does; you hate yourself for loving him because you care what happens to him. But with me, you loved me without stipulations; you could live with yourself if I died—but it was still love; the darkest kind of love. The safest kind of love.”