The Butterfly Garden (The Collector #1)(51)

“Ah.”

That was the last thing said for some time. It sure as hell wasn’t my job to supply conversation, so I turned on the stone and looked out into the Garden, watching the surface of the pond ripple and sway where water emptied from the stream. Eventually I heard his footsteps on the stone and then something dark hovered in front of me. When I reached out to touch it, it dropped into my lap.

His sweater.

The color was hard to determine in the moonlight, maybe a burgundy of some sort, with a school crest sewn onto one breast. It smelled like soap and aftershave and cedar, something warm and masculine and mostly unfamiliar in the Garden. I twisted my wet hair into a messy knot atop my head and pulled on the sweater, and when everything was covered, he sat next to me on the rock.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said quietly.

“So you came out here.”

“I just can’t make sense of this place.”

“Given that it doesn’t make sense, that’s understandable.”

“So you’re not here by choice.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Stop looking for information you have no intention of actually using.”

“How do you know I won’t use it?”

“Because you want him to be proud of you,” I said sharply. “And you know if you tell anyone about all this, he won’t be. Given that, what does it matter whether we’re here by choice or not?”

“You . . . you must think I’m a despicable excuse for a human being.”

“I think you have the potential to be.” I looked at his sad, earnest face and decided to take a risk for pretty much the first time since coming to the Garden. “I also think you have the potential to be better.”

He was silent for a long time. Such a tiny step, a minuscule nudge, but already it seemed too big. How could a parent have so much control over a child, that paternal pride meant more than what was right? “Our choices make us who we are,” he said eventually.

It wasn’t what I’d call a substantive response.

“What choices are you making, Desmond?”

“I don’t think I’m making any choices right now.”

“Then you’re automatically making the wrong ones.” He straightened, mouth open to protest, but I held up my hand. “Not making a choice is a choice. Neutrality is a concept, not a fact. No one actually gets to live their lives that way.”

“Seemed to work for Switzerland.”

“As a nation, maybe. How do you think individuals felt, when they learned the truth of what their neutrality allowed to transpire? When they learned of the camps, and the gas chambers, and the experimentation, do you think they were pleased with their neutrality then?”

“Then why don’t you just leave?” he demanded. “Rather than judge my father for giving you food and clothing and comfortable shelter, why don’t you just go back out there?”

“You don’t really think we have codes, do you?”

He deflated, the indignation fading as quickly as it flared. “He keeps you locked in?”

“Collectors don’t let butterflies fly free. It defeats the purpose.”

“You could ask.”

“It isn’t easy to ask him for anything,” I said, parroting his words from a week or so ago.

He flinched.

He was blind, but he wasn’t stupid. That he chose to be ignorant really pissed me off. I shrugged out of the sweater and dropped it in his lap, sliding off the rock. “Thank you for the conversation,” I muttered, walking quickly down the path that sloped to the main level from the far end of the cliff. I could hear him tripping and fumbling after me.

“Maya, wait. Wait!” His hand closed around my wrist and tugged back, nearly pulling me off my feet. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re between me and food. Apologize for that, if you like, and get out of my way.”

He let go of my wrist but kept following me across the Garden. He hopped first across the small stream and reached out to steady me from the other side, something I found both bizarre and charming. The main lights in the dining room—and the attached open kitchen—were dark, but a dim light shone from above the stove for anyone seeking a late-night snack. The sight of the larger, locked fridge momentarily distracted him.

I yanked open the door to the smaller one and studied what was inside. I was genuinely hungry, but as being around vomiting people doesn’t do much for the appetite, nothing seemed appealing.

“What is that on your back?”

I slammed the door shut, blocking out the light, but it was too late.

He stepped closer behind me, walking us both over to the oven, and in the dim glow of the stove light he studied the wings in all their exquisite, excruciating detail. Under normal circumstances, I could have mostly forgotten what they looked like. He’d give us mirrors if we asked for them; I never had. Bliss, though, made a point of showing everyone their wings on a regular basis.

So we couldn’t forget what we were.

Butterflies are short-lived creatures, and that too was part of her reminder.

His fingertips brushed against the darker veins of brown against the fawn-colored upper wings, stretching as the lines splayed outward into the delicate chevrons. I stood perfectly still despite the goose bumps that crawled down my spine at his tentative exploration. He hadn’t asked, but then, he was his father’s son, I supposed. My eyes closed, my hands curling into fists at my sides, as his fingers moved lower into the bottom wings of roses and purples. He didn’t follow the lines down, but in, toward my spine, until he could run a thumb up the entire length of black ink that ran down the center of my back.