The Rule of One (The Rule of One #1)(49)
“You hypocritical son of a bitch,” Rayla says an inch from his face, her voice seething. “You still did Roth’s bidding!”
All at once she pounces. Her anger and hurt, which must have lain dormant for years, manifests in a single punch, and Father crashes onto the carpeted floor in a spray of glass and vengeance.
Mira springs to her feet.
“Our father sacrificed himself for us!” she shouts passionately in his defense.
Rayla turns away from Father, the knuckles of her right hand cut and bleeding onto the leg of her pants.
“As he should have. As your mother did,” she says evenly.
I rise from the couch, disoriented from the twists and turns of our family history, to stand next to my sister. I open my mouth, a hundred burning questions begging to be asked, but Rayla holds up her hand, stopping me. She takes a breath, gathering back into herself all that spilled emotion, and by the time she breathes out again, she has sealed herself shut.
She signals to the bedroom behind us.
“You can both sleep in my bed tonight, and there’s enough water for a shower. You both stink.”
She walks toward the front door.
“Where are you going?” Mira demands.
“Do not leave this apartment, and answer the door to no one.”
Without another word, our grandmother slips through the front door and secures the twin locks behind her, leaving Mira and me staring blankly at the yellow door glaring back at us.
MIRA
“I know what you’re thinking,” Ava tells me from the other side of the steamy glass door.
“You took all the water,” I say. The dented screen below the showerhead, the only piece of modern technology I’ve seen in this ancient apartment, reads “.25 Gallons Remaining.”
“She might not be the nicest person, but nice won’t keep us alive,” Ava says.
The water pressure is weak and comes out in fitful spurts, but it’s hot and does its job of rinsing me clean of the filth I’ve acquired from the long journey getting here. I watch it all spill down my shins, slide over my toes, and sink through the drain to be purified, stored, and recycled for tomorrow’s shower.
If we’re still here tomorrow.
“But I feel good about her, Mira,” Ava continues, “and she’s blood.”
I don’t want to talk. I just want to stand still and soak in the warm, comforting water that drizzles over my head, massaging my tired muscles and my tired mind.
In Dallas, the night before it was my turn to go up, I would bathe in our tub for what seemed like hours, allowing the transformative powers of soap and water to cleanse me until I was pink and raw, a clear canvas, restored and reenergized to confront another day in a dangerous world I had no right to be in.
I don’t want to think either, I decide.
Before I can staunch my unwanted thoughts and absorb any sense of peace, the shower turns off without warning.
“Dammit!” I shout, punching the screen that flashes “Empty” in my face. The heated moisture hangs heavily in the air, concentrating above my arms and chest as if the steam were rising from my fuming temper.
“I’ll see if the recycling tank’s been purified yet,” Ava says coolly, a formless blue blob in the cloudy vapor.
“Don’t bother,” I say a little too harshly, the shampoo dripping down my forehead, stinging my eyes.
I hate how vulnerable I feel standing naked inside this flimsy shower. Blindly, I reach for the towel draped over the glass enclosure and wrap the scratchy cotton tight around my frame. Tepid droplets trickle down my ears and neck from the soapy ends of my short hair, but I don’t bother to mop them dry. I throw open the shower door and encounter my sister, her body cocooned in an oversized navy robe, blocking my path.
“I know you’re angry with Father,” she says, her damp hair the color of midnight.
Ava thinks she knows everything.
“I’m angry, too, that he kept so much from us,” she continues, her hand on my bare shoulder. “But he’s showing us now.”
“By handing us over to some woman he never even trusted?” I shrug off her hold on me and plow through her barricade, stomping toward the sink. The mist is already lifting, evaporating slowly on the square mirror in front of me. Impatient, I swipe my palm across the glass, speeding up the process.
Ava looms over me as I unscrew the cap of a small case, pluck out one disinfected contact lens, and pull down my bottom eyelid. After several maddening attempts, I finally swivel the lens into place before Ava can ask if I need her help.
I repeat with my left eye and linger near the mirror, analyzing the effect. My eyes water and burn, but I hold them open and glare at my reflection, owning my anger, striving and failing to focus it all on me.
“We really were ignorant, weren’t we?” I say.
“Stop fighting this,” Ava snaps at me, moving closer to my side. “We made it. We’re safe.”
My gunmetal-blue eyes find hers in the foggy glass.
“We didn’t make it,” I say bitterly, accepting the cruel truth. “And we’re never going to be safe anywhere.”
The rapid convulsions of the mattress wake me with a start. The covers are ripped from my body as Ava rolls to the far end of the queen bed, monopolizing the blanket and any chance of continued sleep.