KILLING SARAI(43)

She crosses her arms and the smile she wore before has been replaced by determination.

“You can’t do this. You know that.”

I reach around her and grab my boxers anyway, letting the towel drop to the floor and stepping into them.

“Victor,” she persists, “you can’t be the hero. Not for her or for anyone else. You know this. What you’re doing, what you’re feeling is only going to get you killed.”

I pull my thumbs from the elastic, letting it snap against my hips and shut Samantha up with the hard look in my eyes.

“You’re way off the mark, Sam,” I say, glaring at her. “You think you see something in me for her because it’s what you’re used to believing you saw in me for you.” Instantly, I regret my words.

Samantha glares at me coldly, her fingers pressing aggressively into her biceps. “What are you saying? That it’s what you think I—.” She can’t look at me anymore and her eyes stray toward the shower. Because she knows I’m right. I shouldn’t have said it, but she can’t deny the truth.

Finally she looks at me again, hurt and admission on her features. “You’re right,” she says. “I have always thought of you in that way. I read into things between us wrong and saw things that weren’t there.”

I keep silent to let her finish, but it seems that she has.

“I truly am sorry for anything I have done to you,” I say and mean it with everything in me.

She shakes her graying blonde head. “No, Victor, you did everything right. You saw that I was developing feelings for you before I knew it myself and you did the right thing.”

I cup my hands underneath her elbows and she relaxes a little.

“I hope that—.”

Uncrossing her arms, my hands fall away.

“Victor,” she says, putting up both of her hands between us, “please don’t apologize for not having the same feelings for me that I was having for you. That’s not something you can control, I know. And I hope that you’ll believe me when I say that you can always trust me. You’re the one person in the Order that I trust and can truly call…my friend.”

“I thought you said I didn’t have any friends?” I smile faintly.

Relaxing one arm back against her chest, she pats my shoulder with the other.

“OK, maybe you just have me,” she says, smiling back at me. But then she becomes serious again. “And because I’m your only friend, you have to trust me, listen to me when I tell you that what you’re doing with this girl is going to get you exiled, or killed, or both.”

I start buttoning my shirt.

I had hoped she would drop it altogether, especially if Sarai is still listening in from the other room, though I get the strangest feeling that she’s not and that relaxes my mind somewhat.

“I’m not doing anything with her other than keeping her safe until this is all over,” I insist. “She deserves a shot a normal life after what she’s been through and I decided at some point to try and give that to her.”

I slip into my black slacks, tucking in my shirt. Samantha pulls my tie from the hanger on the wall and drapes it around the back of my neck.

She sighs. “OK,” she says, surrendering. “But tell me, and be honest with yourself before you answer…,” she hesitates, her fingers paused around the tie. I nod. “Since she’s been with you, can you tell yourself that she’s going to be any different than you were years after you were taken by the Order?”

Her question quietly shocks me. I had not expected it at all.

“Even I see it, Victor, and I’ve only spent an afternoon with her so I know you see it, too.”

I know now what she’s referring to, but I’m still too taken aback by the revelation to comment. Samantha detects this, my need to hear more of what I already know to be true from someone else’s lips rather than just my own. Subconsciously needing the validation.

“I know you can’t tell me anything about where she came from, who she’s running from or how long she was with those she’s running from, but judging by what I see in her now I can tell two things.” She straightens my finished tie and lets one hand drop to her side, the other briefly holds up two fingers. “One,” she drops one finger, “she’s already so anesthetized to what is normal that she might never live a normal life. She knew I was testing her food for her because you were making sure it wasn’t poisoned, but it didn’t faze her. She sat at that table with us, scarfing down that lunch like we were a simple family of three sharing an afternoon meal in the suburbs.”

She leans against the counter, crossing her arms over her chest.

“And two,” she goes on, “for her to be that way I know she had to have been a prisoner, sex slave or no-telling-what for several years, no less than five. And at her young age—what is she twenty-three, twenty-four? (She gestures her hands around in front of her briefly)—that means she had to have been fairly young when she was taken. Like you. And we both know that the younger one is, the easier it is to mold them into whoever or whatever you want them to be. Also like you.”

Every word that Samantha spoke is true and I know it. I know it better than anyone.

I slip my suit vest on over my shirt and tie and button all four buttons.