KILLING SARAI(60)

I glimpse her throat move in the mirror as she swallows down the painful memory and she pauses before she goes on, trying to recollect her thoughts.

“At some point,” she says, “I even stopped hating him. I-I know that sounds crazy, and-and-and I never loved him,” she stutters over her words and I sense she’s conflicted about the things she saying. “But I stopped hating him….”

She catches my eyes in the mirror.

“Does that make me sick? I mean…,” she licks the dryness from her lips. I thread the last stitch and clean the area again with alcohol, only glancing away from her long enough to make sure of my technique. “I mean, because I stopped hating him, does that mean there’s something wrong with me?”

She desperately wants me to tell her no.

I slip her panties back over her stitches and go to wash my hands.

“It means that you’re human,” I say.

Trying to avoid her desire to remain with me, I leave her standing in the bathroom and offer no more of my own thoughts on the matter.

But she’s relentless and follows me out.

I continue about my business, intent on getting some much-needed sleep. I remove my shirt and step out of my pants, flipping the light switch off as I walk past, leaving the room bathed in a dark blue hue.

“Victor,” she says softly from behind. “Please take me with you. I’ve told you before, I can help. You can teach me, train me to be whatever you think I’d be good at.”

“You don’t really want that, do you?” I ask, knowing her better than she knows herself. I pull back my comforter and sheets and slip into my bed. “You just don’t want me to leave you. Alone in the world. Free to be what and who you want, to make your own decisions. To have sex with men of your choosing. To have a normal life. Because it’s foreign to you.” I pause. “If I told you to kill someone for the sake of a job, you wouldn’t be able to do it. You couldn’t bring yourself to kill any human being in cold blood, knowing nothing of their crimes or their families or even why they are being killed. You could never become like me. No amount of training could make you a murderer, Sarai.” I lie down fully upon my pillow, bringing the sheet up to my waist. “Now get some sleep. We’ll be leaving at six a.m. and I expect you to have chosen a place you’d like to go by then.”

She looks defeated. Beautiful and soft and damaged standing there before me partially clothed in the light of the moon beaming through the tall window. Beautiful, but defeated. That look in her eyes, it somehow latches onto my soul and all I want is for her to turn and walk away. Because I know that if she doesn’t, if she presses me further with those soft lips and sad, vulnerable eyes that I’ll succumb to the moment and either f*ck her or kill her.

She turns and walks toward the door.

I stop her.

“Sarai,” I say, but she doesn’t turn around. “You never accepted your life with Javier, or you wouldn’t…be here with me now.” I had started to say: Or you wouldn’t have killed him, but decided against that.

She says nothing and closes the door on her way out.

I lie here staring at the thick clouds covering the sky and I think about the things I told her, the lies I told her.

She could kill in cold blood. Every part of me tells me that she can and that she would. In a way, it pains me to believe it, to know that her innocence was taken from her so long ago and that although she still has a decent shot at living a normal life, the fact that she chooses to want my life, is difficult to swallow.

It’s difficult mostly because I almost want to give it to her.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN





Sarai





I listen to the thunder and the rain for an hour, unable to fall asleep. Despite the weather it’s so quiet in this house, so spacious and empty. Empty in nearly every sense of the word. I lie against the cool sheets in the spare bedroom, watching the dark clouds churn in the sky through that enormous window. I hear the waves crashing below and see the endless ocean in an eerie flash as lightning streaks across the turbulent sky.

Empty.

This house. My soul. Victor’s soul. It’s the only word suited for the way I feel, the way that I believe Victor feels, though him more-so than me.

How can anyone go through life so surreptitious, emotionless, so unattached to anyone or anything? When I look into his eyes I see something there, although dormant and completely indistinct, I know it’s there. And it’s powerful. I want to understand it, to feel it, to taste it on my lips.

As the thunder begins to fade as it moves off in the distance, the rain fails to a soft drizzle. I can’t hear it anymore, but I can still see it streaming against the glass in poetic rivulets. The chill in the air raises goose bumps on my bare legs even underneath the covers, evoking visions of Victor lying next to me to help keep me warm.

I decide to get up.

I feel foolish and reckless for what I’m about to do, but I don’t care. If he’s going to get rid of me tomorrow, what does it matter how this turns out?

My bare feet move quietly across the hardwood floors and then through the center of the house. Placing my reluctant fingertips on the door lever outside Victor’s room, I pause before pushing it down gently. The door clicks open and I walk inside. I see him across the large space, lying on his back, his head fallen to one side, facing me. His eyes are closed, his breathing steady. The sheet covers only his midsection and thighs, leaving the rest of his naked body exposed to the chill in the air. I recall earlier in the night when he was on top of me, pressing himself into me from behind and it makes my stomach and hips quiver.