“I poisoned my ex-boyfriend. He . . . he got sick.”
The corners of Ursula’s mouth stretched yet again and I knew what she was about to declare.
“Liiiiaaar!”
The girl’s face paled, for the interrogator had gotten her right; it did not shake her though, as evidently, her strategy was to out-lie everyone else. The man beside her was made to admit he was a serial rapist, and when Tiffany gasped in horror and cowered, Ashley shouted out that he was telling the truth and was saved from dismissal.
By the end of the round, I was thoroughly disgusted, but knew that I could not leave. I was chained, not just by the strong men or the ridicule of the crowd, but by morbid fascination. I felt slightly sick, but my heart pounded as each person was called upon a second time.
“Tell the truth,” Ursula ordered, and being sweet and innocent, I could see that Ashley’s strategy would never work for Tiffany. There was no way she could afford to lie because there was no way she could tell who was lying. She attempted it though, and her falsehood was too extravagant, which made me wonder what her real secret was. When the second girl was interrogated, Tiffany failed to see through it, and was dismissed.
In the end, there were two liars facing each other in all out war, determined not to share, and to call out the other, but Ursula threw in another twist.
“The game is called ‘Tell the Truth,’” she admonished, “and you have played it well, but the only way to win, is to confess. Tell the truth. The first person to lie to me is finished.”
Both players were horror-struck. To the tune of laughter and catcalls, they were examined and their secrets chosen.
Ursula stood before the girl and crossed her arms.
I could see the poor thing’s chest heaving. “I . . . When I was in high school, I had sex with my chemistry teacher to get an ‘A,’” she nearly shouted.
With a calm nod, Ursula stepped before the man. “Your turn, Todd.”
He gulped in a few breaths and planted his feet. “I hit a kid on a bike with my car. I drove away and didn’t call the cops.”
It was Ashley’s turn yet again. Ursula stepped before her sternly and chose her secret. In that moment, I wondered how it was done. Was it a subtle change in eye movement, temperature, pulse? Was Ursula a human lie detector?
“I had sex with my half-brother,” she confessed.
It moved to Todd, and I could see it. He was about to lie. He didn’t care what the consequences were, because he wasn’t going to confess whatever it was she wanted him to say.
“I shot my brother’s dog,” he lied. The auburn head gave a sad shake, and to a rush of sound, the beautiful referee declared the girl the winner. Todd was escorted to the corner.
“I humbly thank all of you for playing our little game,” she said, by way of a grand closing. “For those who would like to play again, please step forward.”
And so it went, for hours. They never seemed to tire of it, and each time a winner was selected, they were allowed to sit on the banked seating along the back wall and squirm in half-darkness. It was an ingenious torture device; success was a hollow victory, for really, the only way to truly win, was to have nothing of which to be ashamed. Even if a person didn’t play, they were reminded of the disgrace somewhere in their life. What boggled me, was that people came back, addicted, and I wondered if they went out and committed fresh offenses just to have another secret. Impressed with the sick cleverness of it, I watched the host, trying to discover her scam.
At last, it came down to the finals, where liar faced liar, and in the end, told the truth with frantic satisfaction. By the end, a man who had declared himself everything from a murderer to a sadist, but had never once been truthful, took the game with ten straight confessions, and revealed himself to be just as vile as his falsehoods. Ursula took his hand and held it up for the audience and after he had taken his bows, she sat him at her piano.
“And now, my little shriven dears, it is time for you to depart. In Michael here, I have found my winner, and he will receive his reward. Come back with more secrets, my dears. Come back and work harder next time, for if you can see clearly enough, you might just win the prize.”
“What is the prize?” someone shouted.
I was beginning to wonder that myself. Was it money, or something equally grand? It had to be, to make such quick work of secrets that would destroy a man should they be leaked to the outside world.
“Well, you’ll just have to play, my dears, but I can assure you, it’s the prize of a lifetime.”
She had such a charisma to her, that with only a few words and gestures she had crowned herself in their eyes, and with fawning glances and forlorn faces they drifted out the door, taking the shaken losers with them. I wondered if any of them would come back, and was fairly certain they would.
“I’ve been playing a long time for this.” The winner grinned up at Ursula, who sank into his lap seductively. He was in his mid-forties, but was obviously still passing himself off as thirty. He wore a close-fitting shirt with a paisley pattern and dark jeans. His thick fingers pawed up her back eagerly, pulling her toward him, until she was straddling him and the piano bench, and had his lip in her mouth. Then he spotted me.
“Is she part of the prize?” he asked with a laugh.
Ursula cast a dark look back at me and shook her head. “Her? No. She’s a witness.”
“To what?”
The woman laughed, at first like a woman, but all too quickly like a banshee. She laughed until he was looking at her in awkward disquiet and then her voice trembled to a halt.
She tipped herself forward in his arms and touched her nose to his.
“To my secret, silly.” Before I could do anything, she toppled him backward onto the piano bench. I jumped up and saw something glitter in her hand. I realized too late that the jeweled buckle to her belt was some kind of weapon. Her hand dropped and he let out a single shout that came to a gurgling crescendo. She threw herself over him and like a wild animal, began growling and tearing with her hands. At first, too stunned to move, I stood there, but as blood began to pool on the floor, my adrenalin got the better of me.
I turned to the door and found the way open. In a mad dash, I reached the foyer, just in time to hear her shriek in wicked laughter. I spun back and she was on her feet, facing me, her entire upper body covered in gore.
I hurled myself at the door and tumbled through it. On the other side, former contestants still gathered, laughing and patting each other on the back. I rammed through them at top speed. A few shouted after me, but there was no way in hell I would apologize. I had reached the bottom of the stairs before the signs of pursuit reached me.
They were moving through the crowd on the dance floor, black suits turned in my direction, shoving people aside. I looked around desperately for an exit and had no choice but to go back through the cattle press to the beacon of the green exit sign. Furiously, I elbowed and kicked my way through the people, and was close enough to feel relief, when someone fought back. A drunken girl caught my fist in her stomach and responded by grabbing hold of my hair.
I managed to turn my head while her boyfriend tried to pull us apart, and caught sight of one of them. A girl a few feet away was hurled back, and as he reached for me, I screamed in rage and dropped my stiletto heel right unto the bitch’s metatarsals. While she shrieked and bled in the bouncer’s way, I tore from her hands and slammed into the exit door. The alarm blared, but it was barely louder than the music. I made my way down the alley. They hit the door right after me, running faster than I was. In desperation, I made for my car, but I knew I would never make it in those shoes.
Suddenly, one heel stuck in the metal street grating, and I went down harder than a linebacker. I landed on my knees and rolled over, tried to get up, and found that I couldn’t. Sobbing, I tugged at the shoes, trying to get them off so that I could get away, but they were right on top of me. I threw my arms up to protect myself, but to my surprise, nothing
happened.
Lowering my shaking hands, I sat in the gutter, a bloody, filthy wreck, and they just stood there, looking around. Terrified they had but to confirm their orders, I screamed for help, and before I knew what was happening, warm arms encircled me from behind. A skein of long, dark hair dropped into the crook of my neck. He pulled me to my feet and steadied me. With my heart slamming so loudly, I could barely hear myself think, I pushed back, trying to crawl into my savior for safety. In a frenzy, I looked up at his face and to my further astonishment, found it completely composed.
It was the armchair philosopher, and he was holding my pursuers at bay with a tranquil stare.
“We . . . we have to go now!” I cried. “Please!”
He blinked down at me with a distantly curious look, as if he had happened upon the scene and couldn’t fathom what was going on, but when he saw the panic in my face, his eyes transformed into little chunks of cobalt. In a second flat, he had hooked his elbow beneath my damaged legs and was walking away with me in his arms.
Over his shoulder, I could see the security guards, their faces screwed up in rage, pacing in place and shouting into their radios like panthers roaring behind cage bars.
“Go faster!” I begged, but he shushed me gently. “They’ll follow us!” I insisted, half-insane. I pulled back from his shoulder and looked him in the eyes, my hands on his face. His skin was incredibly smooth. “They’ll follow me!”
“They’re not going to follow you,” he breathed, and I could see knowledge there. He was certain, and even though that certainty had nothing to do with reality, it made me feel worlds better.
“Where’s your car?”
I gasped and reached for my chest, wriggling in his arms like an infant. He set me down gently out of sight of the pursuers, and limping in a circle, I dug the keys out of my purse, somehow still hooked around my bicep, its metal chain undamaged. With quaking fingers, I pressed the alarm button, cursing and begging it to work. After a few seconds, a set of headlights blinked and we found the car.
I was already tottering toward it when he scooped me up yet again and carried me to the passenger side. Without a second thought or any hint of fatigue, he pulled open the door, placed me in the seat, and belted me in. He got in on the other side, took the keys from my trembling grasp and pulled away with tires spinning just fast enough to placate me.
While my heart did its best to escape my chest, my mind touched gingerly on what I had seen, and when I realized I had just witnessed a woman tear a man to pieces with her bare hands, I put my head between my knees and cried so hard, I thought I might just suffocate myself.
Chapter 9
He pulled behind his shop into a tiny parking lot and came around to my side of the car. Still shaking, I frantically unbuckled my seatbelt.
“We can’t stay here! They saw you! They’ll find me!”
He bent down, and with gentle fingers, eased my bruised ankles across the floor mat. “They’re not going to look for you. Trust me. Arms around.”
I looked at him, dazed and completely unable to form ideas that made contextual sense. “I’m heavy.”
He had that look again, that strange expression of detached admiration, like I was an adorable child who belonged to someone else. For some reason, it soothed my frazzled nerves.
“You’re not heavy,” he said compassionate. “Arms!”
I reached out and wrapped my arms around his neck. He lifted me out of the car and carried me inside. We entered at the back of the bindery, where a storage room butted up beside a staircase.
“Do you live here?” I said quietly in his ear.
“Yes.” His apartment was more like a studio. The kitchen and living area was one long room of the same dimensions as the coffee shop. There were only a few pieces of furniture, and not a single decoration. No photos or personal belongings, just more books and, strangely enough, several candle stands. He carried me into the bathroom, a stark white, subway-tiled room with a claw-foot tub and pedestal sink, and put me down on the toilet.
“I’ll be right back,” he soothed, but no matter how comforting he was, I couldn’t bear the thought of being alone.
I grabbed his wrists and shook my head wildly. He disentangled himself and cupped my face in his hands, staring into my eyes for as long as it took me to understand that he was not leaving me for good.
“Just a moment?”
Shivering, I nodded. While he did whatever, I took scattered stock of my person to keep from feeling adrift. My shoes were gone. My beautiful new blouse torn, smeared with grease and whatever had congealed on the ground from the packing plant. My pencil skirt was ripped at the seam in several places. My knees were skinned and bloody. A single gash ran down the side of my right shin. I was covered in forming bruises, my hands were scratched up, and my feet looked as if I’d walked across a bed of broken glass. I reached in my purse and managed to drop everything on the floor while attempting to open my compact. My makeup was smeared like a kabuki performer with hay fever. Bits of trash clung to my overly gelled curls. All in all, I was a sorry mess and it didn’t help I was shaking like a leaf.
He returned with a chair, a first aid kit, and a box of Epsom salts. I was tenderly transferred to the chair and the hot water was turned on in the tub. He lifted my feet up and put them into the rising tide that instantly turned a pinkish brown. As he sprinkled the salt into the water, the overwhelming cold began to leach from me, until I stopped shivering and felt numbness take over.
“This is a bad cut,” he murmured, ladling water with his hands onto my shin. “I’m not sure yet if you need stitches.”
I shook my head. I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t speak yet. Not even the sting of the salt or the careful prodding of his fingers had any effect on my anesthetized body.
He glanced up at me. “You have glass in your feet and knees. It will take me a while to get it cleaned out.”
I closed my eyes. In the darkness, with the rushing of the water, I saw it all again; the way Michael cried out, Ursula’s ravenous eyes, the ring of blood around her lips and the chunks of flesh stuck to her fingernails. My hands went to my face and I shuddered.
Something warm was wrapped around me. I looked up to see him sitting on the edge of the tub, facing me. He was reaching for my face and I had caught him. Instead of hesitating or looking embarrassed, he finished the gesture and took a long, deep breath.
“Talk about it when you’re ready,” he whispered, “and not before. I can wait.”
But suddenly the rational side of my mind kicked in, and as if appalled with the fact that it had been ignored, did so with a vengeance. I snatched his hand from the air and clamped my fingers around it in a way that must have been painful to him, though he said nothing.
“No! We have to call the police! I have to call Unger! My god, we have to do something right now!”
His dark brows drew closer together. “Take a deep breath, Lilith,” he commanded and his voice was so strong that I couldn’t disobey. “What happened?”
“She . . . Ursula, she . . .” But I couldn’t match words, those precise little things, to such images. It just didn’t seem to do the memory justice.
His hands were back around my face, forcing me to look at him. “What did she do? Is someone hurt?”
“Someone . . . someone’s dead!” I shouted, and it was like a release. I sobbed and settled my hands in the crooks of his elbows. “She tore his throat out! He was bleeding everywhere! They were going to kill me!”
There was pressure behind his touch, telling me to stay focused on the present and not fall into fear for things gone by. “Are you sure he’s dead?”
“There was so much blood!” My voice crumbled into dust, my dry mouth sticking to itself. I tipped forward and instead of letting me pitch into the water, he propped me up with his shoulder and held me.
There were no more tears in me, but somehow, I still managed to cry. Never in my life had I seen something so horrible. I was no stranger
to ends, dead bodies, black clothes, soft-spoken well-wishes that never turned into actions, but spurting veins and monstrous insanity were new to me. What kind of person could do such a thing, and why, for the love of all that was sacred, would Eva be mixed up with them?
Finally, I had an answer, finally, I understood, and in one final quake, I lost that hatred for her. Perhaps it had happened to her exactly as it had happened to me and she had jumped to free herself from a world that had turned her into an accessory to crimes unimaginable.
“If he’s dead, there’s nothing we can do,” my rescuer said quietly.
“I have to call Unger; he’ll know what to do! He will!” I pulled away and tried to convince him with my raccoon eyes, but something in his expression told me that I was missing some key facts. “What? What is it?”
“I don’t think he’d believe you, Lilith.”
Caught off guard, I shook my head. “Of course he would! There was blood! Didn’t you hear me? They’ll find the blood!”
He was already shaking his head almost imperceptibly. “If this is something that woman does often, it will be completely gone by the time any help could arrive.”
“So what?” I demanded irately. “We just ignore the fact that a man is dead!”
“If you rely upon Unger,” he warned, “not only will the man be forgotten, but you’ll find yourself in a position to do absolutely nothing about it.”
“What are you talking about!” I found myself shouting. My fist pummeled his chest, but it had no effect on him. To a man strong enough to toss me over his shoulder; it was a useless gesture. But he understood, let me go, crossed his arms and continued to advise me with his gaze.
I had ignored his advice once before, and as he had said, I regretted it almost more than I regretted taking the later flight. Gripping the edges of the chair, I stared into the bathtub.
Craving Page 9