Spiders in the Grove

by J. A. Redmerski

  “The man who took you,” he began in Spanish, “he’s worth a lot of money—”

  “You want me to lure him,” I cut in, already hating everything about this…arrangement.

  Javier shook his head. “No,” he said, “I want you to continue as you have been with him; get inside his head, you know”—he smoothed the back of his fingers down my cheek suggestively—“the way you do, the way you’ve done with me. His employer wants him alive, but he also wants to know who else is helping him. You find these things out for me, Sarai; you help me be the one to bring him and his followers in, and I’ll give you the two things you want more than anything in this world.”

  “What do I want, Javier?” I felt tears pushing to the surface as I thought about those two things, but I held the tears back, trying to be strong.

  “Your freedom,” he said, “and your child.”

  I couldn’t hold them down anymore, and they sprang from my eyes—because I believed he was telling the truth. It was my chance, after all those years I’d spent as his prisoner, to be given back my life, left alone to live freely in the world with my child who’d been stolen from me at birth. A normal life. A boring, uneventful life that I wanted so badly I would’ve killed for it.

  I didn’t have to think about it, not even for a second—I was going to betray Victor. For my life and my freedom and for my child.

  “I’ll do it,” I told him.

  Javier kissed me tenderly. He believed me. He believed me because I, too, was telling the truth in that moment.

  “You always were my favorite,” Javier said, searching my eyes. “Mi princesa, mi amor, mi todo, Sarai.” The pad of his thumb touched my bottom lip.

  He kissed me again, and this time I fell into it, the feel of his warm tongue in my mouth, the memories we shared, the strange and unconventional and forbidden relationship we’d had.

  The kiss broke, and he peered into my eyes, and I saw a sort of sadness in his, because even the blackest heart can love.

  A muffled shot from outside rang out then, ending our moment.

  “It’s Victor,” I whispered in the darkness. “I know it’s Victor.”

  “Tell him you killed me,” Javier whispered back. “If he’s as compromised by you as The Order claims, he’ll believe anything you say.”

  I nodded nervously, and another muffled shot and movement outside the house made my heart race.

  Javier lay on the floor surrounded by debris, and pretended to be dead.

  I didn’t think it would work; my heart beating furiously in the side of my neck told me Victor couldn’t be fooled by something so simple.

  But I was wrong…

  Victor rushed into the room; he took off his black gloves and shoved them inside his jacket pocket. “Sarai?”

  I didn’t look up at him, because I was afraid he’d see the lie in my face. He crouched in front of me; my knees were drawn against my chest.

  “He’s dead,” I said; I raised my eyes. “I killed him, Victor.”

  He reached out and lifted me into his arms.

  “I’m going to get you out of here,” he told me.

  Holding me close to his chest, he carried me out of the house, never stopping to check Javier’s or even Samantha’s pulses. He had fallen for it. Victor Faust had truly been compromised. By me.

  Victor

  Weaving my way between buildings in the darkness, gun in-hand, my shoes moving quietly over the concrete, I follow the shadow out ahead. The sound of rushing water is getting closer as I near the bridge.

  I stop at the corner of a brick building, concealed by the shadows, when Apollo slows his pace. He slides his hands down into his pockets, and then slips into the darkness cast by the bridge above.

  I wait thirty seconds, and then continue to follow, keeping to the shadows and out of sight. Until I lose him.

  How could I have lost him so quickly? And then it hits me—he must know.

  Pressing my back against the rock wall, I stand perfectly still and silent. And I wait. I have been following Apollo for three hours since I filled his head full of lies and then let him go, so he would lead me right to Artemis.

  But something changed in that three hours, and I think he knows that I have been following him. Perhaps it was when he stopped at the twenty-four-hour coffee shop and spent fifteen minutes inside. On the phone. With Artemis, I am certain. I watched him from across the street; he had borrowed an employee’s cell phone. The moment he left the coffee shop, Apollo did seem a bit more alert to his surroundings, casually glancing over his shoulder every once in a while.

  Apollo emerges from an alcove within the rock wall out ahead, and I hold my breath and my body stiffens hoping he does not see me. His hands move around at his midsection—ah, I see: he was only relieving himself. Perhaps I have just been paranoid.

  I continue to follow him, past the bridge, and toward the park near the river; I keep a safe distance so he cannot hear my footfalls behind him. But where is he going? If I am fortunate, it is to meet Artemis somewhere; I may have been wrong about him knowing he is being followed, but I cannot be wrong about Artemis being the person he called in the coffee shop. I am absolutely certain it was her.

  Apollo sits down on top of a stone picnic table near a parking lot, his legs dangling over the side. Retrieving something from his pocket, I see that it is a cell phone once the screen lights up in his hand—he likely stole it from the employee. He puts the phone to his ear, motions his free hand around as he speaks. I wish I could hear what he is saying.

  But then my own phone vibrates inside my pocket—and it will not stop. Against my urge to check and see who it is, I let it go to voicemail twice, but whoever is calling me, I know it must be important. This is the worst possible moment to have to answer a call, but I do it anyway, because it could be about Izabel.

  Reaching into my pocket, I pull out the phone and my heart begins to race when I see the code name for my contact in Mexico blazing on the screen at me like a fire that needs to be put out.

  “What is it?” I ask quickly, my voice a whisper. “Is she all right?”

  “Niet, she not,” he says. “She in serrrious trrrouble. Zey know who she is, and zey’ve taken her. Vy didn’t you tell me Javier RRRuiz vas still alive?”

  I stop breathing…

  It takes me longer than it should to get my thoughts together.

  “Can you do anything?” I ask.

  “Niet. I trrried to buy her but she not forrr sale. Zerrre is nothing else I can do. I must go. I have business.”

  Just as I move the phone from my ear, crushing it within my fist, I smell her perfume around me, and then I hear the gunshot, thunderous at first, until it deafens me. I feel the bullet as it slices through my midsection, but strangely, no pain; just the warmth of blood as it pours from the wound and pools within my clothing. I sit slumped on the ground, and I cannot even recall how I got here, or when my gun fell from my hand, or when Artemis managed to take it into hers.

  My vision is spotty at best; for a moment I see two of her, standing tall over me, until two merges into one. Her lips are moving, but I can barely make out the words. Am I even breathing? I press my hand to my chest, searching for a heartbeat, and my other hand navigates through the gushing blood. With what little strength I have left, I try to put pressure on the wound.

  Artemis smiles, although it is not filled with malice, as I would have expected it to be.

  Finally, my hearing comes back to me, and her voice slowly produces sound.

  “My brother may’ve fallen for your lies,” she says as she crouches in front of me, “but I learned a long time ago never to trust you, Victor.”

  I sense Apollo approaching, but I cannot move my head to follow; his shadow precedes him, covering the ground in front of me.

  “I wish it were true,” Artemis goes on; she reaches out and touches my face. “I wanted it to be true when he first told me—I started to believe it; y’know, that naïve woman in me who loved you a
long time ago, who would’ve done anything for you.” She sighs. “But I’m not that woman anymore, and…well, I see you’re definitely not that man anymore, either.” Her words are laced with consolation and disappointment.

  She stands, and Apollo moves to stand beside her.

  Artemis raises the gun and points it at my head. I think only of Izabel; her face sweeps across my vision, haunting me, torturing me; I recall the first time I met her, I remember the sound of her voice, the smell of her red hair, the softness of her hands; I remember when she played the piano, and when I made love to her the first time, and the first time I almost killed her. And I remember—I shut my eyes and prepare to die, to be released from this prison that has been my life.

  A shot rings out. Again, I don’t feel anything. When I hear Apollo grunt, I open my eyes and see him fall next to me on the ground.

  “APOLLO!” Artemis shrieks.

  She turns the gun away from me and fires as she runs; bullets zip through the air in both directions, but none of them hit her, and she slips away into the darkness.

  “Victor!” Nora’s voice finds my ears, but I am losing too much blood and I cannot move to acknowledge her. Seconds later, she is crouched beside me, her hands probing my wound; two other figures dart past in pursuit of Artemis.

  “Why…Why are you not in…Mexico, Kessler?” I can hardly breathe, much less speak in full sentences.

  “I’m here to save your stubborn ass,” she says, “so maybe you could be a little grateful.”

  “But…Izabel…Javier…” I try to raise my hand in gesture—I want to knock her into next month—but I cannot lift it from the ground.

  Nora rolls her eyes, and then positions one arm behind me, pulling me to my feet.

  “I’m taking you to Mozart.”

  “I need you in…Mexico.”

  “Yeah, yeah—Izabel can handle herself.”

  The last thing I remember is the smell of the leather in the backseat of the car, so strong it is, as if the body’s senses heighten just before death. The sound of the tires moving energetically over the road; the lights—street lights and stars and electric signs—all pushing in on my eyes; the taste of blood in my mouth, sharp and coppery and unpleasant.

  Izabel…

  The Red Lotus

  The strange woman continuously rubs the pad of her thumb against the side of the Styrofoam coffee cup; she rarely sips from it, and when she does it’s only when a man walks past, and her eyes eerily follow until he is gone. The airport employee would like to end this uncomfortable encounter, but what had begun as a kind gesture has become a way to watch her more closely. He doesn’t like the feeling he gets from her; nor do the women behind the ticket counter who keep eyeing him from afar. She could be mentally unstable and need a police escort out of the airport; she could be a terrorist. Or, she could just be different, and the man would feel awful for calling the police on her for not fitting the mold of what’s considered normal in society.

  “Are you waiting for a family member?” the man probes, trying to spark up conversation—she’s been quiet the three minutes since they sat down together.

  “You have a good face,” the woman says.

  The man blinks a few times, then sips from his coffee as a distraction.

  “Thanks…” He glances at the ticket counter; the women laugh quietly when they see the bewildered look on his face.

  The woman makes a move toward her purse, and he tenses briefly.

  “I will show you,” she says, her voice always unnervingly calm, emotionless.

  As the woman unzips her purse on the tabletop, the man uses the opportunity to covertly peer inside. He doesn’t see anything that could be used as a weapon, just a small packet of tissues, a wallet, a trial-size bottle of hand sanitizer, and other random things that typically end up in women’s purses.

  She pulls out a small mirror.

  “Have a look,” she says, and holds the mirror out for him to take it.

  Reluctantly—and after another bewildered glance at his co-workers—he takes the mirror and holds it, not exactly sure what she wants him to do with it.

  “Look,” she urges, nodding at the mirror.

  The man swallows nervously, and then holds the mirror up in front of him.

  “What am I…supposed to be looking at?”

  “Your face.”

  “I uh…”—he continues to look, his expression growing more uncomfortable by the second—“…OK, I’m looking. But all I see is a good-lookin’ Black guy.” He forces a smile, trying to fake comfort in the situation.

  The woman reaches out and lays her delicate hand on his wrist, lowering his arm and the mirror in his hand.

  “You have a good face,” she repeats.

  She takes the mirror from his hand, hiding it away inside her purse again.

  Then she stands.

  “W-Where are you going?” The man sits there, confused by the whole exchange, but even more-so now that she has apparently decided to just walk away.

  “The plane has arrived,” she says without looking back at him, and then she slips away into the crowd.

  The man, and the women behind the ticket counter, watch her until she leaves the airport through the main doors.

  Izabel

  Funny how after so long, I can still separate Javier’s footsteps from everyone else’s. I can hear them now, coming down the hallway; he’s taking his time, and that sort of terrifies me. I try to steady my breath, and I straighten my back and hold my chin up high; my palms are sweating; my mouth is so damn dry. Calm down, Izabel.

  The door to my prison opens and in walks one half of the men who shaped and molded who I became; tall and wicked and striking despite his many unforgivable flaws. He looks right at me, and it is the only thing that gives me hope. If he had taken his time about that, it would’ve meant he didn’t care about me anymore. But he looked as soon as he stepped through the doorway, as if he couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Sarai,” he greets with a nod; he stands with his hands clasped behind his back.

  “Javier.” I nod in return.

  The exchange feels too formal, and that’s not a good sign.

  He closes the door and approaches me; pulls a chair over and sits down on it in front of me, leaving his long legs open; he slouches his back against the chair and rests his large hands within his lap. But he doesn’t touch me, not even knee to knee, and the hope I’d found seconds earlier drains out of my body.

  “I knew I’d see you again,” he says, and then looks at my bound hands. “I knew I’d see you like this.”

  “Really? You never imagined I’d come back to kill you? Or to be with you?”

  He smiles, close-lipped, letting me know that he never imagined, or could believe, either one.

  “You know I can’t let you leave here alive,” he tells me, getting right to the point.

  “Can’t, or won’t?”

  He looks upward at the ceiling as if he’s pondering it, but he already knows the answer.

  “Neither,” he says. “Can’t for obvious reasons. Won’t”—he purses his lips, tilts his head—“also for obvious reasons. Why did you come back? It wasn’t to kill me, I assume, or you wouldn’t have come here. I’m sure you knew I wasn’t here. So why did you come back?”

  “I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” I say, “if first you’ll let Naeva and Leo go. You can have me, do whatever you want with me, but that’s my price.”

  Javier smiles again. “Sure,” he says with a shrug. “But just to let you know, I already let them go.”

  I blink, confused; I’m not sure I believe him. “Why would you do that? And how do I know you’re not lying to me?”

  Javier brings his right leg up and rests his ankle atop his left knee; he crosses his arms.

  “Leo Moreno is worth more alive than dead,” he says. “He and I have an arrangement—but none of that is your concern. I give you my word that he’s been set free, along with the woman who ru
ined him—she was his price.” He smirks. “You see, El Segador and I have something in common—women who ruined us. I guess you can say I took pity on him.”

  I scoff. “You don’t take pity on anyone, Javier—it’s all about the money with you. And the power.”

  “Then why are you still alive?” he asks.

  “Because I’m worth more than Victor Faust, from what I’ve been told. And you plan to turn me in to the one man I came here to find. So, I guess everything works out, after all.”

  Javier shakes his head with a small smile; then he leans forward, his arms propped on the top of his legs. “I know how much you’re worth, Sarai,” he says, “because I’m the one who hired The Order to find you.”

  I swallow hard—and I feel like an idiot. How could I ever have thought I was worth more to The Order than Victor Faust? The embarrassment I feel for that moment, a moment when I felt important because I thought The Order wanted me; well, I hope Javier doesn’t see the red in my face. It was him all along, and I should’ve known—I should’ve known!

  “Why, Javier, would you pay that much to find me, after all I’ve done? That’s a lot of money for one girl”—I sneer—“and I know it’s not because you love me.”

  “Revenge,” he says, and a chill moves up my back. “It is so much more satisfying than any amount of money.”

  Javier gets up from the chair and paces the floor in front of me.

  “I have plans for you, mi amor,” he says, not looking at me. “And you’ll either fulfill them, or I’ll kill you.”

  “What kind of plans?”

  He stops, turns, and his eyes meet mine.

  “You’re going to finish what you started a long time ago, what you agreed to. What happened, anyway? Did you fall in love with him? Did you love him more than me?”

  I look at the floor.

  “Yes,” I answer with honesty. “Victor saved me. From you, Javier. I could’ve loved you the way I love him, but you’re a very different kind of man. I wasn’t someone you loved—I was something you possessed. Victor’s hands were rough, just as yours were, but his never hurt me. He cared for me—you cared only for yourself. So yes, I betrayed you because I fell in love with him. And I won’t betray him now for you, because I still love him.”