The Bad Guy

by Celia Aaron

  I was a furious tempest of hatred and loathing but I was trapped in my battered body. All I could do was wish my tears away and accept that Vinemont had damned me to this existence. This life of pain and hurt and darkness. So many shadows that I never even knew existed had eclipsed any faint light I may have once had. I had been snuffed out, destroyed by the man who now looked so lost.

  After a long moment, the floor creaked, and I heard his retreating footsteps.

  “Wait,” I said.

  He returned with a quicker step, standing behind me now.

  “You said I could have a reward if I got through the ball.”

  “Yes.” His voice crackled, almost hopeful.

  “I want to see my father and stepbrother.”

  He shifted and another long silence fell like deep winter snow, muffling and burying us. He touched the edge of my bed, the hesitant movement making me angry, making me want to hurt him.

  “Okay.” He sighed, resignation in the rush of air.

  “You’re going to keep your word?”

  He ghosted his fingers through my hair. I closed my eyes, wondering if he had any chance of calming the firestorm that raged in my breast.

  “I always do.” His voice was as soft as his caress.

  I wanted to believe this was truly who he was—the man who seemed just as wrecked by what he’d done as my tattered flesh. But which one of him was real? The destroyer or the destroyed? Either way, my tears still fell, my pain still stung, my heart still ached. He had done this and would do it again. I pushed any tender thoughts away.

  “I want to see them soon. But not until I’m healed all the way. Or at least as much as I can heal from what you did. I don’t want them to see me like this.”

  “You just tell me when and I’ll arrange it.” He gave my hair one last gentle stroke. He hesitated. Words were on his lips. I could sense them lingering there in the dark. Instead of voicing them, he turned and strode out, his pace clipped.

  I was left alone with my pain, all the varying shades of it. I turned my head back to look at the chair where he’d sat. My gaze roamed further up and seized on the discordant quilt created by Vinemont’s mother. What sort of person made it through the Acquisition and won?

  I heard more steps, and recognized them as Renee’s. She slowed to a quiet tiptoe by the time she reached my door. Her black skirt rustled softly as she sat and folded her hands in front of her.

  “I want to get up.”

  She rose and smoothed my hair over my shoulder. “Sunrise is in an hour. Rest until then.”

  Comfort was in her movements, her touch. I didn’t want comfort. I wanted to stop crumbling, to shore up what pieces of me I had left.

  “No, I’m done resting. Help me sit up or I’ll do it by myself.”

  I couldn’t lie in bed for another minute. I couldn’t stand being helpless and weak. I wouldn’t be. Not anymore.

  With Renee’s help, I recovered over the next few weeks. I didn’t see Vinemont or Lucius at all during that time. I would pass Teddy in the hallway sometimes. He would smile and exchange pleasantries. Underneath, I could sense he was troubled. I had too many problems of my own to even begin to care about his. He seemed like a nice guy, but he was born into a pit of vipers. It would be foolish to think he wouldn’t bite just as surely as Vinemont and Lucius did.

  I began to realize he was the only one who knew less than I did about what was going on. Renee wouldn’t tell me anything new, only that Vinemont didn’t volunteer for the Acquisition. It was done on some sort of lottery basis.

  I’d figured as much at the ball when the names of the families were called. Oakman made it seem as if it were some “luck of the draw” situation, though it seemed like a stroke of bad fortune to be chosen. Even so, I couldn’t forgive Vinemont. He didn’t have to choose me. He didn’t have to threaten my father and force me into the contract. I didn’t wish this on another soul, but I couldn’t excuse his turning a bad stroke of luck on his part into a year-long suffering on mine.

  “I honestly still don’t know how they’re picked,” she said one day over a steaming mug of tea after I’d pestered her for the better part of an hour.

  The weather had finally turned cooler, leaves swirling in the yard and the grass fading into a dormant brown. I preferred hot chocolate, and stirred the marshmallows around in the foam before taking a scorching sip.

  “Well, tell me something, anything. What’s next? Is there something next?” I hoped there wasn’t. I hoped it would be just a year of captivity spent here with her. I wasn’t a total idiot, though. I knew that little fairy tale was too good to be true.

  She set the mug down and stared into the rolling steam. “I’ll tell you this and no more. There are more trials. The next one is at Christmas.”

  I raised an eyebrow at the all-around fucked up quality of holiday-based tortures.

  “And then there’s another in the spring, and the final one in the summer. I won’t give details.”

  After that revelation, she was close-lipped, and always answered my questions with a deflection or a suggestion that I get it directly from the source—Vinemont. No matter how many times she reiterated the fact that Vinemont didn’t choose to participate in the Acquisition, I couldn’t forget the verve with which he pursued the Sovereign title, the way he’d played to the audience of masked ghouls. I still didn’t know what it would take for him to win, but if the exhibition of my body and the whipping were any indication, it wouldn’t be a pleasant outcome for me. So, no, I wouldn’t speak to him.

  Despite her stonewalling on the Acquisition process, Renee and I fell into a happy pretend friendship, as if we didn’t share a dark secret of slavery and sadism. She was more than happy to discuss just about any subject I could think of other than the one I was desperate to learn about. We’d spend time in the house’s library, reading quietly as the days faded. No one ever stopped us from exploring, and Renee showed me the ins and outs of the kitchen wing, the guest wing, and several other areas that had rooms upon rooms full of remarkable possessions and ornate furniture. Farns was always happy to see us, and gave us the history of various antiques and treasures scattered around the common rooms.

  We even stopped in Vinemont’s room once. It had his scent, masculine and clean. It drew me. I wanted to know more about him, to pick him apart in an effort to find out how he ticked so maybe I could somehow gum up the mechanism.

  His room was modest, more modern and Spartan than the rest of the house. A king size bed with white duvet, navy walls, and minimal furniture filled the large space. No photos of him or his family graced the walls. I wandered to his nightstand when Renee wasn’t looking and pulled the top drawer open.

  Instead of skin mags or back issues of “Psychotic Monthly,” there was nothing except for a single black feather. I recognized it immediately. It had come from the dress I’d worn to the ball. It mocked me, reminiscent of the forsaken glass slipper. Except Vinemont was no prince. He was the devil.

  I slammed the drawer shut.

  Lucius’ room was more colorful, white walls covered with tons of art—much of it good, to my surprise. He was messier than Vinemont. Books and magazines were scattered across his desk. There was an iPod and earbuds that somehow managed to make their way into my pocket.

  “Where are they anyway?”

  “Mr. Sinclair is in town for work, I believe. Mr. Lucius is in South America visiting two of the sugar cane plantations. He’s in charge of the business while Mr. Sinclair handles the legal issues and keeps up appearances as parish district attorney. He never wanted the position, but the Sovereign decreed that Mr. Sinclair would take the post, and that was that.”

  “I thought the parish district attorney was elected?”

  Renee raised a cynical black eyebrow. “And I thought slavery was illegal.”

  “Touché. What about Teddy?”

  “He’s in school still, in Baton Rouge. I’m not sure what he intends to do. It’s not as if he has too many opti
ons.”

  “How does a rich, handsome young man like Teddy not have many options?”

  “Depends on what the Sovereign says. If Oakman decides Teddy should be a lawyer, then off to law school he goes. If he decides being a doctor would be better, then med school.”

  “The Sovereign wields that much power?”

  “More than you can even imagine. Who do you think decides the winning Acquisition? And it’s worse for the Vinemonts, really. Even though they’ve been part of the ruling faction for well over a hundred and fifty years, some families still remember that it wasn’t always so. The others try and lord it over them. The Vinemonts used to be poor sharecroppers and seamstresses. Worked for the Oakmans for years and years until…” Renee put her hand to her mouth as if that would somehow stop her words from spilling out.

  “What? Until what?” I didn’t want her to stop. All this was news to me and I was starved for information.

  “Oh, nothing. I shouldn’t have said. It’s all ancient history. It’s just, those things aren’t really talked about. Not in the house, especially.”

  “If it’s ancient history, then why can’t you talk about it? What harm could there be?”

  “Mr. Lucius should be home in a couple of days.” I’d learned that Renee’s subject change signaled the end of the conversation, despite my many unsuccessful attempts to make it otherwise.

  There was only one part of the house we never visited—the top floor.

  “It’s mostly shut off and dusty. No one goes up there, really. Not anymore.” Renee always led me away from the stairs to the third floor, even when I had placed a foot hesitantly on the bottom step. The steps weren’t dusty, and I got the feeling Renee’s hurried explanation was hiding something more. Then again, this house was full of secrets—Renee’s not the least among them.

  A few days later Renee and I were whiling away the afternoon in the library. I still hadn’t set eyes on Lucius or Vinemont since my recovery. I sometimes caught myself wondering what Vinemont was doing, where he was. Then I reminded myself of the scars on my back and turned my thoughts elsewhere.

  Renee sat under a throw blanket and read as I tried to paint. She had ordered every supply I could think of to get my art started again. But for the third day in a row, I just stared at the blank canvas.

  Before, I would let whatever I was feeling meld itself to the canvas. Now, it was as if my emotions were in too much of a vicious muddle to do anything other than a Picasso imitation, my pieces scattered in ways that reflected how fragmented I was inside.

  My back had healed. It no longer stung or ached, but I knew it was different, scarred. Renee smeared some sort of specialty cream she’d ordered from Juliet over my back every night. She said my scars had already faded much more than her own. Even then, she wouldn’t tell me about her Acquisition, about why she lingered here in this house.

  While I was lost in my thoughts, my hands worked on the canvas of their own accord. Before I knew it, I’d drawn out a harsh line, then another, then another. I worked feverishly, sketching a body drawn impossibly tight and covered with the crisscrossing lines. I drew and shaded until the image came forth from the white background just as it had done in my mind.

  The canvas was macabre even without color. The woman’s head lolled to the side. A hand with a whip reared back as if the aggressor stood where I did, on this side of the easel, ready to inflict more violence. When I finally changed to paint, mixing the colors with a rough hand, I realized it had grown late. Renee slept on the couch, a book resting against her softly rising and falling chest.

  I woke her gently and sent her on to bed before returning to my work, intent on finishing what I’d begun. I smoothed on the crimson, letting the painting run in streaky rivers before sweeping through them with the edge of my brush. I let that part dry and worked on the edges and background. I swiped my hand on my long skirt, leaving a streak that I knew would never come out.

  Vines in blacks and greens—matted, twisting, and snakelike—grew from my brush strokes. They looked as venomous as I’d intended, threatening from the canvas, seeking to taste the crimson of the foreground. They wrapped around the nude woman’s ankles and wrists.

  When I finished, I stepped away, giving a critical eye to the piece. It was dark and needed a good deal of touching up, but it was my soul in pencil and paint. The darkness infecting me had leached onto the bristles and then the threads. Would getting it out keep the rot from going any deeper?

  “You captured it.”

  I whirled. Vinemont stood behind me, so close that I didn’t know how I hadn’t heard him. He was clean shaven again, well put together. He wore a suit, the tie loosened and his top button undone. His eyes, though, were haunted. They were still his deep, turbulent blue. Beneath them were gray circles, unease or worry having left its mark.

  “You look well,” he said.

  “Do I?” I crossed my arms over my chest, not caring that I got paint all over my shirt. It wasn’t the first time. “Maybe you should see my back. It might change your mind.”

  He finished the job on his tie, pulling it loose so it hung open around his neck. “I did what I had to do, Stella.”

  A burning rage erupted in my chest, my mind. My anger had simmered for so long that seeing his face forced it to boil over. But what made it worse, what really sent me over the edge, was that some part of me recognized a change in him. The things he’d said to me that night in my room, the way he looked now—none of it fit with what he’d said about willingly hurting me again.

  “Why?” I met his gaze.

  “Because you’re my Acquisition. Because I have to win.”

  “So you’d do anything it takes to win, to be Sovereign?”

  “To win? Yes.” His face hardened, becoming the cruel mask I knew so well. “I will do everything in my power to win.”

  “Then why are you here? Why even come speak to me until it’s time for my yuletide whipping?”

  “Renee told you?” He shook his head and anger flashed in his tired eyes.

  “Yes. She told me I have a very busy holiday schedule over the next few months.”

  “What else did she tell you?”

  “Nothing. You’ve got her well trained.”

  He ran a hand through his dark hair. “Not me.”

  “Then who?”

  He took a step toward me. I matched it, stepping backward.

  A shadow crossed his face—pain? Then it was gone and he fisted his hands at his sides, hell in his eyes.

  “Look, Stella, this is something that neither of us can avoid. I’m doing what I have to do. That’s all you need to know about it. Once your year is up, you can leave and never look back. Until that time, I need you to do as I ask and just accept it. No more questions. No more trying to run.”

  “I’m not running.”

  “Keep it that way.” He took another step toward me, menacing.

  I held my ground. He could hurt me, but I wouldn’t give him the benefit of my fear. I stared into him, past the blue and deeper, watching as they turned from anger to heat. The air in the room shifted, like an electrical current hummed between us.

  All the concern that he’d walked in with was gone. He looked…hungry, as if the moon had emerged from behind a cloud and revealed him to be some sort of ravenous wolf.

  His gaze travelled my face, my body. When heat erupted along my skin as if he’d touched me, I knew I was damned. To want the touch of the devil was nothing short of a mortal sin.

  I struck him, my open palm whipping across his face with a satisfying slap. He didn’t retaliate, just tilted his head to the side until his neck popped in the most unnerving fashion. What had been fire in his eyes was now a raging inferno.

  He advanced, only inches from me now. I pulled my hand back to strike him again, but he caught it, squeezing my wrist painfully. I tilted my chin up, meeting his vicious encroachment with defiance. He wouldn’t frighten me out of this space. It was mine. I didn’t care if the entire p
lace was covered in fucking vines, I would slash and burn them until I’d cleared an area for me, my paint, my books, and my own bit of freedom.

  Quick as an adder, he put his free hand to my face. I didn’t flinch, though I expected him to strike me. The heat in his gaze spoke of something explosive—violence or desire, maybe a heady mix of both. When his palm touched my skin, my eyes closed involuntarily.

  “So soft.” His voice was tinged with wonder.

  I was down the rabbit hole, everything topsy-turvy and wrong, because his touch—god, his touch. It was like I’d been starving for it this entire time but didn’t know it. When I opened my eyes, he leaned down, his lips teasing mine with the bare millimeters of distance. He was a gorgeous villain, a predator dressed up as a man.

  I raised my unrestrained hand to hit him again, but he caught it, too, and wrenched both of them behind my back. He pressed me into his chest, caging me with his body. I could feel the blaze emanating from him, the desire like a heat wave. Could he feel mine? His gaze held me fast, furious and possessive. He looked at me like I was his. Not because of a contract, not because of the Acquisition, but because the intensity of his desire made it so. He would have what he wanted. His gaze flicked down to my mouth and he dipped his head lower, his breath grazing my lips.

  I burned to destroy him, to leave him in flames as I walked away from the ashes. But first … just a kiss. I pushed up on my tip toes.

  Our lips met.

  I was lost.

  He wasn’t gentle. I knew he wouldn’t be. I still wanted him. His lips were soft and firm, taking everything and demanding more. His tongue probed against my lips. When he pulled my hair back, I arched into him and opened my mouth. His tongue was a wicked explorer, caressing mine and tasting me in a way no one ever had.

  He groaned and wrapped an arm around me, crushing me against him. His scent was in my nose, floating in my lungs like a whirlwind, putting me even further under his spell. My nipples rubbed against him, the tips hard and wanting. They ached for his touch, his mouth. I had never known the sheer need that welled up inside me, the wetness between my thighs, the desperate feeling of wanting more and still more.