“No, please, no!” He’s crazy. He’s a psychopath! But he was right. He didn’t need my feathers. He already owned me.
“Hyde hates me. He hates my dad, and he’d love nothing more than to see us all on the fucking streets tap-dancing for a Denny’s coupon. No. You do what I say. Do what I say and don’t you dare tell anyone about this or I will have you on the first boat to Russia. And maybe I’ll destroy your family too. If I’m bored.” He swiped the keys off the table. “Do you hear me? Do you?”
Crying openly now, I nodded, burying my head in my knees until the sound of jangling keys made me lift it again. Anton was dangling them in front of me, teasing me with the promise of freedom. I let a few short breaths rake my throat before lunging for them, but the moment I did, he threw them back on the table.
“Anyway, even if you were to tell someone, it’s not like anyone would take you seriously. And if they did? There are benefits to wealth, Deanna. You’d be surprised how fast lips close at the thought of an inflated bank account. As head of Hedley Publications, Hyde will be invited to hundreds of events in Manhattan. Plenty of opportunities for public disgrace. Find a way to make it happen and fast. I don’t need to tell you what’ll happen to you if you don’t.”
Straightening his suit and tie, he strode up to the door, calm and business-like, because in his world that’s all this was: business.
“Wait!” I scrambled to my knees. “Wait, let me out!”
“Don’t worry. One of the girls will. In an hour or so.” He turned, leaning against the door frame with his Armani-sheathed shoulder. “Think of this as an opportunity to mull over what I’ve said.” He grinned again. “I’ll be seeing you, Deanna.”
Then the door shut behind him and I was alone.
11
DESPERATE
The house was empty when I got home. I immediately headed for the shower. Water washed off the sweat and oil. Beads of it trickled down my hair, neck and back – a back bruised and sore, but bare: my feathers lay scattered in the custom-made steel cage built into Stylo’s VIP room. My thoughts were there too, just as scattered, fragments of touches and words and sights bubbling up and dissipating with the steam.
I turned the shower nozzle to make it hotter. The water couldn’t wash away the feel of hands, the thought of hands, the threat of hands. I made it hotter and hotter so that it would. It burned. I yelped and stepped out of the line of fire, twisting the nozzle, turning the shower cold. From one extreme to another. Neither helped. Crouching in the corner of the tub, I cried.
I thought of crying myself to sleep, but I realized I’d have to stop crying once my family came home. I couldn’t tell anyone. But for now I cried and cried, and tried to wash it all away.
My family still hadn’t come home by the time I went to sleep. That night I had a series of dreams that were more terrible than the ones I’d had after my mother died. I dreamt of faceless men tearing me apart from the outside in and the inside out. I dreamt of my feathers drenched in blood and sweat. I dreamt of living a life of hollow eyes and vacant smiles that should have been screams.
“Deanna?” Ade shook me so hard my head nearly came off my neck. For a second, I didn’t know who she was. “Are you OK?”
My dad was in the doorway, face ashen, eyes sunken and booze-binge-red. I checked my alarm clock. Three in the morning. That must have been some world class horror movie-style screaming if it’d been enough to spook him awake.
“I’m OK,” I rasped and turned on my side. “I’m fine, sorry. Just a bad dream.” Pulling the covers over my head was my way of telling them to go away. Not that I wanted them to. More than anything I wanted that comfort, that familiarity. I wanted Dad to rub my forehead, or Ade to climb into bed with me like when we were small and I would cry because I was afraid of the dark. The warmth of an embrace that made me feel safe – that was the kind of touch I wanted.
But if I let my guard down, would I spill everything? Ade and Dad would not stand by and let Anton get away scot-free. They’d confront him. They’d do whatever they could: hire whatever shitty lawyer they could afford to try in vain to take the Reys down, or maybe pull a Shannon Dalhousie and protest naked at the next cover party. If I told them what happened, they’d do something to let Anton know that they knew – and I knew what would happen next.
Anton’s words haunted me. You’d be surprised how fast lips close at the thought of an inflated bank account.
He’d find me. He’d find me, and he’d ruin my family. And me.
“This is ridiculous,” I whispered to myself after Ade and Dad had piled out of my room and shut the door behind them. There had to be some loophole, some way to nail Anton to the wall and leave him there bleeding and pleading for forgiveness.
I could go to the police. But with what evidence? If Anton had thought far enough to pay the employees of Stylo to help him set the stage for his twisted power play, then he certainly would have thought far enough to pay for their silence. Plus there was no telling just how many upstanding members of New York’s law enforcement were open to bribes from the filthy rich. He’d said as much himself. I couldn’t take that chance.
But what if I went to Hyde? He had next to unlimited money and resources, and I knew he’d destroy Anton before he let him destroy me. Really, how much would it even cost to have Anton shipped off to the coal mines in Serbia anyway? He’d be doing his country a favor.
Anton had warned about me telling anyone, but how would he possibly know? Or did the idle rich have “eyes everywhere”?
Under any other circumstances I would have laughed at the Skull and Bones foolishness of it all, but right now, as I huddled under my bed sheets in the dark, the thought of being under constant surveillance seemed a little too plausible. Maybe he did have eyes everywhere. How would I know otherwise?
And did I want to risk finding out?
If I told Hyde what happened, how long would it take for him to get rid of Anton? How long would it take for Anton to find out what Hyde was planning?
How long would it take to drug me up and throw me in a Russian brothel?
This whole thing was fucked up. All of it. All of it.
I shoved my arms underneath my pillow and clutched it to my face. I tried to muffle each pathetic whimper with the cheap fabric, but it was a struggle. Somebody please… please help me.
No one could.
The words repeated in my head, again and again, refusing to let me go back to sleep. I didn’t think I could anyway. I stood up and looked at myself. Eyes more sunken than my father’s, dry sickly skin and cracked lips. I checked my back. It was instinct now. Nothing. I thought I’d grow more because of the nightmares. What, did they not qualify as a – what was the term they used in the brochure – psychic and/or physical stressor? Stressant?
I opened my drawer, found the brochures and scoured all of them. Stressor or stressant? Physical or physiological? Might as well know. Why not learn about myself? They were all talking about me, after all. Swans. All these sheets of paper with lines of ink intended to tell me what it meant to be a swan. To educate me.
With all of them in my hands, I collapsed onto the ground. Do you know that almost three percent of the world’s population are or will become swans during their lifetimes? Now I did. Do you know how it feels at the precise moment your languid body crashes onto the surface of a hard stone floor after you’ve been thrown into a cage made especially for not-quite-human things like you? Yes, that too. But none of the brochures would tell me anything about it.
I was shaking. I tore each brochure to pieces, even the scraps, and left them scattered in a pile in front of me. I could still feel their hands – Slick Hair and Anton. I couldn’t forget their eyes on me. I couldn’t forget that blonde guy, or what he did to the swan, or her tiny smile of pleasure that somehow matched her dead eyes perfectly. Would I look like that too? If I delivered Hyde to Anton on a silver platter would he still sell me? Or would he take me for himself?
My head throbbed
. Strange, wheezing noises slipped in and out of my lips.
Mom. What would she think if she could see me, if she knew what was happening to me? She’d have probably already murdered Anton. A single shot to the chest followed by a life sentence carried out with no regrets. If only I had half her strength.
But there was something I could do. Something I needed to do – and now.
I called Hyde.
He was obviously sleeping. I got the answering machine twice. I called for a third time, and on the second ring–
“Hello?”
I hung up. I knew it was stupid. But I couldn’t take the sound of his voice, not yet. I texted him instead.
Meet me at my place in 1 hour. Please. I need you. – Dee.
I waited on my doorstep, because I didn’t want Hyde to knock on the door and wake up my family. It was late. Way late. Too late to be sitting around outside. If Dad somehow managed to wake up, and if he found me out here with some guy, he’d freak out so bad he’d probably ground me out of spite.
It was stupid, and I wasn’t in my right mind, but I needed to see him. I needed to.
Immediately, I did a periphery sweep of the area from where I sat – the seventh time since sitting down. There was still no one around – just me and some sparse traffic.
My nerves were shot nonetheless.
Every shadow movement made my muscles seize up. I kept expecting him to slither out from behind a lamppost – Anton. Him, or Slick Hair, or any other thug who had pockets to line.
Stop. Don’t let Anton get to you. That was what I’d told myself a thousand times while sitting here. And yet here I was, waiting alone outside in the middle of the night, completely vulnerable.
I laughed as I thought of the torn brochures I’d left on the floor. I couldn’t let Anton get to me. But then, obviously he already had. I was barely sane. Being here was proof enough.
I held my head in my hands for a long time.
“Deanna?”
I almost shrieked, but snapped my lips shut before the sound could leak out. Don’t wake Dad and Ade. Still, the bastard had come out of nowhere. There wasn’t even a car in sight. I pressed a hand against my heart and attempted, feebly, to act natural, but he must have noticed I was spooked.
“You OK?” Hyde asked in a soft voice as he walked up the steps, calmly. He bent over me, extending a hand that for one second looked frighteningly large and alien.
Stop being stupid. It’s just Hyde. I still flinched when he touched my shoulder. He must have noticed because he backed off immediately.
When I didn’t respond, Hyde sighed. “Deanna, are you OK?” he repeated. Kindly. Gently. It just made everything unnecessarily harder.
I shrugged. “Everyone keeps asking me that.”
He sat down next to me and lifted his hand again, this time tentatively, as if asking permission. When I did nothing, he made a move anyway, to brush my hair over my shoulder. I blocked his hand with mine.
“Dee, not everyone’s lucky enough to have people in their lives who genuinely care about them,” he said quietly, lowering his hand.
“I suppose.” I stared at the narrow yellow houses on the other side of the street, shrouded in darkness, waiting for a light to flick on, a door to creak. For Anton to step out.
God, what am I doing out here? Hyde was no doubt wondering the same thing, and yet he simply waited, watching me patiently, keeping his distance though he was still close enough to touch. So I did. I touched him. My hands ran over his pullover at his waist. It was soft, probably cashmere: the benefits of inheriting your father’s business. And pissing off the sons of his employees to the point where they would be willing to threaten and terrorize innocent people who have nothing at all to do with any of this mess? That was probably just for the thrill of it. Too bad he couldn’t be bothered to consider the consequences, but then nobody ever cares about the collateral damage, do they?
“Deanna?”
I blinked and realized that my fingers were clutching the fabric. Hard. I was actually surprised my nails hadn’t torn through it.
Hyde detangled my fingers from his shirt and looked me up and down, once, from head to toe. Not like the guys at Stylo. No, there was nothing disgusting about his gaze, nothing licentious. He was noting everything – my bloodshot eyes, maybe, or the stone-hardness of my face. He must have figured out by now that something had happened.
Hesitantly, nervously, he touched my cheek. It was soft. Pleasant, so much more pleasant than what I’d felt hours ago. “What’s going on with you?” he said, this time with more urgency. “Why did you ask me to meet you here?”
“Why did you come?”
“What?”
I’d asked it before I could stop myself. But I couldn’t get Anton’s words out of my head. “I texted you at half-past three in the morning, asking you randomly to meet me at my place and you came running.” I held his hand to my face and watched him stare at me. “Why?”
Hyde lowered his head. “Deanna…”
“DVDs, cupcakes, bands, flowers, teddy bears. Same as when we were kids. Ever since you came back I keep remembering that time you climbed up a tree to get my scarf. You nearly killed yourself. Why?”
Hyde shrugged, but as if he couldn’t help himself, he let a harmless touch of mischief into his expression, his lips curving just a little. I felt something stir in the pit of my stomach when he answered, “I guess I like you.”
He always reminded me of a fox when he looked at me like that. It was his eyes just as much as the smile. Now, more than ever, now that we weren’t kids anymore, it did something to me.
Of course, I knew about half of it was bravado. It was a little sad, really, that part of his fox grin was so clearly meant to distract me from the earlier, sheepish downturn of his eyes.
And yet the something in the pit of my stomach stirred nonetheless.
“You like me. That much?” I said carefully, my heart beating rapidly because I could hear Anton laughing at me. “Why? Why that much? What is it about me… Actually, you know what?” I flung his hand off my face. “No, it doesn’t make sense. At all. We were kids the last time you saw me, Hyde. How the hell are you going to come back a decade later and be all sending me gifts and whatever the hell? It’s ridiculous. Hyde, it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Why not? I like you.” He’d said it so simply that I wanted to punch him.
“But why?”
I had to know. It was why I came, after all. It was why I needed to see him. What was it about me – and about him – that made him care enough to make me a target?
Hyde was quiet for a long time, long enough to make me nervous. Then he sighed. “All those years when I was away. When I was…” He left the next words hanging from his tongue, waiting for that last breath to push them over the edge. He swallowed it instead. When he pressed together his lips, it was like he was struggling with something within himself. “When I was away,” he repeated finally, rubbing the skin beneath his shirt collar absently, “all I could think about were the old days. You probably think that sounds insane, but it’s true. I thought about you all the time.”
I looked away. “Why me?”
“You just kept popping up in my head. Smiling. Thinking about you reminded me of the way things used to be. Happy, I guess. Peaceful. It helped me get through it. Yeah.” He lowered his gaze. “I like to think that it was you keeping me alive all those years.”
I shook my head, trying to understand. “Keep you alive… But why would you…?”
He looked at me. For a moment, it seemed as though he wanted to tell me millions of things at once. I could see the stories in his eyes. Too many to count. But with a blink they were gone. His lips spread into an easy smile. “What can I say? Paris was hell. Don’t let their delectable wines fool you.”
He was lying again, and so plainly. In that one moment I wondered if he’d ever even set foot in France.
He touched my chin with a finger. It felt nice. Too nice.
/> “What does it matter why I like you, Dee? I do. I…” He stopped and suddenly both his hands were pressed against the sides of my face. “When I came here, I knew it was my chance to finally see you again. But I was scared. I didn’t know whether you’d want to see me… or whether you’d even remember me. I was terrified.”
Warm. His hands were warm. Not hot and vile like Anton’s. Warm and sweet.
“Mom is gone. Dad is gone. I have no one but lawyers and enemies and memories. I’m not asking anything from you, Deanna. I just… I wanted to think that we could be friends again.”
Warm and sweet. The difference was almost staggering. Overwhelming.
I was starting to forget what their touches had felt like. And Hyde… Hyde was looking at me so earnestly. And when the lights flickered across his face, when his lips curved into that honest smile, he looked more beautiful than he ever had before.
“I know at this point you probably see me as more of a stalker than friend-material and… I’m sorry, Dee. I really am. If you want me gone for good, then I’ll–”
I kissed him. I didn’t care. I let my lips part his, let my body sink into him. I let myself forget the memories crawling over my skin – no. Soon I wouldn’t even feel them anymore. The more I kissed him, the more they faded to a faint whisper.
He was shocked, but only for a few seconds; then his arms enveloped me. I needed more. The memories were starting to fade. I pulled him up onto his feet, not caring who was watching. I pushed him against the handrail, grabbed the back of his neck, lifted his head to mine and sank deeper into the kiss, his breath heating the roof of my mouth. What could he be thinking right now? Maybe he wasn’t thinking at all.
That was the point.
As if something came over him, he twisted me around and pinned me against the banister, the twisted metal biting my skin. I arched and twisted my body until I could feel the contours of his through my clothes. Chest, stomach, hips and legs. I wanted to feel all of him, as much of him as I could get out here in the dead of night, enough to smother the rest of the memories into nothing. Hyde crushed me to him as if he were doing the same. Maybe he was.
ARC: Feather Bound Page 9