by S. F. Kosa
“He thought I was weak,” I tell her. “He thought he had complete control over me, and he fed off it.” Like my stepfather had. It hurt so much when I finally realized that. “And for a while, he did have control. I lived for him, and I lived for the journey. I believed in it until it stopped making sense. And once it did, I couldn’t get things to fall into place anymore.”
“Because you are weak,” she says.
“I didn’t want you to be hurt,” I say. “I wanted you and your baby girl to get out.” I glance at Arman. “She was so sure you were a girl.” Then I turn back to Parvaneh. “I wanted to save you both.”
“I saved myself,” she says with a smile, raising her arms from her sides. “But only barely.” Then she takes off her gloves and turns her palms to me, her hands braided with shiny scars. “Second- and third-degree burns. Nerve damage. Because unlike you, I tried to save him.”
I won’t give her the satisfaction of looking away. “None of us got out without damage.”
“I barely made it out of that tunnel before it collapsed because you shut the door on me! I got lost in the woods and didn’t find the road for two days. I was nearly dead, but I had to walk to that gas station on 20, which was miles away. I hid in the bed of a pickup and ended up in Salem, which is where I collapsed.” Her face morphs into a caustic smile. “A pregnant Jane Doe. Weeks in the hospital. A few lies, a new start.” Her eyes narrow. “And a new purpose.”
I incline my head toward Arman. “You saved your baby. You did the right thing.”
“Still saying whatever you think will save your skin,” Parvaneh says, “no matter who it hurts in the end. Sweet, bland, weak Eszter.” Her expression goes sour. “The face of a marshmallow, hiding the soul of a snake.” She strides over to the fireplace and picks up a piece of kindling wood, a crooked, dry stick about two-fingers thick. She dips it into the flames. “I put fire retardant on Arnie. I wanted it to be obvious, what it was all about. I wanted to show the world what you put Darius through, how merciless you were. Didn’t have time with Marie. She actually put up a fight. And Essie I didn’t bother to stab. Just let her burn instead.”
“I did that one. And I used your car to get there.” Arman pulls a key from his pocket and holds it up.
“This isn’t you, Arman,” says Noah, trying to catch his eye. “You don’t have to do any of this. You could end it here. Because you and me? We’re friends. We can all just walk out of here right now,” Noah suggests. His voice has turned soft. Rhythmic.
“Stop trying to twist me up!” yells Arman, slamming the butt of the handgun down on Noah’s temple. Noah gags, like the pain is making him sick.
Parvaneh looks pleased. “I learned a few things from Darius,” she says, still dragging her kindling stick through the fire. “The consciousness is pleased with you, baby,” she says to him.
He gives her a wavering smile. She’s done to her child what Darius did to us: invited our minds into little cages and danced away with the keys. “Why now?” I ask. “Why not let it lie?”
“Twenty years,” she says. “With all of them finally out of jail and Arman old enough to be helpful. It seemed right.” Kindling stick aflame, she walks over to me, trembling with what looks like excitement. “You’re the reason we all burned, aren’t you? All your struggling and fighting. That’s when all the candles got knocked over.”
“If it was me, then I’m sorry. I only wanted to save Xerxes.”
She shoves the flame in my face, and I lean back as heat sears my nostrils. “You wanted to save one annoying kid, and you condemned the rest of us to die.”
She’s so warped that trying to convince her otherwise is pointless. I turn my head, leaning back so far that my chair tips back. Parvaneh lurches it back onto all four legs, shoving the flames close to my face again.
Panicked, I draw back my foot and jam it against her shin. It knocks her back and sends shooting pains up my lower right leg.
I think I might have just broken my ankle.
“Hey!” shouts Arman, stepping around Noah with the gun. But as Parvaneh pushes off the rusted refrigerator, flame still in hand, Arman looks over at her—and Noah jumps up, grabbing at Arman’s arms. Knocking him against the back door, grunting and struggling.
With a screech, Parvaneh lunges for me, fiery stick leading the way, but I dive under the table, landing on hands and knees, my broken wrist screaming. Searing heat blooms on my left leg—Parvaneh has set it on fire. I shriek and bat at it while she tries to light the rest of me. As she thrusts the flaming stick under the table again, Noah knocks Arman off balance, and he goes staggering into his mother, flinging her against the counter.
Her flailing arm drags the stick across the window’s curtains, setting them aflame just as I extinguish the pant leg that she’d set alight. My whole body is a ball of pain and terror while Noah and Arman punch at each other and Parvaneh, rubbing her side, comes for me again. She seems oblivious to the fact that the flames are now stretching toward the wooden ceiling. She only has eyes for me.
There’s a sharp bang above me, followed immediately by another, thinner snap, and then a scream from Arman, who goes down clutching his leg. Ricochet.
As Noah dives for him, Arman fires from the floor. Noah falls back, blood spotting his shoulder, but somehow manages to kick the weapon out of the stunned boy’s hands. Arman looks stricken as the gun spins across the floor toward his mother. She’s only a few feet away from the table I’m under.
“Shoot him,” Arman screeches as Noah collapses against the wall.
The heat from the flaming curtains is burning in my throat. Cinders descend in spirals from the ceiling. Parvaneh glares at Noah and bends down to pick up the gun. He’s struggling to get to his feet again. He can’t protect himself or get out of the way. Like that night twenty years ago, he’s mine to protect.
I lunge from under the table and throw myself toward Parvaneh, bringing my casted wrist up with all the strength I have left. It collides with her face, and everything buckles. A shocking, icy numbness bleeds up my arm, which falls lifeless to my side. No pain, all pain. As she drops to her knees, cupping her hands around her bloody, gushing nose, I scoot back using only my left leg and right hand.
Arman crawls toward his mother, bawling, groping for the gun. I know what happens when he gets to it. My only chance is to get out.
But I can’t leave Noah behind again. I wasn’t strong enough twenty years ago. I’m not strong enough now. I have to try, though. I turn and peer through the smoke, but I can’t see him anymore. “Noah,” I call, sucking in a lungful of the acrid smoke. My body heaves; I can’t breathe. Dimly, behind me, I hear Parvaneh and Arman coughing too, and I hear him talking to her, begging her to tell him what to do.
She tells him to kill me. My left arm hanging limp, my right ankle unable to support my weight, my lungs burning, I turn to look for Noah one more time. A dark shape looms on the other side of the table, and he reaches for me. His arms slide under my back, my knees. His arms pull me up. Hold me against him. In three long strides, he’s out the door, just as the roof begins to crumble and fall in. He staggers a few steps before falling to his knees. “He’s coming,” Noah gasps. “He’ll—”
There’s a ravenous crack and groan, and the roof of the cabin caves in. Through the open door, I see a shower of fiery, orange sparks before Parvaneh and Arman disappear beneath the avalanche of brittle boards covered in a layer of wet shingles. Noah and I watch it burn for a moment, and then he says, “We need to get farther away.”
“I can’t walk,” I say hoarsely.
He looks down at his bleeding shoulder, his jaw clenched. “I can carry you.”
And he does, just twenty feet down the drive, but it’s far enough. He sets me down under a ponderosa pine, on a thick layer of needles. I shake my head. “We need to get you to a hospital.”
“You too,” he says.
He nods. I watch his profile, the blood crusting at his temple. “I was so worried you’d die of hypothermia,” I murmur over the rush of flames. The little cabin is engulfed. Parvaneh and Arman are still inside. I’m too numb to feel anything.
“I woke up in the morning,” he says, staring at the flames. “Pine needles all around me, like a cocoon. Someone had wrapped me so tight I could barely get out. And my ankle was broken. But I crawled back to the dorms, and there was yellow tape everywhere, and a police lady found me.”
“I wanted to take you with me, but I wasn’t strong enough,” I choke out. “I left you there to save myself.”
“You saved me,” he says. “You don’t think I remember?” He jerks his head toward the cabin. “She would have killed me. So when I woke up out there in the woods, in that pink coat—it was pink, right?”
I nod.
“I knew you had put me there. And I didn’t know where you’d gone.” He looks lost now, even as the wail of a siren tells us help—and a reckoning—is on its way. “I’ve been looking for you for years too. That’s what the story was about, the one I wanted so badly for you to read.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “My therapist said I needed to reconcile myself to the fact that I’d never see you again, but I couldn’t. All I wanted to do was see you. And to say thank you for saving my life.”
I turn back to the flames. “I guess we’re even.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Bend, Oregon
December 16, 2000
She dragged herself out of the culvert, bringing herself into the frigid light of day, her eyes stinging with the brightness. Rebirth. She was new in this world, new to herself. She could become anything. Choose a new name. Become a new person.
Assuming she could make it to safety. Bend lay a few miles up the road, but she had heard the sirens, so many screaming sirens. The authorities might be on the lookout for anyone who had been in the fire…especially a murderer. She looked down at her legs, trembling with the burden of her body. Her black sweats were wet and stained, but you couldn’t see any blood. Maybe she could find a shelter, a place that might give her a spare set of clothes, a meal, some water. God, she was so thirsty. Her head pounded with it. Her mind was a desert.
She squatted at the sound of an approaching car. She had to get out of this ditch and up onto the road. She had to get as far from this place as possible. She could still pick up a whiff of ash and smoke in the air.
She groaned with the effort as she pulled her way up to the road. She grimaced and brought herself to her feet. She breathed in freedom and exhaled hope. She wasn’t dead yet. And until she was, she’d put as many miles between her and this place as she possibly could. She couldn’t bear to think of what she’d left behind. What she’d abandoned. She could only look forward.
She gritted her teeth and began to run, each footfall a new agony, her thoughts bound up in hope and determination. She’d worked so hard to survive, no way could she give up now. Dreams of the new future she’d build for herself were so loud in her mind that she didn’t hear the growl of the pickup truck’s engine until it was just behind her, slowing to a crawl and then to a stop. Eszter didn’t stop, though. She kept her eyes forward and her feet moving, her heart thundering with the presence of this new threat. When the truck didn’t speed past her, she glanced over her shoulder at it and immediately stumbled with dizziness. The truck moved forward, once again pulling to a stop next to her. Its passenger-side window was already rolled down.
The driver, a man in coveralls, his messy, black hair held in place by a baseball cap, gave her a quizzical look. “You look like you’re running from a ghost,” he said. “You okay? Need a ride?”
Eszter looked up the road. She was so tired. Everything hurt. Nothing felt safe. She peered at the man, taking in his gentle smile and stubbly face. “I’m going to Bend,” she said.
“Me too,” he said, shoving open the passenger door. “Hop on in if you want. It’s only a few miles.”
Only a few miles to a brand-new world. Of course, she had no idea what she’d do once she got there, but right now, it barely mattered, as long as she was away from here. She carefully climbed into the truck, all her mental energy focused on not crying with the pain of the burns and the scream of her overtaxed muscles. “Thanks.”
He held out his hand. “Martin Rodriguez.”
She shook it. “Es—” She paused, clearing her throat. That wasn’t her name, not anymore. But it didn’t feel safe or right to use her birth name, either, and now the man was looking concerned, perhaps wondering if this bedraggled person he’d just picked up didn’t even know her own name. The solution came to her as if murmured in her ear, a familiar voice lilting in her memory. A voice she’d never hear again, a friend gone forever.
She smiled at the man even as tears stung her eyes. “My name is Christy.”
Epilogue
Seattle, Washington
January 8, 2021
I sit in my wheelchair behind the partition, listening to the news crews setting up their cameras. According to my watch, my heart rate is 123. I’m surprised it’s not higher.
Valentina pokes her head around the room divider. “You ready?” She steps around the temporary wall. “Here.” She smooths my hair on the right side. “You look great.”
I laugh, looking down at myself, my left arm and shoulder casted. My right foot’s in a boot; I got away with just a stress fracture. I’m on an injectable med for the osteoporosis; I’m in therapy for the anorexia. And the trauma. I’m a mess, but I’m working on it—and probably will be for the rest of my life. “Is Miles out there?”
She nods. “This is his big moment too.”
It’s all part of our agreement, one we hammered out from our respective hospital beds, invalid to invalid. After he got my text, he didn’t send the story to Valentina, deciding to talk to me one more time before he pulled the trigger. And twenty-four hours later, he realized he had a much bigger story on his hands. So he offered me a deal:
He won’t tell Valentina what I did to sabotage him as long as I never divert from journalistic ethics again—if I do, it’s all bets off, and he swore he would show no mercy. I believe him. I can only hope that with time, I can rebuild the trust he had in me before I ruined it. And maybe even win him back as a friend.
In exchange for this reprieve, he gets exclusive rights to tell my story, after this one press conference to satisfy the baying hounds of the media. It’s meant to garner interest for the book deal. All Valentina knows is that I hid my past, and now I’m coming out in the open after being targeted by—and miraculously taking out—a serial revenge killer, with the help of a boy whose life I saved twenty years ago.
I’m being painted as a hero. A somewhat broken and complicated one, which makes me perfect for the times we live in.
It’s more than I deserve. Another second chance in a life built from them.
Kieran leans around the partition and says, “All set.”
“Okay,” says Valentina, smiling down at me. “Ready to roll?”
“Ha-ha,” I say as she moves behind me and pushes my wheelchair forward, around the partition and into the banquet room of the hotel. A veritable sea of cameras click and whir and glide around to track my progress toward the table at the front, a single microphone waiting. Valentina adjusts it so it’s right in front of my face. Then she gives me a thumbs-up and goes to sit next to Miles, who is also in a wheelchair even though he’s already able to maneuver on crutches.
I look out at the crowd—it’s not only reporters here. Noah sits in the second row, a photographer friend from Reed next to him. He gives me a solemn nod. He’s got a story of his own to tell and plenty of interest to build on. Plus, he’s a lot more photogenic than I am. Hailey and Martin are also here—they’ve been staying with me in my apartment,
taking care of me now that I’m out of the hospital and while their Bend home is rebuilt, being the family I need right now.
I reached out to Eric, but I expect that to be more complicated. I only worked up the courage this morning to reintroduce myself, and I haven’t checked my messages yet to see if he’s replied. He might hate me for what I did, what I’ve become, and for not reaching out to him for so many years. But that’s his choice—I won’t make it for him, and I’m brave enough to face whatever he might want to say. I owe him at least that much.
I catch Miles’s eye. The story has been building for three weeks, the murders of Arnie and Essie and Marie, the attempted murder of a reporter, a fact-checker, and a student journalist, the lurid revelation of my past and Noah’s. I’ve spent hours being questioned by Ben Ransom, explaining what happened so he can resolve the fiery deaths of a serial killer and her accomplice son.
All my worry about my actions twenty years ago has dwindled to a low hum. Noah met with Ben and explained everything he remembered. Apparently, his therapist has notes that corroborate his memories. He remembers that I fought for him and that I risked my life to save him. Twice.
Somehow, the way it comes out…I’m not going to be charged with anything. Ben told me that there wouldn’t be enough evidence to convict me and that it seems like a case of justifiable homicide anyway, because of Noah’s witness statement. I still can’t believe it.
I squint into the lights and offer a smile. The buzz of voices fades. This is my fourth new beginning, and I need it as desperately as I needed the first three. There are so many things I want to do over. So many mistakes to avoid. And it starts here, now. With the truth.
No more running. This time, I’m standing my ground.
“I want to start by introducing myself,” I say. My voice quavers but gets steadier with every syllable. “My birth name was Anna Wilbur. My name when I was a member of the Oracles of Innocence was Eszter. The name I gave when I escaped the cult was Christy, a stolen, fake name for the shell I was back then.” I look over at Hailey and Martin, and they each nod. I smile. “The name I chose for my new beginning was Dora Rodriguez, and that’s the one I’m keeping. Now I’m ready for your questions.”