by Roxy Harte
“Whether we have a future together or not remains uncertain.”
“You have many who love you,” he states.
I smile, answering, “I was always more loved than you.” I don’t doubt that several of the people in the room, if not all, can make out most of what we are saying to each other, but still, it seems important that we use Greek.
“I have lovers,” he quarrels.
“But I have love.”
“Enough love to heal you of the pain she causes you?”
I don’t answer, I shrug, the lump of uncertainty forming in my throat too painful, her almost death still too recent, her prognosis too unsure.
Henri makes tsking noises as he personally frees my hands. I am shocked into silence, my brother so transformed from the last time I saw him. My mirror image now barely even shares a resemblance.
When I last saw him, we both sported ponytails and goatees. He no longer sports a beard, having trimmed it down to a small patch of thick fur just beneath his lower lip. Each of his cheek dimples sports a pointed silver stud piercing, making his face even more intriguing, and he wears not one set of small silver hoops in his earlobes, but four. He also pierced his tongue. My quick glimpse reveals a wide metal spider. My mind falls into the gutter, curious as to what other piercings his body hides.
“I’ve changed a bit.” Smiling, laughing, he turns in a circle, giving me the whole show, since I have obviously been struck dumb by his new appearance. His head is shaved with a Japanese-inspired tattoo beginning on the back of his skull and extending down his neck before disappearing under the edge of his shirt. Through the sheer fabric, I can tell his entire back and a large section of his chest have been inked, as have his arms down to his wrists.
“That’s an understatement, brother.” Free of the handcuffs, I hug him tight. He is much thinner than the last time I saw him. The hug reveals that the years have taken their toll on his body. His ribs and pelvic bones protrude prominently, and because of the thinness, his muscles seem longer and leaner, a fact not easily missed by his choice of clothing, a black microfiber long-sleeved t-shirt that clings to his solid pecs and six-pack abs. The changes make Nikos look ten to fifteen years younger than me. Yes, he could easily pass for twenty-eight, however, a second glance reveals his age deeply ingrained in his eyes, the windows to his soul revealing he has paid a very high price.
I lift his wrist to see the fine details in his ink. “This is new.”
“It seemed a good idea at the time. Long weekend in Shanghai…” He smiles and it is sad. “Where are you going back to?”
I look to Henri, still unsure what fate lies ahead, answering, “San Francisco.”
I cannot take my eyes off Nikos. It has been too long and the empty spot I’ve carried seems suddenly filled.
“You’re well?” I ask, meaning all of it—mentally, physically, spiritually.
“Yes,” Nikos answers. “And you—you’re alive.”
“Alive, yes, but then you knew that, didn’t you?” I insist, still worried about Sean Paul’s earlier comment that he had believed me dead.
“I think your death would be more painful than the phantom pain from the broken bones we’ve shared.”
“Yes.”
He traces the flames again. “I felt this.”
I lift the edge of his shirt, silently asking him to pull off the long-sleeved T. He does. I smile, seeing the evidence of why my body flamed for weeks. He spins slowly, proudly modeling the entire tattoo, striking in that it is an intricate design done completely in contrasts of indigo blue ink and bare skin.
“You felt me?” he asks, continuing to use Greek. For both of us, I think, it has been too long and it is the one link we share from happier times that makes this meeting bearable. He breaks into a wide smile. “I wanted you to feel me. I wanted you to know I lived.”
“I felt you,” I whisper, hugging him close. “I felt your darkness.”
Daring to hope he didn’t turn and yet, standing so near, I am no more certain than when we were an ocean apart.
“I felt your sorrow,” he replies.
For a moment, it is as if no time passed between us as we take turns reminding each other of our shared bond of pain. When Nikos broke his collarbone at eight cliff-diving, I felt it though I was miles away. Or when he experienced an episode of debilitating confusion while taking college entrance exams and couldn’t finish, arriving in the same emergency room I’d been admitted to moments before, following a motorcycle crash that left me with a severe concussion. Twins still, though no longer as obvious.
He looks at a clock on the wall. We’ve barely had fifteen minutes, but already I know our time together is over. Even before he says, “I have to go back.”
“For your coronation as King Cobra’s successor?” I try to make it sound light, but there is no hiding the anger I feel that my brother has been put in this position.
“That has always been the assignment.”
“It should have been me,” I tell him. “I would not have had your life turn out like this.”
“Put away your guilt, brother. This was my choice.” He hugs me tight, whispering against my face, “I was always the one who could tear off the butterfly wings. Do you remember? You just couldn’t do it.”
I pull him closer, remembering the boy he was in the grassy field so long ago. I fight to hold on to him, even as he jerks out of my arms and rushes from the room. Heart pounding, I run after him, finding him still in the hallway, getting ready to enter the elevator.
“Alexiares and Aniketos!” I call out to him, stopping him in his tracks, making him turn to look at me. He smiles, but it is a sad smile as he holds open the elevator door, poised to climb in, and I know that he is remembering our childhood as I am—Grandfather teaching us martial arts on a sunny hillside overlooking our seaside village in Greece, and a simple lesson that involved trust.
“You will keep each other safe and that is why you will need a word between you…a word that is not used in everyday speech, so the meaning will not be misconstrued and never used as a joke. In an emergency, you will use the word and it will mean that you need the other’s help.”
The words we came up with that day were Alexiares and Aniketos, the twin sons of Herakles and Hebe. It seemed appropriate at the time, their names meaning respectively, “he who wards off war” and “the unconquerable”, lending much debate as to which of us was the peacemaker and which of us invincible. In all the years since, we’ve only used it once. We were teens by then and he called me from a party being held at a friend’s house while their parents were away on holiday. Someone had slipped him acid and he was having a bad trip when he called. I was mad and angry that he had gone to the party without telling me, and all night I’d known something was wrong but even with the phone call, I was willing to leave him there to his own devices…just to teach him a lesson. Until he used our shared word and I knew that leaving him there wasn’t an option.
All during the ride home he’d thanked me, thanking me so many times I just wanted him to shut up, even though I knew it was the drug making him so obnoxious.
“You don’t understand,” he’d said when I finally had enough and told him to shut up or I was taking him back to the party. Shaking beside me, still tripping badly, he’d sobbed, “I’m so scared!”
“It will be all right, Nikos. I’m here now.” The boy in my memory stands before me as a hardened warrior. I tilt my head, silently asking him to stay, asking him to abort this particular mission. Saying finally, “There has to be another way, brother.”
His smile widens. “I’m not a scared boy today.”
I am not fast enough to catch him before he enters the elevator and the door closes, leaving me wondering when, or if, I will ever see him again. My very next thought is Glorianna and how I am going to make this up to her when I show up in San Francisco without him. Fortunately Henri appears at my elbow, reminding me it may not be Glorianna who sees me killed. Casually, I ask, “Wha
t now?”
“That depends on you, dear Ari. Will you let him go?”
“It appears I have no other choice, seeing that he wants this.”
He nods. “There is a car out front waiting for you. It will take you directly to the plane. For both our sakes, do not return to France, mon ami. I do not want to be the one to order your death.”
“As you so easily ordered Eva’s death?”
He shrugs noncommittally.
“I have changed my mind. For now, she serves a purpose.”
I do not like the knowing look he gives me. I love her and it is that love he believes he can use to control me. I don’t like it. Not one bit. But as I am forced from the country there is little I can do.
“The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food…”
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Chapter Seventeen
Thomas
January 5
Lewd Larry’s BDSM Night Club, San Francisco, California
Lingering in the doorway of Garrett’s office, I watch him pace. The crowd is huge tonight and making him nervous, a half-finished scotch on the rocks beads moisture on his desk.
“Boss?” I like calling him boss. One, because technically, here, he is, but more, because I taught him everything he knows about being a Dominant, christening him Ice as my submissive, and later Lord Ice, when he was ready to go off on his own as a Master Dominant. So every once in a while I have to mentally top him, just because I can. Calling him boss usually does it.
“Thomas!” Garrett smiles and it is a genuine smile. He crosses the room to hug me, then slaps my face. “You should have called. Kitten’s worried herself to death and The Attic has been in chaos since you’ve been gone. I’m losing a fortune without you up there.”
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t a planned trip.”
“You’re always sorry, and your trips are never planned,” Garrett jokes, but the underlying tone is serious. “I’m used to you, she isn’t, and now that we’re in a relationship together, your every action affects both of us.”
“I called her from the plane,” I defend. “I promised you last time that I would call the next time I had to leave unexpectedly…and I did.”
“She said as much.” His tone tells me more than words.
“What?” I ask, exasperated that he is angry. This is my life and he knows it. Having known me longer than almost anyone in this country, he is perhaps the only person I expect to understand and had hoped that he could comfort me without knowing the details. I am angry and tired and am in no mood to deal with everyone else’s drama, but that is exactly what I am now expected to do. “Is she here? I can apologize now.”
“No, I didn’t tell Kitten that you’re back. I wanted to talk to you first.”
“Is something wrong with her?”
“She was very distraught after you left. She’s been terrified that you wouldn’t come back this time.” Garrett walks back to his desk and, lifting the scotch to his lips, swallows all that is left in his tumbler. “She wanted to go looking for you.”
“She wanted to come after me?” I snicker.
“Yes,” he answers, and again there is more anger in his voice than I expected. “She actually left with every intention of finding you. Do you understand? I’ve kept her in her cage!”
Ah, the crux of the problem.
“Look, it hasn’t been all that long ago that I ran south of the border to find myself…and I thought you might just need time. So whatever dark hole you crawled into, not my business—before. Now it is. Because I will not cage Kitten again. And if you ever disappear like this again…I’ll let her come.”
“Even if it would put her life at risk?” It is more information than I should divulge, but I have to make him understand…I wasn’t on a holiday.
He shakes his head, realizing that this is one of those times he cannot ask and even if he does I won’t tell. “I should.”
“Don’t bother, if I don’t want to be found, not even God can find me.” I smile, teasing him, because it is the only way I know to lighten the mood and I am too close to breaking, but the look he gives me tells me he understands. I’m not sure why I share, but I do. “I was in Paris.”
“Kitten said as much. And you went to find Eva?”
He shocks me. I sit down in his leather desk chair, knowing how much he hates it when anyone sits behind his desk, however, tonight I am not sitting there to irritate, it is the closest seat and I really need to sit. I’ve never told anyone about Eva. How could she possibly know? He sits next to me, propped against the edge of his desk, and smiles, pleased he has discomfited me.
“You talk in your sleep. Kitten guessed that you’d gone to find a woman named Eva. She said you also dream in French. You may not have known that she’s fluent. When I found her and stopped her, she was boarding a plane to France.”
“I knew. I know everything there is to know about her,” I reply, my heart in my throat. “Any other secrets I’ve disclosed while sleeping?”
“Don’t worry, Thomas, every secret you’ve ever shared with either of us is safe,” he answers cryptically and noncommittally. Leaning forward, he puts his hand on my shoulder. “This time, you scared me, and I don’t scare easily. I’ve gotten used to your unscheduled trips, but this time felt different. Then Kitten panicked, and I understood the fear behind it. She thought you weren’t coming back to us.”
Looking into his face, I realize that I really scared him, and being afraid of losing someone, I do understand. I smile at him, which is noteworthy, because I rarely smile. It is something I almost always have to force myself to do, and to realize that I am smiling and not forcing myself to do so is significant. It is good to be…home.
I take his hand and pull him from the desk, pressing him down to kneel before me on the floor. Bending forward, I kiss his temple. “I’m sorry I scared you. I’m sorry I scared both of you. I’ll be more careful in the future.” I press my forehead to his. “I’m really glad Kitten brought us back together. I’ve missed you, both of you…and absolutely nothing could keep me from returning to you. It’s just that since losing Latisha and the children… I need to reconnect. I’ve lost so much. I need to find the people I love, people who love me in return…and fill the gaps.” I stroke his face, hoping he understands. “Not that you and Kitten aren’t enough. You are. You both are. But—” I cannot tell him that I went to find Nikos, or why, I can only admit to Eva. I hold Garrett’s gaze, hoping that something other than the words spewing out of my mouth makes sense to him, makes him understand what I can’t explain. “She was once very important to me. I needed to see her.”
“Did she come back with you?”
“No,” I answer, rawness filling my chest. I swallow hard, fighting the panic that she might not live through the night. “She’s…” My voice cracks and I can’t bring myself to voice the truth, that she is in a hospital, in grave condition. Instead I say, “I don’t know when or if she will join me here. That is up to her.”
Reaching slowly, Garrett wraps his hand around the base of my neck. I return the action, pulling him toward me, he pulling me toward him. Forehead to forehead, we meet in the middle. “What we have is working,” he insists, and I know what he is trying to say. Our threesome is so fresh, so new, so really, really working, why in the fuck am I risking messing it up?
“Yes, and it isn’t my intention to spoil what we have.”
Garrett rolls his face until we are cheek to cheek. “But you would have brought her back with you if she’d been willing to come, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” I admit.
“Don’t fuck us up, Thomas. Not for a ghost. What we have is too amazing.”
“I know!” I rock away, leaning back into the chair but not releasing Garrett’s nape. He is forced to follow. “I know, I know, I know. I went to Paris to…” I stop myself from saying to find my brother, realizing that I really need to
leave this room. “I’m not coming home, not yet.”
Garrett pushes me away and stalks to the other side of the room, threatening, “Don’t you dare hurt Kitten.”
“Then keep her away from me for a little while…at least until I get my head straight.” I leave his chair and cross the room, wanting to escape his glare, his judgment. “I’ll be in The Attic.”
“How long can she stay caged?” he demands.
I pause only long enough to answer, “As long as you choose to keep her there.”
* * * * *
I pass a full week, sitting alone in one of The Attic’s playrooms, although this particular playroom is no longer used as such because everyone here knows it’s my home when I need it to be. Windowless, soundproof, it is a good place to sit and reflect. Yoga, meditation, pushups, hundreds of pushups, is perhaps what’s keeping me sane. If I open my eyes or close my eyes, the view is the same—nothingness. The walls are black, the tile floor black, the spare furniture and rubber mattress all black.
The room and its darkness are a relief. I imagine that Eva’s mind is in such a place. Surrounded by the dark and sitting on the floor, mind blank, I reach out to her with my thoughts, willing her back, sending her mental images of calla lilies and emotional vibrations of love. Hours pass and it is like minutes, so peaceful is the place where our minds meet.
Last night I opened my eyes to find my brother sitting across from me, mirroring me, sitting in lotus position just as I was. His eyes were closed and tears streamed down his face. Reaching for him, I realized that he wasn’t there…just a vision…and he was the one able to shed the tears I was so unable to. He, the one strong enough to rip the wings off small insects, leaving them crippled and maimed, crying for me, the one who can’t.
I shake away the vision of him, wanting instead to meditate on Eva’s healing. Deep undercover once more, and forced into a communication blackout, I manage to stay abreast of Eva’s condition through a network of contacts loyal to me. The news isn’t good. She is unconscious and has been since falling asleep four days ago. Not medical, psychological, is the official word coming from a team of Agency physicians. Sitting, waiting, an ocean between us, my life is on hold.