by Esme Devlin
“Maxim, please—”
“Deep breath, Sapphire.”
Or maybe I imagined he said Sapphire.
I don’t know.
I gasp for air the second before ice-cold water slaps against my face.
My heart feels like it’s about to split my chest in half.
My stomach sinks.
Everything sinks.
I struggle against the bonds, hoping maybe this is a trick. Maybe they didn’t fasten them correctly. Maybe this is all just for show.
But nothing pops open. The more I squirm, the more I twist in the water, until finally, the floor of the tank connects with my cheek. I can’t feel anything.
I’m not even the right way up to grab the keys.
I open my eyes only to see a dark mixture of black and blue.
My dress. The coloring in the water.
The lights are far away, as if they are in one world and I’m in my own one. A cold one, where the only sound is the beat of my own heart thudding in my ears.
I’m going to die in here.
My body is screaming at me to panic.
No… don’t panic.
Find the key. Find the key. Stay alive.
But why would I do that? So they can try to kill me again tomorrow night?
I’m almost tempted to die just to spite them.
How ironic would that be, to die a virgin in a world where there are one hundred men to every one woman? Perhaps even a thousand. I don’t know. I never really got to see it.
My lungs are burning now. I’ve not managed to flip myself over. I’m just bobbing around on the bottom of the tank.
Good.
At least they won’t find this death entertaining.
My lungs are on fire.
My movements become stiff and jerky.
Maybe I should panic. Maybe that is what they’re waiting for.
If I panic, will they pull me out?
I need air.
Air.
My eyes could be open or closed.
It’s just darkness now.
Is this what death feels like?
I can’t hold it.
I breathe in.
8
Sapphire
Is this death?
Or was I saved?
I don’t remember either happening.
But then I don’t suppose I would.
I remember the fire in my lungs, the pressure in my chest, and the urge to climb out of my own body. And then there was a brief moment of peace before the darkness consumed me completely.
If I died, then how am I here?
And why is hell inside a bed?
I am in a bed. Comfortable. Or perhaps not so comfortable… I must be dazed. Of course I’m dazed—I just drowned.
Trying and failing to sit up, I tilt my head and stare in amazement at my wrists. They’re still bound by the thick straps, but instead of being tied together they are spread wide and attached to the bedposts with chains.
The moment I realize I’m tied up is the same moment I feel his presence.
I look around the room. It’s too dark to see anything. There are no walls, just darkness on every side. But he’s there, lurking in the shadows like one of hell’s own hounds. I can feel him.
I try to speak, to break the silence that is hanging in the air so thick it feels like a weight on top of my chest. But my voice refuses to work.
I’ve forgotten how to speak.
Baron appears from the shadows and every hair on my body stands up to his attention.
He’s merely a mask at first, just as chilling as the first time I noticed him in the crowd.
Noticed him?
That was a lie. I didn’t notice him—he commanded my attention just by being alive in the same moment as me.
He walks toward the bed, his steps slow, careful, and calculating.
His body comes into focus next. Tall. Imposing. Brutal. The man has a presence that could turn every head in the room toward him, and I’m not immune to it. I wasn’t last night, and it’s only multiplied since.
I can’t drag my eyes away from him.
“You saved me?” My words sound hazy, as if someone else is saying them. My throat feels like I’ve been gulping crushed glass. I shouldn’t be able to talk. I couldn’t talk earlier, but somehow I can now.
Is that because he’s allowing it?
That’s ridiculous.
But at the same time, it feels correct.
“I did,” he says, his tone bright and almost jovial. “But I fear my actions were not quite as noble as you may like to believe.”
What does he mean?
He looms at the end of the bed and lifts his arm, and that’s when I notice the jet black wooden bat in his hand. Long and thick, he slaps the fat end down into the palm of his hand, and my whole body freezes.
“I had to save you. Couldn’t stand the thought of another man getting to kill you before I did. You could say I’m the jealous sort, but I’m not sure that word really does it justice?”
I try to tell him he’s mad. Insane. But I choke on the words. All I can do is scramble up the bed, sitting up and tucking my legs in—as if it’s going to save me.
“That’s not going to save you,” he says. Now his tone is serious. Deadly serious. He’s gone from amused to indifferent in a heartbeat.
Can he read my thoughts?
That’s impossible.
Impossible but again, it seems correct.
He moves around the bed so fast I can barely keep my eyes on him. I shift onto my side, my arms are stuck, but everything else turns into a ball.
I hear him laughing again through the mask as he lies down in the space I just created, my arm falling under his neck.
Settling the bat between us, he extends his now free hand and I flinch away, positive he’s going to strike me. But instead he moves my hair back from my face. His touch is gentle. Tender.
“What do you want?” I whisper.
His fingers linger on my cheek and he sighs. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?”
He laughs arrogantly, as if I’m stupid. “Because I’m your nightmare.”
I squeeze my eyes closed as his fingers trail a line from my cheek down to my neck. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Oh, my sweet girl. In this broken world, what does?”
I don’t have an answer for him. Nothing makes sense anymore.
“Are you going to kill me?”
He sighs. “Probably.”
I should be a tense coil of fear right now. I’ve been scared so many times. I know what that feels like. The drop in body temperature as ice trickles down your spine. The taste of bile in the back of your throat.
None of that happens.
Perhaps I’m in a state of disbelief?
Maybe I’m burying my head in the sand again.
“Why?”
His hand falls from my neck and crosses my chest. I watch him as he takes hold of the bat. Slowly, he pushes the thick end in between my thighs. I squeeze my legs closed, but he twists, increasing the pressure until I’m forced to split them apart and give him entry.
I remember I had a cut there, though it’s not bothering me now.
“I’m a sadist, remember?” He jerks the bat as he finishes his sentence and the pressure shifts me up the bed. “That’s what Ruby told you. I’m only doing what a sadist would do. I want to watch your reaction as I hurt you.”
He increases the pressure until I’m pulling on the chains that bind my wrists, trying to shift myself farther up the bed away from him. Away from what he’s doing.
“How did you know that?”
He laughs. “I know everything you know. I’m mad, remember? Bat-shit insane. Do you know what mad people do?”
I shake my head. I don’t want to know. Not if it means he needs to demonstrate it.
He pulls the bat out from between my thighs and throws it away, though before I hear it drop he’s on top of me again.
The familiar crushing feeling returns, and he cups his hands around my ears, squeezing my head tightly, forcing me to stare up at that hard metal face. I blink a few times. Waiting. Waiting for what he will do next.
What will he do?
He presses down against my forehead, staring at me with empty holes for eyes. “You don’t know what mad people do. No. You are too sweet for that. Too naive. Worry not, you will learn. And soon. I’m going to take it all away very, very soon.”
I wonder if those forehead presses are his own version of kisses.
What a strange thought to have.
Something flashes in the corner of my eye and I realize he’s not holding my head anymore.
He’s holding a knife.
My knife.
But how did he get it?
Strange.
There’s an impact in my ribs, but not a sharp stab like I’d braced myself for. No. This is harder. As if he’s just jumped on me from a great height.
I thought I knew what death felt like.
Fire in your lungs and then darkness, before the peace finally comes.
But I was wrong.
Death is a pressure, a hard quick pressure, and then a whoosh.
Like falling.
Like being born.
9
Baron
If I’m honest, she disappoints me.
I had expected more of a struggle from my little spitfire. Then again, water is the greatest weakness of fire, isn’t it?
She’s not strong enough. Yet. I will change that soon enough.
I stand up from my seat just as her little body turns limp in the tank. She’s hard to see, a swell of black fabric against deep blue water, like someone spilled ink inside the tank.
But even a blind man can count.
I was holding my breath with her—I think the whole fucking room was. She’s been in there long enough.
Pulling the rifle up from under my seat, I stand at the edge of the ring and aim. Three. Two. Just one more second, precious girl.
Water spills everywhere, bouncing off the sand and drowning everything in its path like some fucked-up Bible story. Sapphire lies in a heap, and Maxim and Denim rush toward her instantly. I reload the weapon and train it on Maxim’s head.
He doesn’t get to touch her anymore.
Hearing the click, he backs away quickly just as I move in. Dropping the gun, I sink to my knees—not caring a fuck about the shards of glass littering the sand—and flip her onto her back. I tilt her head back and listen—feel—for breath.
Of course she’s breathing. She’s strong, and I knew it.
Should never have doubted her, you fool. She was just fighting quietly instead of making a big song and dance about it. I respect that.
I push her over just as she starts coughing and spluttering.
“Get the key,” I shout to whoever the fuck is listening.
Denim throws me the ring and I tilt her over, making quick work of each lock and letting them drop to the wet sand.
She’s freezing. She needs warmth. Blankets. She needs to get out of these wet clothes.
But not here.
Time to bail.
“You just… you just killed me. I died,” she stutters, water still dribbling from her mouth and nose.
“Now, now. That’s plenty,” I tell her. “I could have sworn I saw Maxim throw you into that tank with his own two hands. In fact, I think I was the one who just saved you.”
She opens her eyes and looks up at me blankly, confusion written across her pretty face. Already her lids are struggling to stay open.
“I don’t…” She sucks in a breath and lets it out again in two half-coughs. “I don’t —”
I cut her off by scooping her up into my arms. She’s shivering from the cold. We’ll fix that.
“Shh,” I tell her, walking toward the exit. “If anything you owe me a full helping of gratitude. But there’s time for all that. We have a deal to make good on first.”
She shakes her head as her eyes drift closed. Since she’s currently half-comatose, I suppose I won’t hold it against her. At least not right now.
I duck out of the tent, and my eyes land instantly on my old friend. She’s sitting in her booth, that same knowing smirk written across her face.
I smile and tip my head to her, giving her the same knowing smirk right back. She can’t see it, of that I’m positive, but who cares. Certainly not me.
“Don’t you be forgetting our wager now,” she shouts as I walk past her.
“Never,” I shout back with a chuckle.
I don’t lose.
I never lose.
The card sits in a wooden box on top of the writing desk in my bedroom, where all the other images I no longer care about go to be forgotten.
I will remind her I won when I see her again in hell.
10
Sapphire
I think I’m in a vehicle. My eyes are still closed, so I can’t be sure. I’ve only ever seen pictures of cars, trucks, motorcycles, but I can almost remember what they felt like.
That was before I came to the carnival. Back when I had a mom, and everything always felt like running away.
I want to open my eyes and look around. To confirm if the outside is how I remember it, or if I just imagined it from pictures.
The sky, do the stars really shine?
Or was that just a trick?
But opening my eyes would make it all real. All of it. I can smell him. Not the diesel, although that is faintly in the air. The other thing, the thing I don’t have the words to name. Opening my eyes means facing him, and the last time I did that he killed me.
Or did he save me?
It’s hard to tell what is a nightmare, and what is real anymore.
I think this is real, though. My hair is damp but I’m warm, wrapped up in a thick blanket with hot air blasting in my face. I’m comfortable. No, I think this is definitely real. Which means the last memory I have of him was only a dream. Just my subconscious playing tricks on me.
That should make me feel better than it does.
I open my eyes. The car is dark, save for the neon-colored lights on the console. I’m lying on my side, the seat reclined right back. He’s sitting back in his chair, one hand resting lazily on the wheel while the other elbow rests on the side of the car. He still has the mask on.
He hasn’t noticed I’m awake.
Yet.
I stare at him, my mind unable to disconnect the man sitting in front of me with the man who just had me tied to his bed while he murdered me.
“Did you sleep well?”
He says the words without looking back once, and I shrink away from him on instinct. How did he know I was awak—
“You snore in your sleep,” he says with a chuckle, answering the question before I’ve even asked it.
“Where are we?” I try to sit up to look around, but the seatbelt is over both of my arms. Every time I jerk it away it locks in place.
Baron huffs and reaches his hand over, making me flinch in panic. “Silly girl,” he says, before slowly pulling the seatbelt up. This time, it moves for him.
My heart is still hammering from his sudden movement when he glances over at me. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I had a nightmare.”
He chuckles. “My favorite. Were you drowning?”
“No.”
“Running from something? Those are the best ones.”
“No.”
He turns around and stares at me for a long minute before dragging his head back toward the road.
“Then what?”
I stare out of the window, wishing it wasn’t so dark so I could make out the surroundings. It has been so long since I’ve seen the outside world, I have no idea if the things I remember are truly memories or just figments of all the magazines I studied growing up.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters. Tell me.” His tone turns d
arker.
Maybe I should just say it. Then I can watch his reaction.
“You were there, and you killed me.”
Baron looks out of the window nearest to him as if he’s uncomfortable.
“Interesting. How?”
“I… I don’t know. You had a wooden bat, and then a knife. But when you stabbed me it felt like… like not how I’d imagine a knife would feel.”
He looks at me and then laughs. “I had a bat? Not my style. Amusing that your subconscious thinks it would be.”
I turn away while my mind works overtime trying to decipher his words. He didn’t say the dream was ridiculous, only that the weapon of choice was.
“Am I going to die?”
He stays silent, and I can’t help the urge to turn around and watch him. His hand—the one leaning on the edge of the window—strokes the back of his hooded neck, almost as if he is deep in thought.
That’s not a question any sane person should have to think about.
“Baron?”
“No. Yes. Maybe. Possibly. Probably. I fear we will be the death of each other.”
We pull off from the road some time later and the car slows down as the ground becomes more uneven. Tall trees rise up on either side, blocking out most of the moonlight. I look around, but I’m unable to see much until the dense forest clears.
Then it appears in front of us, a huge, sprawling building with high turrets and a large dome in the center of the roof. Its features look black against the dark blue of the sky. Where everything else on the journey seemed decaying and crumbling, this place has signs of upkeep. The windows are all intact—the ones I can see at least. There are signs of life. Lights—but only the uppermost levels have them switched on. The lower floors are shrouded in complete darkness.
We’ve been silent for most of the journey, ever since he gave me that riddle for an answer. I clear my throat.
“This is where you live?”
Baron nods once.
“But not alone?”