by T. L. Martin
We eventually learned Murphy owned the land. Still does. And that a lot of money can cover up a lot of shit. Add a lawyer and politician to the mix, and the guy is virtually bulletproof.
“Here we go.”
It’s a video. Felix hits play, and we watch as a news reporter films in front of a hospital. The footage is raw and unedited, her hair blowing in her face and the sound intermittent.
“Mere hours ago the young girl was transferred to this very hospital in delicate but stable condition. She was discovered in an underground bunker on Wiley Road thanks to an anonymous call made to the police station at four-fifteen this morning.”
My fingers dig into my shirt sleeves as her words reverberate in my ears. “What the fuck is this?”
Felix’s mouth is hanging open, his eyes stuck on the screen.
“It appears that the child had been submerged in water from her chin down for an extensive period of time, reaching safety by using iron bars to climb above the water’s surface. The exact time frame is not yet determined. While her injuries primarily seem to be bruises, likely caused from gripping tightly to the bars for such an extended period, she has experienced severe mental trauma and is not speaking at this time. At present, we are unable to identify the child. Authorities are actively working to identify her and trace any living relatives.”
The screen goes black, and Felix starts clicking away again, but I’m fucking frozen from the inside out.
There’s no way this is legit. I researched Misha, Sofia, everything about that place. We all did. And what we wound up with was the mother of all cover-ups. There was nothing to trace back to Murphy or any of the others there. Anything in the underground communities and black market had been wiped clean. And as far as Katerina and Sofia, it was like they never existed. Neither of them had records, not even a birth certificate to their names.
“Shit, this is impressive,” Felix mutters, scrolling through something coded on his screen. “The asshole undermined me and hired an outside hacker to dig this up.” He lets out a low whistle. “Gotta admit, I’m seeing a little green with envy here. This shit was buried deep, bro. As in, the footage was never released. Actually, it was shut down mid-report.” There’s a pause as he sits back, rubs his chin. “Huh. So if Raife just received this clip this morning . . . after you let Emmy cut him up . . .”
My lungs are so constricted I can’t take a goddamn breath as I storm from Felix’s office.
“Well, fuck me,” he murmurs, jogging down the stairs behind me. “I swear though, dude, if this becomes a habit, I’m not going to chase after you next time.”
My lungs are on fire, my pulse thrashing so hard I’m seeing black stars by the time I reach my room. I swing the door open, stopping in my tracks as I notice Emmy’s absence. My gaze finds Aubrey tied to the bed, duct tape covering her mouth.
“What the fuck,” Felix growls, pacing past me.
The fuck is right.
Felix strokes her hair then places his fingers on the edge of the tape. “This is going to hurt, baby.” She nods, and he rips with one quick movement.
“Fuck!” she shrieks.
I grip the doorframe, one foot already out the door. “Where’s Em—”
“He took her,” she pants as Felix leans down and frees her wrists. “Fucking Griff took her.”
“Do not feel lonely,
the entire universe is inside you.”
—Rumi
Griff’s fingers dig into my arms, the toes of my heels dragging on the floor as he hauls me down the dark basement hallway. My breathing is thick, my hair sticking to my damp forehead. I wriggle against him but can’t get him to budge with my arms tied behind my back, and muffled whimpers are all that get through the tape over my mouth.
He takes me to the third room. The lights are off, leaving it pitch black, but I know someone is here.
Soft weeping bounces off my ears when I’m shoved forward and into some kind of metal crate. My nose hits one of the bars as I fall face-first, and I choke on a curse before straightening so I’m sitting up.
My eyes are wide as I look around, my heart slamming against my ribcage.
What the hell is going on?
“Emmy.” It’s a whisper, or maybe a cry. There’s a sniff, then another broken, “Emmy.”
I glance toward the familiar voice, to my right. After a moment, another crate takes shape. Slender fingers are curled around the bars. Behind them, a feminine face surrounded by long strands of hair stares at me. I lean closer, my heart rate picking up as the shapes of her eyes come into focus, her small nose, her high cheekbones.
Frankie.
I slam my shoulder against the bars, trying to get to her, and a shooting pain races through my arm. When I try calling her name, all that comes out is a stifled shriek, and Jesus, frustration boils in my blood until my eyes burn with unshed tears.
“Shh,” she hushes me through quiet sobs. “He’ll hear you.” My brows knit, and she adds, “My master.”
My eyes dart around the room again. A shape forms around the column, big enough to be a person but also too clunky. I continue looking but don’t see anything, or anyone, else.
“I’m so sorry, Emmy,” Frankie whispers, pulling my gaze back to her. “I had no idea you’d try to find me. I just needed—I just needed to . . . I don’t know what I needed. But I never meant to lead you here. I’m so sorry.”
I focus on my breathing—in and out, in, out. God, I want to yell. At Frankie. At Adam. At fucking Raife. But mostly at myself.
Why didn’t I try harder to find her? Why did I let this place suck me in so deep?
I squeeze my eyes shut when harsh, bright lights fill the room, and they water when I open them again. I can’t tell if it’s from the harshness or if my tears have finally spilled.
I scoot backward as the form I’d spotted against the column earlier is suddenly directly in my line of vision, clear as day. It is a person. Except chains are wrapped around his chest and ankles, keeping him upright, and his head is hanging low. He’s unconscious.
“You know . . .” Raife’s voice slides past my eardrums, and a tremble runs through me as I try to spot him. “I wasn’t so sure at first. I mean, I knew it was too coincidental. Enough for me to lock Frankie away in the front house when you made my fucking day by inquiring about employment.”
Oh my god. She was here the whole time? Locked up?
I turn to Frankie, and my eyes well up. She shakes her head and whispers, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
“If you saw your sister here, safe and sound, what was to keep you from leaving? Nothing. And I needed time to observe you. What started out as pure fascination quickly evolved when I realized it couldn’t all be a coincidence. But fuck, your mom knew how to cover her tracks. And this one”—he turns to Frankie, his lips tilting up. “She is talented at keeping secrets. You guys really had me going there.”
My brows pucker, and I glance at Frankie again. Tears slide down her cheeks.
“Katerina wiped her existence off the map, then did a home birth with you—brilliant. Just brilliant. As far as the world was concerned, you didn’t even exist, did you, Sofia?”
I shrink back as the lights somehow grow even brighter above our heads. My breath turns shallow and my dress feels itchy.
Sofia. Katerina. Sofia. Katerina.
“I apologize.” Raife steps into view, his shiny shoes and suit-clad legs level with my eyes. “Are the lights making you uncomfortable? I thought you’d feel right at home.”
Anger spikes in my chest, and I lunge toward him. He chuckles when I crash into the bars.
You have the wrong fucking person, psycho! I want to scream.
“I know.” He kneels so our eyes are level. His head cocks, and disgust twists his face as he stares at me. “You’re confused. But I researched this subject thoroughly for you—repressed childhood memories and all that psychobabble.” He flicks his gaze to Frankie, and she swallows. “You had quite the traumatic childhoo
d even after going to live with your aunt, it seems. I’d say I’m sorry but . . .” He stands, letting his incomplete sentence hang.
“Stella. Now, if you will.” He winks when he glances back at me. “One final thing to set the mood, and this should do the trick.”
A soft, feminine voice drifts through the air, so quiet I think my mind is playing tricks on me. It gets louder, and I shift in my spot, looking around the room. The voice is everywhere. In the corners, on the walls. In my crate and in my ears.
I know this song. Somehow, I know it.
Come little children . . .
I squeeze my eyes shut. Why does it hurt?
I’ll take thee away.
No, no, no.
I try to bring my palms to my ears, I try to make it stop, but my wrists are stuck behind my back.
The song only gets louder, and soon it’s seeping into my bones and filling my lungs. My knees fold up, my hair curtaining my face to block out the patches of light my eyelids can’t close off. I need to stay out of the brightness. It’s where bad things happen.
Blue eyes, black hair. She’s looking down at me.
I shake my head. It’s not real.
But it is. Her eyes are so real. Her touch when she flicks my nose with her finger, her quiet laugh when I smile. It vibrates on my skin, and I know it’s real.
The images, the voices, they won’t stop. They flood my brain until it hurts.
She tells me she loves me.
I’m her baby girl.
I want to say something to her; I want to speak. But then I remember I can’t. I can’t. Because I know what happens when people speak to her for too long.
There’s so much crimson.
Smooth bones in my hand.
Just paint, I tell myself. Paint it red.
It looks just like the real thing, he said.
You did good, he said.
I promise I’ll come back for you.
“Come back to me . . .
even as a ghost, even as a shadow,
a raven at my door, a scar upon my body—
for it is in my trembling, shrinking heart, I hold the things we thought we lost.”
—Segovia Amil
Soft music filters through the basement hallway. I pace forward, fists clenching at the old, familiar tune. When I enter Room Three, lights blind my eyes.
“Fucking shit.”
I stop in the threshold, holding my forearm over my brows. My muscles tighten, a low thrum stirring in my ears and blending with a song from my past. Unless the sun is down, I’ve hardly set foot outside over the past decade, never mind a fully lit room.
I can’t stand the way it fucks with my head.
“Come, Lucas. Step into our blast from the past.”
“Turn those fucking lights off,” I growl, a mild sweat working beneath my skin.
A second later, the room dims, and I drop my arm.
What the hell is this?
A body is chained to the column, the head hanging low, but it’s the crates in front of it I can’t figure out. I step closer, squinting at the blond-haired girl I faintly recognize, her cheeks wet, her trembling fingers curled around the crate’s bars. When my gaze flicks to the crate beside hers, my chest hammers so hard it’s about to tear through my fucking skin.
Emmy sits curled in a ball. Her arms are tied behind her back, and her head is bent toward her knees. She rocks back and forth, her soft humming in sync with the song.
A snarl rips through me as I lunge forward and yank on the door, but an all-too-familiar padlock keeps it from budging. My grip tightens around the door, and her faint floral scent hits my nostrils. The smell makes me freeze. I watch her slow movements, forward and back, her long hair blanketing most of her body, and for a second I can’t breathe. Her humming seeps into my ears and sits heavily in my chest. I grit my jaw, try to turn away, but my neck is too stiff.
It can’t be her.
It’s not her.
I killed her.
“Ask her sister.” Raife’s words are low and taunting.
I’m playing right into his slimy hands, but I glance at the crate beside her anyway. The blonde widens her eyes as she stares from me to Raife.
“Go on,” Raife tells her. “Tell him who your sister really is.”
“Raife. Shut your fucking mouth.” The room goes quiet, nothing but Emmy’s humming and the song playing on a loop. “Frankie. Explain.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know—I don’t know everything—”
“Start with what you do know. Don’t cut any corners.”
A lump passes through her throat. She flicks her eyes to Emmy then back to me. Her gaze slides down to my clenched fist around the crate.
“Okay,” she whispers. “Okay.”
I nod, my jaw ticking harder with every second she’s not talking.
“I was ten when Emmy showed up. I don’t know, I didn’t understand it. She didn’t have a name, but the men who brought her to us said she was Mama’s niece.”
“What men?”
Her eyes water. “I told you, I don’t know. I swear. They were dressed nice, real professionals. They helped her get some papers, and the next thing I knew she was a part of our family. Mama wouldn’t talk to me about it, and Emmy wouldn’t talk at all, but my neighbor Betsy told me Mama had a sister once. I never knew about her. She said Mama’s sister was adopted, and that she was something evil. No one spoke of her.”
An irritated grumble rises up my throat. “What happened to Emmy?”
“Well . . .” She swallows, glances down at the floor. “Mama said . . . she said Emmy needed to be cleansed of her past, and of her own Mama. After the priest came, she told Emmy stories all about her life now, telling her this is the only life she’s ever had. She tried to get Emmy to repeat her new name back to her, to tell her she understood that I’m her sister and she’s her mama, but Emmy—she wouldn’t say a word.”
My gaze slides back to the crate in front of me, and my stomach twists. She wouldn’t say a word.
“So”—Frankie closes her eyes and takes a deep breath—“so Mama locked her in the doghouse and repeated over and over again who the Lord is, who Mama is, who I am, who she is—Emmy May Highland from Presley, Mississippi—until Emmy finally echoed it back at her.”
“How long was that?” My voice is low, fury gripping my lungs. When Frankie doesn’t answer, I snap, “HOW LONG?”
“F-forty-two d-days,” she whimpers through sobs. Her body shakes, and she wraps her arms around her chest. “It took forty-two days for her to believe it. I-I snuck out to lie with her every night. I begged her to just say it. Say what Mama wanted. I d-didn’t know what to do. But I swore. I swore from then on I would always be there for her. I would be her sister. I would be the best sister she ever had.”
My eyes shut as the fire in my lungs reaches my throat.
“I love her. I really do love her like my sister,” Frankie whispers. Her words only irritate the flames. “I even tried to love her art. I knew it was important. She had to get it out. But sometimes . . . sometimes I could hardly look at it, and I worried she saw right through me. Eventually the guilt—it just ate at me more and more every day. I had to get away. From Mama, from everything. I always had to get away.” She pauses, thank fuck, then looks around the room and mutters, “A-and now look what I’ve done.”
I slip my fingers through Emmy’s crate, stroking the soft strands of her hair and rubbing them between the rough pads of my fingers. She won’t stop rocking. Singing. Shaking.
Sofia.
Emmy.
Whoever she is.
Somewhere along the way, she weaved herself so deeply into my veins I can’t fucking inhale without her breathing life into me. When she first arrived, I wanted to get under her skin. I wanted to see if I could break her without even touching her.
But, fuck.
I had no idea I’d already broken her.
“There cannot be a passion much greater than
this—
it wells up in me, makes my heart ache . . .
until my eyes brim with water, until my lashes grow dark.”
—Segovia Amil
“And so,” Raife’s voice gnaws at my eardrums, “the spawn of the bitch becomes the bitc—”
I don’t know I’m moving until my fist connects with his ribcage. He keels over, sucking in a breath, then he locks his arm around my back. Wrapping my hand around his neck, I throttle him and shove him backward when Griff’s form appears and a punch lands on my right side. Pain shoots through me, but I don’t loosen my hold.
Griff goes for my neck, but Raife sputters, “No. Let him,” and Griff halts mid-swing.
I narrow my eyes, relaxing my grip. What the fuck is he really up to with all this shit?
Raife’s lips quirk, and he darts a sideways glance toward the column beside us. “You didn’t even try to see who it is.”
Gritting my teeth, I flick my gaze toward the unconscious man. I take in his sharp suit, the gelled hair parted to one side.
Murphy.
A satisfied exhale blows past my lips. Releasing Raife, I stalk toward the man and lift his chin. Energy zips through my fingers at the mere touch. Fuck, it’s electrifying, having him this close to me after all these goddamn years. The man who was always a mystery. The ghost hiding behind his wealth and conducting everything Katerina did from a safe distance.
He thinks himself a god, the egomaniac, which is what the name Misha initially represented. He might have played one for a little while, but his body is as frail as any of ours, and his soul is blacker than the deepest pits of Hell. He deserves to rot in all the ways Katerina escaped.
For a moment, I allow myself to close my eyes and inhale his scent.
“That’s right,” Raife purrs, his voice growing closer. “You can finish him right now.”
My eyes snap open. When I pull back, distancing myself from Murphy, a painful sting reminds me I’m going against my instincts.