Unhinged

by Natasha Knight

  “Put that down, Eve.” He uncaps the syringe.

  “You put that down.” I gesture to the needle. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He gives me an “are you for real” grin when I raise the lamp up. It’s so heavy that I have to grip it with both hands, like a baseball bat.

  “I mean it!” I say.

  “All right,” he sets the syringe down and puts his hands up as if in surrender. “Put the lamp down.”

  I look at the needle, then at him. “Is it Armen? He’s alive?” I ask, tears filling my eyes as I lower my makeshift weapon. My arms hurt from the weight, and my brain is whirling with the knowledge that my brother is alive. That he has been for two years. That he hasn’t contacted me in those years.

  “Yes,” Zach says, stepping closer, a cautious look in his eyes. He closes one hand over the lamp and takes my arm with the other, his blue eyes searching mine as he sets the lamp down and pulls me in for a hug.

  “Did he know where I was? Maybe he thought I’d died.”

  “He knew,” Zach says. “I have no doubt he knew.” He’s holding me so tight.

  “Maybe he sent that plane ticket?” I ask, drawing back. Looking up at him. “Maybe he wanted to protect me from Malik.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” He smiles down at me. “You’re sweet, Eve. And naïve. And you want to deal with people who are capable of monstrous things. Things you can’t imagine.”

  I shake my head. “Armen isn’t like that.”

  “I’m really sorry to do this.”

  While one arm locks me to him, the other reaches for the syringe.

  “No!”

  “It’s the only way to keep you safe.”

  “Let me go!” I’m pushing against him, but it’s like trying to move a freaking bulldozer. “Zach, please.” In my periphery, I see him squeeze a small amount of liquid out. I stop fighting, wrap my hands around his face. Make him look at me. “Please, Zach. Please don’t do this to me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I feel the prick in my hip in the next instant. Watch his face, his eyes, as he empties the barrel. The effect is almost immediate. My knees go weak, arms slide slowly down his chest.

  “I trusted you,” I manage, my eyes closing as I feel myself fall. He catches me in his strong arms, lifts me up. He’s blurring though, my vision fading. I try to reach up, scratch at him. Fight him. But my arm drops to my side and my eyes close.

  “I’ll be back for you, Eve. I promise.”

  18

  Zach

  I feel like a jerk, but this is the right thing to do. It’s the only way to keep her safe. I tuck Eve into the bed, then brush the hair from her face. Her lips are parted slightly but she doesn’t move when I touch her, when I draw the blanket up over her.

  There’s a knock on the door, then it opens. I know it’s Hassan. I look at Eve for one more minute before I turn.

  “You have six hours. Eight at most,” Hassan says.

  This is my deal with him. He keeps Eve safe. I don’t kill his son. We’re not friends, he and I. But we do have the same goal. Kill Malik the Butcher. Because that’s the only way any of us will be free.

  I walk toward him, stopping close enough that I’m towering over him. “If anything happens to her—”

  “I promised I’d keep the girl safe. Now you keep your promise to me.”

  The fact that his son’s life hangs in the balance is the only reason I can trust him.

  “Truck’s ready.” He holds out a set of keys.

  I take them, fish out the Glock from my duffel, and follow Hassan out the door. I look back once before closing it behind me, locking it as if I were locking away a treasure. I then get into the truck and pick up the map with the highlighted route. I look at the destination, confused.

  “He’s at a monastery?”

  “He hasn’t found God, if that’s what you’re thinking. This is my brother’s modus operandi. Thinks he won’t be attacked if he’s surrounded by two dozen monks.”

  “He’s in for a surprise then.” I start the engine, glance once more at the cottage where Eve is sleeping, and drive off in the direction of Deir el Ahmar.

  19

  Eve

  I blink, my eyelids feeling heavy. My head throbbing. The room comes into view, then fades again. Moving my arm feels impossible and I’m not sure if I fade out again or for how long, but the next time I open my eyes, I see the blurry vision of someone in the room with me.

  Which room? I’m not in Denver anymore. I’m in Beirut. I’m at the cottage outside Dr. Hassan’s house. This is the room where Zach recovered.

  Zach.

  I sit up, and immediately fall back down, eyes closing against the ache in my head.

  Zach did this to me. He tricked me. I trusted him, and he fooled me.

  “Sleeping beauty finally up?” a woman asks.

  I don’t recognize the voice right away.

  “Leave her alone. Get out of here.”

  Now this voice I know. This one I know well.

  I force my eyelids to open and stare up at the ceiling for a long time, long enough for the spinning to slow. I turn my head to find Julia leaning against the wall with her arms folded across her chest, hate in her eyes. But I shift my gaze a little from her to him.

  He’s got his back to me, but it’s him. His black hair, now spotted with gray, is cut so close to his head, I know it will prickle like little thorns if I touch it. He’s wearing a black T-shirt. Like Zach. His shoulders are broad, but not as wide as Zach’s. And he’s a few inches shorter. The skin on his arms is tanned a golden brown and, unlike Zach, it’s not marred. Not tattooed. He bears the scars of a soldier, but he didn’t nearly die.

  Armen turns to look at me. Golden eyes meet mine. We all have them, every one of my brothers. They’re from my mom’s side. My dad had black eyes.

  “I thought you were dead,” I manage, smiling a little as a warm tear slips from my eye. I sit up, push through the dizzy spell until I’m leaning my back against the bed.

  His eyes sweep my face, but I can’t read the emotion inside them. It’s not what I expect at our reunion though.

  “You should have died,” he says.

  I’m taken aback.

  Julia snorts from her corner as I process what my brother just said. Armen closes the folder he’s holding—Zach’s folder—and sets it down, then comes toward me. Why do I shrink away when he does? He’s my brother. He won’t hurt me.

  But he already has, hasn’t he?

  I shake away the memories.

  “Armen?”

  He reaches out and grabs my arm hard, yanking me from the bed. When I stumble, he lets me fall. My knees hit the hard, cracked tiles. I look up at him.

  “Everything would have been easier if you’d just died.”

  His stare takes me in, and disgust curls his lip. “Get her dressed. I don’t want to see her like this. Nearly naked in his bed.”

  Then, to my horror and shock, he turns his back and walks out the door. I just sit there staring at it, in utter disbelief at his actions. His words. Because I know he doesn’t mean it. He can’t. I know what I saw that night two years ago. I know he didn’t want to do what he did. He was made to.

  Wasn’t he?

  Tears warm my eyes.

  Julia tosses my dress, bra and panties at me. “You heard him. Get dressed. Let’s go.”

  “Where? Why?”

  The sneer she gives me chills me through. She squats down close and I back away. “You don’t know how this is killing him. He’s right. If you’d died that night, he’d be free. We both would be. But you just don’t die, do you?” She grips a handful of hair and stands, drawing me painfully to my feet. “Get dressed.”

  “Where’s Zach?”

  She snorts again, shaking her head once, then raises her right arm and slaps me so hard across the face that I fall onto the bed.

  “Because of you, he’s on his way to getting himself killed.”

  Holding my
hand to my hot, stinging cheek, I sit on the edge of the bed to stare up at her.

  “If you want to see him before Malik puts a bullet in him, I suggest you get fucking dressed.” She turns and walks out the door, but doesn’t close it behind her and I hear them talk outside.

  They’ve zip tied my wrists together too tight. So tight, my skin’s rubbed raw. My brother won’t look at me as the car bumps along the road heading farther and farther away from the city. He’s driving the car and Julia is beside him, and I’m putting two and two together.

  “Hope is your baby.”

  Armen finally glances at me in the rearview mirror. He looks older than his thirty years and this close, I see more gray in his dark hair and deep lines around his eyes.

  “I thought you died that night, Armen.” Neither of them react. “For two years, I’ve lived thinking you were blown to bits, but you’ve been here all this time. And you have a baby.”

  Nothing.

  “Did you know I survived?”

  “Yeah, sis, I knew.”

  I think that hurts worse than anything else. Worse than how he looked at me earlier. Worse than Julia’s hand across my cheek.

  “What about Rafi and Seth?”

  I see the exchange between Armen and Julia.

  “Are they alive? I have a right to know.”

  “You have no rights,” Julia says.

  “Why do you hate me?” I ask her. “I don’t even know you. I didn’t know you existed up until last night.”

  She turns, gives me a smirk. “Well, sadly, I’ve known of your existence for far longer.”

  “Stop,” Armen tells her.

  “Why? She’s been living it up the last two years. What have you been doing? What have I been doing?”

  “I haven’t exactly been living it up. I thought I’d lost my entire family, you bitch.”

  “Stop it,” Armen says again.

  “You’re the bitch. Bitch-whore.”

  Armen slams on the brakes, stops in the middle of the road. If I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt, my face would be smashed up against the front seats.

  My heart thunders in my chest, but he turns to Julia. “I said stop,” he commands, his rage barely controlled. I watch her, am stunned that she obeys. He then turns to me. “You too. Just be quiet.”

  “Tell me about Seth and Rafi, and I’ll be quiet. Tell me how you could do what you did to me, and I’ll be quiet. All I wanted was to save you, Armen. Save you from becoming like him. Like Malik.”

  “But there wasn’t any need because I wasn’t becoming like him. I was already like him.”

  “I don’t believe that, and neither do you. We grew up together. I remember how you took care of us. All of us. How after mom and dad died, you stepped into the role of both parents. How you went hungry to feed us. How you did whatever it took to take care of us.”

  His eyes are like lasers, slicing right through me. “And after all that, I failed, didn’t I?”

  “You’re not a monster.”

  “You can say that after what I did to you?” He shakes his head and turns his attention back to the road, picking up speed. “You’re stupid, Eve. Now shut the fuck up.”

  I sink back in the seat. I’m confused, relieved he’s alive, yet afraid of the man he’s become. And I have a bad feeling—like the worst is yet to come. My head hurts from the drug Zach injected me with, and my heart hurts when I think about what Julia said. That Zach is on his way to getting himself killed. I think about Zach’s deal with Hassan and wonder if Hassan knows what’s happened. Where I am. That his daughter and my brother have kidnapped me. And they’re taking me to Malik.

  What use am I to Malik? I still don’t understand. I know he used me to get to Zach, to lure him. Play with him, maybe. But what can he want with me now?

  A cell phone rings and I watch as Julia fishes it out of her pocket and looks down at the screen. She answers at the fourth ring.

  “Father.” She’s so cold. Last night, I’d thought it was because he dismissed her, but now I’m getting the impression that’s just her.

  Hassan is talking loud enough that I can hear him, but I can’t make out his words.

  “I left milk in the refrigerator. Hope will be fine. You just take care of her and don’t worry about anything else.”

  So Hassan didn’t know what they did.

  “No, I don’t care about that. I’m fixing this. Today. I want this done. We both do.” A pause. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of my big brother. Like always. When we’re done, he’ll get exactly what he deserves.”

  Hassan is still talking when she disconnects the call and switches off her phone.

  It’s another hour before we pass through a set of gates where two armed soldiers stand sentry. And it’s another ten minutes after that before the large building comes into view. A monastery.

  “You ready?” Julia asks once Armen waves to the guards and drives through the gates to park the car.

  “Yeah,” Armen answers.

  “It’s almost over,” she says.

  Her words are ominous and I can’t think about what she means. He smiles at her and I can see alongside the anxiety in his eyes something else. Something like tenderness.

  “Give us a minute,” he says to her.

  “I’ll go let my uncle know we’re here.”

  Julia gets out of the car with barely a glance in my direction. Once she’s out of view, Armen turns to me. He’s quiet at first, and he looks…resigned. “I did it to buy them back. That’s how it started.”

  “How what started?”

  “Seth and Rafi, when they disappeared, I went to Malik. I made a deal with him. I’d work for him and he’d get our brothers back.”

  “Back from where?”

  “The group holding them prisoner. A group loyal to him.” He shakes his head, and I see guilt in his eyes.

  “Where are they now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are they—” I can’t say it.

  He doesn’t answer. Just looks down.

  “What’s going to happen to me?”

  “You should have come on the flight I arranged for you. I could have hidden you.”

  “It was you who sent that ticket?”

  He nods. “Now it’s too late.” He can’t hold my gaze and when he speaks, any tenderness I saw earlier is gone, replaced by the cold, impenetrable man I remember from my last days here two years ago. “Now, I’m going to have to prove my loyalty.”

  That’s all he says before climbing out of the car and opening the back door. He reaches in and takes hold of one arm, dragging me out. Forcing me, as I stumble and fight, toward the front door of the huge estate.

  20

  Zach

  I’m not sure what I expected when I found him. It’s certainly not this. I’m sitting on thick cushions with a low table before me. My wrists are handcuffed to a D-ring beneath the table and there’s a small, chipped cup of Turkish coffee a few inches from me. The girl who brought it, her hands shook so badly that she spilled some of the thick black liquid onto the saucer. I haven’t touched it yet for the obvious reason that I’m bound. I don’t expect it to be drugged. I know Maliki Remi. He’ll want me alert to fuck with me. Besides, I’m still in shock at the girl’s punishment administered by the guard, wondering how she didn’t cry out as the cane sliced into her ass with a sound that made me flinch.

  The monastery wasn’t even in sight before three SUVs drove out to greet me. Surrounding my car, one man held out a rifle, signaling for me to stop. I did. I knew them to be my welcoming committee. I never expected to get inside undetected, but the drive from where I left Hassan’s truck to the guarded gates of the monastery was another two miles, which made me wonder if they’d seen me coming or if Hassan had tipped them off.

  It doesn’t much matter now though. I only hope I’d made the right decision to leave Eve behind. I wish I hadn’t drugged her, but she wasn’t going to let me go alone otherwise, and I couldn’t be sur
e she wouldn’t follow me if she did.

  But this is between me and Maliki. Eve is a toy to him. Something to play with as long as it’s fun. Something to crush beneath his filthy boot when she loses her shine.

  And I guess he’s finished playing his game when I hear his laughter coming from outside the door. I remember the sound, but this time, it chills me.

  When that door opens, the girl clears out and the guard stands at attention. I watch as first another guard enters, followed by Ace, followed by Maliki Remi.

  He stops once he sees me, as if surprised by my presence. As if he didn’t know I was here.

  I study him. He’s older, but it’s not that he’s aged. Not in that way. He looks strange, more feral. More unpredictable. More insane.

  “I’d stand, Commander, but…” I trail off, gesturing to the cuffs that bind me to the table. When the guards met me a few miles out, I was searched, weapons confiscated. All I have now are my two hands, which are useless at the moment.

  He studies me. I wonder if he’s thrown off by my use of his title. His old title, that is. His expression is strange, it changes infinitesimally as he takes me in, my face, my neck, the edge of ink there, my arms. One tattooed, the other marred by fire.

  Ace stands by his side, and I see him in my periphery. My eyes are locked on Malik. I’m not afraid. My heart isn’t pounding. I’m not sure what I feel, actually. All I know is that the names on my back are burning again. Like they’re here with me, the lost souls of the men who shouldn’t have died that night.

  Like they’re here for their revenge.

  Malik barks an order in Arabic. I’m rusty, but considering how quickly one of the guards comes to uncuff me, I figure out what he said. Once free, I make to stand. A hand falls heavy on my shoulder. It’s the soldier at my back.

  “Sit, Zachary.” He always used my full name, and today, I hear a slight accent in his voice. I wonder if it was absent before or if I just never noticed it.

  I remain seated. Malik walks toward the table, takes a seat where his back is to the wall and he’s facing the door. He’s relaxed again. He’s fully in command. I lock eyes with Ace, whose black eyes appear not to recognize me. There’s no hostility, but there’s no warmth either. Nothing of the man I’d come to know. To trust.