Unhinged

by Natasha Knight

  Trust. Christ, what the fuck is wrong with me? When will I learn?

  Malik snaps his fingers. A door opens and the same girl who got her ass caned for spilling my coffee carries in a tray containing two more small cups and a plate of sweets. I guess she knows better than to spill this time because the saucers are clean as she sets everything down and exits the room.

  Ace sits waiting at Malik’s side and I give a little shake of my head. He’s like a fucking lapdog.

  “You liked Turkish coffee before,” Malik says, his English perfect, his tone like I remember before. “Drink.”

  I pick mine up and drink it. It’s almost cold now, but it’s good.

  Malik nods, then sips his and picks up a pastry. He pushes the plate toward me, but I decline. He doesn’t offer Ace one. Ace, who is watching me intently as Malik and I take each other’s measure.

  “I shot you. Point blank,” I say.

  “With blanks,” he responds. “And I was wearing a bulletproof vest.”

  “It was a setup?”

  He shrugs. “It wasn’t you who was supposed to do it, but I’m flexible. I just needed to be dead.”

  “What the hell’s going on, Malik or Maliki or whatever the fuck your name is? Or is multiple personality among your disorders?”

  He smiles and sips. “Malik is my given name.”

  “Malik. Tell me what the hell is going on. Why this charade?”

  “Uncle,” Ace starts after checking his phone. He leans in to Malik and whispers something.

  Malik nods. Ace rises and walks out of the room using the same door the girl had. Malik returns his attention to me.

  “I really would love to know why you’re doing all this before I kill you,” I say.

  “So confident.” His face twists into something dark. “So arrogant.”

  “I trusted you.”

  “That’s not your fault, Zachary. I’m an excellent liar.”

  “What am I doing here? Why am I not dead?”

  “You’re too useful to be dead. It’d be a waste to kill you.” There’s a sound in the hallway, a scuffle of some kind. We both glance toward the door, and Malik smiles, rising as he finishes his sentence. “Although, I will if I have to.”

  The door opens and once again, when I begin to rise, that hand falls on my shoulder. But when I see Eve being brought inside, instinct kicks in and in two moves, the soldier is on his back on the floor, my boot crushing his windpipe, my hand closed over his gun, ready to take it. Use it.

  “No, no, no,” Malik says calmly, and when I turn my head, Armen’s holding Eve against him, a blade at her neck.

  I stop. Take my hand from the weapon. Move my foot.

  “Let her go,” I command.

  Armen’s icy eyes lock on mine, but he doesn’t do what I say. Not that I expect him to.

  Malik moves toward us, looks down at the guard who is slowly making his way up to his feet. Malik shakes his head, a smile on his lips. One that could be tender if it wasn’t lethal.

  “Zachary,” he says, eyes still on the fallen soldier. “I changed my mind. Take the weapon and put a bullet between his eyes.”

  I look at Malik and realize in that moment that this is a different man than I knew. This one, he’s ruthless. Evil.

  When I don’t move, he meets my stare. “Her life or his. Your choice.”

  I look at Eve, who’s staring at me with big, frightened eyes.

  “Armen,” Malik says, still watching me. “Motivate Zachary.”

  A dark streak of red mars the otherwise perfect skin of Eve’s neck. He’s cut into her. It’s shallow, but he’s still cutting. She makes a sound, tears spilling down her face now, and before I can think, I’ve got the gun in my hand, I take aim between the soldier’s eyes and pull the trigger.

  Except nothing happens.

  The soldier stares back at me, dumbfounded, and from the quickly darkening circle on his pants, I know he’s pissed himself.

  Malik laughs, gestures for Armen to stop, which he does. I look at Eve, at the line of red at her throat. Shallow. Armen knows how to kill. How to hurt. He was careful not to do the former. But is this a game? Is it planned? Rehearsed, even?

  I open the chamber of the gun. It’s empty.

  Malik walks toward us, still laughing, although it’s fading now. But when he takes a look at the piss-darkened pants, the smile disappears and this time when a gun is fired, it’s his, and it’s real. Eve screams. No one else makes a sound. The man lies flat on the floor, a bullet between his still-open eyes, blood pooling behind his head.

  “Coward,” Malik says, holstering his weapon. He gestures to two soldiers who come to take the body away. “I have a great distaste for cowards.”

  I’m watching Eve. Tears still pour down her face and she can’t stop staring at the dead man, at the blood where he lay just moments ago. But she doesn’t know Malik. The moment Malik told me to shoot him, he pronounced his death sentence. It’s why he’s so powerful.

  In the next instant, Julia enters the room and shoves at Eve, which forces Armen to release his death grip on her. She strides toward Malik. “Uncle,” she says, kissing his cheek. If she’s noticed the blood on the floor, she isn’t moved.

  He smiles at her, studies her for a long minute before kissing her cheek. I wonder to myself if this is a different girl than the one I knew two years ago, because that Julia, she wouldn’t have kissed the cheek of a man who had just murdered a defenseless man. Would she?

  “Let’s move to the veranda,” Malik says. A girl walks in with a mop as our group makes its way out. Malik waits to walk beside me. “They’re not all empty,” he whispers to me as if we’re in cahoots. “It makes things interesting.” I realize he’s referring to the guns.

  “Let her go, Malik. She has nothing to do with this.”

  He shrugs and gestures to a guard when I don’t move. The man joins us. This one has a rifle slung across his shoulder and he’s nudging me forward. I walk out the door and through the outside hall, taking in the view of mountains and sea in the distance, the calm, quiet surroundings. The two monks walking across the otherwise empty courtyard.

  “It’s nice here,” he says to me once we reach the veranda. “Peaceful.”

  It’s large, with beautiful pillars for support, and set with comfortable furniture. Armen sits Eve on one. Julia sits beside her, taking her hand. I know she’s squeezing it, digging her nails into Eve’s skin from the look on Eve’s face. But Eve’s doesn’t pull away. She’s only watching me.

  I take a step toward Eve. Julia releases her hand and I’m not sure if I’ll be stopped along the way, but I’m not. I crouch down before her, take her bound hands in mine. “You okay?” I ask her.

  She shakes her head no.

  “You will be. I promise.”

  “Aww. So tender,” Malik says from behind me. “But you really shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  The hair on the back of my neck stands on end and I rise to face him.

  He takes a stroll around the room, giving me a chance to count guards. Two at the door, one at either end. Two more on a sort of watchtower. All have machine guns slung over their shoulders and I have a feeling these are not empty of bullets.

  “I knew it the day of the auction. Saw it in your eyes when her brother brought her up on that stage.” Malik smiles wide as if he’s talking of some fond memory. “Such a pretty girl,” he says, looking at Eve’s face. He turns to me. “It saved her life, that look. That love.” The way he says that last word, it’s meant to taunt.

  But it doesn’t. It has a different effect.

  It makes my heart stop for just a moment.

  “That look saved her life,” Malik repeats. His tone is suddenly sharp when he next speaks, calling out Julia’s name. With a gesture, he tells her to move. She does.

  “Sit, Zachary.”

  “Fuck you, Malik.”

  His face hardens. I guess he’s not used to people talking to him that way. “I said s
it.”

  I step toward him. “I don’t much feel like sitting. Tell me what the hell you want. You could have killed me a hundred times over by now. Clearly, you don’t want me dead. So what is it you do want?”

  When he comes to stand closer, I see how empty his eyes look. Soulless. I wonder if it’s how mine look. He stops when we’re inches from each other, but I guess he didn’t take into consideration the fact that I’m taller. And I like the advantage, so I step even nearer.

  “You want to know what I want?” he asks.

  From my periphery, I see a guard step up. Malik gives a nod and a hand lands on my shoulder, pushing me down. Down until I’m on my knees.

  “I want to have a little fun,” he says, nodding. That’s the last thing I see before a sharp pain at my temple makes my vision go black, and Eve’s scream is the last thing I hear when I crash down onto the unforgiving marble, everything fading from consciousness.

  21

  Eve

  Three military vehicles drive us over rough, bumpy unpaved roads. I know where we’re going. My wrists are still bound and Julia sits beside me in the backseat of one vehicle. Whenever I look at her, she’s looking out the window, holding onto the bar over the window as we bounce along. At one point, she takes out her cell phone, switches it on. I see her scroll through the contacts, but when she catches me watching, she pockets it and turns her face away.

  One armed guard sits in the front seat beside the driver, and the glances he gives me make my skin crawl.

  Armen and Ace are riding in the same vehicle as Malik. Zach’s unconscious body was dumped into the trunk area of the third Jeep. I touch my neck, grateful Malik ordered someone to bandage it up. I can still feel my brother’s grip as he held me, hear his uneven breath at my ear as he sliced into my flesh. The memory makes me shudder.

  I wonder how far he’s willing to go to prove his loyalty.

  Will he kill me if he’s ordered to?

  And what about Zach? What will happen to Zach?

  Night has fallen by the time we get to the site of the auction. The three vehicles stop in a sort of semicircle, their headlights illuminating the ruins of the building. I can’t open my door from the inside so I have to wait until the soldier opens it. He takes my arm, but I shove it away, stumbling out on my own. The trucks cast an eerie glow over the space, almost making me think I can see the ghosts of the dead, like they still haunt this place. And maybe they do. They will, until they’ve been avenged. The wrong righted.

  But a moment later, a thud to my right catches my attention. It’s Zach. They’ve dumped him on the ground, but he’s moving. He’s waking up. The skin at his temple is blue and swollen, and blood has dried and created a crust on his cheek. His hands are bound with rope and he blinks hard, looking around. I know the reality of where we are is coming back to him. I can see recognition dawning on his face. I think about his back, the names tattooed there. I wonder if he feels them now, burning onto his flesh. Reminding him why he’s here. Reminding him that he lived and they died and that he needs to be strong for himself, for them. The pain on his face tells me he’s remembering just that and I think back to when he’d brought me here just a day ago.

  Was it only a day? It feels like an eternity has passed since then.

  In that moment, Zach catches my eye. My heart thuds against my chest when I look at him, and I know we’re going to die here. We’re both going to die tonight in the very place where maybe we both should have died two years ago. Maybe the last two years were borrowed time for us both.

  My throat closes up but I bite back the tears when two men haul Zach to his feet. He grunts, but stands straight and tall. Taller than the others. Bigger. Stronger.

  But unarmed.

  I take a step toward him, drawn to him, but Julia’s hand wraps around my arm and drags me backward. When I look at her, she doesn’t speak. Just sneers.

  “Here we are,” Malik says, stepping over a barrier and into what would have been the interior of the building. Ace is close behind him. “Back again. The spirits of the dead haunt this place,” he says casually, picking up a strip of cloth from the ground. For all the dirt, I recognize the pattern. It was a piece of the dress I’d worn that day. The one Armen tore from me.

  “Did you orchestrate the auction just to kill the men you once led?” Zach asks, his voice powerful, proud. The men walk him into the building’s perimeter as Malik watches. “Men who mourned your death.”

  “You know, strange thing. Guilt isn’t something I’ve ever felt.”

  “Makes sense. Psychopaths typically don’t feel remorse.”

  Malik’s grin falters, just for an instant, but it’s long enough for me to see it. He turns to Julia. “Bring the girl.”

  The men holding Zach stand taller, and I know he’s just tried to break free.

  I stumble as Julia shoves me forward. In my periphery, I see Armen. See him stand by and watch.

  “How did it go?” Malik asks when I’m a few feet from him. He turns to Armen. “Do you remember?”

  Armen’s forehead is creased and he won’t look at me. It’s so strange to see him like this. His eyes so gentle, yet him so…not.

  “You want me, Malik. She has nothing to do with this. Let her go. I’ll do what you want.” It’s Zach. A moment after he speaks, one of the soldiers jabs the butt of his machine gun into Zach’s ribs. Zach grunts, hunches over, and I see the effort it takes him to straighten. To keep his face hard, impassable.

  “But you don’t even know what it is I want,” Malik says.

  He grabs my arm roughly and throws me to Armen, who catches me, holds me, keeps me facing away from him so I can watch the interaction between Zach and Malik.

  Malik looks to one of the soldiers, the one who drove the vehicle Julia and I rode in. “Take my niece home.”

  “Uncle!”

  “This isn’t something for a woman to see,” he tells her.

  “But—”

  “Go home to Hope.”

  “Please—”

  Malik nods to the driver who opens the passenger side door for her. “I said go, Julia.”

  She takes in a deep breath, turns her attention to Armen. I glance at him, find his eyes locked on hers, their gaze intense. Maybe they’re not sure who will walk away tonight either.

  Armen nods, and, without a word, Julia turns, takes the few steps toward the Jeep and disappears inside. The driver pulls away, crunching branches and leaves beneath the heavy tires. With one set of headlights gone, the space is even more eerie.

  “Where were we?” Malik asks, turning to me.

  I know what he’s going to do. He’s planned this. He’s been waiting for this moment for two years.

  “Yes, the girl. Armen, do you remember? I want it done exactly the same. It was such a sight, that I want to see it again.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Zach asks.

  He knows what’s coming too. I can hear it in his voice.

  Malik looks at him, but doesn’t respond. Not right away. Instead, he shifts his eyes to Armen. “What are you waiting for? Now’s your chance to prove your loyalty.”

  I swear I can hear Armen swallow and with my back against him, I feel his heart thudding against his chest. But then he obeys, walking me toward the platform, or the remaining part of it, where he’d stood me before. Where he’d stripped me.

  “Walk,” he says quietly when we get to the stone steps. There are three of them. That night two years ago, I hadn’t had to climb them. I’d been backstage, so to speak. Hidden behind a curtain, knocked unconscious and bound, awaiting my debut.

  The sound of a vehicle approaching, radio loud, makes us both stop. When I look at the company collected, the only man unsurprised by the approach is Malik. I know why a moment later.

  A truck takes the place of the one that drove Julia away. This one has a back covered by camouflage material that blows in the slight breeze. I watch dust and dirt settle in the headlights as the engine is shut off, plunging
us into near silence, at least momentarily. Armen’s hand tightens around my arm as soldiers unload from the back.

  “Malik,” Zach says over the sound of it, of a dozen men in military fatigues crunching ground beneath their boots, piling into the perimeter of the building and I only realize I’m crying when I taste the salt of my own tears.

  Zach’s fighting. He’s fighting so hard, two more men have come to help the soldiers holding him back.

  “Armen,” I start, turning my head. “What’s going to happen?” I know though. I know.

  Armen’s eyes are wide. Locked on the men whose heads and faces are covered with scarves, the same pattern as those most of the men wore that night. I wonder if he recognizes them. If he knew they’d be here, or if Malik planned this part himself.

  “Don’t look at them,” he says in a voice low enough that only I hear it. “Don’t think.” Our eyes lock and in the glistening tears I glimpse inside, I see his apology.

  “Malik!” Zach’s voice is louder than that of the truck when it approached, than that of a dozen sets of boots marching to take their places in this sick reenactment of that terrible night.

  “Armen,” Malik says, smiling, sitting on the edge of the stone wall, his stance casual. “Begin.”

  A roar breaks into the night. It’s Zach. But no one pays any attention to him. Not when Armen releases my arm and comes to stand in front of me. That tenderness, the vulnerability I saw in his eyes a moment ago is gone, but his hand trembles when he grips the front of my dress.

  I think he mouths the words I’m sorry. But maybe that’s just in my own head.

  “Don’t do this,” I say, tears falling down my face, onto the back of his arm. “Don’t.”

  He looks at me. He just stands there looking at me. And I know he’s not going to do it.

  But I also know what it will cost him.