“If you don’t mind, I need to get started on the washing. Will you be all right for an hour or so?”
Kent nods.
A thrill curls my toes. An hour.
He pulls a chair beside me and takes a seat, his legs spread wide as only a guy would do. His knees almost touch me, and I know if I move even a little bit, I’ll feel him. After a moment’s hesitation he draws the bowl in front of him, spoons up a dab of the sticky-looking mess, and holds it to my lips.
“Will you do this for me?” His voice is soft.
I open my mouth. The porridge is just as tacky as it looks, and although it’s not nearly as difficult as last night’s stew, I choke.
He strokes the side of my face. “You can do it, Bianca. Try.”
My eyes water with the effort, but I get it down. I’m breathing hard, and I palm my eyes. I’m so fucked up. How can he stand to look at me?
“No.” He captures my fingers and gently pulls them away. “Did I say you could lift your hands?”
His words free something inside me, and the magnetic exchange begins to flow. He spoons the tiniest nibbles into my mouth, and slowly I learn to let the stuff slide down my throat. Each time, he rewards me with reverence. I do this because he asks me to. I do it because it pleases him.
He mutters soft things at me like good girl and see, you’re doing it and it’s not so bad, is it? If he asked, I would walk to the moon and back.
“Look. You finished it.” He squeezes my hand. “I’m proud of you.”
He gets up from his chair, and the magic falls away. It’s all over, and my chest tightens. I can’t bear it.
“Bianca.”
He recaptures my hand and draws me to my feet.
“There are a couple things I’d like you to do for me.” He caresses my shoulders.
Anything. I’d do anything for him. I tell him so without a single word.
He smiles, but it’s sad, and the scars seem more pronounced than usual. I want to touch him, to heal him, but it’s not my place. That belongs to Ayden.
I blink. I retreat a step.
He seizes my chin. “Don’t look away.”
He’s gone military, and my training kicks in. My eyes snap to his, and his stern frown holds me hostage.
“I noticed your bed wasn’t made.”
I frown. “How…”
“When we were washing our hands. Your door was open.”
Oh.
“After I’m gone, I want you to go in there and make your bed. Hospital corners and crisp sheets. I don’t want Janice to see a single wrinkle. Can you do that?”
Make my bed? What for?
“Bianca?”
“Okay.” I blink like I’m returning from a fog. Only there is no fog, just tangled ropes of confusion.
“Will you stay away from knives? For me?”
I suck in my breath.
“Just until tomorrow, when I return.”
I bite my lip against a powerful surge of hope. He’s coming back. I nod.
He moves closer. He brushes his thumb over my lower lip. His pupils expand, and the sensuality in his expression rivets me. I think he’s going to say something, but then he looks away and when he comes back, kindness has replaced the intensity. I do my best to accept this, to be grateful. I know anything more is impossible. I’m crazy as fuck. I’m broken. He’s beaten me dead, and the ghost of it all will always stand between us. He needs a Letitia. He needs an Ayden. He doesn’t need…
The small of my back tingles with the ghost memory of his hand. It grows into a sting at the reminder of what I am.
He moves away. His smile is fond, no more. “It would please me if you were here for me tomorrow.”
In other words, don’t kill myself. He needn’t ask. There’s no possible way I can end it if I know he’ll come to me. Touch me. Give me crumbs to lick from the floor that I can hold against my heart and cherish. It’s embarrassing. No, mortifying. I’m a weak, tangled, fucked-up girl who belongs in a dog kennel. I don’t look at him. I choke on my own self-disgust. But I nod.
“You’ll be here for me?”
“I’ll be here.” Always.
I watch him get into the waiting car. I watch the door slam shut and the car back out the drive. Not until the car disappears around the corner does the drop come.
And it’s brutal.
I’m whore again. I’m nothing.
I nearly sag down onto the couch. I want to force myself into a long, hopefully dreamless sleep, but then my hands tingle and I remember how he folded me against him, intertwined my hands in his under the lukewarm water.
I promised.
I trudge back to my bedroom. The pillow at the head of the bed is all bunched up; another lies on the floor. The covers hang over the side.
But at the foot, folded crisply and dear, is a cherry-red cotton tank trimmed with matching lace, and a soft pair of plaid flannel bottoms.
I pick them up, careful not to disturb the folds, and gently place them on the dresser. I make hospital corners with the sheets and smooth them flat. I right the covers. I whip them straight and neat without a single wrinkle, and the dust ruffle peeks out precisely eight inches from the floor—no more, no less. I plump the pillows. When that’s done, and only when it’s perfect, I put his gift back where he left it.
It’ll be there tonight, waiting for me.
Tomorrow I’ll be waiting for him.
~ ~ ~
Janice pokes her head through the bathroom door. “Doing okay?”
I blush with my entire body and draw my knees to my chest. “Fine.”
“Okay.” Mercifully other than that one quick glance, she doesn’t look at me. “I’ll be just out here cleaning the baseboards if you need anything.”
I sit naked in three inches of lukewarm water. The tub is smaller than the one we had at the Mason house, so the water ration ordinarily would sit higher. Just not for me. The door remains open, and every few minutes Janice pokes her head in. I haven’t tried to kill myself recently, and it would be kind of hard to drown myself in what little water there is, but she’s still careful. Unlike at the Biltmore, there are no scents available to me, but homemade soap is fine. In fact it’s special. It’s the same piece that Kent used to lather his hands. He’s not due for another hour, if not more, and I lean back in the water. I run the bar under my arms, and I think about asking Janice to shave away the hair that’s accumulated. It’s embarrassingly long—well over two month’s growth. She’s nervous about sharp instruments, especially near me. So instead, I give myself a scrub and then run the soap over my breasts. I’ve lost my C’s. I’d be surprised if they’re even B’s. I’m thin, very thin, and no man would look at the ribs outlined through my skin with anything but disgust. Even if I gain a few pounds, fill out the way Kent liked me, I’ll never make any man proud again.
I lather my hands and scrub my crotch with no thought to anything but getting clean. I’m just setting the soap onto its holder when there’s a crash at the front door.
I let out a yelp and grip the sides of the tub. Wood splinters and angry male voices send my pulse racing.
Not again. Not again…I hyperventilate as I try to make sense of what I hear.
The front door crashes back against the wall.
“What are you doing?” Fear salts Janice’s voice. “Get out of my house!”
Old carpet muffles the thunk of heavy boots, but there’s no mistaking the crisp, authoritative sound of a soldier’s voice. “Where’s the girl?”
My chest heaves as I search the room for a place to hide. I fix on the cabinet under the sink. Is it big enough? Will they hear me if I move?
“You stay away from her!” Janice sounds like a frightened bird.
“Where is she? In there?”
“What’s wrong with you?” Janice demands. “She’s a little girl!”
Only seconds later the bathroom door smacks off the wall, and I shrink to the back of the tub.
“Get her,” one of th
em says, and three Barry uniforms converge on me. I scream, I swear to God, I scream, but I could call loud enough for General Balenchuk to hear me and it wouldn’t do me any good.
Janice hops onto the back of the one nearest to her. With a curse he peels her off and sends her flying.
One grabs my leg, another my arm, and together they drag me from the tub, naked and dripping, spewing a string of useless mews. The one with sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve seizes me by the neck and slams me against the wall. My head bounces off the plaster, and my feet don’t even reach the ground. I choke.
“You ugly cunt.” He’s so close that bits of his spit land on my cheek. “You just couldn’t listen.”
Nico. Oh God. Or was it Ayden? Lord, please, not Kent. Despair swallows me, and I try to find the trees, but the only one I find is one buried deep in snow with a big fat trunk and a bit of root sticking up through the snow. It smells like blood.
“God-fucking-damn it!”
Abruptly the pressure against my throat falls away, and I drop to the floor. I land on my side just as the sergeant is smashed, face-first, into the ceramic tile. I lie nearby gasping for breath as he’s smashed over and over until his nose is misshapen, his forehead looks funny, and his eyes go sightless.
I huddle, knees to chest, ankles crossed to hide my privates, and I shiver. I squeeze my eyes shut. There’s a chipmunk. He holds an acorn between his spiky little fingers. There are lots of acorns on the forest floor and he’s fat. It’s not enough. I’m in a room. Lots of windows. Nothing can touch me anymore. I’m warm and the air is clean and there is no dust. It’s quiet, and I’m almost safe, and then they close the lid and I see nothing.
“It was Captain Barry! I swear, he said you issued the order!”
“What order?” The steel, the cruelty, the promise of death. The voice belongs to Kent.
“He said we were to kill her. Make good and sure she was dead, and then dump the body. He said it came from you!” The man’s voice goes higher, more frantic at the end, and I peek out from my coffin.
Past the bloodied, sightless eyes of my attacker stands another Barry uniform. Kent holds a gun to the soldier’s forehead, and his other hand is wrapped around the man’s neck.
“I gave no such order,” Kent spits. He glares at the man for a moment and then grits his teeth, steps back, and shoves his gun into its holster. “Clean up this goddamn mess. Now. Then wait for me outside. If I see any of you near her again, I’ll kill you.”
Wordlessly Kent scoops me up and carries me to the bedroom. I’ve already made the bed, crisp and perfect, just the way he likes it, so he lays me down across the covers. I roll into a protective ball as he unfolds the decorative quilt. It hovers over me for a pregnant moment, but Kent goes still. It’s like the coil of tension that comes just before the pounce, and my skin prickles.
He flicks the quilt aside. I flinch as he touches a shaking finger to one of my scars. I’m sick as he traces feathery whip lines all the way down to the small of my back. He stops when he reaches the whore.
Why is he doing this to me? Is he admiring his work or regretting it? Is he as sick as I am now that I am impure?
“Who did this?” His voice rumbles with a deadly sort of rage.
I shake my head. I claw against the tangled ropes of confusion. I vomit into my mouth and then swallow it back.
He grips my shoulder hard. “Who did this?”
A few hours ago I would have spread my legs for him and thanked him for the honor. Now my skin rots under the pressure of his hand. “You.”
Although I don’t look, I feel him stiffen. He straightens. “I had no part in this.”
I shake my head, and my body vibrates at this latest betrayal. “Liar.”
My voice breaks.
Swearing, he grasps my shoulder again and rolls me onto my back. The whore is hidden now, but my clearly delineated ribs greet him and he flinches.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. Your own brother was there!” I claw at the hand pressing my shoulder into the mattress. I’d bite him if I could reach.
Kent grabs my hands and pins me down. He climbs on top of me and grips me between his knees. I arch up, trying to buck him off, but he’s heavier than me. Stronger than me. I glare at him, and when I do, I see Kent’s got a bit of crazy going on in his own eyes.
“What happened?” he demands through clenched teeth. “Tell me!”
I roll my eyes shut. My breasts are fully available to him, and their tininess rests against a body that refuses food. But it’s my soul that’s naked. I gasp my last breath of pride.
“Right after you said we were going home,” I begin, my voice filled with all the hatred, betrayal, and grief that’s been festering inside me. “Tish and I were together in our cell when Nico and Ayden came. They brought soldiers—Barry soldiers.”
If I open my eyes, I’ll see the Barry uniform, and if I do, I’ll chew through it until its wearer is dead. “They carried out your orders because you were too close to do what had to be done.”
I force my eyes open. Shock and doubt frost his face, and I want to spit on him. “Don’t you dare tell me it wasn’t you. The soldiers stripped us and chained us naked to the wall, and then Nico and Ayden opened up our backs. The whole time, all I could think about was trust. How could you do this to me, when you knew I’d given everything to you? Ayden had this metal thing heating in a bucket of hot coals. She used it to brand our crimes in the smalls of our backs. ‘Whore’ for me, and whatever, something on Tish too.”
Kent blinks rapidly, taking in my shorn hair, my half-starved body, and shakes his head. “That can’t be.”
Stinking coward! I try to buck him off me again, but all he does is press me farther into the mattress. “Look me straight in the eye and tell me you didn’t have Nico shove us naked and bleeding into dog kennels and send us off to the woods to be shot.”
Kent’s lips part. He glares at me, but…that’s not anger. He shifts his eyes away.
“See? You can’t. All we had was a scratchy piece of wool, and because of our wounds we couldn’t cover ourselves. Tish fought the whole way. She never gave up, not even for a moment.” I am so proud of her. She’s a warrior, a queen.
“What about you?” His voice breaks a little at the end.
What is it he wants from me? Forgiveness? Reassurance that he’s not all monster? I can’t do that. It would be a lie.
I shake my head very slowly. “No. They said you wanted this, and I believed them. I never knew about Dad’s plans, but I just felt like, if you thought I deserved it, then I did. I tried really hard, but I knew I’d never be what you needed me to be. I’m not beautiful like Ayden. I’m not witty, I’m not sleek and sophisticated, and when you yell at me, I don’t punch you like someone like her would. I cry. No, I didn’t fight. My body went numb from the cold, and I thought it was mercy. We smelled like burnt steak, and all I could think about was how much you must hate me, that I never knew you at all.”
He ducks his head and turns away, exposing his burns to me. He seems to notice for the first time that he has me pinned, and abruptly he releases me.
He doesn’t meet my eyes even for a second, and I swear if I didn’t know him better, it looks like he’s going to cry.
He literally backs out of the room.
“Don’t you dare—” begins Janice.
“Go in there and stay with her,” he says, and his tone is anything but military, anything but crisp. His voice shakes. “I’ll send my driver for her mother and that assistant of hers. I don’t want her alone for even a second.”
“What about those soldiers?” demands Janice.
“They’ll stay for now. I’ll send replacements within the hour. They won’t be in uniform, but they’ll carry orders bearing my signature. Kent Stanton Barry. If it’s signed any other way, it didn’t come from me.”
“Okay?”
“After that no one enters or leaves this house. No one.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
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My top hangs on a towel hook, and Mom is very carefully clipping away, then shaving the mess in my armpit when the knocker sounds.
I stiffen. Our eyes meet, and we both listen as Janice opens the door.
“Come in, Colonel. Bianca’s occupied for a moment, but she’ll be out soon.”
Mom sighs. “Honey…”
“It’s okay. Could you do the other side? It’s so gross.”
Mom seems encouraged. She clips the nest under my other arm, soaps it up, and neatly shaves the pit bald.
“There you go, sweetie,” she says and kisses the top of my head. I try not to flinch. She tugs the old Gap sweatshirt from the hook, and I slip it over my head. A mixture of dread and longing tingles down my back as I exit the bathroom and drift down the hall.
It’s odd seeing Kent perched on the edge of the couch, his hat in his hands. He sends my heart fluttering, just as he always has. Just as he always will. He stands as we enter the room.
“Mrs. Mason.” He nods at my mother. Then he turns to me.
He breathes my name, Bianca, and it sounds like flowers spun from gold, blessed by the goddess moon and brought on the backs of winged fairies.
His gaze moves over my eyes, my lips, my hands curled at my sides. It’s like a caress.
Mom stands beside me like a Rottweiler protecting her puppy.
Kent pulls his attention away. “I’d like a private moment with your daughter.”
“No.” It’s the mom voice. It’s the Ha! Absolutely not kind of no that means no way in hell.
She protects me. I love her more every day. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”
She glares. “Don’t you dare—”
“I won’t. Okay?”
Mom inhales and looks away, and with a twist of her lips she holds out her hand for Janice, and the two of them head back for Janice’s bedroom. Leslie trails behind.
He steps closer and my entire being hums to life. It’s like we fit, mind, body, and soul, in a sick, twisted alternate universe that shouldn’t exist but does. He sets his hat on the back of a chair and runs his fingers down my arms, takes my hands, and holds them in his. I can almost hear him gathering his thoughts.
The Other Brother (Snow and Ash Book 3) Page 19