The Paper Swan

by Leylah Attar

  “Let me see.” He rolled me over and returned the favor, his lips taking full advantage of my exposed back. “Mmmm. You’re right. Not a grain. Just smooth, silky skin.”

  I squirmed as his fingers slid under my dress, raising it higher, until it was wrapped around my waist.

  “God. This ass.” He pulled my panties down and kneaded the flesh. “No sand here either,” he mumbled, leaving teeth marks on my skin.

  I kept my shoes on. And the necklace of seashells. Damian let me ride him. I think he liked the sight of me like that, in the moonlight. He kept his hands on my hips, trying to control the rhythm, and I kept slapping them away. We went back and forth for a while until the games dissolved, until passion overtook and we began moving as one.

  The roughened pad of Damian’s thumb found my clit and he flicked it, on, off, on, off, like a switch that allowed me sharp, spiky peaks of pleasure, and then took it away. Each time I moaned, his mouth fell open, as if we were connected by some invisible thread. Damian was focused on my face, my body, like he was recording every moment, every movement. His strokes pushed me closer and closer to the edge. I rocked against the hard length of him, driving him just as crazy, reaching, reaching, reaching, until we exploded in spirals of liquid fire. I collapsed over him, heated and flushed, my heart hammering in my chest as he wrapped his arms around me.

  We were both quiet in the aftermath, at a loss because it was at once beautiful and scary—beautiful because when we were together, we were whole and complete, and scary because we knew there was no turning back. We were too far gone to take any of it back.

  I put away the pile of clothes that lay scattered in the bedroom and slipped into one of Damian’s shirts. I had to fold back the sleeves, but it was soft and warm, and fell just short of my knees. Twenty-one days ago, I’d abhorred putting on his t-shirt, yet here I was, burying my nose in the fabric because I couldn’t get enough of his smell.

  I walked into the living room and found Damian sitting on the couch, with his gun dismantled on the coffee table.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Cleaning my gun.”

  I watched silently as he reassembled it. The familiarity with which he held it, the precision of his movements, reminded me of the path down which he’d come. He was getting ready for tomorrow, in case we ran into trouble in Paza del Mar, in the cemetery where MaMaLu was buried. I knew Damian would not hesitate to use that gun if anything or anyone threatened to take me away from him.

  “Damian, how long are we going to hide?”

  He reloaded the gun and looked at me. “You want to go back?”

  “You know that’s not what I mean. I could spend my whole life here, with you. I’m just tired of the uncertainty, of not knowing what happens next. I’m scared for you and what would happen if they find us. I think we should talk to someone, someone who can intervene with the authorities and help us figure out a way to resolve the situation.”

  “You’re saying we should talk to your father, turn ourselves in? Correction. I should turn myself in so you can intervene on my behalf? Ask him to go easy, because we both know he’d do anything for you?”

  “It’s not like that—”

  “It’s exactly like that, Skye. I’ve been ready to face the consequences all along, from the time I shoved you into the trunk of your car. I knew what I was getting into, but I had nothing to lose. Now I do. I have you, and I won’t let anyone take that away. As long as that’s what you want. But if you think you can have both me and your father in your life, you’re wrong. Either you’re with him, or you’re with me.”

  “You’re not being fair, Damian.”

  “Fair? You want to talk about fair? I pushed you away, Skye. Time and time again, but you wouldn’t stop. You kept tearing down my defenses until I couldn’t fight you anymore. I’m in love with you, Skye. Bare, stripped down, completely vulnerable, in love. And this whole situation kills me because I know it’s tearing you up. But I can’t help the way I feel about your father. I hated him then and I hate him now. Mark my words, Skye, I’m going to make him pay.”

  My head throbbed; my heart throbbed. The vendetta between Damian and my father stood like a fang-baring monster, ripping to shreds everything good and true and precious between us. It was eating us up with dead, dark futility.

  “You want to make someone pay for what happened to MaMaLu? Here.” I took the gun he was holding and pointed it to myself. “It was me. I ran into the room that afternoon. I’m the reason MaMaLu was there. I set the whole thing in motion. So shoot me, Damian.”

  The gun was flush against my chest, rising and falling with every breath.

  “You had it right all along,” I said. “It should have ended on the boat the night you abducted me. So let’s put a stop to this thirst for revenge. Once and for all. Shoot me, Damian. And when you’re done, shoot yourself too. Because I came looking for you, because I knew you were hiding in that hutch.”

  Our hands stayed on the gun, our eyes locked. I could feel Damian’s thoughts, the force of his ragged emotions. I wanted to wrap my arms around him, to pull him out of the turmoil, but this was a web only he could untangle himself from. By going along with this, by doing nothing, I was essentially saying ‘yes’ to the darkness that had tormented him for years, a darkness that would only disappear when he let it go.

  I lowered the gun and placed it back on the coffee table, next to the paper giraffe note that I’d tried to fold up again.

  “It’s either this or that.” I pointed to one and then the other. “You can either choose love or you can choose hate, because where one lives, the other will die.”

  Damian kept his eyes on the two objects, equally torn in both directions.

  “Tomorrow morning, whatever you leave on the table will tell me, whether we part ways in Paza del Mar or not. Whatever you choose, Damian, know that I will always, always love you.”

  He looked at me, with eyes that punched me right in the gut. “I told you I would only disappoint you.”

  I cradled his face between my hands. “You told me ‘love don’t die’.”

  I left him there, on the flamingo couch that was still stained with his blood, knowing there would be no sleep that night, not for him and not for me. And I knew with resounding finality that there was nothing fair about life.

  I OPENED MY EYES AND reached for Damian. Morning had come, but he was gone. Today was the day we were going to visit MaMaLu’s grave, and sitting on the coffee table was an answer to the question I’d left Damian with. I sank back under the sheets, not sure if I really wanted to know.

  Two brilliant yellow butterflies flitted through hazy sunbeams. Sometimes birds went in and out of the open windows, sometimes geckos and the kind of bugs that would have had me screaming bloody murder at one time. Damian had changed me, and I had changed him. We were like the shells we had once picked for MaMaLu—all the hard parts worn so thin that we could see right through each other. And no matter what happened today, no matter what lay waiting for me on that coffee table, we would always be like those iridescent slivers of light, pieces of a time and space removed from everyone and everything else.

  I walked into the kitchen and poured myself some coffee. It felt too quiet, padding around by myself, avoiding the one thing that was screaming for my attention. I turned on the CD player. “Roads” by Portishead. Bleak, vulnerable, desolate, beautiful. It sent an icy chill running down my spine. Or maybe that was just the apprehension of walking into the living room. I scanned the walls, the fan on the ceiling, the indent on the couch where Damian had been sitting, until my eyes ran out of excuses, until I couldn’t avoid looking at what he’d left behind for me.

  5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . .

  My gaze fell on the coffee table. I was doomed to cry either way, whether I found the gun or the paper giraffe. But Damian had spared me the dark, shattered tears. There, lying on the glass was his folded note, propped up on four spindly legs. His gun was sitting on the shelf, like a piece of ret
ired memorabilia, along with dog-eared books and mismatched souvenirs.

  I put my coffee down and picked up the giraffe. It was so much bigger than the space it took up, so much heavier than it weighed. I knew what it must have taken Damian to lock up his demons, but he had done it. For me.

  A distant whoomp-whoomp-whoomp mixed in with the music. I figured the song was transitioning into the next track, but the noise grew louder. It was coming from behind me now, close enough that I could recognize it. The whirring, sonic boom of helicopter blades.

  Fuck.

  I ran outside, barefoot in a t-shirt, knowing Damian had gone to get mangoes for me, like he did every morning. One helicopter was already on the ground, while a second was landing on the beach in a flurry of sand and grit. Armed men in camouflaged gear were everywhere, running towards the jungle.

  “Miss? Miss Sedgewick?” One of the men pulled me back. “Are you all right?”

  I tore free of him and ran towards the mangoes that were scattered in the shadows of the trees. They were covered in blood.

  “Where is he?” I grabbed the man who was yelling something about getting me to safety. “Is he hurt? Take me to him!”

  But he wouldn’t listen. He started dragging me back to one of the choppers. The sickening bratatat of machine guns came from the jungle. Another helicopter swept over us, scanning the ground below. A crackly voice issued rapid commands over the man’s radio device. The air was thick with the hunt for Damian—all these men tracking him down—but all I could see was the trail of blood that led from the mangoes.

  Damian had been coming back to me when they’d ambushed him. I closed my eyes and lived the horror of it: a bullet ripping through him, mangoes rolling to the ground, his blood staining their spotted yellow-green skins; Damian picking himself up, stumbling into the trees for cover, while I poured myself a cup of coffee.

  A cup of fucking coffee.

  I knew exactly where to go. I knew where Damian was—holed up in the wooden shack, as they closed in on him, with nothing to protect himself, because I’d made him give up his gun.

  Oh God. What I have done?

  I broke free and ran into the trees, not caring about the bullets that were zinging past me and ricocheting off the trees in flying splinters of wood and bark.

  “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” someone screamed as I stormed into the shack. I knew they wouldn’t shoot as long as I was with Damian, as long as there was any chance I’d get caught in the crossfire.

  I stood by the door, panting, as my eyes adjusted to the room.

  He was propped up in the corner, like a trapped animal, gripping his thigh, his sweatpants soaked with blood.

  “Get out of here, Skye.” He might have been hurt, but his voice was steely—calm and controlled.

  “Let me have that.” I took a strip of fabric from him. It was torn off his shirt, the one that was stained with faded strawberry splotches.

  “It’s just a flesh wound,” he said, as I wrapped it around his leg, my fingers shaking as I tied it into a tight knot. “You need to leave. Now.”

  “Skye!” We both turned at the sound of my father’s voice.

  He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. My father took great pride in his appearance, but today he looked like hell. There was no sharp crease in his pants; his shirt hung wrinkled and limp around his shoulders.

  “I found you.” He stared at me like he couldn’t believe it, like I was an apparition that would disappear if he blinked. “Are you all right?”

  I went to him, knowing he had moved heaven and earth to get here, not sleeping, not eating, not resting. “Dad.”

  He gave me three gray-whiskered kisses, then three more, then three more, before engulfing me in his hug. “I didn’t know if I was ever going to see you again.”

  We stayed like that for a while until his eyes settled on Damian. I felt his arms tighten around me. “You.” He spat out. “You’re going to pay for every second you’ve made her suffer.”

  “Dad, no.” I shifted so we were facing away from Damian. “Listen to me. I need to expla—” I stopped mid-sentence, noticing the man who stood behind my dad for the first time. He looked oddly familiar, with a dark, menacing air that reminded me of what was waiting outside.

  “Señor Sedgewick,” he said. “My men are ready to escort you and Skye back to the chopper. Don’t worry. He’s not going anywhere.” He pointed his gun at Damian.

  Damian’s gaze swung from the man to my father, and back again. He was on the floor, with his injured leg stretched out before him, but his fists were clenched, his jaw clamped tight.

  “Good,” said my father, pulling me towards the door. “You know what to do, Victor.”

  Suddenly, I understood the look in Damian’s eyes, the reason why the man had seemed so familiar. My father had hired Victor Madera, his ex-bodyguard, to track us down, and there, in the shack, after so many years, the two men were together again—the men who had taken MaMaLu away from Damian. And now they were taking me away too. Damian had put away his vengeance, but I could feel it rising now, like a crimson tide ready to crash around us.

  “No. Stop!” I wrenched my hand away from my father and stood between the men and Damian. “No one touches him.”

  “Skye?” My father looked bewildered. “What are you doing? Get away from him.”

  “Back off,” I said to Victor, who had stepped forward, his gun aimed at Damian.

  “It’s okay.” Victor inched forward. His hair was gray at the temples, but he was still in good shape. “You’re suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. It happens. Just step away from him and listen to your father.”

  “Skye, honey.” My father beckoned. “You’re safe now. He has no hold over you. Come. Take my hand. I promise it’s going to be all right.”

  “I am all right! Can’t you see? I’m fine. I just need you to listen to me. Please, just listen.”

  “Okay, okay. You’re fine.” My father’s eyes settled on the splint around my finger. He exchanged a look with Victor. “Let’s talk about this outside.”

  “No! Right here. Right now. I’m not leaving him.” I could see the torment in my father’s eyes, the incomprehension, but I knew he’d understand once I told him the truth about who Damian was, about why he’d done this. He had to.

  “Remember Esteb—” I didn’t get any further.

  Victor yanked me towards him, grasping me by the waist. “Take her,” he said to my father. “Go!”

  That split second of taking his eyes off Damian cost him. Damian struck with lightning precision, tackling Victor’s ankles. Victor fell back on the workbench. Rusty pliers and hammers and nails cluttered to the floor as it tipped over. The two men wrestled on the ground, each trying to reach for the gun that lay a few inches from their grasp.

  “Don’t!” I stopped my father from grabbing the gun, clenching on to his arm.

  “What’s wrong with you? Snap out of it, Skye!”

  Damian and Victor were still struggling. Victor on top, then Damian, then Victor again. Damian kicked the gun out of the way. Then Victor was up and he was kicking Damian. He drove his thick, heavy boots into Damian’s ribs, his stomach, the wound on his leg. Again and again.

  History was repeating itself. I knew Damian was back outside the gates of Casa Paloma, broken and battered, as Victor pummeled him. I knew the rage, the hurt, the sense of injustice that was flooding through his veins. But Damian wasn’t twelve years old anymore, and Victor was past his prime. Most of all, Damian had years and years of bottled-up wrath, clamoring to be set free.

  Damian’s fingers closed around the hacksaw that was lying on the ground, and all of his fury exploded in a single move, a gash so deep that when it was done, the teeth of the saw remained lodged deep in Victor’s bone.

  Victor staggered back, watching the blood spurt from his arm like he was in some kind of horrific trance. Damian had cleaved the flesh right under his elbow. The rest of his arm hung from the joint, dead and
limp. Blood pooled at Victor’s feet, splattering on his rough, tan boots. Then Victor fell to his knees, swaying for a few beats, before his face hit the floor.

  What happened next was over in a few seconds, but it unfolded before my eyes in excruciatingly slow, clear detail, like I was stuck in some parallel universe, unable to save the two men that I loved. They both lunged for the gun, but Damian got to it first.

  “No!” I shielded my father from him.

  “We can still get out of here, Skye.” Damian limped as he took a step towards me. “We walk out. I take you as hostage. No one will shoot.”

  “You step out of this shack and you die,” said my father.

  “Stop it.” I whirled around, from one to the other. “Both of you. Just stop it!”

  “Skye.” Damian held his hand out, the other still pointing the gun at my dad.

  “Don’t listen to him. Come to me, Skye.” My father held his hand out.

  I stood between them and felt the whole shack tilting like a see-saw, with me at the pivot point, three kisses on one side, a paper giraffe on the other. Damian’s life was on the line; my father’s life was on the line. One of them was going down, and it was up to me to decide who.

  “I love him, Dad,” I said.

  “You think you love him, but he’s a monster. Take my hand, Skye, and let the men look after it.”

  Damian’s whole face changed with those three words.

  Look after it, and MaMaLu had been taken away from him.

  Look after it, and they would take me away, too.

  No. This time Warren Sedgewick was not going to have his way. This time Damian was going to look after it. I could see it in the way his whole body tensed, the way it had before he chopped my finger off, the way it had when he thought I was going to jump off the boat.

  Damian was blind to everything except the raw pain in his heart. The wound I had tried to heal with love was ripped open. Vengeance oozed from it, infecting everything sweet and kind and soft, obliterating the tender shoots that were starting to bud through. There was no more Skye, just darkness and dust and a plague of bitter, black memories.