He doesn’t let go.
Chapter Sixteen
Click.
“Would you put that damn thing away?” Declan’s pointing his camera at me. Again. He’s done that a lot lately.
“Can’t. New series, remember?” Click.
“Women in war or something, right? Don’t you need more than one subject?” I turn away from the window and glare at him. His grin only makes me scowl harder.
Gunfire erupts, and from the sounds of it, it’s farther away than yesterday. Small comfort. Since the bombing at the club almost a week ago, I haven’t had the courage to step outside the flat. We have enough food and water to last another day or so, but running this close to the bottom has me on edge. Well, more than I was already.
“Hold that.” Click. He lowers the camera. “Jesus. Bloody good shot there.” Thumbs jumping all over the place, he mutters to himself, then starts rooting around in the camera bag at his feet. He holds up a cable on a triumphant shout and plugs the smaller end into the camera.
He’s done this a few times, gotten lost in his pictures, talking to himself and fiddling with his laptop. I’ve learned not to interrupt him; he gets snarly. The firefight picks up again. The crack of bullets echoes along the streets. I press my nose to the glass and crane my neck as much as possible — right, then left — trying to determine where the fighting is. The closest drop point for supplies is about five blocks away. If the guns are in the opposite direction, I can run over. Getting out of the flat will do me good, though if I think too long about venturing out when guns are actively blazing, I talk myself out of it. Dying of starvation is more appealing than dying of a gunshot wound.
“Nora?” He gestures to the cushion beside him. “I want to show you something.”
Probably one of the many, many pictures he’s taken over the last few days. I wander over to the couch and flop down, squeaking in surprise when he wraps an arm around me and hauls me to his side. A shudder rolls through me as something rumbles in the distance, and his hold tightens. It sort of amazes me how quickly I’ve gotten used to having someone hold me when the battles pick up.
On the screen is a picture of me. There are slight shadows along my cheeks, and my eyes are huge. And sad and scared. It doesn’t take an art genius to see the emotions on the screen.
“This is what I want,” he murmurs. “You’re perfect. Your face shows every facet of this war.” He flips through the pictures, and I’m there — smiling, scowling, staring at some unseen thing. “Everything people associate with violence, you’ve got written on your face. I don’t need any other subjects. Just you.”
I have no words. What am I supposed to say, anyway, to a statement like that? I don’t want to be wanted for what I’ve gone through. Those scars will never go away, and he wants to make them public. For people to fuss over and offer sympathy when they have no business doing so.
“You need my permission, don’t you?” I hate that my voice is shaking. “To sell them, to display them?”
“Technically, yes.” He strokes his hand up and down my arm. Relax, he says, maneuvering me closer to his warmth. “Vulnerability isn’t a sin.” He scrolls until he comes to another picture. Just how many does he have of me? If he were anyone else, I might think it’s sweet. This is Declan, though, and the next time he goes to Murat and Ismael’s, I’m going to go through and delete every single one of them. “Not when its opposite is determination.” Fierce. Fierce and weary, faint lines between my brows, mouth thinned. I’m standing as tall as I can. I remember this shot. I’d managed to talk myself into leaving the flat two days ago. I’d gotten as far as lacing up my sneakers and exchanging my sweater for a more serviceable sweatshirt.
Then gunfire erupted on the street below and I went scurrying into the bedroom.
Declan reported it wasn't actually on the street below, that he couldn’t see it all. It hadn't been enough to convince me to leave the bedroom. I'd stayed huddled in the corner, refusing to let him touch me. I had to get through this one on my own. I had to prove I could. He was making me weak. He left me in the corner and retrieved our newest book, stretching out on the bed to read. We were making solid progress with Middlemarch, and he read until I was calm enough to crawl onto the bed beside him and take a nap.
“If you use that picture to demonstrate determination, I’ll punch you and destroy the photo and the file. You know what happened after you took it.” I can’t stop staring at it. For a brief, brief moment, I’d had courage, something I’d lacked over the last few days. Longer, possibly. A hard commodity to come by, and I could use some now.
He kisses my forehead. The tender gesture stings every time he does it. “Doesn’t matter what happened afterward. It’s what happened during that counts.” He taps the screen. “Think about it,” he says, capturing my chin in his hand. “I look at these, and I see a vibrant, determined woman scared of her own shadow at times, yet unwilling to give up. I see that, and I see something beautiful. I want to show the rest of the world that beauty.”
I stare at him. Every time I convince myself he’s a selfish bastard, he says or does something to make me reconsider. He closes the photo program and I’m stunned to see another picture of me. I’m his desktop background. “Can’t get enough of you.” He grins and captures my mouth in a fierce kiss. “Think the internet gods are with us today?” He’s been trying to access his email for days without luck. When I’d moved in I’d jerry-rigged a modem to the existing landline, giving me slower than slow internet access. It’s spotty at best.
He lets out a whoop as the connection goes through, and he wastes no time accessing his webmail. New mail. He clicks it open, gives it a quick scan, and sends a one word reply before I have a chance to really read it over his shoulder: No.
“No what?” He’s saving the email to his desktop. Smart move, considering the connection could break at any moment.
“Didn’t your mother teach you it’s rude to read over people’s shoulders?” He gives me a look and angles the computer away, the screen no longer in my line of sight.
“Yeah. Your point is?”
He snorts and continues reading. He skims it again, then calmly, deliberately, lowers the lid of the laptop and puts it aside. “I asked them to come up with a plan to get you out. They have. I don’t agree with it.”
Disappointment uncoils in my stomach. “Declan—”
He continues like I haven’t said a word. “I knew they were good, but fuck, they’re good. We’re supposed to meet the team near the southeast roadblock in a week. It’s the most difficult one to patrol for either side, so our chances are good. We’ll need to secure your passport from the embassy, unless they’ve taken it with them.”
Breaking and entering. One more thing to add to my repertoire.
“You’ll have to stay with me for a while, once we get to Galway,” he adds
“That’s all fine and dandy, but I can’t go. I can’t take the risk I’ll get taken into custody and sent to prison once I set foot in another country. Particularly one that’s friendly with the US. My name will be on the, what do they call it — manifest? Passenger load? Nora Eddington, suspected terrorist. Ding ding ding! Alarms go off, guards rush in, and I’m shipped off to a tiny cinderblock room while I wait for an attorney who’d rather be anywhere else to cut through all the red tape.”
“There’s a different name on the passenger list.” Something in his tone makes me go still. Growly. He doesn’t like what he’s about to say.
“What name?” I’m not going to like this. I know it.
He continues like he didn’t hear me. “The team says the easiest and quickest way to get around this is to get married. Buys us a little time. Shit idea’s what I think. There’s got to be another way.”
Married. Married to Declan. “What name?” What name will I have that I’m not going to like, besides his?
“Nora Moran. Maiden name Standford.”
My mind goes blank. Everything is white and fuzzy, and I can’t
hear the fighting any more. He’s staring at me, braced for impact, and it claws its way to the surface. Standford.
“How—” Grief chokes me. “How could you?" How could he be so cruel? He blurs and solidifies. Tears drip and hit my cheeks with a searing, stinging heat.
“I don’t like it either. That’s why I said no. Where the hell are we going to find a priest, anyway?
The room is too small. There’s no air.
“They’ll think of something else. It’s what they do,” he says soothingly. Like I’m a fretting child.
Whatever progress I’ve made in the last few weeks is washed away with a few careless words. I’m right where I started, in a hole, doing my best to bury myself.
I stare at him, forcing my brain to work. To process. He promised he’d get me out. This is how we do it. This lie we make the truth. But right now, I can’t be in the same room as him.
Sucking in a breath, I scrub the wet from my cheeks and get to my feet. “Are you sure they’ll be able to find another way?”
“They will. If they can’t, fuck it. We’ll just get a divorce or some such shit later.” He sounds distracted; I bet if I look down he’s got his laptop open again. I swallow a sob.
A divorce. The perfect bookend to an unwanted marriage. I move to the bedroom. Once inside, I locate my sneakers and put them on, then exchange my sweater for a sweatshirt.
I’m right, he’s got his laptop open. He doesn’t glance up when I walk by, heading for the door. “Declan?”
“Hmm?” Distracted. Definitely distracted.
“Why Standford?”
This gets me a look, a quizzical one. “It was your fiancé’s last name, yeah? I figured it’d be easy for you to remember. Why?”
How can he be so…oblivious to everything? I shake my head. “We need more food.”
He frowns. “We’ve got enough for another few days. We’ll be fine.”
We’ll be fine. Fine. Fine. I don’t know the meaning of the word anymore. I am not fine. “We need more food,” I repeat and slip out the door before he can say anything more.
It’s raining. The smattering, miserable kind, the kind that soaks in and chills you deep into your marrow, and you’ll never get warm again. Raindrops ripple into one another in the puddles, and I keep my head down, keeping close to the walls. I don’t hear any more gunshots. Hopefully they got tired of killing each other for the day.
The rain does a good job of clearing my head, though. It can’t clear away the pain. If it could, I’d stand in every storm to roll through the city until my soul was pink and shining, rather than the dull red it is.
Two years. Two long, miserable years alone in a city where I haven’t put much, or any, effort into getting to know my neighbors, into getting my ass out, into clearing my name. I allowed myself to be crippled.
Allowed. There wasn’t any allowing about it. Watching Ryan die will stay with me for the rest of my life. I don’t have the skills to process it, to consolidate it and shove it into a tiny box where I can take it out and examine it when I feel like it. It’s a ghost I can’t shake loose. I don’t want to.
But I can learn to live with it. To do that, I have to leave, not stay, like I thought I could. I have to start over, create a life for myself without Ryan. Declan’s wrong. This idea, this horrible, horrible idea, has a shot. It could work. The simple, low–key plans are always the ones that work.
Someone tried to rip up the cemetery fence. They ought to be ashamed, ripping off a cemetery. Cemeteries never hurt anyone. This silent garden of dreams and hopes, both realized and unfulfilled, should be the one place anyone can go to find peace.
There’s mud on his headstone. I wipe it off, tracing over his name. “Hey, baby. Guess what? I’m getting married.” The laugh that escapes sounds bitter and spooky, echoing around me. “I’m getting out of here,” I whisper. “I don’t want to leave you. Not here, all alone. Though I guess we’re all alone, aren’t we?”
Rain streaks down my face like tears, and I sit there until my legs fall asleep and I’m starting to shiver with cold. “I’ll get you out. I’ll come back, and I’ll take you home, where you belong. Your family deserves a part of you.”
“Pile moje.”
Bending over, I press my lips to the headstone, heedless of the mud and other nasty things that are likely on the granite. I rise and rub my hands together to bring the feeling back as I turn to Cristian. “What do you want?”
He steps forward, hands at his sides. “A loved one?” He gestures toward Ryan’s headstone.
“Only one I have in this city.”
“I am sorry. I can help you. You want to send the remains back to America, yes?” He holds out a hand to me. “I can do that for you.”
This time, my laugh is harsh to go along with the bitter. “What, like you helped before? Your government is the reason he’s buried here, instead of there, where he belongs. Your side refused to allow the remains beyond the barricades. You know what? We could probably lay this whole mess at your feet. Causing a situation where the rebel faction felt they had to take up arms. Refusing to listen and using violence to prove your point. It takes two sides to create a war. You don’t want to help me. You want me to help you, and I’ve said no. I’ll keep saying it until I’m dead or out of the city.”
His eyes narrow. “You have to choose a side. You cannot hope to survive if you do not choose, and you should choose wisely. We will prevail.”
“Good for you.” I brush past him, whirling when his hand closes around my wrist. “Don’t, Cristian. A smart soldier knows when to take a strategic loss,” I say softly. “I’m an American. I don’t belong here. Mine is not the heart or mind you need to win.”
His gaze turns calculating, and finally he releases me. “Go. You are right. I have no use for you. But neither do I have any reason to ensure your safety anymore.”
I have a distinct feeling I just skirted a shaky line. Cristian is a wild card, and falling on his bad side could have made my life the past few years a lot worse than it was. I don’t take any chances as I leave the cemetery behind. The route I take to the food warehouse is long and circuitous, my body warming gradually with each loping stride.
I’m soaked and exhausted by the time I get back to the flat, and Declan yanks open the door, ready to pounce. “Don’t. Don’t touch me right now.” He backs away, and I shove my bag of food at him. “I need dry clothes.”
He’s staring at the food like he’s never seen it before when I come out. “It goes in the cupboards. I’ve seen you rummage through them often enough I know you know where everything goes.”
Metal clinks against the countertop as he sets the bag down. Then he reaches for me again.
“I said don’t touch me. Please.” He frowns. “We should do it.”
“Do what?”
I twist my hands together. “What they said. Get married. It’ll divert suspicion for a while,
right? I give the priest a different maiden name, and we enter Ireland as husband and wife. They’ll be looking for a Nora Eddington. Not Nora Moran. This way leaves a paper trail and looks legit on the surface. I can ask for asylum or whatever, give me even more time.” I lift my chin. “You don’t need to worry that it means anything. You’re getting me out, and I appreciate it. It’s nothing more than that and good sex.”
Say something. Say anything. Tell me you’re not going to take back your promise. Tell me I’m getting out while my sanity is still somewhat intact.
He limps around me without a word, and I shut my eyes. He’s not going to do it. He’s not going to give me that chance.
“Nora.”
I open my eyes and glance over my shoulder. “Yeah?”
His mouth opens, shuts, opens again. “I’ll see if Murat knows someone.” He moves out of the doorway, and seconds later the front door opens and shuts.
Chapter Seventeen
The only thing about this day that resembles what I’d imagined my wedding would be like is the church. O
ld stone, old stained glass windows, dark in the flickering candlelight, words echoing through the sanctuary to lose themselves in the shadows.
No attendants. No Ryan waiting for me at the altar. No wedding dress. Instead I get a depressingly empty building straight out of a Gothic novel, an old guy in a pointy hat, and a man who, if he glowered any harder, he’d be one of the gargoyles guarding the place.
I can’t understand a single word the priest is saying. Mila and Murat tried to translate the words, but the best I can do is focus on the phonetics and say my part at the appropriate time.
Declan hasn’t said a thing since we arrived.
The calmness that had settled over me once I’d made my decision cracks under the strain of his silence. A piece of the duct tape holding me together rips. It peels away with an agonizing slowness, making room for the sharp lance at his growled, “I do.”
To love and to cherish. ‘Til death do us part.
‘Til divorce do us part.
The kiss is a cursory peck on the lips. His hand is warm around mine as we walk down the aisle to the narthex. It’s done. I am Mrs. Declan Moran. A name he didn’t want to give me. A name that gives me hope.
The six of us crowd into my flat. Mila insists on toasting us, and Zlata agrees. Toasting involves alcohol, which makes it okay. They break out the vodka and the glasses, and the sisters both insist on saying some bullshit on our future happiness.
Right.
Several shots later, I’m loose and warm. The Cyrillic letters of our marriage certificate squiggle on the page. It’s a piece of paper. A means to an end. Nothing worth making a huge fuss over. And despite his assertions to the contrary, Declan’s taken such delicate care with me.
Maybe he cares. Just a little bit.
The aching void fills as I study Declan, his scowl as he talks with Ismael, his tight smile as Zlata tries to flirt with him. I have a place. A place to rest a while, to figure out my next steps. I’m not naive enough to think this ceremony will bind us for the rest of our lives. I can have him now. Now is good enough for me.
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