I open my mouth to say something once we’re outside, the flurries having turned to a proper, heavy snow, but my throat is dry, and I can’t speak.
He doesn’t speak either. He just walks me swiftly to the car, and once we’re there, sets me in the backseat and fastens my seatbelt but he doesn’t sit next to me. Instead, he rides in the front with Matteo, arguing with him in Italian and I think I probably got Matteo into trouble too.
The car ride is the longest and my stomach is churning as we near the house. I’m hoping he’s slightly calmer by the time we get there, but the instant Matteo parks the SUV, Gregory is out pulling my door open.
He gestures for me to step out and I can feel the rage rolling off him. His silence is a too-thin mask for what’s beneath.
It takes me a few tries to undo my seatbelt and he takes my arm before my feet even touch ground as I slide out of the SUV and we rush inside where I barely acknowledge the warmth of the fire as we enter. He walks me briskly up the stairs, still not saying a word, not looking at me.
Only when we get to his room does he release me.
I stumble away when he does, rubbing my arm.
He gives me one hard look before going into the bathroom, and I’m confused but then he’s back a moment later and he’s holding a pair of scissors.
“What are you doing?” I back away from him as he approaches slowly, almost calmly. But he’s not calm. Not even a little bit.
The scissors glint, sharp in his hand.
“I don’t know who you are?” he asks.
My back hits the wall. “What are you doing with those?”
“I know exactly who you are.” He reaches out, takes hold of a handful of my hair, the newly colored locks.
I grip his wrist. “Don’t!”
He tugs the hair. “What were you thinking to do this? That you’d fuck with me somehow?”
“Why does it fuck with you? I mean, if you’re not in love with her, why does it fuck with you?”
He pulls me to him by that lock of hair so my head is bowed at a strange, almost subservient and painful angle.
“Do you want to be her?” he asks, and he doesn’t wait for me to answer.
I let out a scream when I hear the sound of those sharp blades closing, watch the strands of silver and black hair slipping from his fingers.
“Stop!” I try to drag him off, to stop him. I think he’s going to butcher it, cut off all my hair and I’m just vain enough to be scared. To be fucking terrified.
But he steps away, releasing me, and we’re both looking at that handful of hair, at that silver and black, and he releases it and it floats to the floor and we watch it fall to our feet and I’m touching my head, the short stubble of hair on the one side.
He looks up at me and I know he’s not finished.
I back away.
He drops the scissors to the floor, and I realize I’m crying, and I think he’s right. I am weak.
Without a word, he comes to me and his eyes are fierce, almost completely black.
Just like the night before, he grips my face, squeezes my cheeks and it hurts and I wonder if I’ll have bruises tomorrow.
His other fist slams into the wall beside my head and I’d scream but I can’t open my mouth and I’m sobbing now and shaking and fucking terrified.
“Don’t think you can fuck with me,” he spits. “Don’t ever think you can fuck with me.”
He squeezes my face hard once more before releasing me, stepping backward, eyes still on me and I think it takes all he has to do that, to walk away.
To not hurt me.
And as I sink to the floor, he just watches me and he’s stepping on that pile of silver hair, my hair.
Hers.
Like hers.
And he looks down just for a second, just a split second and then he’s gone, and the door slams shut, and I hear the lock turn and I just stay there, on my knees, hugging my arms to myself, trying to stop the shaking.
Trying to breathe.
12
Gregory
I lied.
She can fuck with me.
She did fuck with me.
She knew exactly what button to push.
It took all I had to walk out of that room. And locking her in, it was as much to keep her safe as to punish her. Maybe more. The rage I felt at seeing what she’d done, I’m not sure I could have controlled it. Controlled myself.
This taunt, this knowing, calculated taunt, what the fuck was she thinking?
And why the fuck am I so affected? That’s the important question here.
But fuck, the timing. The girl at the tattoo parlor mentioned who was in town. Mentioned he’d been looking for me. I don’t know what business he has with me, but he’s gone to some trouble to make sure I know he’s here.
I shake my head, look around the empty room.
At least she’s upstairs.
At least the house isn’t empty.
It’s late afternoon and a heavy snow is falling outside. Inside it’s warm, though, and I’m sitting in the living room in front of the fire, watching it. The curtains are drawn to match my mood.
Matteo didn’t know, I get that, but fuck.
I take a swig of whiskey straight from the bottle. I gave up on the glass about an hour ago. My back, behind my shoulder, throbs. The tattooed skin is tender. I should take care with it, but I press it into the back of the chair.
Pain.
More pain.
More to come. My back is unfinished.
I look at my gloved hand. Curl it into a fist. Uncurl it.
“Were you in love with her?”
Did she ask the question innocently? I think she did. I don’t think Helena told her anything. If she had, Amelia would have more ammunition.
But as innocent as her question was, my response was telling.
I force myself to think about her.
Helena.
Sebastian sharing her with me. Never giving her wholly. Controlling every touch. Every breath.
And me going along with it.
Why the fuck did I go along with it?
I think about her that night in the kitchen at Lucinda’s house. I think that’s the night that wounded me most. That was the night of true betrayal. The branding, that was just me not having sense enough to see what was so painfully clear all along.
But am I or was I in love with her?
I think about this. I force myself to.
Growing up, Sebastian thought he had it hardest. But I don’t know if he realized how fucked up it is when it’s your own mother who casts you aside.
He wasn’t Lucinda’s biological child, and, in a way, I can see her hatred of him. He blocked the path to what she wanted. He stood as a symbol of how she was never first, not for our father, not when it came to her sister, not when it came to the Willow Girl, not when it came to her step-son.
I’m trying to remember if she loved Ethan more after the accident.
Accident.
I snort.
What a joke. I knew what Sebastian had done all along.
I saw his guilt on his face.
With Ethan, she had her first-born son. Something of tremendous value to the Scafoni family. I guess I was a sort of back-up plan. The spare.
A log rolls out of the fire and onto the hearth.
I stand up, go to it. Push it back in with the toe of my shoe. I lean against the mantle and look at the burning flames.
Why the fuck am I sitting here feeling sorry for myself? Because who gives a fuck that my mother didn’t love me. Fuck that. I don’t care. I never have.
And I think Helena’s rejection of me, her choosing Sebastian, maybe it was just an extension of what I’ve known all along.
Never the one anyone wanted.
Never the one anyone chose or loved.
“Jesus Christ.”
I’m fucking pathetic.
I drink, swallowing the last gulps of whiskey. I set the bottle on the mantle and go to the
stairs, pausing there. Looking up.
Everything is different with her and I don’t know why that is and I didn’t think it would be this way. It’s like having her here now, it makes things different. Not so pointless or empty.
I take a step, stumble, stop. I should leave her be. For tonight, I should leave her be.
But I can’t.
I climb the stairs, walking where the banister should be, looking down at the stone floor.
One slip, one step missed, and I’d go down.
I exhale, tucking my hand into my pocket for the key, not moving away from the edge even when I stumble on the last step.
Remarkably, I’m silent when I walk down the hall toward my room. Like one of the ghosts who haunts this house.
I pause at the door. Listen. There’s no sound from inside. I unlock it, push the door open.
She’s sitting on the floor, her back against the foot of the bed, a sketch book open on her knees, pencil in hand.
She looks over at me, and she looks like she’s been crying for days.
Short silver stubs of hair are sticking out from where I cut the strands, but she’s picked up the hair off the floor and the scissors are gone.
I go to her, see how her grip tightens on the pencil she’s holding.
I sit on the edge of the bed. Look down at what she’s sketched. Not that I need to. I know what it is.
She looks down at it too.
A tear drops from her cheek to the sketchbook, the blob smearing the lead.
She wipes it away with the tip of her finger and watches the stain spread to the end of the page.
She can’t seem to stop drawing that night any more than I can stop tattooing it on my skin.
The night of the reaping fucked with all of us.
I don’t think any of us realized it then.
The night their parents made them wear those rotting sheaths we demanded of them, the night they put their daughters on those blocks for the first-born Scafoni son to take his pick... No one knew that it would break us. Tear us all apart.
I look down at the book.
This particular sketch, it’s different than the others.
She lays her hand flat over the part I’m most interested in, hiding it from me.
I reach down, close mine over hers, look at the difference in our hands. Mine huge. Gloved. Hers small. Pale.
If only she knew the ugliness beneath that leather.
I move her hand away.
She usually draws Sebastian. Sebastian and Helena.
But this one, it’s me. It’s me standing where Sebastian stood looking at the girl on the block. But she’s drawn horns coming out of my head. A goat’s horns.
Or Satan’s.
I laugh—it’s a strange sort of chuckle and maybe it’s the alcohol because it’s not funny, not when you look at the eyes. Eyes so full of emotion it’s like I can feel what she’s feeling, what she felt when she drew it.
It’s the thing that throbs all around her like a living, breathing entity. Like it’s sucking air out of the room. Like it’s syphoning the life out of her.
Longing.
That’s what it is.
She longs.
We both do.
And this hunger, it will devour us both.
The girl on the block, I can’t tell who it is. I don’t know if it’s Helena or Amelia in front of me. Because now, with her dark hair, they look so similar and either she drew it so they’re indistinguishable or I’m fucking drunk and everything is fuzzy.
I let go of her wrist, peer down, wanting to see. Wanting to know.
Another fat tear drops heavy onto the page and this time when she lays the flat of her hand on it, it’s to swirl the wet across it like maybe she can wipe away that night. Smear it off the page. Smudge it out of the past.
“Don’t,” I say.
She doesn’t listen though. She rubs more tears from her eyes and smears them around the page, destroying it.
“Why do you keep drawing it?”
“I don’t know.”
She stops.
I wait.
“So I can erase it,” she says, her voice quieter. “Stop it from ever happening.”
“Why did you do that? Color your hair like hers?”
She turns her head, looks up at me. Her eyes are puffy, red from crying. “Maybe the same reason you get the tattoos.” She wipes her face, leaving a smear of pencil on her cheek, and goes quiet again.
“I don’t love her.” It’s the first time I’ve said those words out loud and it’s a relief because I think they’re true. Even drunk as I am, I think they’re true.
She shifts her gaze back to mine again.
“Let me see,” she says.
“What?”
“Take off your shirt. Let me see them.”
I shake my head.
One corner of her mouth curves upward but it’s more sad than anything else.
“You’re obsessed with her and you don’t even know it.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Prove it.” She puts the notebook down, turns so she’s kneeling between my knees facing me, her hands on my thighs. “Show me. Show me what they did to you.”
Her words strike me. Make me stop.
“Show me what they did to you.”
I keep looking at that sheet of paper. At the mess of black and white and gray like the destruction a hurricane would leave behind, and I feel this thing inside me, and I want it gone. I just want it gone.
“They made a monster out of me.” I almost don’t recognize the strange, broken voice.
She studies me and if she sees my back, she’ll know what happened on that island. She’ll know everything. Or most everything. The tattoos aren’t finished yet.
“Show me. Please.”
Maybe it will make it easier if I do.
Maybe I can deal with it then. Show her. Let her see. Own it instead of letting it own me.
“What will you give me in exchange?” I ask.
She considers this, averting her gaze, biting her lip. I watch her.
When she looks back at me, I think how much I like her eyes.
How different she is to what I first thought.
How she’s so much more.
Maybe it’s our shared longing that makes her so. That makes me see her so.
She inches closer, and her hands feel warm on my legs and I just sit there because she’s never touched me before. Not willingly. Not really.
I look down at them, at her small hands, fragile wrists. Look back at her face. Even puffy from crying and smeared with pencil, she’s beautiful, but so much more. So much more than some genetic lottery.
“What will you give me in exchange?” I ask again, and I think something’s changed between us. Just now, something is different.
She swallows. The room is so quiet, I hear it.
She leans forward, and I stay still, and she touches her lips to mine. Just touches them, almost a tickle, it’s so light.
I remain as I am, and I let her.
I don’t touch her.
I don’t make her.
Don’t force her.
And she kisses me.
When she pulls back, her cheeks are flushed. I reach out, put my hand flat over her heart. Feel the drumming of it, the rapid staccato of beat after beat.
She does the same, lays her hand over my heart, and her touch, it’s electric. It’s going to burn me up. Make ash out of me.
“I’ll give you anything you ask for,” she says.
“I can take anything I want.”
“But what you want most is for me to give it to you.”
Fuck.
This girl.
Fuck.
“On my terms,” I say. I need to keep control of this. Of her.
After a moment, she nods.
I cup the back of her head, pull her to me. I kiss her, kiss her my way, and she opens for me. For me. And I taste her, touch my tongue to hers and I want to d
evour her. I will. I pull her closer, but it won’t ever be close enough because this kiss, this one, it’s everything. Every single thing.
When I break the kiss, she’s breathless.
So am I.
Releasing her, I unbutton my shirt down to my navel, open it.
Amelia’s eyes are on my chest, and I can’t read her expression. She’s taking care with it.
She reaches out, touches me, and her fingers, they burn my skin where she traces the first and biggest tattoo. This one, it’s familiar to her. It’s her sketch. Four blocks. Four Willow Girls. Two blurred. Two clear. One bound.
And candles.
A thousand candles.
Ghosts hanging in the corners, smudges of dirty white, of shade so scant, they’re almost nonexistent.
I remember the tattoo artist’s face when she first saw the sketch. When I told her what I wanted.
Amelia follows the ink across the expanse of my chest, my shoulders, my arms, a skull, the mausoleum, the wings of a half-broken angel, a watcher, the whipping post.
Empty.
For now.
It’s different on my back.
She spends the next fifteen minutes studying every inch of my chest and arms with her eyes, her fingers and I feel every moment of it, every touch, every light tickle of her fingertips.
Why am I giving her this?
She takes hold of my shirt, pushes it off my shoulders, working slowly, letting me feel her hands on me. She’s tender, cautious, different than how I touch her.
She rises to her feet to move behind me, but I’m not ready to give her that yet. I capture her wrists. Stop her.
“I want—”
I shake my head. “It’s enough.”
“We agreed.”
“My terms.”
“But—”
“You can’t unsee things, Amelia.”
She looks at me, her expression confused.
I release her, get up, pull my shirt back over my shoulders and walk to the door. I’m tired.
“What do you want?” she calls out from behind me.
I look at her, walk back to her, squint to see the faint bruises forming on her jaw. My fingerprints.
Only mine.
Twisted Page 9