The Innocent: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel

by Stevens, Taylor

  Logan said, “He thinks it’s him—or maybe me. Noah has no idea, does he?”

  She shook her head and turned slightly so that she stared again at some invisible point. “I’ve tried to explain it,” she said, “but how could he possibly understand?”

  No matter how well Noah believed he knew Munroe, there was so much he would never grasp, undercurrents that would, Logan or no Logan, inevitably pull her away, all of it guaranteeing pain and confusion as the natural course of things. The man had given Munroe laughter and a reason for happiness, and for this Logan wished it were possible to offer reassurance that things would be okay. But they weren’t and might never be.

  “It’s better this way,” he said.

  Munroe’s eyes shifted back, a long and languid gaze until finally she whispered, “I know.”

  The pain in those words left him speechless. She’d offered a brief glimmer, a crack through which Logan saw beyond her eyes, past her soul, and into the torment of her private hell. Then, without warning, as if a switch had been thrown, Munroe’s face shifted and the glimmer ended. She said, “Tomorrow we race on the water,” and Logan, still struggling for words, responded with a tired smile.

  She bartered her time for his. A week in New York for a week in Tangier, and beyond the emotional tension that accompanied Noah’s reaction, the days were action-fueled and driven by an undercurrent of laughter that continued through the return flight home. If Munroe was medicating, she hid it well, though Logan had woken often in the night to the sound of her footsteps passing in the hall and knew that she slept little.

  They entered the United States through JFK and took a taxi into Manhattan, to The Palace, where Munroe had reserved one of the hotel’s triplex suites. Even with his racing career and celebrity status as an adrenaline junkie, Logan’s bank balance wasn’t high enough to defend splitting such a bill, and so he didn’t argue when she insisted on covering it.

  At the top of the towers, the suite was three bedrooms spread over three floors and five thousand square feet, a direct and opulent contrast to the sparse conditions Munroe had lived in during the last several years. On the second floor she opened the door to the master bedroom and fell backward onto the king-size bed, arms splayed, laughing at the ceiling.

  To Logan, she said, “You like it?”

  He was wearing an ear-to-ear grin, staring out across the skyline. “It’s insane,” he said.

  “This is your room,” she said. “You’ll need the space for your friends. Take the upstairs areas, spoil them a little; my treat. I’ll stay downstairs.”

  Logan held her smile for a long while. In the joy of that moment, words were unnecessary, because without doubt this was the proverbial calm before the storm.

  * * *

  At nearly one in the morning, Munroe stood staring out the living room window. Logan had gone to bed over an hour ago, and she had lingered this long, observing the city streets, listening to the heartbeat of the suite, waiting for the night to lengthen, if only to be sure he was truly down for the evening.

  For her, rest—sleep—would come much later, if at all, because to be awake when darkness threw a mask of beauty over the world was to be alive.

  Munroe turned from the window, from her ghostly reflection, headed back through the room and out the door. She took the elevator down to where midnight air refused to let go of the day’s humidity, down to civilization and asphalt, gas fumes and garbage, the mix of odors that only the heat of a big city could produce, New York in the middle of summer.

  She’d left the hotel to breathe outside air, to walk out the body kinks that were the by-product of too many hours of air travel, and so stayed on foot, moving fast, heading west to nowhere in particular.

  It was a mewling sound that turned her from passing a service entrance and drew her into the blackened depths where the outlines of trucks and parked vehicles filled space: it was a sound out of place in the city night, the cry of a lost kitten, or, as became evident as Munroe’s eyes adjusted to the deeper darkness, the abject terror of a girl pinned to the ground by two men.

  The young woman was eighteen, tops, still partly child, a perfect representation of the innocent, hopeful and naïve, who, on a quest for something more, streamed steadily into the metropolis only to find themselves sacrificed to the fires of Moloch.

  The men hovered over her body, every movement menacing, brisk, and hostile. Munroe couldn’t hear their words, only the raw threat of intent, which carried to her on the still air. The woman had given up fighting and appeared paralyzed. She’d not come to the oil-stained and garbage-strewn area willingly. Dragged, perhaps. Her shoes were missing. Her dress was torn and hiked up around her waist. Her chest heaved with silent crying.

  Munroe stopped and, for a second that passed like millennia, stared. She felt no surprise or horror at having been guided into the arms of the wicked, only an unquenchable burning rage against the violation of innocence, an unbridled anger that surged from inside depths, up, up, into her head, pounding out a rhythm of retribution and destruction. Even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t have turned away, so strong was the drumbeat of war.

  Not once did her eyes wander while she placed one foot in front of the other, moving forward, each step slow, certain, deliberate, until her toe thudded against something soft and pliable.

  Munroe paused. Looked down.

  The woman’s purse with contents strewn.

  Eyes ahead, she continued on, unseen and unheard, until she was within feet of the men, and they, taking notice, hesitated in their violence.

  The larger of the two, leader of the pair, stood to face Munroe.

  Time and space slowed into sharp focus, and in her vision he was a target narrowed into a shadow of gray against the night. Her hands remained relaxed at her sides, her body calm, almost nonchalant, while her eyes darted from one spot to the next within the enclosed area, judging distance, surfaces, weapons.

  The man stepped close, invaded her personal space.

  He was rank breath and flared nostrils; he was eyes that didn’t see and air without oxygen. He looked down at Munroe and inhaled, trailing his nose around her hair.

  Inside her core the percussion beat harder, louder: marching orders to every cell in her body.

  “Look what we have here,” he said, and his partner chuckled, a nervous bark, while holding tight to the victim still on the ground.

  The big man ran his fingertips along the edge of Munroe’s hair.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said. “Not if you want to live.”

  Her voice was low, monotone, and although the man couldn’t know it as the sound of impending destruction, his partner understood the threat, and in a form of solidarity came forward to stand next to his leader.

  The girl on the ground scrambled upward and, with the men’s backs to her, and only a second’s glance in their direction, bolted behind them to the street.

  In silence the three watched her run, and then, with the little figure fading in the dark, the leader turned again to Munroe.

  “Now see what you’ve done,” he said.

  He was smiling a row of clean white teeth.

  Munroe, motionless, turned her eyes back to him and said nothing.

  “You owe me a fuck,” the man said.

  The smile was gone.

  “I’d advise you to walk away,” she said. “If you touch me, I’ll kill you.”

  He laughed. Hard. A loud boom against the walls that rose up on either side, and then, in an instant, he stopped.

  A fight was inevitable, and with Munroe’s realization came the rush. She pulled it all in and closed her eyes in a slow, extended blink.

  A heedful observer would have noticed the twitch in her hands, would have wondered at the lack of fear, would have been cautioned against the level of self-assurance. But overconfidence had blinded these men from observing much.

  There came a moment of silence, of deliberation, as if this man and his partner might, after all, be sma
rt enough to recognize a form of insanity greater than their own and back down.

  But no.

  The big man grabbed a fistful of her hair. Yanked. Dragged her to her knees.

  “Fuck you, bitch,” he hissed.

  Munroe’s eyes smarted, and in response the corners of her lips turned upward.

  Time passed in microsecond gaps, movement in nano-slices of space, intense clarity, which like a flash flood through a gully rushed in a torrent through her blood.

  His left hand still gripped her hair. His right arm pulled back for a strike, and this man with his smile, his laugh, his breath, became a familiar enemy who had to die. She was no longer in the middle of a sweltering city but in the heat of the jungle with its pervasive raw earthiness.

  Hands still to her sides, her fingers reached for the knives sheathed against her shins. Skin connected with metal. Instinct followed. The internal percussion rose to climax screaming the order to survive, to win, to avenge: commanding the order to kill.

  The bedside clock read eight in the morning. Logan glanced at the digital readout and in a half breath understood the fear that had brought him awake.

  He threw off the sheets and headed down the stairs at a near run, calling Munroe’s name as he went, stopping short at the ground-floor bedroom.

  The door had been left slightly ajar, and as he had done that first morning in Tangier, he placed his palm to it and the hinges swung inward.

  In a shock of déjà vu, Logan stared, open-mouthed.

  She lay sprawled across the bed, knives on the bedside table, dead to the world. He remained for a moment, pushing down the frustration and resentment, and then, turning to go, eyes adjusting to the dim of the room, recognition settling, stopped midstep.

  Heart pounding, stomach churning, he moved closer to the bed, closer to her. Knelt. And being careful not to touch her, followed the trail of crusted blood that smeared and streaked across her forearms.

  He had never heard her leave the suite, hadn’t heard the sounds of the private elevator as it came or went. He drew a quiet intake of air and clenched his fists. In a few hours the others would begin to arrive. They would come to provide bits and pieces of an eight-year-old story that she needed to hear, and there she was, the one person who could turn it into a goddamn happy ending, strung out in a drug-induced haze.

  He wanted to wake her; to find out what the hell had happened last night, what she had done; to yell and smack some sense into her. But he knew better, and so he returned to the kitchen to try to bolt down something against the returning nausea.

  Over the course of the morning and into the afternoon, the others came, and against mounting anxiety over Munroe’s condition, Logan played host.

  Amused at their reactions to the opulence of the place, he walked them through it and answered their questions about how the suite was paid for.

  An odd, mixed lot, they congregated on the rooftop terrace amid wrought-iron furniture and wooden planters that provided a quiet, Old World feel in contrast to the city chaos below.

  Their looks, tastes, and styles, the directions of their lives, were as far removed one from the other as any group of random strangers, but childhood, the common thread that banded them together, was tighter still than any difference. They shared easy conversation, the camaraderie of soldiers bonded through the trauma of war, until the glass doors to the terrace slid open and Munroe stepped out.

  She’d cleaned up: The blood was gone, and at the door’s threshold now she stood a picture of demure innocence in a girlish dress and flat shoes.

  She returned Logan’s glance, and there was a touch of mischief in her eyes.

  Logan sighed.

  Whatever else she might be, naïve and pure she wasn’t. She’d deliberately assumed this likeness, this facade of diffidence and modesty that so easily became a veil to the unlearned, and as was evident in that glance, she knew that it frustrated him badly.

  He broke off eye contact, and her smile widened, as if to say, Yes, Logan, I know what you’re doing.

  His heart pounded heavily.

  It was always a mistake to underestimate her, and although he’d not lied to or misled her, there was much that he hadn’t mentioned.

  Logan glanced again at Munroe’s girly clothes, hesitated, and then introduced her to the others.

  “This is Michael,” he said, “the one I told you about.”

  In addition to Logan, there were six around the table: real estate agent, lawyer, project manager, IT director, photographer, and medical student, all in their late twenties to mid-thirties, each one having fought to where they were now in life at such personal cost and private sacrifice that there were spouses who didn’t know the details.

  Munroe took a seat, and one by one they introduced themselves. There wasn’t much small talk, albeit a measure of flippancy, while each in the little group told a variant of the same story: one of a life controlled and structured from birth, of consecration to God and The Prophet, of poverty, servility, and eventually a gamble—family, social structure, and their entire known world wagered on the hope that there was another life, a better life, out here in the Void.

  Logan could hear the desperation that lay behind each measured word and wondered if they could hear it too. They were gauging her, uncertain if she was capable of comprehending the gravity of what was at stake, wondering how this timid girl could be the one to make wrong right, doubt written clearly across their faces.

  Looking at her now, Logan found it difficult, even knowing her as well as he did, to visualize how such apparent innocence could be the harbinger of so great a justice. He understood their disbelief and pushed his own doubts aside, because he needed that favor.

  Chapter 4

  Buenos Aires, Argentina

  The trees and buildings and parked cars rolled by, and Hannah stared out the passenger van window not really seeing, but definitely listening.

  She was badly curious about why she was here, but knew not to ask, and so sat silent in the farthest back row, trying to catch clues in the discussion between the two adults in the front seat.

  Not knowing made her stomach queasy. At least when you knew a thing, even if it was bad, you could prepare for it. It was better to know something bad than nothing at all, and right now she knew nothing at all.

  It was very odd that they’d brought only her and none of the other kids, and although it didn’t seem like she was in trouble, sometimes it was hard to tell, because like a slap upside the head, trouble had a way of coming out of nowhere.

  Until Hannah knew one way or the other, there wasn’t really any way to get rid of the sick feeling, but right now the best way to stay out of trouble was to keep quiet. If she was quiet, they would forget about her, which meant that at least for a while they would leave her alone and she could listen.

  They were very serious in the front seats, Uncle Zadok and Auntie Sunshine, calling on the Golden Verse for protection and wisdom, and for guidance, and the matter must have been Secret, too, because they didn’t make Hannah come to the first row and join them in prayer.

  Zadok’s eyes were open, they had to be so he could drive, but Sunshine’s were closed and her mouth was moving, and Hannah could tell that she was Spirit Talking, which was boring, so she only half-listened.

  Having the whole back of the van to herself, with no one to mind her, felt amazing—almost as good as it did that time when she got a real present on her birthday. And since Zadok and Sunshine were too occupied to rebuke her for idleness, Hannah spent the stolen moments staring out the window while her thoughts went far, far away into the forbidden and hidden daydreams that helped time fly and made everything else better. And then the van swung wide and the pull of the turn brought her back.

  She’d no idea how much time had passed or how long she’d been in fantasy, and because of this her stomach flipped in a pulse of fear. For such disobedience, there was certainly trouble waiting.

  But Zadok and Sunshine hadn’t noticed that
she’d been daydreaming, and so she calmed. Hannah recognized a building and knew that they were now somewhere in the business district, not too far from the ports. They came here sometimes to raise money in the offices.

  Sunshine’s eyes were open again, and she seemed a bit more relaxed. That was good, because relaxed adults meant better moods and less chance of getting in trouble. Maybe the Spirits had said nice things would happen, although to Hannah it seemed the Spirit Words were forever vague and the adults always ready to believe the excuses for why predictions didn’t come true. What was the use, really, of dead people talking if you could never count on what they said?

  Sunshine was speaking to Zadok again, real words, not Spirit Words, so Hannah turned her eyes toward the book of Instructives in her lap, and her ears to the front. The sounds came in pieces. The Lord’s will. Small packet. United States. Prophet will be pleased. Only a few times a year.

  None of it really meant anything for certain, but Hannah could guess; that was the good thing about being quiet and listening when they forgot about you—you could learn things.

  This same kind of special outing had happened before, in late summer, right before Auntie Sunshine went on a two-week visit to another place. That last time, Sunshine had taken Teen Rachel on the trip into town, and Hannah had to fill in on Rachel’s work duty so that she could go. It had seemed that Rachel was special for being chosen, and even though it was wrong, Hannah had been a little jealous. On that day, just like today, everything had been Secret and hush-hush—more than the usual—so maybe today was the same kind of thing, whatever that thing was, and this made Hannah feel good, because maybe it meant she was special too.

  Zadok parked the van, but he didn’t get out when Sunshine did, which probably meant that he was staying behind, which was kind of unusual.

  Sunshine motioned for Hannah, so she slid out of the far back and made her way to the door and then the sidewalk.