by Paula Stokes
“Understood. I’ll make the necessary arrangements.” Adebayo adjusts his glasses again and casts a quick glance at each of us before scurrying out of the room.
“You know, there’s more than one reason not to involve the cops,” Baz says. “The legal system is inefficient, inept. Criminals go free…” He trails off meaningfully.
“We are not killers,” Gideon says.
“In my experience everyone is a killer.” Baz’s gray eyes go cold. He leans back against the wall. “Or a victim. Some people just need a little coaxing to choose a side.”
The implication of his words hangs silent in the air. Rose and I used to speak of killing Kyung and his men, slashing them to ribbons, stealing back our papers, and then running away into the night. But those were just the desperate fairy tales of powerless girls. Neither of us really wanted to hurt anyone. I’m quite sure Gideon never did either.
But maybe things are different now.
“I’m just saying, sometimes the only way to end something completely is to end it completely.” Baz shrugs. He might as well be talking about sports scores or a movie he saw.
“But what if somehow we’re wrong? What if she’s not dead?” I ask. I know that I am grasping, but the best things in life happen because people choose to believe the impossible. Dead men come home from the war. Corpses wake up in the morgue. There has to be a chance, some infinitely tiny chance Rose is still alive. And if there is …
“Winter,” Gideon says. “You can’t make things true just by wishing. You saw her die. You felt it inside of you, did you not?”
I did. I didn’t just watch my sister die, I lived it—the pinch of the tourniquet, the sting of the needle, the rush of the drugs. It was as if it happened to my own flesh. My stomach lurches as I think of her lying in that bed, of the drugs coursing through her veins, diluting her thoughts, stopping her heart. It felt so real then, so why does it feel so impossible now? Rose is dead. Those three words don’t even make sense together. I bury my face in my hands.
“Are you okay?” Gideon asks. “I can call Dr. Abrams or take you to the hospital if you think—”
“No.” The last thing I want is for Gideon to find out today that I’ve been skipping appointments. “And no hospital.” Hospitals are for the dying, and we are only just beginning to live. “But I think we should go to the police. I won’t accept that Rose is really gone unless I see her body. Or at least until we find her killers and they tell us why they did it. Oppa, I need to know.”
“She’s gone.” Gideon’s voice has taken on an unfamiliar edge.
Baz clears his throat. “I know a detective on the force, if you really want to involve the cops. Someone we can trust. And I can call up a couple of independent investigators as well.”
“All right.” Gideon nods. “We’ll find out who did this and make sure that they pay. I promise you, Winter.”
“I want to help too,” I blurt out.
Gideon, Jesse, and Baz all turn to me, a firing squad of concerned looks. Then their eyes flick back and forth as they exchange glances with one another.
Rage brews in my gut. “I know what you’re all thinking. Poor Winter. She’s not strong enough to handle this.”
Are they right?
“Maybe I’m not,” I say, answering both them and the voice in my head. “But I need to be productive, to focus on something. Or else I’ll focus on the fact that she’s not here.”
“Winter,” Gideon says. “You should concentrate on your studies.” He gestures at the crude note written on the envelope. “It’s not safe. They could come after you next.”
“I don’t care,” I say. “I can’t study right now.” What I don’t say is that it doesn’t matter if they come after me, because if Rose is dead, I’m basically dead too. She looked out for me. She listened. She kept me sane. Without Rose, all I have is Gideon, but I can’t talk to him the way I talked to my sister. Without Rose, I’ll go back to being that girl I was when we first arrived, thrashing at invisible monsters and screaming about blood that doesn’t exist.
I can feel the pull of that girl already, the darkness spreading inside me like I’ve swallowed a bottle of ink. Part of me wants to walk out of here, go back to the penthouse, crawl into my sister’s bed, and go to sleep there—for good. But then the men who hurt her might go unpunished. I force myself to refocus. “It looked like a hotel room. Jesse and I could scout around the city and figure out where she was. Maybe someone saw her or there’s security camera footage of her killers.”
“Better yet, we can start by looking at online ads for the hotels along the river,” Jesse offers. “See if anything matches up to the room in the ViSE. We can do that without even leaving the building.”
“I guess that would be all right,” Gideon says to Jesse. “But if you find anything, you’re to report to us, not go investigate on your own.”
Baz turns back to me. “Is there anything else I should know? Did Rose mention being afraid of anyone?”
“She wasn’t afraid of anything,” I say.
“Do you know where she went last night?”
“She said she was going to Inferno.” I drop my eyes to the floor. “She told me I should meet her over there.”
“But you didn’t?” Gideon asks.
My face flushes as I think about Jesse and me sitting at the table, trading ViSEs while my sister was being killed. I think of his hands on my face, his lips on my skin, the warring feelings inside me.
I am the worst sister in the world.
Jesse jumps in. “We were both kind of tired after our big run from the cops. Clubbing wasn’t exactly our top priority.”
“We’ll check out Inferno,” Gideon promises. “In the meantime, Winter, I don’t want you alone until we find who did this. I think you should come with me to Chicago tonight.”
“No,” I say. If I go with Gideon on his business trip, I won’t be able to do any investigating. He’ll have me tripling up on my study modules just to keep me busy while he spends all day in boring meetings. “I’ll be fine. I’m eighteen. I can stay by myself.”
“I know you can,” he says. “But humor me. I won’t be able to concentrate if I have to worry about your safety.”
“Please don’t make me go,” I beg. “Someone needs to be here to take care of Miso.”
Gideon sighs. “All right, but I don’t want you to be alone. Perhaps Sebastian can—”
“I can stay with her,” Jesse blurts out.
Gideon narrows his eyes at Jesse. I start to protest but then fall silent. I don’t want Jesse or Sebastian looking over my shoulder, but maybe I can use Jesse’s feelings for me to my advantage.
“Fine,” Gideon says. “Jesse will stay with you. And I’m calling the other recorders. No one goes anywhere alone for the time being.”
“How did they break in?” I ask. “What about the cameras and the alarm system?”
“Someone shot the back camera with a paintball around three a.m. and the door to the alley was jimmied open,” Baz says. “I’m still trying to figure out how they circumvented the building’s security system. Clearly whoever it was knew what they were doing.”
Last night’s close encounter with the Phantasm security guard flashes to life. That happened just after midnight. “Could this be retaliation for Phantasm?”
“Unlikely,” Gideon says. “Even if you two were somehow identified immediately, how could anyone from Phantasm have figured everything out, found Rose, and taken her so quickly? Not to mention, all you did was borrow a little data. This would be an excessive response.”
“What exactly did we borrow?” I rub my temples with my fingertips.
Gideon snaps open his lighter again. “Obviously I haven’t gone through it yet, but mainly some accounting files. I already told you, I want to see how Phantasm’s financials hold up before I even think about their offer.” His voice is perfectly level, but I’m still struggling with the idea he would ever willingly sell the ViSE tech.
&n
bsp; “How did you know where the server was located?” I ask.
“I have someone on the inside.”
I turn to look at Jesse. He holds his hands up in a “it wasn’t me” kind of way.
“You really think it’s a coincidence that we stole information last night and then this happened a few hours later?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure what to think.” Gideon pulls out another cigarette and tucks it between his lips. “I received a call here at the club a couple of days ago—a man saying he had been recorded without his permission, threatening to do whatever it took to make sure the ViSE never made it to the street.”
“What? I can’t believe you—”
He waves me quiet. “No one had turned in any ViSEs featuring other people recently, so I figured he was just some paranoid crackpot. If you’re all following my safety protocols and keeping your headsets covered, no one should know they’re being recorded, right?”
“I guess, but can we find out who it was by checking your call log?” I shift my weight from one foot to the other.
“I’ll have Sebastian look into it.”
“Are you sure that’s everything that’s happened?” I ask.
Gideon runs a hand through his black hair. It falls in soft peaks, still slightly damp with sweat from our workout. “I knew Rose was getting reckless, but I was doing my best to watch out for her. I swear I had no idea she was in real danger.” He removes the ViSE from the headset and slips it into his pocket. Then he lifts Rose’s pendant in his hand, holding it up so it reflects the light.
I’m sure her room upstairs is full of more jewelry like it, but suddenly I feel like Gideon is clutching the last tangible piece of my sister. “Can I have that?” I ask.
“Of course.” He drops the necklace into my palm.
I look down at the sinuous twists of silver, at the intricately formed pendant with its individual petals. Beneath Rose’s necklace is the cross-shaped scar in my palm. I trace the intersecting lines with my index finger. The past rushes back to me.
Rose and I gave ourselves the scars on the same day, our first day working for Kyung. Back then we were still Min Ji and Ha Neul. The other girls told us the first time would be the worst. They said each “date” would get a little easier and then eventually we’d get numb to it, learn to switch off until our client was finished.
I can’t recall the first man, only certain moments. I spent most of the time focusing on the television. It was one of those summer blockbuster action movies. Fires, explosions, people dying—all of it preferable to what was happening in the real world.
Afterward, one of Kyung’s men escorted me back to the building where I shared a room with Rose and two other girls. He didn’t say a single word to me. I might as well have been an animal or a product. I went to lie down on the mattress where I slept at night, watching the red numbers on our digital clock crawl upward. Tears came like a storm. As each number changed, I wondered why I was the only one back so soon. Had I done something wrong? Surely, the other girls were out eating and dancing. They were being showered with gifts. They would come back laughing and giggling and make fun of me when they found out how my date had gone.
Shame and fear took turns assaulting me. I had performed poorly and Kyung would punish me. Maybe he would even send me away from my sister. Where was she? I needed her desperately. I crawled from my mattress to hers, pretending I could feel her next to me. That’s when I found the knife tucked inside her pillowcase. Small, the kind you might use to peel fruit. When I pressed the blade into my skin, the pain comforted me. I felt human again. I looked down at my bleeding palm and cut myself again the other way—a perfect cross. Blood seeped out of both wounds, not a lot, but enough to make me light-headed. I collapsed to my sister’s bed and drifted into dreams.
Eventually, she stumbled in the door, her hair mussed, her makeup smudged. When I saw the dried tears on her cheeks, I sat up suddenly, my bleeding hand forgotten. “Did he hurt you?”
She came to me and kissed me on the forehead. “I’m all right,” she said. “I’m just sad.”
“I’m sad too. I don’t want to do it again.”
“I don’t want you to do it again,” she said. “I’m working on a plan, all right? For now just try to look plain. Maybe no one will choose you.”
As she looked down at me, her brow furrowed, and I realized I had left spots of blood on her sheets. I hid my hand behind my back but I was too slow. She wrenched my arm forward, grabbed my wrist, and pried my fingers open.
“Ha Neul, what have you done?” My sister examined the pinkish fluid still oozing from my hand. “Kyung will be angry if he finds out. He’ll think you tried to hurt yourself on purpose.”
“I’m sorry, Eonni,” I said. “I couldn’t help it.”
“Hurting yourself won’t fix things. Pain is not the answer.” She bit her lip in concentration. “Here, I’ll do it too. We can tell people we were being silly, being blood sisters.” She took the knife in her hand and carved the same cross into the flesh of her left palm. Then she tucked the knife away at the bottom of her trunk, beneath her clothing and books.
Lifting up her hand, she said, “Promise me you will never cut yourself again.”
“I promise.” My eyes held fast to the blood oozing from her palm.
She twined her fingers through mine, and my whole body tingled as our blood touched. “Fingers to fingers and thumb to thumb,” she said. “A pair of sisters like matching gloves.”
Gideon flicks his lighter, the sharp sound of the metal striker pulling me back to the present. I never cut myself after that day, but I did other things when no one was looking. I stare at the flame dancing behind his curved palm, and then at the glowing ember that flares up on the end of his cigarette as he inhales. I don’t remember the first time I plucked a still-burning cigarette from an ashtray and pressed it against the skin of my thigh. I haven’t done it in years, haven’t wanted to, haven’t needed to. But now I open myself up to the circle of fire, imagining the searing heat and the eventual numbness of charred flesh. Suddenly I’m dying for a pain I can actually control, a pain that would bring peace instead of crushing me to ashes.
CHAPTER 10
Gideon takes the stairs back to the penthouse with me. I am still fantasizing about his glowing cigarette, about adding to the cluster of scars on my thigh. Just once, to clear my head.
No. Rose’s voice is a whisper inside me. Pain is not the answer.
Pain is all that I know in this moment.
He unlocks the door and we both step into the entry hall and slip out of our shoes. Miso curls around my ankles. I scoop him up and hold him to my chest, his head wedged under my chin.
“I wish I could cancel this trip,” Gideon says. “I hate leaving you alone.”
“Apparently I won’t be alone,” I say, heading into the living room with Miso. I roll my eyes. “I’ll be with Jesse.”
“He cares for you,” Gideon says. “I trust him.”
I trust him too. But part of me can’t stop replaying the events of last night, wondering whether my sister might still be alive if I had done anything differently. I sit cross-legged on the white rug in front of the fireplace and release a squirming Miso from my arms. He bats playfully at a tuft of white fur, attacking the rug like it’s another animal.
Gideon frowns. “That cat is a menace.”
“Oh, be nice,” I say. “He doesn’t mean to muss your precious home furnishings.”
Gideon sits down next to me. We both lean back against the sofa. Miso’s eyes widen at the sight of a second human on the floor for him to play with. He pounces on Gideon’s foot, his teeth biting down on the fabric of his sock.
“Ouch.” Gideon shoos the cat away. He rests his hand on mine. “Are you certain you’ll be all right without me?”
Lying to Gideon is not something that comes easily, but I’ve mastered the art of vague, evasive statements. “I have your number, remember? I can call if I need someth
ing.”
“And you won’t do anything rash?”
“You can trust me, oppa.” Two true and one mostly true statement. Not bad.
* * *
About an hour later, there is a knock at the door. I go to it expecting Jesse, but it turns out to be the cop that Baz mentioned. He introduces himself as Detective Ehlers and flashes a badge. I fetch Gideon from the study.
Gideon lets Ehlers play the ViSE and then gives him a picture of Rose. I tell him about some of her favorite clubs and then watch as he skulks around in her bedroom, his gloved hands gently going through her things. He takes several photographs and then promises to have a tech run her phone records.
“I’ll try to get back to you with more information in a couple of days,” he says.
A couple of days feels like forever. Gideon was right about the police. Even Baz’s friend isn’t going to prioritize finding out what happened to my sister.
Ehlers gives Gideon his business card and tells him to call if he thinks of anything else. After he leaves, Gideon turns to me. “You should eat something.”
I start to tell him I’m not hungry, but then I realize that Gideon’s headset with the recording of the overdose is resting on the kitchen counter. I want that ViSE in case I need to review it.
“I just need something to drink.” I go to the cupboard and remove a glass. I turn on the sink and let the water run until it becomes cold.
“I assume you’re not going to Krav Maga?”
“Is it all right if I don’t?” I fill the glass three-quarters full and then turn off the faucet.
Gideon nods. “You should rest. I’m going to go pack. My plane leaves at three p.m. Jesse will be here in a couple of hours.”