“What have you done?” he screamed.
He wrenched her body from the floor and she had no strength left to struggle, no strength to catch herself when he threw her against the blinding white wall. She hit the floor hard, landing on her right arm with a snap. Pain hissed through her body like hot oil in a pan, but it didn’t matter. The bodyguard would soon realize that trying to revive his boss was useless, and he would turn his fury on her. She was ready.
The bodyguard turned to her, his eyes wide, his mouth open. The muscles in his neck bulged as if they would burst and he would bleed out like the doctor on the floor. He took a step toward her. Chloe saw a gun in his hand, drawn and ready. She began to close her eyes in order to find some image to hold onto until she had breathed her last, but a blur of black and white stopped her. The bodyguard was on the floor before she blinked, the gun skittering across the hardwood near her, and it took Chloe a moment to realize that Demetrius was truly there, truly struggling with him. Chloe picked herself up, sitting with her back against the wall, cradling her wounded arm. She grabbed the bodyguard’s gun before he could retrieve it in the struggle. She hid it behind her back. This was real. Demetrius was really there, the wild-eyed madman dressed in black in the tropical heat, slamming the bodyguard’s head into the floor over and over again.
Chloe’s heart felt like it would burst; from terror, from relief, from exhaustion. The sight of her old Master brought her back to herself completely. There was no mysterious face-changing woman in the room anymore, no voice in her head. There was just the pale man rising from the limp bodyguard, his hands coated in blood, panting heavily. He pulled a handgun from the waistband of his jeans and Chloe heard that dreaded sound for a third time, that dreaded pop that sounded like a firecracker. Like Ash, like Gabe, the bodyguard would not rise again.
Demetrius turned to her and she met the cold grey eyes she never thought she would see again. He dropped the gun on the floor, crossed the room in three strides, and she was in his arms. The pain in her arm meant nothing. There was only his heat, his arms around her, his murmuring her name over and over in her ear.
“Chloe, Chloe…”
Chloe cried tears she didn’t know she had left in her and collapsed in his arms, burying her head into his scarred chest, clutching him as hard as she could with a wounded arm and a gun in the other hand. She took him in, the sharp scent of him marred by gun powder, the strength of him. He pulled away from her enough to look into her eyes.
“You certainly made a mess of the doctor,” he said, erupting into a burst of wild laughter. He clutched her to him again, his hand in her hair. “Oh, Chloe. Tu m’as manquée, ma chère.”
Chloe pressed herself against him, her tears staining his shirt. She wanted nothing more than to be in his arms until the adrenaline faded and she collapsed, weak and starved. But her resolve from before, when she had resolved to kill her tormentor, returned to haunt her. The faces of Three and Seventeen, of Ash, of Gabe, would not let her lose herself in the comfort of his embrace. She had killed the man who had bought her, the man who had planned to kill her. But he had not stolen her from her life. He had not stolen women from their lives for six years, imprisoned them, broke them and molded them into subservient slaves to be sold. He was not the reason for all of this suffering. Demetrius was. The man whose touch she craved, whose body seemed made to meld with hers, was the root of it all. Chloe shook her head, sobbing, mouthing the word no over and over again, though she no longer had a voice with which to speak.
She raised her wounded arm to Demetrius’ face, so close to hers. It took all her strength to take the black mask between her fingers and pull it down from his face. Demetrius tensed, as if he meant to jerk back, but he looked at her and pulled the mask away. Once more, Chloe beheld his face, so beautiful and so ruined, and tears rose again. She kissed him. The rush of lips on hers returned, his lips, the firm press of muscle mixed with the brush of metal and mangled scars, the heat of his energy melting into her body, penetrating her, owning her. She fell into the embrace, fell into him, allowed herself to be lost completely. Yes, she was his. She would always be his.
Chloe pressed the gun against him and fired.
They both jerked back. The recoil of the gun rocked Chloe’s weak frame. Demetrius stumbled, frowning, his eyes unfocused. He looked down at the fresh wound in his upper thigh. Blood bloomed on his jeans. He took several steps back, nearly out the door. Chloe sobbed, choking on tears. She raised the gun, though her hand trembled. He was now several feet from her, and she had never fired a gun before, let alone with her left hand. Demetrius only stared at her. He read her expression in that penetrating way to which she had become so accustomed. His mangled face fell, a perfect expression of sorrow without the mask to hide behind. He bowed his head, his hair falling over his scars, and for a moment, he was perfect, heartbreakingly beautiful, and Chloe wanted to run to him, to fall into his arms again, to kiss him until her lips were bruised. But she held the shaking gun where it was, her vision blurred with bitter tears.
Demetrius looked at her, his eyes as tumultuous and tormented as she had ever seen them.
“Do it,” he whispered. He opened his arms.
Chloe screamed, squeezed her eyes shut, and fired.
She did not open her eyes when she heard the heavy thud of a body hitting the floor, nor the clank of her gun as it hit the ground beside her. She clutched her head, curled her knees into her chest, and screamed. She screamed until her throat was raw, screamed for madness to take her. She sobbed until she had no more tears. Only then did she open her eyes and get to her feet.
Demetrius lay crumpled on his stomach just outside the doorway, his hair veiling his face. A small pool of blood formed on the floorboards beneath him. Chloe nearly collapsed again. She looked at the room beyond him, and moved toward the exit, closing her eyes to pass him. She couldn’t look again. She wouldn’t. It was time to go home.
Epilogue
February 21, 2012
There are SO many people here! Literally everything’s green and purple!
I’m so jealous! Take pictures. I want to hear everything when you get back!
Chloe slipped her cell back into her coat pocket with a smile. Of all the things these past few months had brought her, she was most thankful for having kept in contact with Hailey Wood, though it still felt odd not to call her Three. It had been an adjustment to spend time with her out in the real world, fully clothed, but now it felt strange to be without her, so far away.
Chloe’s father put an arm around her, his scruffy beard brushing her forehead as he planted a kiss there. Chloe hugged him closely. He hadn’t let her out of his sight for more than a few hours at a time since the police had handed her over to him at the airport. He had insisted upon coming with her on her trip, despite her asking him otherwise. But right now, in the massive crowd of cheering, jostling parade-goers, she was happy for the company. He was a good anchor to root her to reality, keeping her from losing herself in dark memories.
She pulled her coat open. It was 50 degrees in New Orleans, a sharp contrast to the bitter cold up in Ohio in February, and the presence of so many moving bodies seemed to make it even warmer. She kept her eyes on the parade, but soon her mind drifted. The writhing merriment, the swarm of bright colours, all of it reminded her of the lush theatrics of the dinner party, the Hunt, the circus night that had ended before it had begun. In every bright, elaborate mask that passed by, she saw his half-covered face.
Chloe gripped her father’s hand to stave off a wave of nausea. She didn’t need to have a panic attack now, on the street during Mardis Gras. They invaded her life far too often, triggered by the most innocuous things, like a bunch of grapes or the sound of running bathwater. Maybe when she returned from this morbid pilgrimage, she would finally go to therapy.
Dreams of New Orleans haunted her every single night since she returned from St Croix; dreams with the same surreal clarity she had experienced during her hallucinations of t
he woman whose face changed in the dark, the figure in denim she had called Mama. Most of the time the dreams involved her simply walking down a street full of wealthy houses in the early moments before sunrise, searching for someone, though she didn’t know whom. A strange whispering sound led her in her dream, a low and unintelligible hiss. She followed until she awoke, every night, consumed by memories of Demetrius’ touch, his breath, his face.
A man in a black and white domino mask brushed past Chloe and her father. A jolt of panic jumpstarted her heart. She took a deep breath, whispering what had become her new mantra over the past two months, It’s not him. It’s not him. He’s gone. Demetrius was gone. She knew it with every breath. Her Master was dead.
Cameras flashed, reminding her of the crowds of reporters she’d had to fend off for weeks after her rescue. She was happy to be free of them down here. She watched a float drift by, a truck disguised as a white dragon or snake of some sort with big blue eyes that glowed. Chloe followed it down the line until the distance swallowed it, and a young woman in the crowd made her heart jump. She was beautiful, with long dark hair spilling over a white wool coat, holding hands with a tall man with smooth mocha-coloured skin. It took Chloe a moment to realize that she had seen the woman before, in that very coat. She was the one who had gotten into the house when Chloe lay in Demetrius’ arms, during his most vulnerable moment. She was the woman Demetrius had run after and tried so desperately to embrace. The woman whose fear and disgust had destroyed him.
Chloe took a deep breath. She knew that this woman was why she was in New Orleans, the person she had been searching for in her dreams. She knew it like she knew Demetrius was dead, like an ache in her bones. She squeezed her father’s hand.
“Daddy, je reviens,” she told him.
Her father frowned a moment, troubled, but he nodded.
“I’ll be here, ma bichette.”
Ma bichette. Chloe’s chest burned.
The young couple stood right at the Bourbon Street sign post, watching the parade. They were huddled in close to one another, as if they couldn’t get enough physical contact. Every few moments they smiled at each other, kissed, embraced. Chloe wanted to smile just looking at them.
“Excuse me.”
The young woman turned to her, and the joy in her face became shock.
“Hi,” Chloe felt awkward, strange. “My name is Chloe Leroux. I know this sounds-”
“I know who you are,” said the woman. She took Chloe’s hand and the moment their skin touched, Chloe felt a feeling of peace wash over her, a peace she had forgotten how to feel. The woman’s liquid brown eyes gleamed with unshed tears. “I’ve seen you on the news. My name is Dia…Blanc.” She bit her lower lip. “I had a dream about you the other night.”
Chloe nodded. Her words did not seem odd, nor was it odd that Chloe knew the tears in Dia’s eyes were for the man who tied the two women together.
“Dia,” Chloe whispered. She hesitated, then reached forward and wiped a tear from the woman’s cheek. “We need to speak.”
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