by Cate Clarke
He looked to the corner of the room where the housekeepers were huddled together—the red-haired one, Katy, the blonde one, Larysa, and Ms. Babich all keeping their eyes down but listening.
He nodded at Katy, and she followed him immediately.
They went up the staircase, rounding each stair with careful steps, looking down onto the living room of tech workers below. Taras watched each of their shoulders relax, one by one, relieved by his leaving. He shook his head, thinking of striking that balance but really just wanting to run his knife across each of their throats.
“In here, dear,” Taras said as he opened a grand white door to the second biggest bedroom in the house. Andriy scolded him for that—not moving into the master bedroom after their father’s death. But there was a feeling in that room that Taras couldn’t shake. It followed him through the halls as well, but it was lighter, less menacing— Still, a demonic coterie tracing him, waiting. However, Taras knew exactly what he needed to do to remove the malevolence that plagued this house. And it was unfolding as he let Katy into his bedroom, as he moved into the window and as he made them both a cup of tea. The electrical kettle on the nightstand mumbled, filling the room with steam and a blue light.
“Why do you bring us here?” Katy asked, leaning back on the bed, her long red hair stroking the comforter.
“Did you not want the tea?” Taras asked, gesturing to the kettle.
“Oh.” She nodded her head. “I appreciate the tea, sir.”
“Good.”
Long strides took him all around the room, stretching out his thighs and flexing his feet against his shoes.
“But…” Katy said. Taras stopped in front of her, hand behind his back and his hair pushed out of his face. “Why?”
“What do you mean ‘why’?”
“Well, it’s clearly not for sex as it is with the others…”
Taras sneered. “Clearly.”
“For the company, then?”
Taking a step forward, leaning over her, he asked, “What if I changed my mind?”
A hard pit formed in her throat, and he watched it spring up and down as he took one hand and pushed her flat onto the bed.
“Is this what you want then?” he whispered.
She shook her head, her hair spreading out and over the comforter in red spirals.
The kettle clicked.
Taras stood up straight.
Pushing up his sleeves once again, he poured two cups of tea, gesturing for her to take the mug from the nightstand. Sitting up slowly, she moved herself down the bed to grab her cup. The flat burgundy surface of the tea reflected her wide brown eyes and thick eyebrows.
“It is for the company,” Taras said. “To keep the guards thinking I have interest in touching you. As that seems to be something that they admire—being able to stick their dicks in any pig that they wish.”
He flopped his body down onto an armchair in the corner of the room, crossing his ankles and staring at her, waiting for her to sip the tea. Blowing overtop of the surface, clutching it in her pale hands, she put her lips to the mug. There was a harsh hiss between her teeth, clearly burning herself but pretending like she hadn’t. He smiled.
“You have stronger will than the others,” he said.
“Why do you say that?”
“First, you ask questions. It is very interesting that you want to know things. In fact, perhaps even suspicious.”
She placed the mug back on the nightstand and stared at him with an intense, slightly nervous stare. Her shoulders, however, were relaxed, flat and muscular.
“I won’t ask any more questions, sir.”
Taras smirked. “That is not what I want.”
“What do you want?”
“Ah. Another question.”
“I’m—”
“No. No. Let me answer,” Taras said. “I want, more than anything, to bring back the woman that killed my father.”
“There is something sweet about revenge,” Katy said. Taras raised his eyebrows and licked his lips.
“It is not revenge.” He leaned forward in the chair. “It is for peace. She has infected this place and our entire family with her cold-blooded murder. The only way to rid us of her curse is to kill her in the same way she did my father. Once that is done…we move forward.”
Taking a sip of his tea, the hot liquid resting on his tongue, burning him, Taras waited for Katy’s reply, but she only stared at him. She tucked a red hair behind her ear, covering her exposed chest with one hand.
“Do you feel love for the people that raised you, Katy?”
“Of course,” she replied, nodding her head.
“I did not. Not until after they were dead,” Taras said. “Then there was purpose. It dropped into my lap, giving me this clear direction for once in my short life. And I hear them. They call me obsessive. But obsession is the source of all of our wealth—Father was obsessed with sex and power. Andriy is same as him. Mother with beauty. But my obsession is only with comfort. And I will never be comfortable, even within my own home, until Diana Weick is dead by my hands.”
There was a stiffening across Katy’s frame again at the mention of the American bitch’s name. His eyes narrowed as he pulled out his blade from the back of his pants. It glinted in the sun that spilled in through the large window so Taras stood and drew the curtains closed, heavy maroon fabric spilling into each other.
“Now, I ask the questions, Katy. Do you work for someone other than me?” he asked, stepping toward her, knife rotating slowly in his palm. He pointed to her tea with it and said, “Drink it.”
Katy shook her head and then nodded, grabbing the tea with both of her hands and sipping it down.
“I don’t—” she started. “I don’t work for anyone else, sir.”
“Are you sure?” He brought the knife to her throat, delicately stroking it along her skin, wanting her to say that she was a mole so he could remove her beautiful head from her body. Taras wasn’t just violent for the sake of violence. He needed justification and drive. And as always, patience.
A bead of sweat ran down from her forehead to her neck, pooling on the side of the blade. Taras brought it to his lips, licking off the drop of salt before bringing the knife to her torso, pointing it at her ribcage.
“Sir, please.” She didn’t lean away. Bravery. Foolishness. “I only work for you, Mr. Kushkin.”
With one swipe of the knife, he cut open her blouse, leaving her exposed on his bed. Her chest was heaving up and down as he stepped, looking down at her and sneering.
“Let’s see how far you get like that,” he muttered. Then he said, “Leave me.”
Dropping her teacup back onto the nightstand, Katy rushed out of the room, pieces of her blouse and red hair trailing behind her. Perhaps, she had not been suspicious at all. But there was something different in her. Something that Taras liked and hated at the same time. That same feeling he had for the woman who’d killed his father. He was alone in the darkness again, sipping tea with one hand and holding the knife to his throat with the other, determining his priorities and testing his own loyalties.
Chapter 16
Kennedy Tennison-Weick
Death Valley, Nevada
Kennedy slept for a long time. Night passed, they switched cars, and day passed again. They drugged her. She was almost sure of that. There was a tingling numbness in her limbs whenever she was able to open her eyes, and the grogginess still didn’t really go away until she woke up in an actual bed.
The motel room was filled with a mixture of woods—the walls were dark, the tables and chairs a light oak, and then strange carved mahogany art of animals hanging by the window. When she sat up, the scratchy comforter pooling on her lap, Kennedy was alone.
There was a suitcase on the bed opposite her and the blinds were drawn closed, thick lines of dust piled on top of the plastic rows. Kicking her legs out, she tried to stand up. A wave of nausea hit her and she had to sit back down.
Her clothes w
ere beginning to stink, her shorts and her training bra were all damp with sweat. She knew she should have immediately looked for an escape, crawled out the motel door and ran to the nearest public place, but what Kennedy wanted more than anything was to shower.
First, she checked through the blinds; it was sunny and the window was hot. Dust flickered off and fell onto her shoulders. She sneezed. She didn’t see the Lefferts but there was a car parked in front of their room that had a dreamy familiarity. It was the one she’d been sleeping in for the past several hours.
Kennedy tried the door—locked. What type of motel door locked from the outside? It really settled the feeling in Kennedy’s stomach that this motel was not a place for anyone with a clean record.
Since there was no place for her to go anyway, Kennedy turned up the TV loud and checked out the bathroom. Beauty products were scattered all over the sink, and there was an open bottle of vodka by the toilet, stinking up the small linoleum room. She turned on the water as hot as it could go, and it was still only lukewarm.
Not bothering to remove her clothes, she hopped over the yellowing tub surround and into the shower. Streaks of dirt and sweat washed off of her, black swirls of water in the drain by her toes. She took in a deep breath, the steam from the water coating the inside of her mouth.
The motel door opened. Kennedy leaped forward, locking the bathroom door, the water still running behind her so she almost slipped on the tile. There was an immediate slap against the door and the jiggle of the knob, and she jumped back.
“Kennedy, you in there, hun?” Willow called through the door. “You okay?”
After regaining some of her footing and gripping the bathroom sink, Kennedy replied, “Y-yeah.”
“Don’t take too long,” Bobby added, slapping on the door again, and she heard his boots clomp away from the bathroom.
“I’ve got a dress for you here, sweetie,” Willow said. “I’m gonna hang it on the doorknob, okay, yeah?”
Sighing and tiptoeing across the tile, Kennedy hopped back into the shower. Another firm slap and jump.
“What?!” Kennedy yelled.
“I said, okay?”
“Yes! Okay!”
The smell of the shampoo clung to Kennedy’s hair even after she’d dried herself off and quickly opened the door to grab the new clothes that Willow had left. It was a sundress. Clearly, they weren’t anywhere near Seattle anymore. Kennedy pulled it over her head, her curly brown hair getting trapped under the elastic straps. She could almost feel the ends of it tangling and frizzing. Mom had taught her everything about caring for her curls despite not having any herself and never doing her own hair. Kennedy remembered her mom running on the treadmill, watching curly hair care videos on her tablet, headphones over her ears, repeating sections that she didn’t understand with the swipe of her finger.
“You look so lovely, hun!” Willow exclaimed when Kennedy walked out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her shoulders. “Let me see it proper.”
Hurrying past both of them, sprinting as fast as she could, she went for the door. Bobby, sitting on the edge of the bed, tried to grab her, but instead snatched the towel off her back. Her hand wrapped around the knob.
She turned it.
It was open.
But she was falling, heading for the ground, Willow’s hand wrapped around her ankle, yanking her back. Her chin hit the carpet and blood filled her mouth, her teeth clamping down onto her tongue like a stapler. Underneath a cheesy jingle coming from the TV, Bobby’s boots rumbled the floors, stepping over Willow and onto either side of Kennedy’s sprawled-out body, hand still reaching toward the door. He grabbed her outstretched hand and pinned it behind her back, sitting on her with all of his weight.
Kennedy cried out.
“Lock the door, Willow,” he said. “I really thought we’d talked about this, you know? We’re trying to take care of ya, Kennedy, and if you were to run or anything else like that… Well, we won’t be able to take care of you no more. And I don’t think you want to go into the next guy’s hands quite yet, okay?”
“Next—” Kennedy mustered, trying to catch her breath under his pressure. “Guy?”
“Yeah yeah. You don’t want that,” Bobby sighed, lifting his knee slightly and easing the pain on her bent wrist. “But we got you some pizza. I bet you’re right starved, hey?”
Willow stepped around both of them and used a set of keys on a feather keychain to lock the door. It seemed odd that she would have put the motel key on her own ring if they were only staying here for a short time. Maybe, they would be here permanently. Kennedy would spend her days stretched out in front of the dust-covered blinds, watching The Price Is Right until Drew Carey talked her deaf.
Bobby stood up, and Kennedy got onto all fours, coughing and trying to regain her lung capacity. They turned the TV up louder, trying to drown her out. Kennedy sat in the corner of the room for a while, the sun setting beyond the blinds and cutting through in flat lines of orange across the brown carpet of the motel.
Finally regaining enough breath, Kennedy asked, “Where are we?”
“Just outside of Vegas,” Bobby said.
“Are we supposed to tell her that?” Willow hissed.
He muttered, “What does it matter?”
The pizza was laid out on Kennedy’s bed, the greasy smell of pepperoni wafting its way over to her corner and to her stomach. Slowly standing by leaning on one of the oak chairs, Kennedy hobbled her way over to the cardboard box and grabbed a slice, shoveling it into her mouth. With one finger, she tilted the pizza box forward: Point Pizza—Death Valley, Nevada.
Kennedy sat down on the bed, turning the box toward her and grabbing the next piece of pizza.
“You taking the last one?” Bobby asked, without even looking at her, his eyes still on the TV.
Kennedy took a bite and said, “Yeah.”
He clicked his teeth with his tongue rubbing against his gums and just gave a small groan as a response.
“How long are we going to be here?” Kennedy asked as she swallowed down the rest of the pizza in two bites.
“Right away with the questions,” Bobby muttered, turning up the TV another notch. Their friendliness had been exhausted over the long car ride—they were all out of formalities and all they had left for Kennedy was bitterness.
“Probably just the night,” Willow said from Bobby’s other side. “We gotta drop you off tomorrow.”
“Drop me off?” Kennedy asked, leaning forward, her stomach stretched and hurting from eating so fast.
Willow said, “Yup. That’s why you got that nice dress. So you can look good for your friend.”
“My friend?” Kennedy could only repeat what she was hearing, trying to make sense of it. For a brief moment, she thought she was going to vomit again; the feelings of nausea were following her like a fly sticking to her back.
“Oh. I love this movie!” Willow exclaimed, tapping Bobby on the arm. “Turn it up!”
Kennedy couldn’t hear anything after that. They kept the TV turned all the way up all night. She wrapped herself under the blankets, threw the pillow over her head, but she couldn’t drown out the sounds of fake car chases and the Lefferts' laughter.
Friend. Willow had specifically chosen the word friend. But, Kennedy didn’t have any friends. As soon as she’d moved out of her neighborhood for junior high, she had a hard time connecting with anyone at her new school. She didn’t do sports. She’d had the Eagle Scouts but that was only seasonal, and none of the boys had even followed her on Instagram. Video games had been her one refuge for some friendly voices at the very least. That had led her to Discord and to her Fortnite group that shared regular GIFs and complained about their parents and siblings.
The TV turned off in the early morning and the sudden lack of sound woke Kennedy up, or maybe she was still awake. She listened to them whisper.
“She’s still asleep,” Willow said.
“Let’s go get some coffee. We’re gonna
need it.”
They both let out large yawns. The door clicked open and then closed. Kennedy waited for the jangling of the feather keychain. A few minutes passed. No keys. Unlocked.
She bounded out of bed, not wasting any time. Snatching a hoodie off the top of the Lefferts' suitcase at the foot of the bed and tucking it under her arm, Kennedy opened the door. She pulled the sweater over her head, one arm at a time, and flicked up the hood. It was way too long on her, almost as long as the sundress, the floral pattern peeking out beneath the gray elastic of Bobby Lefferts' hoodie.
It was hot. Way too hot for being just past sunrise.
The parking lot was like a black grill, yellow lines of mustard separating the few cars in the parking lot, waves of humidity rising off of the pavement. She followed along the motel room doors, hurrying around the u-shaped sidewalk but keeping herself far against the wall, in the shadows. Picking up glances as she walked, she saw the Lefferts.
They were picking at the continental breakfast in the lobby. Bobby, sorting through a large metal tray of sausages with his own fork instead of the provided tongs and Willow, trying to get milk out of the dispenser for cereal by slapping it with a manicured hand. There were two other people in the room, eating breakfast, tilting their sunglasses down to eye them. They were directly across from her, her sidewalk across the parking lot through to their window. If they looked up, they would see her instantly.
Without a doubt.
Kennedy rushed forward, trying to get out of the range of the window, not slowing down to check if they had seen her. Up ahead, the sidewalk turned out of the motel’s parking lot into the street. Traffic was passing by, every occasional car and truck a potential savior for Kennedy.
She turned the corner and the motel parking lot spilled out into a gas station. Several semi trucks were parked, creating a line of barriers that Kennedy had to weave her way through to get to the pumps. She almost cried at the sight of a mother yelling at her toddlers in the backseat.
Finally, other people.