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DORIN

The crowd is stunned.

Struck silent by the angelic lilt of her voice, which lingers even after she’s gone.

A melody that will forever haunt them.

No one has moved a finger or dared to draw a deep breath after she left the stage three minutes ago.

I’m surprised to find I haven’t either.

She has woven her spell around me like she has everyone else.

Finally, the clapping starts.

One person becomes two, two become four, and soon, the whole room is a loud din of constant noise.

Clapping and cheering.

Too many people.

The noise dissolves the spell.

Pollutes the beauty and casts the bar back into its sordid lowliness.

Pathetic people, peeling paint, and a scent of grime so thick it sticks in my lungs the same way her song sticks in my mind, refusing to ever leave.

All the ugliness takes me back to my childhood.

My father’s nasty breath as he came home and woke me with a grip around my neck, yelling at me to get up and clean up the broken bottles.

With a jerk, I rise from the stool, badly needing to escape—the place, the crowd, and the memories.

This is why I rarely leave the secluded peace of the castle in the Carpathian Mountains.

It’s the one place where I’m in control and the chaos of the world can’t reach me.

Shoving at the cheering people, I jostle toward the exit and draw a heavy breath of fresh mountain air to cleanse the filth from my lungs.

At least I didn’t have to go to a polluted city to get this girl.

If it had been anywhere else, I might have sent someone to get her, but I’m the one who found her, and she’s my prize to claim.

I heard her singing as I went into a bar, as shitty as the one I just left, to get a quick drink.

I wanted to take her right then and there, but I already had a body in my trunk and didn’t want to sully her with the foul blood of the slimy beast who thought he could cross me.

When I came back for her the next day, she was gone, and I’ve been roaming these filthy towns for a week, searching for her.

I hide in the alley behind the bar, where I can watch both the rear exit and the front in case she dares to venture through the hungry crowd.

Something tells me she won’t do the latter.

This girl was off the stage quicker than a mouse scurrying into its hole at the sight of an eagle descending from the sky.

If I’m right, she’ll be out in a few minutes, relieving me of the annoyance of having to wait.

Leaning back against a wall, I fiddle with the syringe in my pocket.

As much as I like to hear them scream, I don’t enjoy the hassle of getting a struggling girl out of a town, no matter how small.

If she were any other girl, no one in this shitty town would care if I took her, but with this particular one, I’m thinking they’d have my head if they knew what I’m about to do.

So I’m drugging her and saving the thrill of her screams for the seclusion of the dungeon—where I can do my thing in peace.

Five minutes pass, and I’m starting to wonder if I’ve read her wrong.

But no.

I easily recognized the look in her eyes as she cast a final glance at the crowd.

That itchy eagerness to flee from everything and hide.

I know it all too well myself.

Five more minutes and I’m getting really fucking irritated.

I have done more than enough waiting in my life, and I’m not gonna stand around waiting for a girl one minute longer.

Especially not one as eager to leave as her.

Stepping up to the back door, I carefully try the handle.

It slides right open.

It’s almost too easy.

I steal through a dark corridor, wincing as the vile smell once again infests my airways.

At the end, I peer into a dimly lit backroom, expecting to find her there.

But it’s empty.

So I step into the room and look around—at the mirror above the table, where she must have sat before going on stage, the half-empty bottle of water she must have used to nurture her voice, and the tattered coat still hanging over the back of the wooden chair.

Frowning, I step closer and notice the small purse on the table too.

She’s still here?

I scour the back area, checking the small toilet and a few closets without finding another trace of her.

Then I unwillingly make my way back into the rowdy bar, do a round there, and go back as empty-handed as when I started.

Something’s off.

I feel it in my gut as I pick up her bag and open it.

Her wallet is sitting right there.

It’s like someone took her.

Someone other than me.

Or maybe she ran, I think as I notice the paper towel with black stains in the open bin.

She did look utterly lost as she stopped singing.

So lost, in fact, that I’m not surprised she would bolt without grabbing her things.

What the hell is going on with you, little songbird?

I grab her wallet and fish out her driver’s license as I shove through the back entrance.

Lavinia Corina Petrescu.

Such a pretty name.

It’s almost a shame I’m replacing it with a number.

Her address is not far from here.

I recognize the street name from when I passed through town on my way here.

I get into my car at the side of the road and drive as fast as the weathered cobblestone will allow.

Walking would be faster, but I need my car close by, so I can stuff her in the trunk as quickly as possible and go unnoticed.

The house I end up at has an orange facade as cracked as every other house in this miserable town, and the roof is crooked and falling apart.

I cringe as another unwelcome memory of my childhood home assaults me.

A t least she has a home, I think as I approach the front door.

Or at least a roof over her head.

Because this is not her house, I realize, as I see another name on the front door and notice her address has a B after the house number.

Making my way to the back of the house, I find a back exit with the letter B on it.

The door creaks way too loudly as I slide it open, and so do the stairs as I make my way up the moldy steps.

I stop before the weathered door that looks like it could barely keep out a racoon, considering how to proceed.

Once I have the door open, I’ll need to move quickly.

If I’m guessing right, there’s one room on the other side, and she’ll see me the moment I enter.

If I have to pick the lock, she might start screaming before I’m even in there, and I risk her subletters running up here, swinging a pitchfork at me.

I’m not exactly in a mood to fight angry townsfolk tonight.

I just want to grab the girl and get going.

But it seems that’s not an option, and I’m not sticking around here for a second longer than needed, so I grab the handle with a heavy sigh.

Just like at the bar, it slides right open.

And leaves me to stare into an empty room.

What the fuck.

She’s not here.

Neither is anything else.

An old mattress with a thin blanket, a lonely chair, and a small fridge.

Her cell in the dungeon will barely be a downgrade.

Once again, memories flash too vividly, making my steps too heavy, boots thudding against the floor as I go to the door that must lead to a bathroom.

I’m almost tempted to go downstairs and beat the owner up for not providing better living quarters for this girl.

As I shove the door open, I am once again rendered stunned.

Nothing is going the way I planned it.

Nothing I find is what I expect, and the sight that greets me is nearly too disturbing for me to take.

I have seen lots of blood in my life.

Plenty of it.

Red footprints when I stepped in glass.

The taste of copper when my dad got mad.

Streams of red spilling from his wounds when I got strong enough to fight back.

Pools of blood gathering around shivering feet as screams sliced through the air and propelled me to strike again.

I have beaten men to an inch of their lives and left them lying in a small sea of red.

I have stitched up my own gaping wounds.

No, blood has never bothered me.

Not until tonight.

Blood is supposed to be violent.

Loud and chaotic.

Full of hatred and agonizing despair.

But the blood-red vision that meets me in this bathroom is none of that.

It’s quiet and thoughtful.

Almost serene in some kind of warped way.

In an old, weathered bathtub sits the most beautiful creature I’ve ever encountered.

Long, blonde tresses spill down milky white skin.

Soft, plump lips tremble beneath the weight of what she’s attempting.

And wide green eyes stare down at the misplaced trail of red.

So much red.

It spills down the sides of both her wrists, into the water, enveloping this innocent beauty in a pool of red.

But the morbidity doesn’t end there.

On the red water floats red leaves of rose petals, and candles on the sides of the tub flicker with a warm light more reminiscent of a romantic movie scene than a death ritual.

An angel in red.

Turning her head, she looks up at me and renders all my expectations useless for the hundredth time tonight.

Her eyes are full of sorrow and defeat.

Enough of it to end a life—but then again, not quite.

As she speaks, those bright, blue orbs fill with a plea, almost like she wants me to finish the job for her.

“I can’t do it,” she says in a weak voice.

“I can’t do it,” she repeats, shaking her head with utter defeat.

Sorrow makes her slump as she returns her attention to the knife in her hand and drags it across her wrist.

More blood gushes from her, dripping down her milky skin.

I rush to her, but before I can grab the knife, she releases it herself, letting it plop into the water as a mournful sound escapes her.

“I’m too weak,” she whimpers as I grab her wrist to apply pressure to the wound.

But there’s no pulsing blood spurting from a major artery.

The cut is superficial like every other stripe of red on her arms.

Burrowing her head into her blood-stained hands, she weeps.

“I can’t do it,” she repeats over and over with aching defeat as I lift her out of the tub.

Sinking to the floor and settling her between my legs, I look around for something to bandage her cuts.

They might not be deep enough to end her life immediately, but what she probably doesn’t realize is that the amount of blood seeping from all those wounds will drain the life from her before long if I don’t stop them.

Her pulse is already weak as I press two fingers below her jaw.

I find nothing to aid me.

Nothing but a dirty towel on the wall and a roll of toilet paper.

So I rip my T-shirt off, cradling her against my chest with an arm around her waist as I tear it into strips.

I’m surprised by the way she burrows into me, seeking comfort as she weeps.

I don’t stop to consider it—not her reaction or the way it makes me want to hold her and promise everything will be all right.

Because it won’t be if I don’t do something about her wrists.

She keeps weeping into my shoulder, not protesting the slightest as I grab one arm and wrap strips of fabric around the wounds, then do the same to the other.

She has at least five cuts on each arm, but that isn’t the worst.

Old cuts and burns litter her skin, and once I’ve finished bandaging her arms and hold her before me, I notice the same marks on her torso.

I’m about to ask what happened—curiosity, I guess—but she has gone quiet, and I don’t want to ruin whatever peace she’s finally found.

The weeping has stopped, and now she’s only breathing a few staggered breaths and sniveling a bit as she hides her face in her bloody hands.

It’s strange.

No girl has ever calmed down in my presence.

But this one seems to have found comfort in my arms, and some part of me wants to pull her back into me to see how it feels.

“Stay,” I say as I get up.

She huddles around herself as I grab the towel and soak the tip in clean water from the sink.

Then I sit beside her and start the long process of cleaning the blood from her body.

It takes a while and several trips to the sink to wash the blood out of the towel.

Still, not a single protest from her.

Not even when I spread her legs to run the towel along the insides of her thighs.

Once I’m done, I help her up, all but lifting her as she struggles to find the strength to stand.

I’m about to herd her out, sure she’ll follow without question.

This girl seems to have latched on to me, thinking I’m her savior or some shit like that.

She doesn’t even pull away as she finds her balance.

She just keeps acting like I’m a goddamn rock for her to lean on, breathing shuddery sighs into her hands as she sinks into me.

I just stand there for a moment, watching her body tilt into mine as I consider my next step.

The normal me would take the syringe in my pocket and stick it into her neck, haul her over my shoulder, and put her in the trunk of my car.

But I guess this strange scenario must have gotten to me.

Because what I do is nothing like anything I’ve ever done before.

I scoop the girl into my arms, cradling her against my chest, and carefully turn to make sure I don’t bump her head on the door frame as I leave the bathroom and the small room she calls home.

Instead of dumping her in the trunk, I open the back door and lay her on the backseat.

Taking off my jacket, I use it as a makeshift blanket to cover her.

As I straighten, about to close the door, she looks at me again—the first time since I found her.

Her lips part slightly as she whispers the strangest words a woman has ever spoken to me.

“Thank you.”