Page 38

James

Chapter 38

This is an actual nightmare.

Hell on earth.

Worst day of my fucking life.

“Thank you,” she says, the word echoing in the dimness. “You didn’t have to do that.”

I don’t respond to this.

We’d been down here for all of five minutes before I realized she was barefoot. The tunnels are pretty clean—the polished concrete floors are fortified with steel panels—but we have at least a mile walk ahead of us, and I couldn’t let her do this without shoes on. Why I couldn’t let her walk a mile with no shoes on, I have no idea. The girl is every inch the backstabbing, cold-blooded mercenary everyone told me she was. I should probably get my head checked.

Instead, we went back.

Me, with a gun to her temple, going from nurse to medic on the floor, asking if someone had a pair of shoes—in her size—that they were willing to let her borrow. It was a literal comedy show. Absurd to an unbelievable level. I hated myself more in every second, and still, I couldn’t stop. I kept thinking she was going to end up in prison with bloody, blistered feet. As if it matters. As if I should care.

I’m a raving lunatic.

At one point Kenji poked his head out of a recovery room and said, “What the hell are you still doing here?” and I gestured to Rosabelle and said, “She doesn’t have any shoes,” and he said, “She’s not wearing any underwear, either, are you going to go around asking ladies to lend you their bras, too?” and I imagined, briefly, jumping off a bridge.

Now I’m here, holding a gun to Rosabelle’s head and trying not to think about the fact that I’ve been having vivid, lucid dreams about this girl, trying for weeks to keep from so much as touching her by accident, and now here she is, practically in my arms, completely naked under that lab coat.

“James—”

“Don’t talk to me.”

My heart is racing so hard it’s embarrassing me. I am an embarrassment to myself. My anger is out of control. My head is spinning, my emotions pinging from extreme to extreme. I saw evidence of her murderous sociopathy over and over again tonight. I saw the remains of an eviscerated man in her bedroom; I watched her nearly murder Kenji; I found a nefarious vial on her body; a plot foiled; plans made; and I still can’t seem to shut off my feelings for her. It all happened so fast. The whiplash. I haven’t had enough time to process, to kill the cancer she left in my heart. I feel sick. I feel literally, physically sick. The same day I hear her laugh for the first time I find her dripping in blood and entrails, surrounded by dead bodies. I can’t think about it. I refuse to think about it.

Fuck.

I’m trying not to think about all kinds of things.

Deception. Betrayal.

The fact that she literally died before my eyes and then came back to life half an hour later.

“You know what I don’t understand?” I say, laughing a little. I sound deranged even to myself. “I don’t get how you’re such a good actor. Being a talented mercenary is already a huge skill—but your theatrical skills are just on a whole different level. I can’t believe I fell for it. All that stuff with the food, with your sister—”

I bring us to a sudden stop, something occurring to me. “Wait, do you even have a little sister? Or was that girl just a plant? Was any of the stuff you told me about yourself true? Should I just assume they were all lies?”

“James—”

“No. Don’t James me. If you’re going to say anything to me, make it the fucking truth.” I turn her around, pin her to the wall, press the gun to her throat. “Who are you?” I ask her. “Who are you, really? I don’t even know your real name.”

When she stares up at me, I realize my mistake.

I haven’t seen her face since the moment she pulled a gun on Kenji, and it was easier to live in my anger when I couldn’t see her eyes. Now she’s gazing up at me, soft and calm, with a sadness that feels so real it scares me. She looks wild and heartbroken and a little breathless, color high on her cheeks, eyes gleaming in the dim light. No walls, no shields. She’s looked at me like this—totally and completely unguarded—only one other time. It was the day we met. Right before she killed me.

This was a bad idea.

Looking at her face was a bad idea. I want to turn her around, pretend this never happened, but now I can’t stop thinking about all the places our bodies are touching, and it’s making my head spin: my thigh brushing her bare leg; my hand on her waist. My fingers are pressing into soft flesh through her thin coat, my thumb almost grazing her navel. I lean into her unconsciously, moving no more than an inch, but when my hand slides across her hip she sinks back against the wall, her eyes closing on a sound so faint I think I’ve imagined it.

I want to hear it again.

I’m grappling with my self-control, still gathering my brain cells when she suddenly shifts under my hand, and my reflexive response is to keep her from running away: I step closer, gripping her more tightly, and this time she gasps, color flooding her skin. She blinks at me from under her lashes, her eyes heavy-lidded and glazed with hunger. The sight of her like this—the way she’s looking at me with open, desperate desire—

I can’t breathe.

My skin is too tight, these pants are too tight, my chest is ripping open. I want to taste her, tear open her coat and press my face to her skin. I want to come apart. I want her under my hands, want to breathe her in, want to know what she’d feel like in my arms with nothing between us. Just hours ago I’d have killed for this, for a moment like this.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I say, my voice like gravel.

She’s staring at my mouth. She blinks up at me, her eyes clearing, returning. “Look at you like what?”

I can’t take this.

I draw away from her and feel the loss immediately. My body is feverish, unsteady. I’m cursing myself, trying to pull myself together. I nudge her forward, one hand still on her waist, the other holding the gun to her neck.

My head is suddenly killing me.

My chest fucking hurts.

Our footsteps echo in the near darkness, orange light glowing at intervals. We’ve been walking in tortured silence for at least twenty minutes when she says my name again. She says it like a question.

“What?” I say, quieting my anger.

“Rosabelle is my real name. I didn’t lie about that.” She exhales. “My full name is Rosabelle Wolff. My family calls me Rosa.”

For some reason, this admission clips me in the gut. “And I do have a younger sister. Her name is Clara,” she says, and her voice catches on the word.

I bring us to a stop.

We’re holding still now, her back to my front, staring at nothing in the dim light of this tunnel, darkness narrowing in the distance. My heart is pounding so hard I feel lightheaded.

“My mother killed herself when I was ten,” she says into the quiet. “Clara was three. I raised her on my own.”

It takes me a second to realize I’m holding my breath. I’ve been pushing forever to get something real out of this girl. And now—

“Clara’s been sick almost all her life. I don’t know why. After my mother’s death she was never the same. She cried nonstop for months. We never had enough food or firewood. Our cottage was always cold, always damp. Sometimes Clara was so hungry she’d chew the skin off her hands.”

This nearly takes me out; I nearly lower the gun.

“Everything I’ve ever done,” she says, her voice fading to a whisper, “has been for her. I realize that’s not an excuse. I know I have no moral ground here. But doing my job meant I’d get the rations I needed to feed my sister.” She hesitates. Breathes. “They used her to control me, and I knew it and I didn’t care, even as their cruelty grew more apparent. They wouldn’t give me medicine for her, not even when she started throwing up blood, and even when they did toss me scraps, the returns were diminishing. They’d give me less and less each time, always expecting more.”

I shake my head. I feel like I’m at a breaking point. “Why are you telling me this? Why now?”

“I just—” She hesitates. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

I look away, swallowing. I don’t know what to do with this girl. I don’t know how I’m supposed to react to these words.

“Sorry for what?” I say, and I sound wrecked. “For which part? For messing with my head? For coming into my life hoping to murder everyone I love? What’s your end game, Rosabelle? What were you going to do with that vial? Are you still planning on trying to use it? Are you plotting another escape right now?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

Now I’m fucking losing it. I laugh like an idiot, the sound echoing off the walls. “You’re unbelievable. This is unbelievable. You haven’t decided yet? And yet you expect me to just preemptively forgive you for whatever you’re about to do—for anything you choose to do next—”

“Will you turn me around so I can see your face?”

“No,” I nearly shout.

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t look at you. If I look at you I’m going to do something stupid.”

“James—”

“ Don’t say my name. ”

I feel her tense. Then her shoulders drop, her head falls. She seems so small and vulnerable and I hate it. I hate this. I hate that I’m pressing this gun to her neck. I hate that her hands are tied behind her back.

I hate that she’s everything I hoped she wouldn’t be.