Yelling into the night, I let it all out. Tears barrel from my eyes.

I collapse on him and he engulfs me in his arms. I can’t catch my breath as I sob into the crook of his neck.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Victor

Beautiful but defeated and damaged. Damaged for the rest of her life and no amount of emotional mutilation will ever fully give her back her innocence. The girl is a ticking time bomb, a danger to herself and very possibly to others. I wasn’t sure before, but now I know that she is more unstable than I ever could have imagined. And because she is so skilled at hiding it, not only from me but also from herself, she is more dangerous than I am. I am discipline. Sarai is rage. I am aware of my choices at all times. Sarai’s choices are more aware of her, lying in wait to decide for her based on the severity of her mood with no intention in leaving her any conscious control over it.

I know what I have to do.

I cradle the back of her head in the palm of my hand, my gun resting beside me on the bed in the other. I feel her tears soaking my shoulder, her body wracked by sobs that coalesce into my muscles. And her sweet spot still presses against my cock every time her body tenses. But I leave her there despite the moral need to pull away.

“Sarai,” I whisper against the side of her head, “I am sorry.”

I raise the gun slowly behind her.

She tilts her head and lies her cheek against my chest and I pause, waiting, though I don’t know for what. Her sobs begin to settle, her left hand drawn up near her chin where her fingertips rest lightly against my collarbone.

“I have an aunt in France,” she says softly, distantly. “My mother’s older sister. I know France is a long way, but you don’t have to take me there, just help me get on the plane.”

I raise the gun a little higher, settling the barrel at the back of her head, but not touching it. I don’t want her to be afraid before she dies and although I know she fears nothing, death is something we all fear in our final moment even if only the smallest part of us is conscious of it. I don’t want her to fear it at all and she can’t if she doesn’t know that it’s happening.

“How old were you when you became what you are?” she asks.

Caught off guard by the question and maybe more-so by the shifting of the mood, I hesitate before answering.

“I was nine.”

She sniffles and wipes her eyes with the hand near her cheek.

“You were very young,” she goes on. “I guess in a way like me, you never had a chance to live a life of your choosing. I guess maybe we aren’t really so different from each other.” She pauses. “Except I might be more like your brother than I care to admit. He’s as angry as I am.”

I release my finger from the trigger and slowly, so she doesn’t know, move the barrel away from the back of her head.

“It must’ve been hard growing up with Niklas,” she says.

I set the gun back on the bed next to me and before I know what I’m doing I’m cradling the back of her head in my hand again.

“Yes,” I answer, “considering the unconventional circumstances.”

“Instead of who’s the better baseball player it was who’s the better killer.”

“No,” I say. “Niklas never tried to be better than me, he only wanted to be my equal. We never competed with each other, but he’s been competing with everyone else who has ever been close to me for as long as he’s been alive.”

“Close to you?” she asks.

I nod and lightly comb my fingers through her hair.

“Vonnegut, Samantha, my mother, our father,” I say distantly as I picture these events, staring up at the scaling ceiling. “And now you.”

I hear her sigh, but she doesn’t raise her head.

“You see that you have one thing that I don’t,” she says carefully, though I get the feeling she’s saying it more to herself. “You have someone who loves you and who is loyal to you and who will kill for you.” She raises her body from mine and stands up from the bed. Then she looks down at me. “You are very fortunate to have him, Victor.”

She takes her panties from the end of the bed and slips them on. Then she picks up her shirt from the floor and pulls it over her long, disheveled hair and over her breasts.

“I am grateful,” she says looking back, “for everything you’ve done for me. I guess in the end none of it will really matter, not saving my life, or sparing it. But I’ll always be grateful to you.”

Sarai leaves my bedroom, but in a sense she has taken me with her.

For a length of time unknown to me, I stare up at the ceiling, picturing the way she looked before she left, how she used me to take revenge on Javier. In the beginning, I know she didn’t come into my room for that. She wanted to be with me. She wanted to feel something she’s never felt before, but rage and vengeance were not part of her plan. Self-destruction was not part of her plan, and despite using that moment to release some of the hatred inside of her, the only thing I sense that it did was make her realize just how fucked up she truly is.

The dark, melodic sound of the piano carries softly through the house, breaking me from my trance-like daze. The piece stops three times and begins all over again as she tries to get the keys right. On the fourth try, her fingers move more confidently over the keys, fluid and careful and perfect. And before long I find myself standing beside my bed and stepping into my underwear. The piece carries on, so elegant and beautiful and heart-wrenching that it draws me from my room and I’m helpless to fight against it. I take the hallway in a quiet stride, following the sound. The music gets louder, Moonlight Sonata in its most sorrowful interpretation yet, filling the vast, empty space all around me.

I stand silent and still at the arched entryway leading into the piano room. And I watch her unlike I’ve ever watched her before. She owns me in this moment.

I close my eyes and let the music course through me; shivers sweep over my skin like faint ripples on the water’s surface.

But I’m awoken from the lure all too quickly.

The music stops as Sarai becomes confused by the keys. Although disappointed that it came to an end so abruptly, I stay where I am hoping that she’ll pick up where she left off and finish the piece out. Her soft form appears vulnerable, fragile in the faint moonlight enveloping her from the window, a halo-like light around her body, illuminating the ends of her hair.

Please, just play it, Sarai. Don’t think about it, just play it.

She starts again from where she stopped, but after a few keys she gives up. Frustrated with herself, her upper-body arches forward, her hands gently touch her forehead.

I sit down beside her on the bench.

“I’ll teach you,” I say, arching my fingers on the keys. “If that’s what you want.”

She turns her head to look at me and as she does, I know that she’s wondering if I’m only referring to the music.

She nods slowly.

I start from the beginning and play the piece all the way to the point where she stopped. And then she tries again. And again, until my guidance sees her through and she’s in control of the keys the way she was before, the way she brought me into this room. It haunts me, every somber second of it, so much so that my closed eyes brim with tears, but only my heart can manage to shed them.

The piece ends at the end this time and silence fills the space around the two of us.

“I don’t want to sleep alone,” she says gently.

And I don’t force her to. Sarai falls fast asleep curled up next to me in my bed. Right where I want her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Sarai