TODAY

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20TH, 2016

You’re still alive in alternate universes, Theo, but I live in the real world, where this morning you’re having an open-casket funeral. I know you’re out there, listening. And you should know I’m really pissed because you swore you would never die and yet here we are. It hurts even more because this isn’t the first promise you’ve broken.

I’ll break down the details of this promise again. You made it last August. Trust me when I say I’m not talking down to you as I recall this memory, and many others, in great detail. I doubt it’ll even surprise you since we always joked about how your brain worked in funny ways. You knew enough meaningless trivia to fill notebooks, but you occasionally slipped on the bigger things, like my birthday this year (May 17th, not the 18th), and you never kept your night classes straight even though I got you a cool planner with zombies on the cover (which you-know-who probably forced you to throw out). I just want you to remember things the way I do. And if bringing up the past annoys you now—as I know it did when you left New York for California—know that I’m sorry, but please don’t be mad at me for reliving all of it. History is all you left me.

We made promises to each other on the day I broke up with you so you could do your thing out there in Santa Monica without me holding you back. Some of those promises took bad turns but weren’t broken, like how I said I’d never hate you even though you gave me enough reasons to, or how you never stopped being my friend even when your boyfriend asked you to. But on the day we were walking to the post office with Wade to ship your boxes to California, you walked backward into the street and almost got hit by a car. I saw our endgame—to find our way back to each other when the time was right, no matter what—disappear, and I made you promise to always take care of yourself and never die.

“Fine. I’ll never die,” you said as you hugged me.

If there was a promise you were allowed to break, it wasn’t that one, and now I’m forced to approach your casket in one hour to say goodbye to you.

Except it’s not going to be goodbye.

I’ll always have you here listening. But being face-to-face with you for the first time since July and for the last time ever is going to be impossible, especially given the unwanted company of your boyfriend.

Let’s leave his name out of my mouth as long as possible this morning, okay? If I’m going to have any chance of getting through today, tomorrow, and all the days that follow, I think I need to go back to the start, where we were two boys bonding over jigsaw puzzles and falling in love.

It’s what comes after you fell out of love with me that it all goes wrong. It’s what comes after we broke up that’s making me so nervous. Now you can see me, wherever you are. I know you’re there, and I know you’re watching me, tuned in to my life to piece everything together yourself. It’s not just the shameful things I’ve done that are driving me crazy, Theo. It’s because I know I’m not done yet.

HISTORY

SUNDAY, JUNE 8TH, 2014

I’m making history today.

Time is moving faster than this L train, but it’s all good since I’m sitting to the left of Theo McIntyre. I’ve known him since middle school, when he caught my eye at recess. He waved me over and said, “Help me out, Griffin. I’m rebuilding Pompeii.” A puzzle of Pompeii made up of one hundred pieces, obviously. I knew nothing of Pompeii at the time; I thought Mount Vesuvius was the hidden lair of some comic book overlord. Theo’s hands had entranced me, sorting the puzzle pieces into groups according to shades before beginning, separating the granite roads from the demolished, ash-coated structures. I helped with the sky, getting the clouds all wrong. We didn’t get very far with the puzzle that day, but we’ve been tight ever since.

CHAPTER ONE

Like its mysterious owner, Rook’s Island was practically an urban legend. No brochures. No real website. They advertised strictly by whisper of mouth. In other words, you had to know someone willing to tell you about it. Confidentially.

But from the bits and pieces I’d gathered off the Internet, I deduced it was an uncharted island somewhere west of the Bermuda Triangle in Bahaman waters, likely northwest of Highborne Cay among a cluster of unnamed isles. That said, no one could tell you exactly where it was, and if they knew, they’d never admit it. Even the employees of the Bahaman government had simply stared at me like I was a madwoman.

“There is nothing in those waters, ma’am, except fish,” one of the clerks from the Bahaman embassy in DC had said several months ago.

“Then why the hell did my sister have a goddamned plane ticket to the island?”

The man had simply shrugged. “I cannot say, ma’am. I have never heard of such a place, so perhaps your sister simply lied. People disappear on purpose all the time.”

What the fuck? Cici, my sister, was a goddamned saint, a kindergarten teacher who loved her life. She lived for those kids and was the kind of person who made everyone smile.

Unlike me. I used to be outgoing and optimistic, but now I’m just broken. I’m broken because I loved my big sister more than anything. She was my best friend, my blood, and my hero. She was there for me when my widowed father was too busy working and I was trying to grow up without a mother. Cici made us a family, and now she was gone. Just like that. A fact the police had little to say about since they had a video of her clearing out her safe deposit box.

“She did not abandon us, you piece of shit!” I had screamed at the embassy guy. “Now help me fucking find her!”

The rest of that moment—a blur, really—consisted of multiple expletives, resulting in my being arrested and banned from their embassy. Indefinitely. My father, an award-winning war correspondent, had to pull a few strings to get me out of jail that day.

“Stephanie, please don’t do this to me,” he’d said, his thinning gray hair its usual mess, his strong hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel of his Volvo—an old beige thing he’d purchased for my mother right before she died. God rest her beautiful soul. She had been a journalist like my dad when they met in Afghanistan, but they moved around a lot for work, eventually landing in New York right after I came along. Then one morning, she was out for a jog and dropped dead of a heart attack. Poof. Gone forever from our lives.

My poor father was never right in the head again, and until this day, he refused to let go of my mom or that Volvo. So while I never really knew her, I felt the painful void she’d left behind, which was why I couldn’t give up searching for Cici or accept that there was no island.

And look. There it is… I glanced out the tiny window of the plane, knowing I was one step closer to getting answers.

My heart hammered against my rib cage as the private jet’s outer door popped open. Okay, really, my heart hadn’t stopped hammering since I’d boarded. What kind of place doesn’t require a visa or passport? A shady place, that’s what.

“Ladies,” said the stewardess with dark brown hair matching my own, “the staff here at Mr. Rook’s island would like to welcome you to your dream vacation. As you exit the plane, please be careful descending the staircase. Of course,” she giggled, “if you do decide to fall, there will be a strong, handsome gentleman waiting to catch you.”

The female passengers, who’d been sipping fancy cocktails since we boarded at a private airfield south of Newark, started clapping and hooting.

“I’m definitely taking a dive, then!” barked out a redhead in her mid-forties, wearing an animal print blouse, white jeggings, and a heavy amount of gold jewelry around her neck. Her accent screamed Southerner, while her outfit screamed new money and that she liked borrowing clothes from her daughter—the one she’d been talking about nonstop to the other passenger directly behind me. Apparently, the redhead had just got divorced from her wealthy cheating husband and the daughter recently graduated from college. This vacation was her big indulgence after years of marital ugliness. The woman to her side, a timid little blonde thing, didn’t say much other than her sister had come to Rook’s Island over a decade ago and hadn’t stop talking about it since.

“I can’t wait to meet Mr. Rook,” said the redhead. “I hear he’s the most delicious thing on the island.”

“My sister only saw him once because he didn’t mingle much with the guests,” said the blonde lady.

“Well,” said the redhead with a sassy voice, “if he’s as good looking as my friends say, I’m changing my fantasy to a night with him.”

In the back of my mind, I tried to understand how these women could actually pay money to come all the way here and sleep with strange men in a weeklong, role-playing, fantasy vacation. It felt so strange to me.

“What’s your fantasy this week, sweetheart?” the redhead asked, staring at me with her mascara-caked eyes.

“Who, me?” I pointed to my chest.

“Yeah. You gonna do some pirate fantasy? Oh wait. I know. You look like the superhero kind.” She snapped her fingers. “Thor. You went for the Thor fantasy, didn’t ya? I heard he has the biggest hammer in the world.” She winked.

Nice. Real nice. And why had she made that assessment about me? My look didn’t scream cosplay-lover. It didn’t scream anything, really. Most men—my exes—would describe me as having classic beauty. I would describe myself as average. Average-length brown hair with average waves. Average brown eyes. Average five foot four height. Average ten pounds overweight. Average intelligence.

My special feature was my tenacity. Once I set out to do something, I achieved my goal no matter how difficult. For example, when I was eight and Cici was fourteen, I decided that our yard needed a treehouse. My father said he was too busy, so I put up a lemonade stand every weekend for five months until I raised enough money to hire a handyman. I got my damned treehouse.

I smiled politely at the redhead and mousy blonde who waited for my reply. “I, uh, really just want flowers, a candlelit dinner on a yacht, and cuddling by the fire—your basic romance,” I lied.

They looked at me like I was out of my soft skull for choosing something so tame. But I wasn’t here for wild. I was here to find Cici.

“Well, that’s cute,” said the redhead.

“I’m doing Tarzan,” said the blonde, staring at the floor.

I tried to keep a straight face. I couldn’t picture this shy little thing swinging through the trees in a suede bikini.

“Sounds…” I swallowed, “dangerous.”

“I knooow.” Her brown eyes lit with joy.

The line began to clear out of the cabin, so I grabbed my backpack and purse and faced forward.

“Well, enjoy your romantic candles…?” Redhead wanted to know my name.

I glanced over my shoulder. “Stephanie.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Meg,” she said and then jerked her head toward the blonde, “and she’s Emily.”

“Nice meeting you, too,” I replied politely.

“We’ll see you at the welcome dinner tonight!” Meg said. “I hear the dancers are amazing—ripped from head to toe and almost naked in those Hawaiian grass skirt things.”

“Mmmm. Can’t wait.” I didn’t give a crap about dancers or dinners. I wanted to find this Mr. Rook and start asking about Cici. I was ready to put a goddamned knife to his throat if that was what it took.

“Right this way, ladies!” said the overly peppy air stewardess.

One by one, we filed down the rollaway staircase. I immediately noticed the tropical summer heat, the never-ending stretch of lush green jungle, and the musty smell of moist dirt mixed with salty air.

My mind immediately jumped to my sister—her bright smile and big brown eyes. She had been right here on this island, on this very fucking staircase. What did they do to her?

My heart bubbled with rage. Stay in character, Steph. You’re a happy guest, like everyone else. The last thing I wanted was to go ballistic and get kicked off the island before I got what I needed—the truth for myself and information for “my boss,” Warner Price. I used the term loosely because Warner and I had more of an arrangement rather than an employer-employee situation. Either way, I couldn’t and wouldn’t go home until I had what I needed.

Wearing black leather sandals and a long blue cotton dress, I carefully descended the narrow staircase, feeling my anxiety well inside my shaky knees.

“Welcome, Miss…?” Holding out his hand, next to the bottom step, stood a huge tree trunk of a man wearing a blue-and-white Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. He had to be at least seven feet tall, his brown skin covered in Samoan tattoos. Even his neck and the back of his shaved head were inked.

“Ms. Brenna,” I lied, and shook his large hand. “Let me guess. You must be Tattoo and you tell everyone when the plane arrives?” This place is a fucking joke.

He smiled and flashed a set of bright white teeth. “My name is Gerry, ma’am, and our control tower texts the employees to alert us when the guests arrive. May I help you with your things?”

“No.” I smiled politely, smoothing down the front of my wrinkled dress, trying my best not to show him the hate inside me. Because for all I knew, he’d had something to do with Cici’s death.

No. Don’t think that. She’s not dead. Sadly, however, my heart knew she would not leave us. Not like that. Which naturally led to one conclusion: She never made it off this island alive.

I held back a snarl and substituted it with a grin. “I can carry my own things, but thanks.”

“Very good, Ms. Brenna.” Tattoo—I mean Gerry—dipped his shaved head. “Please follow the red carpet to the gravel path. The signs will direct you to the reception building, where our staff will check you in.”

“Thanks.”

Gerry turned his attention to the next guest behind me—Meg—and I continued on the red carpet, squinting from the hot summer sun beating down on the top of my head.

My first impression of the place was that everything felt too perfect, like a movie set or theme park. Yes, the tall trees were real, and the birds of paradise sprouting from beds of bright red and yellow flowers were real, too, but even the gravel path I followed through the dense jungle didn’t have a single pebble out of place.

As I walked, the muted giggles and laughter of the ladies behind me echoed through the trees. All I felt was my skin crawling and those eyes—from the shadow—still watching me.

Stop it, I told myself. You’re letting your imagination get to you.

I slid my cell from my purse to check for texts or messages from my dad. Crap. No bars? Not even one little flicker? I guess I wasn’t surprised. This island couldn’t stay a secret if people were posting their location on Facebook along with vacation pics.

After a very short walk, the shaded path ended at a large, two-story house with an enormous porch and hanging flowers of every color imaginable. It reminded me of those old coffee plantation homes with whitewash paint and pillars.

I walked up the steps to the porch, my body already dripping with sweat. “Jesus, this place is like living inside a wet volcano,” I muttered. I couldn’t say I was a fan of humidity before this and now I absolutely loathed it.

I stepped inside the house, where a gentle breeze from the ceiling fans drifted against my hot skin, giving some relief. The white wood-paneled room had fresh flowers atop two white desks, where two pleasant-looking women awaited us. Oh, look. We’re being checked in to heaven. Every perfect detail of this shitty place pissed me off.

The guests formed a line and then gave their names to the women in blue-and-white blouses behind the desks. After that, another woman, different every time, quickly whisked them off down a hallway.

My turn. I stepped up, feeling nervous as hell. I wasn’t great at lying, but there was no other way. I’m a guest. A happy guest.

“Hi. I’m Stephanie Brenna.”

The young woman with cocoa skin and her black hair pulled into a neat ponytail smiled and then checked my name off her list. “There you are, Ms. Brenna. Julie will be checking you in and going over the island’s amenities and rules during your stay.”

Julie, a brunette wearing white shorts and the standard Hawaiian blouse, appeared with a bright smile. “Ms. Brenna, hello. Please come right this way.”

“What is this?” The whole whisking people away and separating the guests made me uneasy.

The receptionist continued smiling like she was high on life or had just gotten her wings. “Ah, yes. Well, our check-in process is a little different than your standard resort.” She leaned into her desk and whispered, “Because of the unique nature of our services.” She winked.

“So you mean there’s sex paperwork,” I said.

She pointed her pencil at me. “You got it. And a safety orientation.”

“And Mr. Rook? When do I get to meet him?” I asked.

The smiles on the women’s faces melted so fast, one might have assumed I’d just told them I’d like to eat their livers.

“What?” I asked. “This is his island, isn’t it?”

Julie, my check-in hostess, swallowed something in her throat. “I’m afraid that Mr. Rook doesn’t manage the day-to-day operations of the island—he’s a very busy man. However, if you have any concerns or needs—anything at all—I will be your personal concierge for the week.” Her fake smile reappeared. “And if there’s anything I can’t manage, the island’s executive manager, Mrs. Day, can see to it.”

“So I won’t get to meet the famous Mr. Rook?” I asked.

They smiled politely, but didn’t speak. I got the distinct impression that they were not allowed to say no to a guest.

“All right. Is he even on the island?” I prodded.

The receptionist offered me a bone. “Mr. Rook does have a personal residence here, but we are not kept informed of his schedule or whereabouts. Is there anything we can address? Any concerns?”

The two women eyed the line of rowdy drunk guests behind me. Apparently, one of them had to pee, a fact she happily shared with us all.

Okay, well, if Mr. Rook didn’t run things on a daily basis, then he wasn’t the only person with answers. Of course, the big boss would have to know if a guest went missing, so I would still need to meet him.

“No.” I flashed a smile to make nice. “No concerns at this time.”

“Then follow me!” Julie turned for the hallway. “In a few short minutes, I’ll have you on your way to a week of pure pampering and relaxation.”

“Fabulous.” I followed behind her.

“Unless your version of relaxation requires something more vigorous.” She glanced over her shoulder and winked.

What’s with the damned winking? This entire place gave me the heebie-jeebies. “Can’t wait.”

YOU walk into the bookstore and you keep your hand on the door to make sure it doesn’t slam. You smile, embarrassed to be a nice girl, and your nails are bare and your V-neck sweater is beige and it’s impossible to know if you’re wearing a bra but I don’t think that you are. You’re so clean that you’re dirty and you murmur your first word to me—hello—when most people would just pass by, but not you, in your loose pink jeans, a pink spun from Charlotte’s Web and where did you come from?

You are classic and compact, my own little Natalie Portman circa the end of the movie Closer, when she’s fresh-faced and done with the bad British guys and going home to America. You’ve come home to me, delivered at last, on a Tuesday, 10:06 a.m. Every day I commute to this shop on the Lower East Side from my place in Bed-Stuy. Every day I close up without finding anyone like you. Look at you, born into my world today. I’m shaking and I’d pop an Ativan but they’re downstairs and I don’t want to pop an Ativan. I don’t want to come down. I want to be here, fully, watching you bite your unpainted nails and turn your head to the left, no, bite that pinky, widen those eyes, to the right, no, reject biographies, self-help (thank God), and
slow down when you make it to fiction.

Yes.

I let you disappear into the stacks—Fiction F–K—and you’re not the standard insecure nymph hunting for Faulkner you’ll never finish, never start; Faulkner that will harden and calcify, if books could calcify, on your nightstand; Faulkner meant only to convince one-night stands that you mean it when you swear you never do this kind of thing. No, you’re not like those girls. You don’t stage Faulkner and your jeans hang loose and you’re too sun-kissed for Stephen King and too untrendy for Heidi Julavits and who, who will you buy? You sneeze, loudly, and I imagine how loud you are when you climax. “God bless you!” I call out.

You giggle and holler back, you horny girl, “You too, buddy.”

Buddy. You’re flirting and if I was the kind of *sshole who Instagrams, I would photograph the F–K placard and filter the sh*t out of that baby and caption it:

F—K yes, I found her.

Calm down, Joe. They don’t like it when a guy comes on too strong, I remind myself. Thank God for a customer and it’s hard to scan his predictable Salinger—then again, it’s always hard to do that. This guy is, what, thirty-six and he’s only now reading Franny and Zooey? And let’s get real. He’s not reading it. It’s just a front for the Dan Browns in the bottom of his basket. Work in a bookstore and learn that most people in this world feel guilty about being who they are. I bag the Dan Brown first like it’s kiddie porn and tell him Franny and Zooey is the sh*t and he nods and you’re still in F–K because I can see your beige sweater through the stacks, barely. If you reach any higher, I’ll see your belly. But you won’t. You grab a book and sit down in the aisle and maybe you’ll stay here all night. Maybe it’ll be like the Natalie Portman movie Where the Heart Is, adapted faithlessly from the Billie Letts book—above par for that kind of crud—and I’ll find you in the middle of the night. Only you won’t be pregnant and I won’t be the meek man in the movie. I’ll lean over and say, “Excuse me, miss, but we’re closed” and you’ll look up and smile. “Well, I’m not closed.” A breath. “I’m wide open. Buddy.”

“Hey.” Salinger-Brown bites. He’s still here? He’s still here. “Can I get a receipt?”

“Sorry about that.”

He grabs it out of my hand. He doesn’t hate me. He hates himself. If people could handle their self-loathing, customer service would be smoother.

“You know what, kid? You need to get over yourself. You work in a bookstore. You don’t make the books. You don’t write the books and if you were any good at reading the books, you probably wouldn’t work in a bookstore. So wipe that judgmental look off your face and tell me to have a nice day.”

This man could say anything in the world to me and he’d still be the one shame-buying Dan Brown. You appear now with your intimate Portman smile, having heard the motherf*cker. I look at you. You look at him and he’s still looking at me, waiting.

“Have a nice day, sir,” I say and he knows I don’t mean it, hates that he craves platitudes from a stranger. When he’s gone, I call out again because you’re listening, “You enjoy that Dan Brown, motherf*cker!”

You walk over, laughing, and thank God it’s morning, and we’re dead in the morning and nobody is gonna get in our way. You put your basket of books down on the counter and you sass, “You gonna judge me too?”

“What an *sshole, right?”

“Eh, probably just in a mood.”

You’re a sweetheart. You see the best in people. You complement
me.

“Well,” I say and I should shut up and I want to shut up but you make me want to talk. “That guy is the reason that Blockbuster shouldn’t have gone under.”

You look at me. You’re curious and I want to know about you but I can’t ask so I just keep talking.

“Everybody is always striving to be better, lose five pounds, read five books, go to a museum, buy a classical record and listen to it and like it. What they really want to do is eat doughnuts, read magazines, buy pop albums. And books? F*ck books. Get a Kindle. You know why Kindles are so successful?”

You laugh and you shake your head and you’re listening to me at the point when most people drift, go into their phone. And you’re pretty and you ask, “Why?”

“I’ll tell you why. The Internet put porn in your home—”

I just said porn, what a dummy, but you’re still listening, what a doll.

“And you didn’t have to go out and get it. You didn’t have to make eye contact with the guy at the store who now knows you like watching girls get spanked. Eye contact is what keeps us civilized.”

Your eyes are almonds and I go on. “Revealed.”

You don’t wear a wedding ring and I go on. “Human.”

You are patient and I need to shut up but I can’t. “And the Kindle, the Kindle takes all the integrity out of reading, which is exactly what the Internet did to porn. The checks and balances are gone. You can read your Dan Brown in public and in private all at once. It’s the end of civilization. But—”

“There’s always a but,” you say and I bet you come from a big family of healthy, loving people who hug a lot and sing songs around a campfire.

“But with no places to buy movies or albums, it’s come down to books. There are no more video stores so there are no more nerds who work in video stores and quote Tarantino and fight about Dario Argento and hate on people who rent Meg Ryan movies. That act, the interaction between seller and buyer, is the most important two-way street we got. And you can’t just eradicate two-way streets like that and not expect a fallout, you know?”

I don’t know if you know but you don’t tell me to stop talking the way people sometimes do and you nod. “Hmm.”

“See, the record store was the great equalizer. It gave the nerds power—’You’re really buying Taylor Swift?’—even though all those nerds went home and jerked it to Taylor Swift.”

Stop saying Taylor Swift. Are you laughing at me or with me? “Anyway,” I say, and I’ll stop if you tell me to.

“Anyway,” you say, and you want me to finish.

“The point is, buying stuff is one of the only honest things we do. That guy didn’t come in here for Dan Brown or Salinger. That guy came in here to confess.”

“Are you a priest?”

“No. I’m a church.”

“Amen.”

You look at your basket and I sound like a deranged loner and I look in your basket. Your phone. You don’t see it, but I do. It’s cracked. It’s in a yellow case. This means that you only take care of yourself when you’re beyond redemption. I bet you take zinc the third day of a cold. I pick up your phone and try to make a joke.

“You steal this off that guy?”

You take your phone and you redden. “Me and this phone . . .” you say. “I’m a bad mommy.”

Mommy. You’re dirty, you are.

“Nah.”

You smile and you’re definitely not wearing a bra. You take the books out of the basket and put the basket on the floor and look at me like it wouldn’t be remotely possible for me to criticize anything you ever did. Your nipples pop. You don’t cover them. You notice the Twizzlers I keep by the register. You point, hungry. “Can I?”

“Yes,” I say, and I am feeding you already. I pick up your first book, Impossible Vacation by Spalding Gray. “Interesting,” I say. “Most people get his monologues. This is a great book, but it’s not a book that people go around buying, particularly young women who don’t appear to be contemplating suicide, given the fate of the author.”

“Well, sometimes you just want to go where it’s dark, you know?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah.”

If we were teenagers, I could kiss you. But I’m on a platform behind a counter wearing a name tag and we’re too old to be young. Night moves don’t work in the morning, and the light pours in through the windows. Aren’t bookstores supposed to be dark?

Note to self: Tell Mr. Mooney to get blinds. Curtains. Anything.

I pick up your second book, Desperate Characters by one of my favorite authors, Paula Fox. This is a good sign, but you could be buying it because you read on some stupid blog that she’s Courtney Love’s biological grandmother. I can’t be sure that you’re buying Paula Fox because you came to her the right way, from a Jonathan Franzen essay.

You reach into your wallet. “She’s the best, right? Kills me that she’s not more famous, even with Franzen gushing about her, you
know?”

Thank God. I smile. “The Western Coast.”

You look away. “I haven’t gone there yet.” I look at you and you put your hands up, surrender. “Don’t shoot.” You giggle and I wish your nipples were still hard. “I’m gonna read The Western Coastsomeday and Desperate Characters I’ve read a zillion times. This one’s for a friend.”

“Uh-huh,” I say and the red lights flash danger. For a friend.

“It’s probably a waste of time. He won’t even read it. But at least she sells a book, right?”

“True.” Maybe he’s your brother or your dad or a gay neighbor, but I know he’s a friend and I stab at the calculator.

“It’s thirty-one fifty-one.”

“Holy money. See, that’s why Kindles rule,” you say as you reach into your Zuckerman’s pig-pink wallet and hand me your credit card even though you have enough cash in there to cover it. You want me to know your name and I’m no nut job and I swipe your card and the quiet between us is getting louder and why didn’t I put on music today and I can’t think of anything to say.

“Here we go.” And I offer you the receipt.

“Thanks,” you murmur. “This is a great shop.”

You’re signing and you are Guinevere Beck. Your name is a poem and your parents are *ssholes, probably, like most parents. Guinevere. Come on.

“Thank you, Guinevere.”

“I really just go by Beck. Guinevere’s kinda long and ridiculous, you know?”

“Well, Beck, you look different in person. Also, Midnite Vultures is awesome.”

You take your bag of books and you don’t break eye contact because you want me to see you seeing me. “Right on, Goldberg.”

“Nah, I just go by Joe. Goldberg is kind of long and ridiculous, ya know?”

We’re laughing and you wanted to know my name as much as I wanted to know yours or you wouldn’t have read my name tag. “Sure you don’t wanna grab The Western Coast while you’re here?”

“This will sound crazy, but I’m saving it. For my nursing home list.”

“You mean bucket list.”

“Oh no, that’s totally different. A nursing home list is a list of things you plan on reading and watching in a nursing home. A bucket list is more like . . . visit Nigeria, jump out of an airplane. A nursing home list is like, read The Western Coast and watch Pulp Fiction and listen to the latest Daft Punk album.”

“I can’t picture you in a nursing home.”

You blush. You are Charlotte’s Web and I could love you. “Aren’t you gonna tell me to have a nice day?”

“Have a nice day, Beck.”

You smile. “Thanks, Joe.”

You didn’t walk in here for books, Beck. You didn’t have to say my name. You didn’t have to smile or listen or take me in. But you did. Your signature is on the receipt. This wasn’t a cash transaction and it wasn’t a coded debit. This was real. I press my thumb into the wet ink on your receipt and the ink of Guinevere Beck stains my skin.

IRONICALLY, the thing that changed my life was the sound of the radio playing in the background while I was plowing my girlfriend on a Friday afternoon. By all rights, I shouldn’t have even noticed the voice on the radio— because I was balls deep, her head was thrown back, and the headboard was tapping out a cadence of love on the dorm room wall. But I did hear it, and a series of events was set in motion that, like dominoes lined up just so on a gymnasium floor, would not be stopped.

I had swung by Layla’s room after my last class, partly because I wanted to see how she had done on the essay I helped her with, and partly because it had been almost a week since we’d had sex. Okay, I didn’t actually give a damn about the essay. With our busy schedules— Layla’s cheer practice and club meetings, and my heavy class load— it wasn’t easy to carve out time to take care of business. To put it in the simplest of guy terms, I was backed up. So when I knocked on her door that day, I had exactly one thing on my mind: getting laid.

Layla answered the door in a filmy bathrobe, which surprised me because it was the middle of the day. I could see her nipples pushing against the sheer floral fabric, and the shadowy strip of pubic hair at the junction of her thighs— cheerleader thighs that had been perfectly sculpted by years of squats and lunges.

“What if it hadn’t been me at the door?” I asked sternly, giving her revealing attire a suspicious once-over. She just smiled and stepped aside to let me come in, and I pushed past her, catching a whiff of her signature mix of hair products, shower gel and perfume.

Layla was easily one of the most beautiful girls I’d ever seen— a blond-haired, blue-eyed China doll with delicately arched brows, a plush little mouth, and a body that looked diminutive next to just about anybody. I was nearly her polar opposite in looks. Five-eleven, muscular, dark-haired. I wasn’t extremely tall, especially for a basketball player, but standing next to her I felt enormous. She tweaked my protective instincts like no one ever had.

That is, until she opened her mouth.

You see, Layla’s mother had married a Mexican man when Layla was very young, and she’d grown up on the Latin side of town. Her tough barrio accent opposed her delicate Aryan appearance to a comical extent. She looked like she needed protecting, but she sounded like she might cut you if you rubbed her the wrong way.

We had met at the beginning of the semester when she took the seat in front of me in Western Civ II. About halfway into the first day of class, she turned around, fastened her crystal eyes on me and said in that incongruous barrio accent, “You wanna quit kicking the back of my seat, chulo? I can’t pay attention to the fucking lecture.”

I think my mouth hung open for the rest of class. I just couldn’t believe that hard-boiled voice had come out of the pale waif in front of me. Before I could forget, I had typed the word chulo into my cell phone browser and looked it up, thoroughly expecting it to be the Spanish equivalent to fag or asshole. Instead, I had been pleasantly surprised to discover that what she’d actually called me was… cute.

Our relationship began as a tentative friendship consisting of sharing Western Civ notes and talking after class on our way out of the building. I liked the fact that she was a cheerleader, and she seemed fascinated with my ability to be both good-looking and smart. Within a couple of weeks I’d asked her out on an official date. Our budding romance garnered a lot of dirty looks from the other guys in class, and I ate it up.

Now, after four months, she and I had fallen into a comfortable rhythm. Conversation was easy, sex was easy… just like today. After she let me into her room, we barely spoke to each other. I loosened the tie on her robe and let it fall to the floor, pushed her down onto the bed, and she opened her legs to me.

I always tried to make sure she got hers first, because there was no telling how long I might be in the mood to go. I went down on her until she was a trembling wreck, then climbed on top and pounded her tiny body with long, hard strokes, dragging out the pleasure as much as I could.

Several minutes later, we were interrupted by fate.

1978

I own the night. It’s the only time I can walk freely without my mask. No, not the balaclava with which I shroud my face. It’s the mask I wear during daylight hours, when I pretend I’m one of them. Those beautiful people with their perfect smiles and their echoing laughter. They mock me. They taunt me. But at night, when the streets are still, that’s when I laugh. When I smile. It’s when I take all the things from them that I never could have. When I crawl into their homes and into their skin. I wear their lives like a borrowed piece of clothing. Only by the time I give it back, it’s tattered and damaged, and I must move on to the next home, one that hasn’t been destroyed by my parasitic need.

But for those few hours when I am one of them, they have a taste of that pain. It’s my turn to feel a concentrated dose of the joy they take for granted. The rush is fierce, like a dam breaking, the sensation of belonging overwhelming me. But the waters calm just as quickly, and then I am standing there, the shallow stream flowing at my feet, as the sun rises. And I wait, patiently, until darkness returns, so I can steal that rush again.

I am on the hunt. Vesper’s at school. Her brother is at therapy, and her parents are on another trip. Vesper. Evening prayer. It’s ironic, the name. If all the world is a stage, and if irony makes for the best stories, then she was born for this role.

She’s not the first. Not even close. But there is something about her that fascinates me more than the others. And there have been many.

I am obsession.

Every home I enter becomes the object of my fixation. So the fact that she has become all I think about — despite all the other homes I prowl — makes me impatient.

Patience. It’s the most important tool in my arsenal. I plan every hunt from start to finish. I watch their lives through windows. I learn their routines. I enter their homes and go through their keepsakes and take small tokens here or there. Something they won’t notice or will assume they have misplaced. I may move a picture. Eat something. Just enough so that somewhere in their subconscious they feel my presence long before I am standing in front of them. That used to be enough. Just being there, surrounded by their things, the vestiges of their daily lives. It used to be enough to look at the tokens I kept and remember the rush I felt being inside the walls I had watched from afar. But that rush faded a long time ago, vanishing in a spectacular eruption the day the one person who understood me died. Without her, the loneliness became unbearable and the rage swelled. It filled me until I could feel it creeping out of my skin, until I was so full of rage and pain that I had to put it on someone else to make it disappear. Watching wasn’t enough. I had to hear their voices. See their faces. Steal their lives. So instead of just taking, I began to leave things behind: tape, rope, gloves, lube. Tools I would use later when I was ready for them. And if the police ever stop me, well, they won’t find a kit on me.

I’m careful to make my targets seem random. I don’t want to establish a clear pattern. My work as a contractor takes me all over Central California, where I grew up. I know the neighborhoods well. I know every shortcut and how all the streets connect. I know where all the freeway exits and ramps are for a quick getaway. Real estate agents call me to fix up houses. I’ll look up their listings and pick a home they haven’t had me work on. If I like the neighbors, I’ll use those empty homes as a base to watch the area. Vacant houses at night are perfect places to hide. Other times, I just spot someone and the craving hits. So I watch them and see if they are a good fit. On paper it all looks random. But nothing is random.

I comb through Vesper’s jewelry boxes on a chest of drawers. She still lives with her parents, but we aren’t too far apart in age. Even though she is in her early 20s, the trinkets are a mix of adult pieces and tokens of her childhood, as are many things in the room. On a chair in the corner is a silk robe, the kind that would rest beautifully against the curves of her tits and ass, and on that same chair is a little teddy bear, weathered from years of being hugged. The chair looks old. The white, painted woodwork is chipped and grayed, the pale floral cushion is worn in the spot where she has sat countless times. I run my fingers along the faded flowers that have touched her skin. Then along the satiny robe. I pick up the teddy bear and examine it before placing it back in its spot, tilting it 45 degrees from its original position.

There’s a picture board on one of her walls. The kind where you can pin stuff up or tuck the picture behind cross sections of ribbon. Many of the pictures are of her and her boyfriend. Mr. Soon-To-Be-Doctor. Mr. Perfect Smile and Charmed Existence. The board is stuffed with photos so they overlap many times over. Every one of them is of people smiling. All they fucking do is smile and it makes me sick.

You’re not like other people.

These people don’t know pain. They don’t know loneliness. They might know fleeting discomfort, but they don’t know the persistent agony of being an outsider. People like them have made me who I am.

I remember when I first spotted Vesper Rivers. It’s an odd name, I know. Her mom is—was—a hippie. I wasn’t hunting for anyone when it happened, though I always keep my options open. I was at the grocery store after a long day of work. Covered in sweat and muck, my clothes stained with paint and tar, I just wanted to grab something fast, and I was too tired from a week of prowling nights and working days to think about much else. That’s when I saw her, walking through the cereal aisle. She had on a tiny top: a rust-colored halter with strings that wrapped around her neck. It was short, the waist of her shorts going just above her belly button so that when she moved, I’d see hints of her tight stomach. Her cutoff shorts barely covered her ass and made way for long, shapely legs. Her brown hair with hints of gold was long and feathered—a lot like that Farrah poster everyone has pinned up these days. But this girl, she was far more beautiful. Like an undiscovered gem just sitting in a pile of rocks and dirt. A long, elegant arm sloped down to a small hand. A boy. He must have been around eight. He couldn’t be her son. She’s too young.

“You like that one, Johnny?” she asked, bent at the waist to be at his level. Her voice, it was extra sweet for the little boy.

He nodded. His arm was crooked, one of his legs bent in awkwardly, and his mouth was contorted. He was different. Handicapped. And she was so kind to him. Maybe she wasn’t like the others. Maybe she was something in between people like them and people like me.

That’s when she felt me staring. I’m usually discreet. I’ve mastered watching people, hiding in plain sight, but she stunned me. She looked over, catching my eyes for a millionth of a second before I turned away. I couldn’t let her see my face, and I was grateful it was covered in dirt and tar, hiding its subtleties.

I hastily went to the register with whatever was in my hands so I could get to my car before she got to hers. I waited for another fifteen minutes until she emerged from the store, a bag in one hand and the little boy dragging his feet holding the other. He was smiling. I don’t understand how he could have been happy. I know how cruel this world can be to those of us who wear our imperfections on the outside.

She got into a white Grand Prix, looked like a ’73. I later learned my hunch was off by a year. I took note of the plates. I watched her leave. Then I followed far enough behind for her not to notice me.

And here I am in her house a couple of weeks later. It’s not my first time, either.

I snatch a picture I don’t think she’ll miss much as it was mostly tucked behind another. In it, she’s sitting on a log, a lake as a backdrop. She’s laughing, of course, her head thrown back to show her white grin. A necklace glints at her throat.

They’ll smile at you then laugh behind your back.

I glance at the clock on her nightstand. It’s embedded in this porcelain unicorn statue, and I hope for her sake that it’s another remnant from her younger days. I need to get out of here. I don’t want to cut it close and blow this one. Besides, I have a date I need to prepare for tonight.

I open up a small jewelry box, covered in multicolored rhinestones. There’s a few pieces intertwined inside, but I notice the gold crescent moon attached to a necklace. It’s the same one as the picture. It’s mine now.

Like my last visit to her home, I have something for her. I pull out a roll of twine and place it under the seat cushion of the chair that holds her teddy bear. Patience.

Locked in darkness that surrounded me like a coffin, there was nothing to distract me from my memories. Vivid recollections that waited to ambush me whenever my mind wandered.

Encompassed by the blackness, I remembered white-hot flames stabbing at my face. Though my hands had been tied to a post that dug sharply into my back, I had recoiled from the onslaught. The fire had pulled away just before blistering my skin, but my eyebrows and eyelashes had long since been singed off.

“Put the flames out!” a man’s rough voice had ordered. I blew at the blaze through cracked lips. Dried by fire and fear, the moisture in my mouth had gone and my teeth radiated heat as if they had been baked in an oven.

“Idiot,” he cursed. “Not with your mouth. Use your mind. Put the flames out with your mind.”

Closing my eyes, I attempted to focus my thoughts on making the inferno disappear. I was willing to do anything, no matter how irrational, to persuade the man to stop.

“Try harder.” Once again the heat swung near my face, the bright light blinding me in spite of my closed eyelids.

“Set her hair on fire,” a different voice instructed. He sounded younger and more eager than the other man. “That should encourage her. Here, Father, let me.”

My body jerked with intense fear as I recognized the voice. Twisting to loosen the bonds that held me, my thoughts scattered into a mindless buzzing. A droning noise had echoed from my throat and grew louder until it had pervaded the room and quenched the flames.

The loud metallic clank of the lock startled me from my nightmarish memory. A wedge of pale yellow light sliced the darkness, then traveled along the stone wall as the heavy cell door opened. Caught in the lantern’s glow, the brightness seared my eyes. I squeezed my eyes shut as I cowered in the corner.

“Move it, rat, or we’ll get the whip!” Two dungeon guards attached a chain to the metal collar on my neck, and hauled me to my feet. I stumbled forward, pain blazing around my throat. As I stood on trembling legs, the guards efficiently chained my hands behind me and manacled my feet.

I averted my eyes from the flickering light as they led me down the main corridor of the dungeon. Thick rancid air puffed in my face. My bare feet shuffled through puddles of unidentifiable muck.

Ignoring the calls and moans of the other prisoners, the guards never missed a step, but my heart lurched with every word.

“Ho, ho, ho…Someone’s gonna swing.”

“Snap! Crack! Then your last shit slides down your legs!”

“One less rat to feed.”

“Take me! Take me! I wanna die too!”

We stopped. Through squinted eyes I saw a staircase. In an effort to get my foot onto the first step, I tripped over the chains and fell. The guards dragged me up. The rough edges of the stone steps dug into my skin, peeling away exposed flesh on my arms and legs. After being pulled through two sets of thick metal doors, the guards dumped me onto the floor. Sunlight stabbed between my eyes. I shut them tight as tears spilled down my cheeks. It was the first time that I had seen daylight in seasons.

This is it, I thought, starting to panic. But the knowledge that my execution would end my miserable existence in the dungeon calmed me.

Yanked to my feet again, I followed the guards blindly. My body itched from insect bites and from sleeping on dirty straw. I stunk of rat. Given only a small ration of water, I didn’t waste it on baths.

Once my eyes adjusted to the light, I looked around. The walls were bare, without the fabled gold sconces and elaborate tapestries I had learned about that decorated the castle’s main hallways. The cold stone floor was worn smooth in the middle. We were probably traveling along the hidden corridors used solely by the servants and guards. As we passed two open windows, I glanced out with a hunger that no food could satisfy.

The bright emerald of the grass made my eyes ache. Trees wore cloaks of leaves. Flowers laced the footpaths and overflowed from barrels. The fresh breeze smelled like an expensive perfume, and I breathed deeply. After the acidic smells of excrement and body odor, the taste of the air was like drinking a fine wine. Warmth caressed my skin, replacing the eternally damp and chilly dungeon air.

I guessed it was the beginning of the hot season, which meant that I had been locked in the cell for five seasons, one season shy of a full year. It seemed an excessively long time for someone scheduled for execution.

Winded from the effort of marching with my feet chained, I was finally led into a spacious office. Maps of the Territory of Ixia and the lands beyond completely covered the walls. Piles of books on the floor made walking a straight line difficult. Candles in various stages of use generously littered the room, singe marks evident on several papers that had gotten too close to the candle’s flame. A large wooden table, strewn with documents and ringed by half a dozen chairs, occupied the center of the room. At the back of the office a man sat at a desk. Behind him a square window gaped open, permitting a breeze to blow through his shoulder length hair.

I shuddered, causing the chains to clink musically. From the whispered conversations between prison cells, I had determined that the condemned prisoner was taken to an official to formally confess his or her crime before being hanged.

Wearing black pants and a black shirt with two red diamonds stitched on the collar, the man at the desk wore the uniform of an advisor to the Commander. His pallid face held no expression. As his sapphire-blue eyes scanned me, they widened slightly in surprise.

Suddenly conscious of my appearance, I glanced down at my tattered red prison gown and dirty bare feet roughened with yellow calluses. Dirt-streaked skin showed through the rips in the thin fabric. My long black hair hung in greasy clumps. Sweat soaked, I swayed under the weight of the chains.

“A woman? The next prisoner to be executed is a woman?” His voice was icy. My body trembled on hearing the word ‘executed’ aloud. The calm I’d established earlier fled me. I would have sunk sobbing to the floor if the guards weren’t with me. The guards tormented anyone who showed any weakness.

The man tugged at the black ringlets of his hair. “I should have taken the time to re-read your dossier.” He waved impatiently at the guards. “You’re dismissed.”

When they were gone, he motioned me to the chair in front of his desk. The chains clanged loudly as I perched on the edge.

He opened a folder on his desk and scanned the pages. “Yelena, today may be your lucky day,” he said.

I swallowed a sarcastic reply. An important lesson I had mastered during my dungeon stay was never to talk back. I bowed my head instead, avoiding eye contact.

The man was quiet for awhile. “Well behaved and respectful. You’re starting to look like a good candidate.”

Despite the clutter of the room, the desk was neat. In addition to my folder and some writing implements, the only other items on the desk were two small, black statues, a set of panthers carved to a life-like perfection that glittered with streaks of silver.

“You’ve been tried and found guilty of murdering General Brazell’s only son, Reyad.” He paused, stroking his temple with his fingers. “That explains why Brazell’s here this week, and why he has been unusually interested in the execution schedule.” The man spoke more to himself than to me.

Upon hearing Brazell’s name, fear coiled in my stomach. I steadied myself with a reminder that I was soon to be out of his reach forever.

The Territory of Ixia’s military rule had produced strict laws called the Code of Behavior. During peacetime, proper military conduct didn’t allow the taking of a human life. If murder was committed, the punishment was execution. Self-preservation or an accidental death was not considered acceptable excuses. Once found guilty, the murderer was sent to the Commander’s dungeon to await a public hanging.

“I suppose you’re going to protest the conviction. Say you were framed or you killed out of self-defense.” He leaned back in his chair, waiting with a weary patience.

“No, Sir,” I whispered, all I could manage from unused vocal cords. “I killed him.”

The man in black straightened in his chair, shooting me a hard look. Then he laughed aloud. “This may work out better than I planned. Yelena, I’m offering you a choice. You can either be executed, or you can be Commander Ambrose’s new food taster. His last taster died recently, and we need to fill the position.”

I stared at him, heart pounding. He had to be joking. He was probably amusing himself. Great way to get a laugh. Watch hope and joy shine on the prisoner’s face, then smash it by sending the accused to the noose.

I played along. “A fool would refuse the job.” My voice rasped louder this time.

“Well, it’s a lifetime position. The training can be lethal. After all, how can you identify poisons in the Commander’s food if you don’t know what they taste like?” He tidied the papers in the folder.

“You’ll get a room in the castle to sleep, but most of the day you’ll be with the Commander. No days off. No husband or children. Some prisoners have chosen execution instead. At least then they know exactly when they’re going to die, rather then guessing if it’s going to come with the next bite.” He clicked his teeth together, a feral grin on his face.

He was serious. My whole body shook. A chance to live! Service to the Commander was better than the dungeon and infinitely better than the noose. Questions raced through my mind: I’m a convicted killer, how can they trust me? What would prevent me from killing the Commander or escaping?

“Who tastes the Commander’s food now?” I asked instead, afraid if I asked the other questions he’d realize his mistake and send me to the gallows.

“I am. So I’m anxious to find a replacement. Also the Code of Behavior states that someone whose life is forfeit must be offered the job.”

No longer able to sit still, I stood and paced around the room, dragging my chains with me. The maps on the walls showed strategic military positions. Book titles dealt with security and spying techniques. The condition and amount of candles suggested someone who worked late into the night.

I looked back at the man in the advisor’s uniform. He had to be Valek, the Commander’s personal security chief and leader of the vast intelligence network for the Territory of Ixia.

“What shall I tell the executioner?” Valek asked.

“I am not a fool.”

Light came through the window, trickling morning all over the room. Tatiana Metanova slept the sleep of the innocent, the sleep of restless joy, of warm, white Leningrad nights, of jasmine June. But most of all, intoxicated with life, she slept the exuberant sleep of undaunted youth.

She did not sleep for much longer.

When the sun’s rays moved across the room to rest at the foot of Tatiana’s bed, she pulled the sheet over her head, trying to keep the daylight out. The bedroom door opened, and she heard the floor creak once. It was her sister, Dasha.

Daria, Dasha, Dashenka, Dashka.

She represented everything that was dear to Tatiana.

Right now, however, Tatiana wanted to smother her. Dasha was trying to wake her up and, unfortunately, succeeding. Dasha’s strong hands were vigorously shaking Tatiana, while her usually harmonious voice was dissonantly hissing, “Psst! Tania! Wake up. Wake up!”

Tatiana groaned. Dasha pulled back the sheet.

Never was their seven-year age difference more apparent than now, when Tatiana wanted to sleep and Dasha was …

“Stop it,” Tatiana muttered, fishing helplessly behind her for the sheet and pulling it back over her. “Can’t you see I’m sleeping? What are you? My mother?”

The door to the room opened. Two creaks on the floor. It was her mother. “Tania? You awake? Get up right now.”

Tatiana could never say that her mother’s voice was harmonious. There was nothing soft about Irina Metanova. She was small, boisterous, and full of indignant, overflowing energy. She wore a kerchief to keep her hair back from her face, for she had probably already been down on her knees washing the communal bathroom in her blue summer frock. She looked bedraggled and done with her Sunday.

“What, Mama?” Tatiana said, not lifting her head from the pillow. Dasha’s hair touched Tatiana’s back. Her hand was on Tatiana’s leg, and Dasha bent over as if to kiss her. Tatiana felt a momentary tenderness, but before Dasha could say anything, Mama’s grating voice intruded. “Get up quick. There’s going to be an important announcement on the radio in a few minutes.”

Tatiana whispered to Dasha, “Where were you last night? You didn’t come in till well past dawn.”

“Can I help it,” Dasha whispered with pleasure, “that last night dawn was at midnight? I came in at the perfectly respectable hour of midnight.” She was grinning. “You were all asleep.”

“Dawn was at three, and you weren’t home.”

Dasha paused. “I’ll tell Papa I got caught on the other side of the river when the bridges went up at three.”

“Yes, you do that. Explain to him what you were doing on the other side of the river at three in the morning.” Tatiana turned over. Dasha looked particularly striking this morning. She had unruly dark brown hair and an animated, round, dark-eyed face that had a reaction for everything. Right now that reaction was cheerful exasperation. Tatiana was exasperated herself — less cheerfully. She wanted to continue sleeping.

She caught a glimpse of her mother’s tense expression. “What announcement?”

Her mother was taking the bedclothes off the sofa.

“Mama! What announcement?” Tatiana repeated.

“There is going to be a government announcement in a few minutes. That’s all I know,” Mama said doggedly, shaking her head, as if to say, what’s not to understand?

Tatiana was reluctantly awake. Announcement. It was a rare event when music would be interrupted for a word from the government. “Maybe we invaded Finland again.” She rubbed her eyes.

“Quiet,” Mama said.

“Or maybe they invaded us. They’ve been wanting their borders back ever since losing them last year.”

“We didn’t invade them,” said Dasha. “Last year we went to get our borders back. The ones we lost in the Great War. And you should stop listening to adult conversations.”

“We didn’t lose our borders,” Tatiana said. “Comrade Lenin gave them away freely and willingly. That doesn’t count.”

“Tania, we are not at war with Finland. Get out of bed.”

Tatiana did not get out of bed. “Latvia, then? Lithuania? Byelorussia? Didn’t we just help ourselves to them, too, after the Hitler-Stalin pact?”

“Tatiana Georgievna! Stop it!” Her mother always called her by her first and patronymic names whenever she wanted to show Tatiana she was not in the mood to be fooled with.

Tatiana pretended to be serious. “What else is left? We already have half of Poland.”

“I said stop!” Mama exclaimed. “Enough of your games. Get out of bed. Daria Georgievna, get that sister of yours out of bed.”

Dasha did not move.

Growling, Mama left the room.

Turning quickly to Tatiana, Dasha whispered conspiratorially, “I’ve got something to tell you!”

“Something good?” Tatiana was instantly curious. Dasha usually revealed little about her grown-up life. Tatiana sat up.

“Something great!” said Dasha. “I’m in love!”

Tatiana rolled her eyes and fell back on the bed.

“Stop it!” Dasha said, jumping on top of her. “This is serious, Tania.”

“Yes, all right. Did you just meet him yesterday when the bridges were up?” She smiled.

“Yesterday was the third time.”

Tatiana shook her head, gazing at Dasha, whose joy was infectious. “Can you get off me?”

“No, I can’t get off you,” Dasha said, tickling her. “Not until you say, ‘I’m happy, Dasha.'”

“Why would I say that?” exclaimed Tatiana, laughing. “I’m not happy. Stop it! Why should I be happy? I’m not in love. Cut it out!”

Mama came back into the room, carrying six cups on a round tray and a silver samovar — an urn with a spigot used for boiling water for tea. “You two will stop at once! Did you hear me?”

“Yes, Mama,” said Dasha, giving Tatiana one last hard tickle.

“Ouch!” said Tatiana as loudly as possible. “Mama, I think she cracked my ribs.”

“I’m going to crack something else in a minute. You’re both too old for these games.”

Dasha stuck out her tongue at Tatiana. “Very grown-up,” Tatiana said. “Our Mamochka doesn’t know you’re only two.”

Tears roll down her bright red cheeks and her garbled pleas become more frantic with each passing mile. Dubois trussed her up tight at the estate—her wrists fastened behind her back with a zip tie, a matching one around her bare ankles, and a scarf strung through her open mouth to the point of nearly gagging her. She’s most likely cut the flesh on her arms from trying to escape. The thought of blood smeared over her olive skin sends a surge of excitement through my veins.

They all try to escape the inevitable in the end.

Every single fucking time it’s the same.

Please don’t get rid of me, sir.

I drag my eyes away from the glorified whore and turn my bored attention to the Washington state tree line along the interstate. We’re almost there—to the place where each toy meets their end. Where I dust my hands and start anew.

“Another ten minutes, sir,” Dubois assures me from the driver’s seat.

I meet his eyes in the mirror and nod before turning back to the window. When we slow and then turn onto a gravel road that leads into the dark, thick woods, she begins screaming through the scarf. With an infuriated huff, I snap my gaze to meet hers.

The toy, one whom I actually enjoyed for a spell, is getting on my fucking nerves. Her almond-shaped eyes are swollen from crying for the entire two-hour drive. They flicker with fear when the vehicle slows to a stop.

“You were fun for a little while,” I tell her with a yawn. I’m going to sleep for a fucking week before making my journey back to London. This shit, no matter how gratifying, gets so goddamn exhausting. Especially at the end. I’m bored and tired. And the toy is used and done with.

Dubois climbs out of the car and I hear him exchange words in Russian with Matvei. The toy, even though she doesn’t know a word in the language, becomes hysterical. I’m assuming she understands her fate—as they all do about now.

“Time to say goodbye, Swan.”

I’d like to taste her lips once more—to savor her essence for the way back home. She flinches when I reach over and tug the scarf free from her swollen lips but doesn’t waste any time begging.

“Please, my master. Don’t do this,” she cries out, “You don’t have to do this!”

My eyes narrow and I lazily drag my gaze down her throat to her heaving breasts—breasts I know are marked and bruised from my teeth beneath her thin black dress. My dick doesn’t even stir at the reminder which is exactly why I must get rid of her.

She bores me now.

“Swan, I suggest you shut your stupid mouth before I choke you with this scarf,” I tell her with a growl. “You belong to me until that very last second. Do you understand me?”

Hope flickers in her eyes and I have the urge to slap the look right off her face. It’s as if she doesn’t know me at all.

“Y-Y-You c-c-could k-keep me,” she chatters, the frigid air that’s swirled in from Dubois’ open door, chilling her.

I scoff. “And do what? Marry you? Have half fucking Asian babies with you?”

She nods rapidly and it pisses me off. Lightning fast, I snatch a handful of her black hair and yank her to me.

Wide, terrified eyes meet mine and my dick actually does twitch for a moment. I could fuck her one last time—for old times’ sake.

“Ready, sir?”

Dubois’ voice from the front jerks me from my thoughts of doing anything stupid and I turn my attention to him.

“Yes. Bring me the scissors.”

I drag my gaze back to hers and inhale her. Swan, who loved to cook, smells of ginger and wasabi. She’d been in the middle of making me sushi when I decided I was done with her.

“Please, sir,” she begs again, “Don’t do this. I love you!”

They all love me.

How could they not?

“Swan, I could never love a whore. You were nothing more than a toy to me. Now you’re done, baby.”

A gust of frigid air enters the back of the car when Dubois opens my door. The gleam of the scissors in the moonlight is beautiful but the scream that rips from Swan is otherworldly.

“Hold her mouth shut, D,” I grunt when she starts to wiggle in my grasp.

He climbs in beside her and slaps a black, leather glove over her mouth to shut her the fuck up. Dubois isn’t the biggest man but he’s cunning and strong. I’d hired him to be my right hand man when I saw how he handled himself in a gang fight in LA. Six motherfuckers tried to take down the lean, black man but he damn near gutted four of them before one pulled a gun on him and shot him in the belly. They’d left him for dead but when he awoke in the hospital, I was there for him and with a proposition he couldn’t refuse.

They never refuse.

I snatch the scissors from the seat beside me and wave them in front of her face. It actually turns me right the fuck on to see her fighting against Dubois’ unyielding grasp. If we were back home, I’d want him to fuck her so I could watch.

But then I remember her time is up.

I want a new toy.

One that I can restore.

An ugly thing turned pristine and shiny.

“I need a souvenir to add to my scrapbook.” I bark out a laugh and clip a long strand of hair from her gorgeous head. I’m pleased when I inhale it and the ginger-wasabi combination remains. Perfect. Like this toy once was.

I give D a nod and he drops his hand.

“Any last words, Swan?”

She sobs but no words come out. Taking pity on her pathetic ass, I draw forward and brush a soft kiss on her lips.

I’ll definitely miss her.

Until I get a new one.

“Goodbye,” I tell her, my breath the last part of me she’ll ever be gifted.