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I don’t know what wakes me up. I only know that the darkness I’m staring at isn’t the familiar wall of my own eyelids. Everything shifts around me. Slowly, I recognize the ceiling, the walls, and the moonlight filtering through the gap in the drapes.
Arsen is breathing evenly beside me in the bed. It’s a comforting sound. I rock sideways to hug him, eager for his presence to lull me back to sleep. The slope of his nose and strong chin glow in the starlight through the window.
And that’s when I see it.
Someone else is standing over him.
In the diffused light, Madison’s hair looks like cloud vapor. It drifts from side to side as she hovers over Arsen with something clutched in her fist. Something sharp.
Time is sluggish; it takes decades for me to draw enough air into my lungs.
Madison strikes downward. I scream simultaneously.
Arsen’s eyes pop open. In a blur, he shoots his arm up, snatching Madison by her thin wrist just before she can touch him. Grunting, he twists his body, wrenching her violently. She lets out a cry of pain, and the item in her hand clatters to the floor.
My eyes have adjusted fully now and I can see the syringe.
Its metal tip glints where it lies on the rug.
“I’m sorry!” she sobs, her knees going slack. Arsen is the only thing keeping her on her feet. He rises from the bed, pulling her onto her tiptoes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she babbles, tears streaking her ruddy cheeks.
Arsen drags her from the room. Her desperate screams echo through the crack in the door, fading the further away he takes her.
She was lying. He was right; this was a trap.
He’ll get the truth out of her by any means necessary.
And cruelly, a dark thought crosses my mind—a thought that frightens me.
I won’t stop him this time.
16
ARSEN
Being right has its downside. Especially in this case.
“Please,” Madison groans, cowering on the floor of my office. “Please, don’t hurt me.”
How odd to think we were in this room hours earlier while she barely uttered a sound. Now she can’t seem to shut up.
“Quiet,” I grumble, pacing by my desk. “The only thing I want to hear out of your mouth is an explanation.”
She sniffles, hiding her face in a tangle of knees and arms. “Okay. I’ll tell you everything.”
Galina said she was fifteen, but right now, she looks even younger.
“How did you meet Yevgeniy?”
The door opens behind me; Galina leans in, sees my enraged face, and freezes. Amazingly she doesn’t back out; she enters, shutting herself inside. Madison glances up to see who’s joined us. Her puffy eyes widen. Galina looks at her with pity before turning away. “I just wanted to see what was going on,” she explains.
I motion at Madison sharply. “Talk. Now.”
“I told her the truth,” she gasps. Rubbing her wet cheeks, she takes a shaky breath. “I was kidnapped at a tattoo parlor.”
My heart jerks sideways before I aim my anger at Galina. “You knew?”
Galina tenses on the spot with her hands lifting in defense. “She has another tattoo on her that I was curious about. She said she ran away from home and got it as a way to rebel against her parents.”
