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A faint smile lightens her expression.
“When my man needed me to have his back.” Then, her palms softening on my cheeks, “I know who Sade is, Eva, better than anyone. And even if his methods are ruthless, it always comes down to the greater good for him. I know that might sound delusional coming from the girlfriend of a Heathen King in a house splattered with blood like a horror movie but, deep down, you have to agree with me. Even though you haven’t been with Micah for long, you feel deeply for him. You know who he is.”
It wasn’t a question. My eyes fill with tears, my lips trembling as I rest my hands on top of hers on the sides of my face, not breaking eye contact.
“There’s nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for him, Justine. Sometimes, when I look at him, I’m so deeply in love that it hurts right here.” I punch myself in the chest as if that could drive away the satanic feeling. “He’s got me in a chokehold, and you know what? I’d let him choke me to death, just like he wants to right now.”
Justine’s eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean?”
I take a deep breath that fills my lungs with the scent of blood, and I blurt out the truth about Sade and Micah’s mother being in the same institution as Goldie. Within a few minutes I tell her everything, including how Romano used my sister to force me to do his bidding. All she does is stare at me in stupefaction, but I need her to react.
“You have to understand.” I grab her hands desperately in my bloody ones. “I’m all she has in the world, and the first thing I need to do is get her out of there. I still don’t know what Romano planned to do with her. Maybe a nurse has already heard the news of his death, and is ready to poison her.”
I shift from one foot to the other, waiting for the connections in Justine’s head to snap into place. I never told anyone about Goldie, not even her or Mel or Annie. Sure this comes as a complete shock to her, but I need her to react fast, and I need her to help me, before Micah gets his hands on me.
“You can judge me later all you want, but right now please, I need your help.” I look for my friend in her shocked eyes. “Micah needs a while to get the knife removed from his shoulder and stop the bleeding, but we both know he’s gonna be coming after me in no time.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure Sade barely convinced him to allow for medical attention at all. He seemed intent on following us when we got out. I assumed it was because he didn't want to be away from you a single moment after...” her voice trails off, “you know.”
Indeed, if I hadn’t told him the truth, he would have wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around me and fuck me into oblivion until he bled out. How different things must be now, in the light of truth.
“I need to save her, Justine,” I manage, choking on the tears in my throat. “I just have to get her out of there, or Romano’s people will kill her as soon as the news of his death reaches them. He gave me good reasons to believe he has systems like that in place, and judging by the way some of the nurses looked at me when I last visited, those weren’t empty threats.”
Justine chews on her lower lip.
“I understand if you’re not sure how you feel about me as your friend right now, but please, even if you never talk to me again, let this be the last thing you ever do for me.”
She glances around as the men return for more bodies, and grabs my arm.
“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up first.”
I try to struggle away. “There’s no time—”
“And do you suppose you can show up at Goldie’s sanatorium covered in blood?”
I look down at myself, at the dress that’s barely still clinging to my body, my hands and feet streaked with blood. I’m not sure if what I feel plastered to my neck is my damp hair or more blood, and I’m afraid to even catch a glimpse of my face in one of the broken mirrors.
“Yeah, I thought so.” Justine leads me to her former room in the mansion, down in the servants’ wing.
The room hasn’t been inhabited ever since she and Sade moved in together in his room, but it’s still neat, packed with books, and everything else you’d expect from a dreamy poet. The remains of scented candles still line her windowsill, and stacks of books still sit enticingly on the desk facing it. It looks like a fairy tale place, completely removed from the hell outside. The space also has its own bathroom with a generous tub, which she invites me to soak in, but there’s no time. Plus, I probably wouldn’t be able to dip a toe in without having flashbacks of blood instead of water.
So I end up taking a hot shower, the rapid fall of water washing away the thick blood. I keep turning up the temperature until steam fills the room and my skin turns red, and not even that is enough for me to feel clean. I grab all the sponges within reach to scrub the crawling feeling off of me.
But, no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to get rid of it.
Fuck, I’m losing my mind.
A rap against the glass startles me, and I almost slip as I swing around to see Justine with scrunched eyebrows and a grave expression. She’s holding neatly folded clothes in her hands.
“Sade just called,” she says. “They retrieved the blade from Micah’s wound, bandaged him up, and now it’s taking four large men to hold him down. Sade says he lost way too much blood, but, quote—” she makes quotation marks with one hand in the air while keeping the clothes to her chest with the other, “the bastard is possessed by a demon and draws from the powers of hell. End of quote.” She sighs. “They won’t be able to hold him back for long. You need to get out of here now if you want to get to Goldie in time.”
I step out of the shower, grabbing a fresh towel from the rack and wrapping it around me.
“Thank you for this,” I tell my friend, a hand on the folded clothes. “We’re still friends, aren’t we?” I ask tentatively, searching those beautiful caramel eyes. They seem wary of me, and it feels like a stake through my heart.
Justine shakes her head slightly, her wavy hair swaying around her face.
“I don’t know what to say. I mean, you didn’t technically do anything wrong. And everyone is entitled to their secrets. It’s not like I kept an inventory of mine to share. But if I never talked about something, it’s because I didn’t think about it. You on the other hand.” She blows out a breath and rubs the back of her head. “This was huge. A sister in the same mental institution as Sade and Micah’s mother? Your arrangement with Romano? Then the start of your affair with Micah? It feels like you didn’t think us worthy of any of your secrets, Eva, and that’s a painful fucking blow.”
