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A moment later, a door opened and closed.
Then Melanie appeared at the top of the stairs, her eyes visibly wet even from this distance. He gripped the edge of the stairs and looked down, right at me.
“Raven…”
It took all my strength not to speak. I started to heave with the breaths that wanted to escape my lungs. I went from stern seriousness to a sobbing wreck. Tears dripped down my cheeks like rivers, and I shut my lips as tightly so I wouldn’t make a sound.
Melanie was in a black dress, wearing a piece of clothing worth more than anything we owned in our closets. She took the stairs, gripping the handle as she quickly moved down.
The boss appeared behind her, looking at his brother.
Melanie reached the bottom then darted toward me, crashing into my arms, bursting into tears just as I did.
I held her tightly and cried into her shoulder, feeling my little sister once more, the only family I had in this cruel world. “Baby sister…” I ran my hands down the back of her hair and whimpered in pain at our reunion.
The boss reached the bottom of the stairs and stared down his brother.
I didn’t feel bad for the tension I’d caused between them, because I got what I needed.
Magnus turned to me and spoke in English. “Let’s go. Now.”
I pulled away from Melanie at his command, knowing I had to listen if I wanted to make it to the finish line and not trip. “Let’s go home.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her with me to the door where Magnus stood.
But she pulled her hand free.
I turned back to look.
Melanie stared at her captor.
He stared back, his expression cold.
She lingered, continuing the stare.
I had no idea what was happening.
Then he walked up to her, towering over her when he was close. The backs of his fingers grazed against her cheek, just the way they did when we were bound at the camp. “Goodbye, sweetheart.” He pulled his fingers away…then walked off. As if he didn’t want to watch her go, he moved to the other side of the house and disappeared.
For a second, I worried she wouldn’t leave.
But then she turned to me, took my hand, and we left.
22
Live Well. Be Happy.
We entered the apartment.
Melanie took a look around, examining every single surface, the laundry that had never been sorted on the couch, the open windows to reveal the brightness of the city lit up at night. “It’s the same…”
I’d had the exact feeling when I walked in. “Yeah…”
She went into her bedroom, probably looking at her clothes and the things she’d left behind. Then she came back to me, sentimental toward the past, emotional because of the furniture. She stood there and looked at me. “I can’t believe we’re here.”
“I know.”
She came to me and hugged me again, the only person in the world that I had who knew exactly how it felt to be a prisoner in a labor camp. She was the only person who understood the trial that had tested us both. She pulled away, tears dripping from her eyes down her cheeks. “How did you get away?”
“Him.”
Her eyes softened. “I can’t believe what he did for you.”
“Neither can I.”
She pulled away and looked at the open doorway. “Where is he?”
I’d been so focused on her that I forgot about him. I turned around, expecting to see him standing there, but he was gone. “I’m not sure.” I left the apartment and headed back to the street.
He stood on the sidewalk outside my apartment, indifferent to the raindrops that splashed on the bridge of his nose and dampened his hair. There was no one on the sidewalk because it was late at night. With his hands in his pockets, he stood there, looking up when he knew I was on the steps.
I knew why he didn’t follow me inside, based on the look on his face.
I joined him in the rain, my clothes and hair slowly starting to dampen. I looked into his face, looking at a man I didn’t understand. He was good, but he was bad. He was a hero…but he was also the villain.
He looked at me, his brown eyes staring into my face as if he knew this was the last time we would see each other.
“Thank you…so much.” I shook my head because I didn’t know what else to say, how to express my gratitude. My life had been returned to me, exactly as it had been before those men took us outside that bar—all because of him. “I…I don’t even know how to thank you for what you’ve done for me.”
With his hands in his pockets, he continued to stare at me, but he didn’t have anything to say.
I moved closer to him and wrapped my arms around him, hugging him harder than I ever had, immune to the falling rain around us, soaking into our clothes.
