“Christ almighty,” I hiss. “What on earth? Why would Taranis do this to you?”
“I don’t know ...” She wipes her nose with the back of her wrist as I prop her against the wall. She tries to tuck her feet underneath her and cries out, pained.
“Hey, stop moving. Is it your feet?” I ask her.
She bites her lips between her teeth, closes her eyes, and nods.
“I’m gonna take your shoes off. What’s your name?”
“Lemlem,” she whimpers.
“Lemlem, I’m Monika. I’m the girlfriend of the guy who did this to you,” I admit, feeling a little weird about that confession. Tears track down her cheeks. “I am so sorry. I can’t understand why he’d do this ...”
“He tortured me,” she cries out as I untie her chunky black sneakers and gently pull them off. I take her frilly yellow socks next and try not to puke at the sight of burns—electrical burns—open and weeping on the soles of her feet. My stomach heaves. I choke.
“Okay, I’m going to ... go get ... someone.” Someone way more equipped to deal with injuries than me. “Actually, I think we should getyouto someone. Vanessa, grab me a couch pillow!” I gently stretch out her legs so the soles of her heels no longer touch the ground.
“What?” I hear a drafty reply from way too far away. Where the hell is she?
I need to call Taylor to get an ambulance. We need EMTs up here.
I reach for my phone to do just that when Lemlem sniffles. “He ... I think it has something to do with a guy that comes into my shop—my coffee shop.”
“Who?”
“Just this guy named Max.” Max? Who the fuck is Max? “He comes in almost every day. He’s the only white guy that does.”
“Vanessa, where are those towels?” I shout.
“What?” She sounds even farther away when she responds too many beats later.
I turn my attention toward Lemlem again and shove the insane manacles farther up her wrists, away from her hands, trying to give them a little relief. “I’m gonna try to undo the plastic and rope ones. There are scissors ... let me grab them. Tell me more about this ... white guy. Is he somebody you’re dating?”
She makes a whimper and a snorting sound in the same breath. “No. You think my mama wouldn’t kill me if I brought a guy like that home to Addis?” She balks again for good measure while I retrieve the scissors and cut through the plastic around her wrists first.
“I mean, my guy’s blue. A white guy seems all right from where I’m sitting,” I tease, trying to lighten the mood.
She shakes her head. “No! No, not ...Aaawwww!” she screams.
“Sorry!” I have to leverage the thick metal blade of the set of scissors against her wrist in order to apply enough pressure to get through the plastic. “Scheiße!” I finally get through. “I’m so sorry. So what is it about the white guy your mom wouldn’t approve of?”
“Tattoos ... Ow!” As I do the other wrist, her face twists up and her toes curl, which must cause her even more pain, because she starts to tilt to the side. I catch her and help her back into a sitting position. I massage her wrists while she says in a pant, “My mama always thought that white guys with that many tattoos were bad for business.” Her head falls back, knocking against the wall. Her ponytail sags, her goddess braids frayed. Her lips twitch. “I thought he was cute, but we never talked much. He asked me one time if he could come host business meetings during my set up as early as four a.m. I told him sure. I didn’t mind so long as he didn’t make many demands. He never did. He was always pleasant and nice.”
My own heart is beating a thousand miles a minute. I am starting to get concerned that maybe, just maybe, we should have just gone to the COE headquarters like the Wyvern and Taranis asked us to instead of making this pit stop.
“Is he blond with a thick beard? Looks like a Viking? Black eyes?”
Her eyebrows furrow. “Yes. You know him? Your boyfriend met with him in my shop once. Before he was blue.”
“I got the towels! I found some bandages too!” Vanessa says, storming into the room, bright and optimistic, while my world crumbles around me. She must see something in my expression, because she tilts her head, her pretty puffy curls like a cloud around her. “What is it?”
I whisper-hiss, “I think this is the Marduk’s key.”
“What?” Vanessa comes a few steps forward, but I never get a chance to repeat myself because an alarm starts blaring from somewhere I can’t see, and a moment later, two bodies suddenly appear in the small room between us.
Wind, like a vortex, smashes through the space, slamming me against the wall beside Lemlem and tossing Vanessa out the door and onto her ass in the foyer.At least there’s a rug there,I think rather helplessly as I place one arm across Lemlem’s body. The other hand falls out to my right side and bumps fortuitously against my weapon.My. Weapon.
I slide it onto my wrist while the Marduk does a slow turn of the room, and I watch the expression on his face as it finally falls to Lemlem. Key or not, it’s clear by the tightening of every muscle in his body that she means something to him. And she has no idea who he is.
