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“No, I’m not your—” I say, shaking my head.
Her eyes warm with the smile she gives me. “Yes, you are,” she says before stepping around me and leaving.
By the time I’ve gathered my faculties enough to turn around and face Leon, he has already undressed Konrad down to his boxer shorts and is helping him to sit up. Konrad groans, his broad shoulders hunching as his head falls between them. He’s not so lost inside his mind that he’s unable to move physically because we would never have gotten him down here, but he is completely absent otherwise.
An empty shell of a man.
Something about that pricks tiny little holes in the walls I’ve built up around my heart, and through those holes I feel more empathy sliding into my blood, churning me up inside. I shouldn’t feel sympathy for a man who has done so many terrible deeds to so many people.
Yet, I do.
I do.
“I’m going to get him into the water. There’s a ledge I can rest him on whilst I bathe him.”
“Bathe him?” I ask, my gaze flicking between the two men.
“Yes. If anything can bring him back from where he’s disappeared to, this place can...”
“Where has he gone?”
He looks at me with untold stories dwelling in his eyes, stories I suspect he’s never shared with anyone other than his brothers. There’s so much he wants to say, but in the end he simply asks me one question.
“Will you help me bring him back?”
The immediate answer I want to give is held hostage by a host of emotions. Emotions that run rampant inside of me. This whole situation should be seen as a gift, a way for me to easily crawl into their hearts so that I can ruin them later, and yet knowing that’s my aim makes me feel sick to my stomach. I should be happy about this opportunity, but all I feel is pity for a man so obviously broken by a woman who hurt him in the worst way possible, and empathy for his brother who only a few days ago ended my life.
“I shouldn’t have asked,” Leon says quickly, noticing the expression on my face. He stands, one hand resting on Konrad’s shoulder whilst he quickly unbuckles his own jeans, awkwardly trying to shimmy out of them whilst ensuring Konrad doesn’t fall head-first onto the hard rock.
“Wait, let me,” I say, rushing forward.
Kneeling between Konrad’s parted legs, I rest my hands on his shoulders, peering up at his face that’s still partly covered by his mask. I remove it with a gentle tug and lay it on the ground next to Leon’s discarded mask. Konrad lifts his head, and for the briefest of moments his eyes meet mine beneath a flop of dark hair. My stomach bottoms out. He’s not there. He’s gone.
“Thank you,” Leon murmurs, stripping down to his t-shirt and boxers before lifting up Konrad’s arm and ducking beneath it. He hooks it over his shoulder then hauls Konrad to his feet, an arm wrapped around his back as he manoeuvres him to the water’s edge.
Konrad stumbles over a small rock and they both pitch sideways. Without thinking about it, I rush forward to help and take Konrad’s left arm, ducking beneath it. Across his broad chest Leon glances at me, the gratefulness in his eyes causing another host of unwanted emotions to burn in my blood.
“Once we’ve got him into the lake it will be easier to support his weight.”
“How is this even here?”
“Ardelby Castle is full of surprises,” Leon replies, stepping onto the ledge and helping Konrad into the water with my assistance. His green eyes flick to mine and he gives me the tiniest hint of a smile, a smile I know would devastate me if he ever unleashed it fully.
“I’m beginning to see that,” I reply, stepping into the water then sucking in a shocked breath. “It’s so cold!”
“It is. Thank you for your help. I’ve got this now,” he says, taking most of Konrad’s weight and walking him deep into the water.
I watch as Leon gently urges Konrad to sit on the edge of the ledge, before he sits down beside him, his arm wrapped around his shoulder. Their legs dangle into the depths, the water lapping around their upper chests. For a moment Leon doesn’t move, he simply stares out into the lake as though taking strength from this stillness of the water before he turns his attention back to his brother.
“Kon, you need to wake up now,” he says before cupping some water in his palms and pouring it over his brother’s head and shoulders.
With one ankle deep in the water, I debate whether to join them. A part of me is inexplicably and undeniably connected to these men, like magnets we’re drawn to one another. The other part, the more sensible part, wants nothing to do with them other than tasting revenge.
It’s a battle that wages a constant war within me, but in the end it’s Konrad’s sudden violent shivers and a cry of utter heartbreak that forces my other foot into the water until I’m kneeling beside him on the ledge, my arms circling his body as my dress billows out around me, a dark cloud within the crystal blue-green. He continues to scream and those screams tear at my resolve to remain guarded, to maintain hatred, to segregate his pain from mine, to keep my distance.
I don’t speak. I don’t do anything other than press my body against his side and hold him whilst he evicts all his pain. It pours from him in a torrent of noise that echoes around this cavernous space like thunder rippling across a stormy sky.
He doesn’t relent.
