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A shiver runs down my spine as Mischa advances a step, his head cocked to seek me out, his gaze piercing.
“I suppose you’re happy now,” he says. “Your husband wants you back so badly, he’s willing to kill a child just to do it—”
“Is she okay?” I can’t seem to breathe again until he finally nods.
“For now,” he says, advancing another step. “Does that disappoint you?”
I flinch, gritting my teeth against an impulsive reply. It’s what he wants, I realize. To fight. He wants anger and rage. He wants to feed off it. Exhausted and sore, I find that all I can do is sigh, noticing the reality of his exhaustion even his bravado can’t hide.
“You’re covered in blood,” I croak.
It paints him. The dark splotches almost seem like a part of his skin when seen through the darkness. I can smell it: salty musk that conjures unbearable memories. My fingers twitch, grasping at the air, and I approach the bed and snatch a ratty bit of cotton from one of the pillows. Balled in my fist, the fabric serves as a makeshift cloth.
Mischa stares blankly as I approach him with the cloth held before me. Days ago, the look in his eye would have made me fall back. Maybe it’s the pain that drives me forward? I’m limping, inhaling sharply every time my foot connects with the floor.
Even so, he looks worse.
“Here…” My hands shake as I swipe at his chin with the edge of my makeshift rag. Stiff with disuse, the fabric barely soaks up any of the reddish liquid. I have to scrub, and scrub, and…
“Enough!” Mischa wrenches from my grip, slapping my hand away.
“Sit down.” My voice is a shallow whisper in the shadow of his, but he stiffens regardless.
“Why?” he counters. “So you can have better access to my throat, Robert’s wife?”
“No.” I swallow hard, clearing my throat. By some miracle, I’m still holding the cloth. “So that I can help clean the blood off of you before she wakes up and sees.”
Something flashes across his gaze too quickly to identify. Shock, maybe? Like I’ve struck him. Perhaps I should. The boiling tension from the last few weeks feels like it’s building to a fever pitch beneath my skin, tainting every bit of muscle and bone. Violence is a tempting outlet.
For me and for him.
I gasp as he grips my wrist, which forces me to take a step closer. At the last second, he turns and winds up dragging me toward the rickety mattress in the corner. It expels a cloud of dust as he sits, flooding the already still air.
“Before she wakes up,” he parrots, tugging me even closer. “But will she? Not if your husband has any say in that—”
“I would never want to see the death of a child,” I snap, tugging my arm away.
“Is that so?” His voice. He sounds too damn smug.
Here and now, I can’t overlook yet another childish jab at my past. Not again. “You want to know?” Exasperated, I pose the question without thinking it through, and my heart pounds as if in protest.No, no, no.“Fine,” I rasp, despite myself. “I did have a baby. But he—”
It’s like rocks lodge in my throat, formed from years of suppression. I don’t revisit these memories. Not even as every other vivid horror echoes on an endless loop. Never this. Maybe it’s the one way I’ve followed completely in Marnie’s footsteps: Some things are easier to ignore.
Closing my eyes, I inhale deeply, fighting for the strength. I can’t think. Only speak. “Robert wanted the baby, at first.”
It feels strange to say so out loud. Despite his overbearing possession and meticulous planning of our life together, the one-time reality shattered his façade, he welcomed it.
“I think he thought it was a benefit to him.” The cold, detached woman speaking sounds like me. At the same time, I feel as much a listener as Mischa: spellbound by a story that sounds so foreign. Like it happened to someone else. “I didn’t—I was… I didn’t want him. Not right away.”
I had nightmares, in fact. Of a tiny female or male Robert with soulless eyes. Horrible, terrible nightmares.
“But then… I started to feel him.” My hand flutters to my stomach, chasing that phantom sensation. It’s so real to me, even now. A strong, insistent pressure, like reassurance. There was a chance that whatever was growing inside me could turn out to be just like Robert. But it was a chance. He deserved that chance.
“My feelings changed. I think that’s when he started to resent it.”
I recall the slow, deliberate increases in Robert’s coldness to me. The searching looks he’d cast my way. The narrowed, suspicious glances whenever he noticed me standing as I am now, with my fingers ghosting my belly.
“It’s crazy… But I noticed that my meals would decrease in size. He took more maids—practically paraded them in front of me. He made—” I break off, brushing my fingers along my lips. Why? It could be the silence lingering in the wake of my confession. I don’t think he’s ever let me talk like this before—uninhibited, without a single cruel interruption.
