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The gun in my hand shakes slightly as I internalize the insight. The moment is huge, as huge as it’s about to get when I break her free. Around me, the day rolls out like any other day, as if I’m not at the biggest turning point of my life. The smell of smoke from a neighboring township hangs thick in the air. It burns my nostrils. The sky is blue with swatches of clouds on the horizon, a promise of late afternoon rain. The sound of traffic from the highway is a constant noise. People are carrying on with the business of living. The day and its extraordinary mundaneness imprints in my mind. My body hums with adrenaline and awareness.
It’s an easy mistake to believe the change in my ambitions crept up on me, but they already changed the day I first walked into Dalton’s house. From the moment Lina gave me her shawl, diamonds weren’t my priority, any longer. It was her. It is her. Knowing she’s in room number sixteen with a man and his sister who could push a gun against her head and pull the trigger is worse than torture. It kills me. What have they done to her? What are they doing to her even now as I load and check my gun?
Pulling up her image in my mind, I imagine her scared and lonely. I remember the night I requested an audience with Dalton and how out of my depth and ashamed of my poverty I’d felt, but certain of my abilities and hopeful of my future. I sure as hell wasn’t scared, but Lina was, and fuck me for not realizing it until now. When she offered me her grandmother’s shawl, she said it made her feel safe. She was scared that night, but I was too occupied with my own, selfish mission, with convincing Dalton to invest in my project, to realize that in giving me her warmth and security, she left herself vulnerable. When I saw her standing in the hallway, I saw a beautiful girl dressed in a gown that cost more than what I earned in a year. Revisiting the scene in my mind, I see her wide eyes and tense shoulders. I see the way she turned into herself when Dalton wrapped his arm around her. She feared that night. Why? Because Dalton was choosing her a husband. She was dressed up like a showpiece. That was what the business dinner was about.
When I showed Dalton my discovery, I made up his mind. I sealed the deal on Lina. All he needed after getting rid of me was the mining rights. That’s why he gave her to Clarke. Unknowingly, I set Lina’s fate. Fuck me. I only have myself to blame for how our history turned out. The accusations I loaded on her shoulders for not waiting, for not believing in me, are unfounded. There was nothing she could’ve done to alter the path I paved with my naïve ambition. Dalton’s greed would never have allowed it.
The knowledge shatters me. It makes me hate myself more than I already do. The insight comes too late to change how Lina and I have started, but I still have the rest of her life. I’ll live to make it up to her. I’ll be what she wants, who she needs. I’ll forsake the reason that made her run. I swear this to myself, Lina will never have another reason to escape me. If I can have her back in one piece, I’ll never crack a whip over her back again. I make the oath as I wipe the sweat from my face on my sleeve, getting ready to take down the door that stands between us.
Brink sneaks around the corner, giving me a tense nod to let me know the men are in position. The hotel is surrounded. There’s no way out but through us. A few connections from jail have pitched to offer their assistance, but they’re hanging back, acting on my command. The revenge is mine. It’s our unwritten rule.
“I want Zane alive,” I say into the mike that connects me to the men. I need answers. When I have them, I’m going to kill Dalton.
The sun burns down on my head. My shadow is a tight circle around my body. The curtains of room sixteen are closed. They’re a faded yellow with a sunflower motive. Those curtains will haunt me in my sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I’ll see Lina in a field of faded sunflowers. I’ll remember what it felt like to feel fear, the real kind that can shatter your soul. I’ll recall the pressure of my index finger on the trigger, and the foreign urge to pray. I’ll see Lina’s face as she stared up at the portrait of Mary and feel the ache in my soul for that missing smile. I’ll see the possibility of a smile in every moment I’m yet to steal from her future.
