Something dark and sleek pulls up beside me. My door is opened, and I am pulled from the interior of the car, plucked from it like a disgusting filthy flower.
It’s Darko. Unlike everyone else, he recognizes me right away. The disguise that kept me safe from the eyes of the world does not work on him.
Held in his arms, I brace myself for his anger and his punishment. I steel myself for harsh, stinging words and the rage that I know he must feel toward me. I escaped his island. I killed his friend. And now I am as filthy a mess as anyone can be. My stench fills his car as the driver sweeps us into the night.
“You can kill me,” I say, my face hurting with every word. “I don’t care anymore. You can kill me. I want to see my daddy.”
“Don’t worry,” he says thickly, his Serbian accent making an appearance in the presence of death. “I’ll keep you safe. It’s okay.”
But it’s not okay. He was right all along. Revenge has done nothing to make me feel better about my father’s death. It has multiplied tragedy and it has made me less of a human. Part of my soul is gone, and I can feel in the very core of me that I will never get it back.
We drive somewhere. I don’t know where. Everything is a blur now. He pulls me out and he strips me down and he puts me in a shower, and the world is all warm and wet and I don’t care because some part of me is forever gone.
Maybe Darko speaks to me. Maybe he doesn’t. I am beyond listening or caring. My world has become very small and disoriented. I am captive, waiting for death, which must now surely come. At least now, I deserve it.
When my legs give way beneath me and refuse to carry me anymore, Darko sweeps me up in his arms and carries me to the roof of a tall building where another helicopter waits. I used to adore these things. I own one of my own, with my father’s logo emblazoned on it. I’ll never ride in it again. I’ll never see sunrise again. I know what he is going to do to me. I know what he hast to do to me.
A pilot is standing by to fly us to my final resting place. Darko cradles me next to him as we rise into the sky. I don’t know where he is taking me. I don’t care. I press my face into his side and I close my eyes against the world and the terrible things I have done.
Chapter Eleven
Darko
I was too late. Too late to save the part of her I know must have fled the moment she pulled that trigger. Too late to stop the biggest mistake she’ll ever make. I knew her father’s death had left her hurt and bitter; I had no idea that it had turned her into the little beast who is now curled beside me. I am deeply concerned for her. I should have protected her more completely. Her escape was my failing, and this… this has to be borne on my shoulders too.
This time we’re not heading off shore. This time we’re heading to my country estate. A hundred hectares of rolling bush and mountains. It’s remote enough to remind me of the world before I came to America. Forests and wilds, they have a sameness even when they are very far away. It’s why I like my island. I need the remoteness. Chloe needs it too. She needs to be away from the world to grieve and to heal.
She was so full of fire when I first took her. She was rebellious and strong.
Now she seems hollow.
She barely takes any of her surroundings in as we land, and I carry her away from the helicopter, which takes off once more and leaves us alone in the middle of nowhere. I take her into the cabin and put her down on the couch.
We haven’t spoken about what happened. She hasn’t been capable of speech. She has cried several times, often silently. She cried when I washed the blood from her in the shower, and again when I pulled her into my arms. She is crying softly now as she curls up on the side of the couch and she wraps her arms around her knees, staring off into the distance. I give her silence and peace. There are no words in moments like these. There is no way to make what has gone so completely wrong, right.
It is an hour before she speaks.
“You’re going to kill me. You should do it now.”
“I’m not going to kill you.”
“But I deserve it.” She’s not even looking at me. She’s staring out into forever.