XAVIER
She started screaming in the back of the car when the sun rose. I’m such an idiot, I hadn’t even thought about how bright it would be for her, a girl who’d spent her life feeling around in the dark.
I had to pull over on the edge of the Interstate, praying a cop wouldn’t fucking stop and check on us, and find the girl I’d just kidnapped after giving her a spinal block and cutting her abdomen open. I’d be in cuffs before they even read me my Miranda rights.
At least she didn’t flip out in the helicopter; there’s not enough room to freak out in one of those tiny chopper cabins without kicking the equipment and sending everyone to a fiery death down below. Small mercies and all that.
“What is this place?” She had said with wonder, when I carried her into the motel and deposited her onto the bed. I took her hand; she was trembling violently. What an assault on her senses, for a girl who’s spent her entire life locked in a tower.
Now, she’s calm, but her heart is going so fast it’s about to beat out of her fucking ribcage and land on the floor. I hope not, because this isn’t exactly the Bellagio, and I don’t think the floors have been cleaned recently.
I’ve chosen a nondescript, boring-looking Motel on the outskirts of Las Vegas. Ground floor, all one level, and we’re on the end of a row of rooms, with a parking spot out front and a clear view of any approaching traffic from the front and the back. I’m fairly certain nobody followed our flight path for now, but it’s only a matter of time. Assuming Ignacio survived the scalpel attack, he’ll be looking for me. And the first place he’ll go is Chicago, my stomping grounds. I know he’s going to try to fuck with my family, and I just have to hope that they’re smart enough to heed my warnings and take cover until I can figure this shit out. I’ve just spent the chopper ride into Mexico City, a private jet flight over to Los Angeles and a couple hours in a rental car trying to think of a solution to the dilemma I’ve just taken upon myself to fix: the real-life Rapunzel in my back seat, a girl whose value is seemingly immeasurable to Ignacio.
I mean, apart from blowing Ignacio’s brains out. I’m really regretting not doing that the first time around.
And this brings us to my bright idea at the motel. More than anything, I want to give this girl a full medical checkup, apart from the basic history I got from the ever-helpful Ignacio in Mexico, I’ve got no idea how old she is, where she came from, if her parents are still looking for her.
The sun shimmers across the mountains in the distance, the heat making everything look washed-out, dream-like. I’ve been travelling and performing surgery and stabbing and shooting for like, thirty hours without a break; I haven’t let myself close my eyes for more than a moment since I arrived in New York. I don’t even remember what day that was. All I know is that I need to get this girl somewhere away from prying eyes, my sole mission. Get her somewhere safe.
Nowhere will be safe for very long. This is the reality of our cruel world. Everybody will sell you out for the right price. Every code of loyalty is only as strong as the will of the people who enforce it. Every lock can be broken, every door can be rammed down, every traffic and security camera can be hacked.
Nowhere is safe in this world for more than a day or two.
I try to make the Spartan-style Motel room as comfortable as possible for her, but it’s obvious Seraphina isn’t used to light of any kind. Underneath the knitted ski cap I found at a Gas Station for her to cover her eyes with, tears are streaming down her cheeks like twin tributaries, carving rivers of sorrow along her pale cheeks. I remember when my sister used to get migraines when we were younger, how even the smallest crack of light under her door was unbearable to her. I gather Seraphina up in my arms and use my boot to kick open the closet door.
“Here,” I say, sitting her against the wall in this tiny square space, no bigger than my refrigerator. I’ve already arranged pillows and towels on the floor to make her comfortable; soon, the wound from her surgery is going to start hurting like a motherfucker. I set her down and stand, our connection broken.
She starts to panic, her chest rising and falling with small sobs as she hyperventilates.
“Are you leaving me here?” she whispers in the dark, searching the air with her hands. “Are you going to kill me?”
She looks pitifully small, her hands coming to rest on top of her knees. She’s wearing a spare pair of my green surgical scrubs that swim on her slight frame. I couldn’t find anything to dress her in in that fucking tower Ignacio kept her locked in that was more substantial than a tiny nightgown made for a twelve-year-old. I push the thought of that away for now, knowing that I can’t get angry and flip the fuck out until Seraphina is okay.
I mean, I’m not sure she’ll ever be okay.
“Hey, Seraphina,” I say softly, kneeling in front of her, taking both of her hands in mine. She’s shaking violently. The spinal block wearing off makes you shake sometimes, and layered on top of her terror it’s like she’s caught in the middle of an invisible storm only she can see. “Seraphina. I’m not doing either of those things. This is a closet. You know what that is?”
She nods.
“This is the darkest place I can find in here, sweetheart. I know the light hurts your eyes. I promise I’m not going to hurt you, okay?”
She nods again, her breath hitching in her throat as she starts to calm down.
I might not be a legitimate doctor in a hospital, but my motherfucking bedside manner is one of my best attributes. I can talk anyone into believing they’re going to be okay, whether they’ve just been peppered with bullets, or stabbed, or tortured, or had all their teeth removed with a pair of pliers by a crazy fucking Russian. Yes, that really happened once.
“Please don’t go,” she begs. My heart fucking shatters. I nod, even though she can’t see me, as I squeeze her hands. “I’m right here. I’m right here with you.”
On instinct, I wipe the tears from her cheeks, her skin warm and wet beneath the spot where the ski cap rests under her eyes.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“It’s okay, Seraphina.”
“You can call me Phina,” she whispers.
“It’s okay, Phina. Everything is going to be okay.”
It’s a lie, but I hope she believes me. I wedge myself in the spot on the opposite wall of the small built-in closet and pull the door shut with my finger, our legs pressed together in the tiny space. When I arrange a towel under the bottom of the door, the world is plunged into pitch black, and I heave a sigh of relief. It’s like trying to keep a vampire from burning to ash in the sun. If vampires were real. I need some fucking sleep.
“There you go,” I murmur, pulling one hand away from her death-grip and taking the ski cap between my thumb and forefinger.
“You ready to try taking this off?”
She nods.
I pull the whole thing from her head in one movement. I almost forgot about her hair, the way she had it tucked up in the cap, but now it unfurls from the loose knot that had been coiled out of sight. I can’t see it—I can’t see a damn thing—but I feel it. Ignacio must’ve supplied some good goddamn hair product, because there’s silken strands running over my knees, across my hands as they hold hers, even in my lap, where I’ve dropped the ski cap for now. It’s like satin, and it’s literally everywhere.
I’d say it was suffocating to have so much of her hair in here, but it feels so soft, so lustrous, a faint tickle on my skin wherever it brushes against me, that it’s anything but suffocating. It’s… fucking mesmerizing. I haven’t focused on anything except her survival (and mine) until this point. Haven’t had a second to think. So now, in this moment, shame rises along my skin as I welcome her touch. Disgust rises in my throat as I savor the caress of her flaxen hair on my skin. Rage pulses in my temples as I try not to fall under the spell of being in the dark with a girl who needs anything except the things I want to give her right now. I think about cold showers, about that time I got shot in the shoulder and the pain that came from that. I think about treating that FBI agent in San Francisco after some Russian bastard had pulled every one of her adult teeth out trying to get information out of her. In the end, it’s only that image that voids whatever terrible things I was picturing about Seraphina….
I don’t even know her last name.
Maybe she doesn’t have one.
For now, she’s safe, and we can rest. So that’s how we fall asleep, together, a tangle of limbs and her impossibly long hair everywhere, like the softest vines, curling around me until I’m pulled under.