When she doesn’t say anything, but continues to look into my eyes as if she’s waiting on something, I become confused. She cocks her head to the other side and her eyes soften, though with what exactly, I’m not quite certain. It feels expectant and a little mischievous.
I hear Fredrik chuckle under his breath and the refrigerator door closing, but I never look away from Sarai.
“Things are so much easier the way I do it,” I hear him say with a smile in his voice.
“Contact me as soon as you get the information on Niklas,” I say still looking into Sarai’s eyes and disregarding his comment altogether. “And when you hear from your contact that Dina Gregory is safe in Phoenix.”
“I will do that,” Fredrik says and then walks toward the hall entrance that leads toward his room. But he stops and looks back at us. “If you don’t mind—”
I finally look away from Sarai and give Fredrik my full attention. “Don’t worry,” I interrupt, “I know where the guest quarters are.”
He shoves the corner of a sandwich that I barely noticed him prepare into his mouth and bites down, tearing the bread away from his lips. I catch him wink at Sarai just before he disappears down the hall. It was perfectly harmless, directed at what he assumes might happen between us once he’s gone, rather than a flirting attempt.
“What information on Niklas?” Sarai asks, her soft features now shadowed by concern.
I reach out and drag my fingers behind a small portion of her hair. “I have a lot to tell you,” I announce and I let my hand fall away before I lose control of myself and touch her more than I intended. “I know you must be exhausted. Why don’t you shower and get settled in first. Then we’ll talk.”
A soft grin sneaks up on her lips, but then fails under her blushing cheeks.
“Are you saying I’m disgusting?” she asks coyly. “Is that your way of telling me I need to wash my disgusting ass?”
“Actually, yes,” I admit.
For a flinching moment, she appears offended, but then she just shakes her head and laughs it off. I admire that about her. I admire a lot about her.
“All right.” Her playful expression shifts into something more serious again. “But you have to tell me everything, Victor. And I know you may have a lot to tell me, but I want you to know that there’s a lot I need to say to you as well.”
I expected as much. And before she pushes herself up on her toes, leaning her body against mine and kisses me on the lips, I know that by the time she gets out of that shower I’m going to have to figure out what we’re going to do. I’m going to have to make some important decisions that will affect both of us.
Because I am sure of only one thing: Sarai can never go home.
Sarai
When I return, Victor is sitting in the living room, perched on the edge of the couch, leaning over the glass coffee table now littered with pieces of paper and photographs. He continues to sift through them without raising his head to look at me as I walk farther into the room. But he’s not fooling me, I know he’s as aware of my presence as much as I want him to be.
I raided Fredrik’s closet for a white T-shirt, which I’ve slipped down over my bare breasts. Unfortunately, I’m still in the same panties I put on this morning, but Fredrik’s boxer-briefs aren’t exactly the kind of undergarments I would want to wear to seduce Victor. Just a T-shirt and panties. Of course, I made it a point to wear as little as possible, because I want Victor and I’m not shy in the least bit about letting him know it. Though I’m still having a hard time believing I’m even in the same room as him again after months of thinking he was gone forever.
I think the kiss in the elevator is where my mind is suspended, as though time stopped in that moment and every part of my being is still yearning for the moment to continue, but the rest of the world has still been going on all around me.
I sit down next to him, pulling one bare foot onto the couch and tucking it underneath my thigh.
“What’s all this stuff?” I gaze down at the paper and photographs on the table.
He fingers a few pieces of paper, stacking them into a precise spot. “It’s a job,” he says and then places a photograph of a man wearing a wife-beater tank on the top of the small pile. “I work for myself now.”
That takes me aback. “What do you mean?” I think I know exactly what he means, but I’m having a hard time believing it.
He picks up the stack and hits the edges against the table to make all of the pieces fall neatly into place. Then he slides the stack down into a manila envelope.
“I left the Order, Sarai.” He glances over at me.
He presses the little flaps of the silver clasp down to seal the envelope.
My thoughts are stuck in the back of my head, my words, hanging precariously on the tip of my tongue. I struggle desperately to believe what he just told me.
“Victor…but…no—.”
“Yes,” he says and turns his head to face me, looking directly into my eyes. “It is true. I’ve rebelled against the Order, against Vonnegut, and now I’m a wanted man.” He goes back to the other papers on the table. “But I still have to work and so now I work alone.”
I shake my head over and over, not wanting to swallow the truth. The thought of him being hunted by the people who made him what he is, by anyone, sends a hot flash of panic through my veins.
I let out a long breath. “But…but what about Fredrik? What about Niklas? Victor, I…what’s going on?”
He sighs heavily and lets the sheet of paper fall lightly back against the table and then he leans his back into the couch.
“Fredrik still works for the Order. On the inside. He keeps tabs on Niklas and…,” his eyes catch mine briefly, “…he’s been helping me keep you safe.”
Before I have the chance to ask anymore broken questions, Victor stands up from the couch and continues as I sit watching him with my mouth partially agape and both legs drawn up on the cushion.
“As you know, when anyone is suspected of betraying the Order, they are immediately eliminated. But I believe that Niklas has left Fredrik alive and not reported his concerns to Vonnegut for the simple fact that Niklas is using Fredrik to find me. Just as he has left you alive all this time, hoping that one day you’ll lead him right to me.”
It isn’t what Victor said that shocks me the most, it’s more about what he didn’t say that leaves me reeling. I let both of my legs drop from the couch and press my feet into hardwood floor, my hands pushing against the cushions on either side of me.
“Victor, what are you telling me? Are you saying that…Niklas is still with Vonnegut?”
I hope that’s not what he’s trying to tell me. I hope with everything in me that my decision to let Niklas live that day back in the hotel when he shot me wasn’t the biggest mistake of my life.
His eyes stray toward the sliding glass door and I sense a sort of infinite grief consuming him, but he doesn’t let it show on his face.
“I told my brother—you were there—that if he decided he wanted to stay with the Order if I chose to leave it, that I wouldn’t hold it against him. I gave him my word, Sarai.” He walks toward the glass door, folds his hands down in front of him and gazes out at the luminescent blue pool glowing under the night sky. “It is Niklas’ time to shine now and I won’t take that from him.”
“Bullshit!” I shoot up from the couch, my fists clenched down at my sides. “He’s after you, isn’t he?” I grit my teeth and step around the coffee table. “That’s fucking it, isn’t it, Victor? To prove his worth to Vonnegut, he’s been commissioned to kill you. Your piece of shit brother betrayed you. He thinks he’s taking your place in the Order. I can’t fucking believe—”