Behind the Hands That Kill

  I nod, but all I can think about now is knowing I’m going to get to see Victor again, even if it’s the last time…I’m going to see him again.

  And that gives me hope.

  Victor

  Apollo walks past my cage and disappears within the shadows again; I make note of his footsteps as they get farther away. Then he stops, and I hear the sound of metal pulling away from metal, followed by several clicking sounds. The fluorescent lights high in the ceiling hum to life as he flips the switches in the breaker box one by one.

  The space that houses my cell is much larger than I anticipated. I knew it was expansive and mostly empty, but the darkness, and my head still dizzied earlier by the drug, kept me blind to the truth. But my sense of smell was spot on. This place was—maybe still is—some kind menagerie, most likely owned by a private collector or distributor of exotic animals. I count twelve other cages set in the walls to my right and left, six on each side, and three more just like mine, situated down the center of the vast room in a perfect row, spaced at least ten-feet apart. Primates have been kept here, evidence of that in three cages equipped with hanging rope, a swinging tire, and wooden platforms mounted high on the back wall. I am certain other exotic animals have been housed here at some point. But today I am the only one.

  Apollo makes his way back up, taking his time, walking toward me in slow strides, his hands folded together behind him. He raises one of them in gesture as if showcasing the place, and says to me, “It’s fitting, don’t you think?”

  “I do not care much for the pointless dialogue, Apollo. Let us get to it, shall we?”

  He smiles, folding his hands together on his backside again.

  “Eager to die, aren’t you?” he asks.

  “Eager to get on with this,” I answer.

  Eager to see Izabel is more like it; it is killing me not knowing what is happening to her right now.

  Apollo takes the chair Izabel had been sitting on earlier and drags it back a few feet from my cage. With the sweep of his hand, he pretends to dust off the seat before sitting down; he brings his right foot up and rests it atop his left knee; he folds his hands loosely across his stomach. And then he just looks at me, waiting, for what exactly he will have to tell me, but of course he knows this already.

  “That night,” Apollo begins, “fifteen years ago, what did you do before Osiris burst into the house?”

  “Before as in when?” I inquire. “Minutes before? An hour? You could be more specific.”

  He smirks.

  “Begin with earlier that evening,” he says. “Didn’t you take my sister out for your one-year anniversary?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Though it was two days late.”

  “Why was it late? Was my sister not worth remembering?”

  “No, Apollo, that is not why I took her out late; I did not forget. We both had to work, so we decided to spend our anniversary the following Sunday.”

  He nods. “I see.” Then he switches legs, propping the left foot on the right knee. “So tell me about that night. Before Osiris. Tell me everything, even the little things.”

  “Why?”

  He leans forward.

  “Because I want to know how happy my sister was—you were the last person to see her happy, Victor. And she was happy. She was in love with you, thought she’d found the one.” He laughs, and then shakes his head with disappointment. “Why do women care about that shit, anyway? I mean really”—he holds out both hands, palms up—“Any idea, man?”

  “No, really I have none.”

  Apollo sighs, and folds his hands on his stomach again, interlocking his fingers. “Oh well,” he says. “So anyway. About that night.”

  “I took her to dinner,” I say. “An expensive Italian restaurant.”

  “So tell me about it.”

  I take a deep breath and begin pacing.

  “She wore a black dress…

  Fifteen years ago…

  Artemis insisted the restaurant be expensive. She loved expensive things—temporarily. She dreamed of living the high-life, but she had said she only wanted to live it for one month. Not a day more. Artemis’s family was wealthy—as you well know—but it was all blood-money, and she did not want to be part of that. She wanted to earn her wealth honestly, work hard for it, and then spend it all up in one month. I was baffled, and intrigued, by her plan—mostly intrigued.

  “I despise money, Victor,” she said, sitting next to me on a chair at our small table. “It ruins lives—it corrupted everyone in my family except me and my brother, Apollo.” She smiled over at me; her long, slender fingers caressed the side of her wine glass; her pinky finger curled around the stem. “If I ever make enough honest money for myself that I can use bills to light my fireplace, I’m going to spend it all up in one month just to see it go.”

  “I do not understand,” I told her gently, and with interest.

  She moved her hand from the glass and placed it atop mine, brushed her fingertips over the top of my knuckles as she spoke.

  “Defiance,” she said. “I want to do it because I can; I want to be the opposite of what my parents were, and what they expected me to be.”

  “So then why waste the money?” I asked. “Why not give it away? There are many charities—”

  She laughed under her breath, then brushed her fingers across the top of my hand once more and then reached for her wine glass again, fitting her fingers around it. She brought it to her lips, paused before taking a sip and said, “I can’t pretend to be a do-gooder, Victor—there’s no Robin Hood blood in these veins. I’m a Stone, and I accept that. Not that I’m proud of it. It’s just the way I am.” She took a drink, then set the glass carefully back on the table.

  When we were done eating, Artemis took the fancy cloth napkin from her lap, placed it on the table, and smiled over at me; it stopped me in my tracks—it was a mysterious smile that, at first, I could not place. But when I reached for my wallet so I could retrieve my credit card, I felt her hand touch my wrist to stop me.

  I looked at her inquisitively, but already, somewhere in the back of my subconscious mind, I knew what she intended to do.

  “Live a little, my love,” she said, grinning.

  I smiled, placed my wallet back into my jacket.

  We took off running out of the restaurant, leaving the unpaid bill on the table, Artemis cackling as two waiters came after us. I was laughing too, which surprised me. Though less and less the longer I was with her. I was certainly a different kind of man a couple of months after I met her. I did not know it at the time, but I was changing because of Artemis Stone.

  Present day…

  “Were you caught?” Apollo asks.

  I look up from the floor, watching the memory of Artemis’s radiant smile evaporate from my mind; hearing her lovely laughter fade, like churned up dust settling over a lonely field.

  “No,” I answer. “They never caught us.”

  Apollo smiles, genuinely, and not with hatred, which can only mean that he, too, is remembering his twin sister.

  Then he shoots up from the chair, wiping the smile away, and replacing it with something less inviting.

  He looks right at me.

  “Go on,” he demands.

  After a lengthy hesitation, I continue, but with difficulty.

  “After the restaurant, we went home and changed clothes. We sat together on the porch, looking out at the ocean; she had made coffee—black, the way I liked it—and we talked for a long time before she told me that…”

  “Before she told you what?”

  I do not want to answer.

  “Before she told you what, Victor? Come on, don’t start skimping on the details now.” Apollo grins, and I look away, if for anything than just to alleviate my need to punch him in the face.

  I think back to that night again, now with bitterness.

  And despair.

  Fifteen years ago…

  “I do love you, Victor,” Artemis said, reached ov
er and grabbed my hand. “And I owe it to you to tell you the truth about something I’ve been keeping from you.”

  My eyes met hers, and I waited. I did not urge her, I just waited.

  She looked out ahead then; the moonlight glistened on the surface of the water. “I was pregnant,” she said. “And I had an abortion.”

  My hand had slipped from hers before I even realized.

  “I’m sorry, Victor, I really am, but you know me—I can’t be having babies; I’m still a baby myself sometimes. Besides, I don’t really like kids much.”

  I could not speak for a long time.

  “I hope you understand,” she said. “I hope you can forgive me.”

  She got up from the chair, moved around to stand in front of me, her face stricken with concern, worried that I did not understand, that I could not forgive her.

  I raised my eyes. I looked at her. And then against the war raging inside my head and my heart, I softened my gaze and then reached out with both hands and cradled her face within them.

  Leaning forward, I pressed my lips to her forehead.

  “I understand, love,” I said quietly. “And I forgive you.” I lied.

  I carried her in my arms and took her to bed. And I made love to her that night as a different man. A man that I had forgotten existed in the year that I had known her…

  Present day…

  “And what man would that be?” Apollo inquires, as if already knowing the answer.

  I look straight into his dark eyes and say, “I was Victor Faust, highest honor operative of The Order—I was an assassin there only to execute a job.”

  “And Artemis?”

  “She was a means to an end. A tool in which I used to fulfill my contract. And I had but one Stone sibling left to kill”—I nod in Apollo’s direction—“You.”

  Victor

  Apollo smiles largely, close-lipped; he holds that smile for a long time, without saying a word. It is unnerving.

  And then, breaking apart his hands and opening his arms wide at his sides, he says, “And yet here I am. Alive and well. Did you ever wonder why you couldn’t find me to kill me?” He laughs, shakes his head. “I mean, surely it’s been bugging the shit out of you after all these years. Come on¸ be honest with me, Victor!” He smacks his hands together excitedly.

  “Yes,” I admit. “I have thought about it from time to time, how you could have eluded me.”

  Apollo stands, smacks his hands together again; the smile never diminishes but only seems to broaden. Then he begins to pace back and forth in front of my cage.

  “The first few months,” he says, “it was as simple as me being on vacation in Rio de Janeiro, partying my ass off—wouldn’t doubt a few kids of my own were conceived during that time.” He smirks at me. “When my brothers were killed, I didn’t think much of it—people die in my family all the time—but when my parents were offed shortly after, I knew something was up. So, I had a guy get in touch with another guy, who hired some other guy, who found out that my brother, Osiris, had put a hit out on everyone but my sisters. I knew I was next, so I left Brazil and laid low—”

  “Tell me again,” I cut in, “why I am the one in this cage, and not Osiris.”

  Apollo holds up his index finger.

  “I’m not done, Victor,” he says, scolding me.

  He continues pacing.

  “Now, I understood why Osiris did what he did,” he says, pursing his lips. “Mom and Dad treated Osiris like a red-headed step-child; I mean, sure they beat the shit outta all of us from time to time. But Osiris, being the oldest and all, got the worst of it. I knew one day he’d fuckin’ explode. Osiris loved his sisters though—Hestia was to him like Artemis was to me—but he hated me, and he hated Ares and Theseus. Osiris was jealous of us because the boys in the family were the favorites. But not Osiris. It’s why he was protective of our sisters; he felt more like one of them than one of us.”

  “So then why did he put that knife in my hand that night fifteen years ago?” I interrupt again. “If he loved Artemis so much, why did he want me to kill her?”

  Apollo smiles, and then rolls his eyes with irritation.

  “Because he was using my sister against me, getting revenge for what I did in retaliation for what he did.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “He was offing our family, and I was next, so I killed his wife,” he answers matter-of-factly. “I—well, I fucked her first, and then I killed her. Needless to say, Osiris was not a happy man. But an eye for an eye, I thought.”

  “And you never thought he’d retaliate by coming after Artemis,” I say, figuring it out on my own.

  Apollo nods once.

  “Yeah,” he says with regret. “Never saw that one coming. But I should’ve. Hell, if he was crazy and cold enough to kill our brothers—who never did shit to him, I should add—then I should’ve known he’d use the only person in the world who I loved—my twin—to get back at me for killing his wife.”

  “You are all disturbed,” I say. “Your entire family. And I thought my family had issues.”

  He shrugs again. “Yeah, well,” he says, “I guess I can’t really argue with you on that one.”

  I step up to the bars, peer at him with focus. “Still, none of this explains why I am the one here, paying for his betrayal. It is not much different than killing the messenger. I did only what I was commissioned to do—by your brother.”

  “Ah, but you didn’t,” Apollo tries to correct me, and I fail to understand. “You did something far worse. And you’re just as guilty as he was.”

  I am thoroughly frustrated with all of this. More-so with myself. It never takes me this long to figure out the most complicated of puzzles. Quite frankly, it is, as Izabel might say, pissing me off.

  Apollo takes a seat again, and props his foot on his knee and his hands on his stomach, just like before. Then he nods at me and says, “Finish the story, Victor. Tell me what happened that night when Osiris got to you before I could.”

  “Tell me where Izabel is first,” I demand. “You want to know this story desperately enough—tell me if she is still alive, if she has been hurt.”

  “Oh, she’s still alive all right.” He grins. “As far as what has been, or is being done to her, I can’t answer that. But she’s alive, and I can promise you one thing: you’ll see her again before this is all over.”

  Nothing about his cryptic promise eases my mind. It does exactly the opposite.

  “The story, Victor,” Apollo speaks up over the vociferous sound of my restless thoughts. He taps his watch with the tip of his finger. “Unfortunately, we don’t have all night.”

  I tell Apollo about Osiris breaking into the house in the middle of the night after Artemis and I had fallen asleep. I tell him about how Osiris dragged his sister off the bed and held a gun to her head. And I admit to not being alert, or fast enough, to have been able to stop it; another gun was in my face before I could reach mine on the nightstand. And I tell him how Artemis’s life was used against me so an accomplice could tie me to a chair without me killing him. It was not a shining moment in my life—certainly not in my career—but it was one night of mistakes I quickly learned from and vowed never to make again.

  Yet here I am again. Because, unfortunately, history does tend to repeat itself.

  Fifteen years ago…

  Osiris stood and shoved his gun into the back of his pants; his black leather jacket concealed it.

  “So,” he said, coming toward me, “you’re saying that if someone above you, from The Order, was to walk in here and tell you to put that bitch out of her misery—”

  “Your use of expletives,” I cut in, blood dripping from my bottom lip, “makes it difficult to take you seriously.”

  Osiris’s left brow rose higher than the other.

  “How so?” he said, quietly offended.

  Casually I answered, “Because, quite frankly, I feel as though I am dealing with someone of, shall I say, inadequate edu
cation.” (Osiris’s nostrils flared.) “Or do you just have something against women?”

  I glimpsed Osiris’s fist amid the spots before my eyes, and then the world blinked out.

  I was unconscious for precisely six minutes—I remembered seeing the time on the bedside clock just before he knocked me out cold. And when I finally came to, everything was as it was before. Except one thing. Artemis was also conscious again.

  “Osiris, why are you doing this?” she pleaded with him; her face was bruised; blood smeared across her cheeks, glistened on her teeth. “You’re my brother! Why are you doing this?”

  That was how I finally knew they were, in fact, siblings. But I was as confused as Artemis about why he was there, why he put a knife in my hand and wanted me to kill her, his own sister.

  Artemis tried to get to her feet but she fell, too disoriented to maintain her balance. She reached out her hand to her brother. “Please, Osiris, tell me what this is about. Is it because of Mama and Papa?” Then she started to cry. And wail. “Oh please, God, tell me you didn’t! Tell me you aren’t the one who’s been killing everyone!” Then she became frantic. “Where’s Apollo?! Osiris, where’s my brother!”

  “Your brother?” Osiris shook his head; he pointed his gun at his chest in place of his finger. “I’M YOUR BROTHER!” he roared. “I was part of this family too!”

  My eyes went back and forth between them; my ears hung onto their family squabble. Artemis began to back her way toward me; I was still bound to the chair by my ankles and one wrist. My free hand still gripped the knife; I hoped for an opportunity. I cursed myself quietly for not taking the one I just had when Osiris pointed his gun away from me for that briefest of moments. But then I knew, too, that my knife-throwing hand was the one still bound to the chair, and that my aim was off by thirty-percent with the other—if it was not going to be precise, I was not going to risk it.