The Swan & the Jackal

  Chapter Thirteen

  Fredrik

  I haven’t slept in almost twenty-four hours, but I’m wide awake when I arrive back at my house in Baltimore just after 10:00 a.m. the following day. Greta’s old beige Honda Civic is parked in the driveway. I pull in beside her and kill the engine.

  I’m incredibly nervous, a feeling so foreign to me that at first I don’t know what to do with it.

  Carrying my black leather travel bag in one hand, I head up the red brick driveway and feel like I can’t get to the front door fast enough. The door is locked and while I’m scrambling to get the right key, I’m expecting Greta to open the door as she normally does when she knows I’m on my way back. But this time, I realize, she isn’t aware of my early return.

  Finally, I get the door open and head inside quietly.

  The house smells of eggs and biscuits and sausage. It’s spotless as usual, not a speck of dust left on anything or even evidence of the breakfast she cooked other than the aroma lingering in the air. I set my bag carefully on the floor in the living room wanting to avoid letting them onto my presence. I move into the kitchen, stepping around the spot in the floor that always creaks when walking over it and head for the bar. My iPad is right where I left it before I went to Seattle, and in the same horizontal position as though Greta made sure to place it exactly as it was and hoped I wouldn’t notice. I unlock the screen and move my finger over the app, opening the live feed from the basement.

  They’re sitting on Cassia’s bed talking. Seemingly harmless. Turning the volume up just slightly, I listen in on their conversation for several minutes. Nothing of significance. Greta is telling Cassia about her daughter and their trip to Monte Carlo last year. Cassia smiles so beautifully, so innocently, and it affects me in the worst of ways. I push down the pain and guilt that I feel for keeping her imprisoned for so long, keeping her from living life and seeing the world like I know she must dream about seeing it. That brightness in her brown eyes is unmistakable as she listens to Greta talk about Monte Carlo. She’s envisioning herself there. And rather than dwelling on the truth of her predicament, she just smiles and accepts it, instead.

  I’m a fucking bastard.

  With my palms pressed against the countertop, I drop my head slightly between my rigid shoulders and let out a long and miserable breath, shutting my eyes softly.

  But when I open them again, I notice something that shocks me back into an upright position. My eyes grow wide with panic. Once I manage to shake off the paralyzing numbness my body has fallen victim to, I dash down the hallway toward the basement door, flinging it open and then taking the concrete steps two at a time until I make it to the bottom.

  Greta and Cassia both jump at the sight of me, Cassia flinging herself against the wall on the other side of the bed.

  I march over and snatch Cassia up into my arms.

  “Why did you take it off?!” I shout at Greta, my voice and my face filled with reprimand.

  Greta shoots to her feet while Cassia presses her head harshly against my chest. I hold her with one arm around the back of her waist and the other underneath the bends of her legs.

  I glance briefly at Cassia’s ankle where her shackle is supposed to be, and then back at Greta who’s about five seconds away from meeting her maker.

  “Please Fredrik,” Cassia cries into my chest, “don’t blame Greta. I begged her to remove it. It was hurting.” She fits her small hand around the side of my neck to hold on to me. I nearly wilt by her touch.

  I shake it off fast and set Cassia back down on the bed.

  “Bring it to me,” I demand Greta.

  Greta, afraid to speak, scurries over and takes the chain into her hand. Crouching down on the floor in front of Cassia, I slide her thin yellow gown up her soft legs, grazing her skin with my fingertips and it reacts to my touch as tiny goose bumps appear.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Gustavsson.” Greta holds the shackle out to me. “I wouldn’t have let her escape. But I was concerned about her ankle. I cleaned it like you always asked me to.”

  “I’ve told you never to remove it. Never.” With my hands on Cassia’s warm thighs, I turn my head slowly, indignantly, and look up at Greta standing over me to my right. “If she didn’t like you so much…” I grind my jaw and look away.

  Calming myself, I give Cassia all of my attention again, sliding her leg in my free hand downward until I make it to her ankle. And then I stop and drop the shackle on the floor instead of putting it back on. Letting out a heavy sigh, I drop my gaze to my shoes, feeling even guiltier than I felt when I had been upstairs watching her from the live feed. I look back down at Cassia’s injured ankle. Blood has been drawn where the metal scraped against the back of her foot, just above her heel. And there are little blisters in a horizontal pattern on the inside of her ankle, just below the ankle bone. Her skin is yellowed by bruising, and red and inflamed around the cuts and blisters. Something clear glistens all over her skin, probably antibiotic ointment that Greta put on after cleaning it.

  “Shit,” I say under my breath.

  I rise into a stand and pick Cassia up from the bed, wrapping my arms around her small form. She latches her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck. Her body trembles against mine, though I know she’s only scared for Greta and not for herself.

  “We’ll discuss this in the morning,” I say, turning to Greta who’s looking back at me with fear at rest in her features. “Be here at your usual time.”

  “Yes, sir.” She bows her head and moves quickly toward the staircase.

  The moment I hear the basement door close, I tighten my arms around Cassia’s body and shut my eyes to savor the moment.

  “Please don’t hurt Greta,” she whispers in a teary voice into the side of my neck.

  I swallow hard.

  “I’m not going to hurt her,” I whisper back, and cup the back of her soft blonde head within the palm of my free hand.

  The feeling of her bare thighs tightening around my waist makes me hard. The warmth between her legs on my stomach. I try to ignore it, pushing my need to be with her far into the back of my mind. But it’s so difficult. Painful and torturous.

  Cassia is my punishment. I know she is. For all of the horrific things I’ve done to people in all these years, I’ve known for the past year that she must’ve been sent as my punishment. And my undoing. I’d much rather be strapped to my own chair and my teeth be pulled out of my head, or needles be shoved underneath my fingernails or my skin be peeled from my muscles, than to suffer this kind of torture. I would rather die. Just kill me and get it over with. The pain of being near her and knowing that I can’t give in to my feelings for her, is the worst kind of pain I’ve ever felt.

  And the only other thing I want more in this world than to find Seraphina, is for this pain to go away.

  “I should be here more,” I say softly into her hair. “My job has been more demanding than usual. I never meant to neglect you.”

  Cassia raises her head from my shoulder and peers deeply into my eyes as I hold her propped around my waist with her bottom in my hands.

  This isn’t right.

  I should stand her up.

  I ignore my inner voice and stare back into her eyes, fighting eternally with my conscience.

  The softness of Cassia’s fingertips trails down the sides of my face and then her lips fall on the corners of my mouth. One and then the other.

  I should stop her

  I should drop her on the bed and leave her be.

  I do neither.

  Instead, I hold her tighter and shut my eyes softly, seeking her lips with my own, though still reluctant to taste them. Because I know what it will do to me.

  Before I let myself kiss her, I pull away and carry her toward the bathroom. I drag my hands gently across the bare flesh of her thighs as I set her down on the countertop.

  I snap out of the forbidden thoughts again and pull her ankle into my hand.

  “This looks bad,
” I say. “I’m sorry for letting it get that way.”

  “Greta took care of it,” she says kindly.

  “Yes, but it shouldn’t have gone that far.” I step over to the tall shelf on the wall and open the cabinet, which is also usually locked, but isn’t. I take down some peroxide in a spray bottle and a clean wash cloth. “I’ll be here every day for the next week, at least,” I go on, spraying her ankle with the peroxide. “But I think it’s better that way.”

  It still bothers me that I’ve been given a ‘leave of absence’ because I’m obviously too distracted to carry out my duties, but it’s for the best just the same.

  “Fredrik?”

  “Yeah?” I don’t look up at her, but continue cleaning her wounds though they’ve already been cleaned recently.

  There is a bout of momentary silence and finally Cassia speaks up in a quiet voice. “I…well, I don’t want you to leave me again. Why can’t you stay here with me? Or, take me with you when you leave?”

  I raise my eyes from my work and look into hers. She smiles softly, but I also see desperation in her delicate features.

  “That’s not possible.” I look back down at her ankle.

  Her mood shifts and I can sense that her smile has fallen.

  “I wouldn’t run away,” she says; the desperation taking precedence in her voice. “I want to be here with you. I want to stay with you. You have to believe that.”

  I drop her ankle more harshly than I intended and the back of her heel bumps against the cabinet door underneath the counter.

  “Why do you feel that way?” I lash out, my eyebrows hardening in my forehead. “Cassia, look what I’ve done to you. How can you say or believe these things yourself? You’ve got to stop this—it’s making it harder on me!” I didn’t mean to say that last part, but by the time I realized it, the words had already fled my lips.

  Cassia just looks at me, confusion and curiosity in her eyes.

  “Harder on you why?”

  I turn my back to her and walk back over to the cabinet and put the peroxide away.

  “Because, Cassia, it can never happen. Nothing more than what has already happened between us, can ever happen.” I can’t look at her.

  “Because of Seraphina,” she says.

  I nod. “Yes. Because of Seraphina.” I hate the truth. I hate myself because of the truth.

  This is the ultimate punishment.

  “But I’m in love with you,” she says quietly from behind and my heart collapses inside my chest with a crushing force.

  “Don’t say that!” I swing around at her. “You’re not in love with me, Cassia! You don’t even know what you’re saying!”

  Tears glisten in the corners of her eyes and all I want to do is crush her against me and never let her go. But I can’t and I won’t. Her brown doe-like eyes look up at me with such pain that I can hardly bear the consequences. Her plump lips tremble around the edges. Her long, blonde hair lays like silk over her petite bare shoulders, stopping just below her breasts that are somewhat visible through the thin satin fabric of the yellow gown she wears. I wonder why she never dresses in the regular clothes I bought for her. But I only wonder for a brief moment.

  I try to avert my eyes until she says, “That woman has such a hold on your heart that it can’t breathe. She’s the reason your heart is dark. Look what she’s done to you. Look what she’s doing to you every day of your life.” My hands have compressed into fists down at my sides. “Why won’t you look at me?” Her voice begins to rise with desperation.

  I look up and my eyes fall on hers.

  “Seraphina is evil,” she says. “And look what she’s doing to you.” A trace of anger laces her words.

  But it’s not the anger that attracts my attention, it’s something cryptic that lies beneath it.

  “What are you saying, Cassia?”

  She shakes her head gently and her gaze falls toward the floor.

  “Cassia?” I say in a cautionary tone. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “No,” she says after a long pause.

  “You’re lying.”

  She looks up. Pain and resentment and love resides in her eyes.

  I step closer.

  “What have you remembered?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me the truth!” My fingers dig into the palms of my hands. “What have you remembered?!”

  “Nothing!”

  She slaps her hands against the countertop.

  “Goddammit! I don’t remember anything!”

  “You’re lying!”

  My hands fly to her upper arms and I shake her so hard her head bobs back and forth on her neck.

  “Tell me the truth, Cassia!”

  The side of my face stings when she frees one arm and slaps me so hard across the cheek that I hear a ringing in my ears. I grab her wrists into my hands and shove her against the wall where the mirror used to be, pressing my body between her opened thighs. Her feet raise up onto the counter. Her eyes expand as largely as they can, her pouty mouth lies halfway open as her breath expels rapidly from her lips. I can feel her heart beating in her wrists secured beneath my tightening fingers.

  Leaning forward even farther, my eyes bore into hers, my lips are inches from her own. “You’re going to tell me what you remember, Cassia, or I swear to fucking God I’ll put you in that chair.” My voice is calm, but harsh and unforgiving.

  “Fuck you,” she says and it’s more surprising than the slap was across my face.

  I pull back just inches and look at her. Tears pour from the corners of her eyes. It’s not defiance I see in her, but pure, unadulterated pain.

  “I remember,” she says, trembling. “I remember everything about Seraphina. How I know her. Why she wants me dead. I remember.” She sniffles. It’s tearing me up inside to see her this way. But I can’t let her get to me. Not now of all the times she’s done it since I’ve had possession of her.

  “Tell. Me. What. You. Know.”

  She shakes her head and my hands tighten around her wrists pressed against the wall behind her head.

  “I won’t tell you anything until you tell me everything.”

  Gritting my teeth, I hold my position with her body against the wall for mere seconds before finally letting go. I take a step backward. My mind is thick with merciless thoughts. A dark, soulless haze momentarily covers my vision and all I see in front of me is who I wish she was. Seraphina. The other half of my soul. The only other person in this world who can control me, who can control my urges, my violent, murderous tendencies. Because if she were here, I could fuck her. I could take my anger and guilt and pain and vengeance out on her and she would love me for it. Because Seraphina never wanted me to be gentle. She wanted me to hurt her. She wanted me to make her bleed. She wanted to feel it when I released my darkest side because she was only ever at peace with herself when someone darker than her was in control. I was the only person darker than Seraphina. Together, we could not be broken.

  I need her now.

  I need her now because Cassia can be broken. And I don’t want to hurt Cassia. I could never live with myself if I allowed my demons to ravage her like I ravaged Seraphina.

  Sometime during my soulless haze, Cassia managed to slide off the counter and now she stands in front of me.

  How did I get here?

  I look up to find that I’ve already stepped out of the bathroom, but I never remember walking through the doorway.

  “Fredrik,” Cassia’s voice is soft and pleading and concerned.

  I put up both hands, creating a wall between us. She stops and looks upon me with hurt in her eyes.

  “I’ll ask you one more time,” I say calmly and avoiding eye contact. “Tell me what you remember.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says gently and not at all out of anger, “but I meant what I said. You owe me that much. I don’t care what you do to me. I don’t care if you put me in that chair again.” I feel her presence as she steps up c
loser, but I take another step back. “Do what you have to.”

  A last desperate attempt consumes me and I swing the rest of the way around at her. “I can’t tell you!” I lean over into her face, but she stands her ground rather than shrinking away from me as I halfway expected her to do. “Why are you making this so hard, Cassia?” My voice begins to calm, reduced from anger to pleading. “I can’t talk to you about Seraphina. Not you, of all people in this fucking world! Why can’t you understand that?!”

  Cassia reaches up and wipes the tears from her eyes. Then very slowly, as if it’s the last thing she wants, she turns on her heels and walks toward the corner I often find her in.

  She sits down, pressing her back against the wall and pulling her knees toward her chest with her gown stretched over them.

  Then she looks up at me and says one last time, “Do what you have to do.”

  Wanting to put my fist through a wall, I storm over to the shackle and chain, taking it up into my hand and approach her with it. Crouching down beside her, I take her uninjured ankle and lock the shackle around it. She doesn’t look at me much less fight me.

  I make my way to the staircase and stop only long enough to hear her say, “I’ll forgive you, Fredrik. For whatever you have to do to me,” and I swallow down the pain her words caused and leave her sitting there.

  I can’t torture her. Maybe she knows it. Maybe she’s playing me for a fool, using reverse psychology on me. I don’t know, but I can’t do that to her.

  But I will do something.

  Before this day is over, she’ll tell me what she remembers.

  I’ll get it out of her. One way or another.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Fredrik

  I spend the rest of the day ignoring Cassia, and only checking in on her every so often by way of the video feed streaming from her room. I’ve thought of everything and the only idea that comes to mind is forcing her to watch another interrogation. Forcing her to watch me kill a man. For a while, it was what I intended to do. Instead of making her watch from one side of the basement, I was going to tie her to a chair in the interrogation room with me and let her see it up close and personal. Let her witness the horrific torture that she can barely stand to see through a television screen. Smell the fresh blood as it’s drawn, the sweat.