The Swan & the Jackal

  “W-What do you mean, run away?” I felt guilty for even having the conversation.

  Seraphina pulled me into a brief hug, afterwards letting her hands brush down the length of my arms until her fingers found mine. She held my hands firmly and said, “I want to go to New York. I’ve got it all planned out. We can get on a bus—it’s easy, they do it in the movies all the time and no one ever checks for identification unless they look like kids. But we don’t look like kids”—she waved her finger back and forth between us—“I can easily pass for seventeen, and you, well I think you could too if you put on a little makeup.”

  I was shaking my head absently the whole time she was explaining her plan, but she just kept on talking with the excitement of it all ever-growing in her eyes.

  “I want to be a singer,” she said with the biggest smile of wonderment I had ever seen on her face. She gripped my hands tighter. “And Cassia, you could, too. We could both be singers. You sing even better than me!”

  I blushed and lowered my gaze to our hands.

  “I-I don’t know, Seraphina.” I looked toward the shed door, terrified my parents might’ve been listening in. “Running away won’t be easy. My parents check in on me every night. First my mom. Then later my dad. They’d know I was missing before we made it to the bus station—and what about money? I don’t have any money.”

  Seraphina grinned and leaned forward so she could reach around to her back pocket. There was a wad of cash in her hand when she brought it back around.

  “Stole it from my mom’s jewelry box,” she said with a proud smirk and then placed the money into my hands. “This’ll get us both to New York.”

  I looked down at the cash and then back up at her. I didn’t want to tell her no, but at the same time, I was scared. I was scared of running away. Getting caught. Getting grounded for the rest of my life.

  But I think most of all, I was scared of Seraphina.

  “So, are you going to leave with me?”

  She sat there with her hands in her lap, her fingers coiling anxiously around one another. Her face was full of excitement and danger and risk and trouble—everything I always steered clear of. Everything I was afraid of.

  But then finally I said, “But what if my parents wake up and see that I’m gone? What if they catch us before we get to New York?”

  “They won’t catch us,” she said with such resolve that I couldn’t help but believe her. “I’m going to take care of that before we leave.”

  Before Seraphina snuck out of my shed that afternoon and went back into her yard, I had agreed to go with her. And to trust in her, no matter what she had to do to help me get away.

  I’m lying down against the bed now with my head on Fredrik’s thigh. I don’t even recall when I shifted position, I’ve been so engrossed in the memory. It’s been a year since I’ve remembered any of this, or anything about my life at all, so it’s all quite a lot to take in.

  Fredrik’s hand moves softly through the top of my hair, sending shivers from the back of my neck and throughout my body. It feels like he’s consoling me, but more than that, it feels like he’s hurting and I don’t want to go on. I know he had a terrible life and that he went through some horrific things when he was a boy, things that he will probably never tell me. But I know they were much worse than anything I ever went through.

  “What did Seraphina do to your parents, Cassia?” he asks in a soft voice while spearing his fingers through my long locks.

  I stare out at the television on the wall across the basement and let the scene from that night play out before me as if it were playing out on the dark screen.

  And then I answer, “She stabbed my father in the throat while he was downstairs asleep in his favorite chair. And then she poured gasoline she took from the shed in my backyard all over the house and set the house on fire. My mother burned to death in her room.”

  A part of me misses them, but another part of me feels nothing because it was so long ago.

  “I didn’t go to New York with Seraphina,” I say distantly, picturing Seraphina’s face in my mind, the way I saw her when she was driven away in the police car. The way her face was pressed against the glass as she looked at me. “I told the police what she had done and they sent her away. She admitted everything. I never saw her again.” My fingers grip the sheet beneath me on the mattress. “I never saw her again until a year ago when she found me in my apartment in New York and tried to kill me. I know she thinks she was helping me by killing my parents—I think she killed hers, too, before mine. But I betrayed her by giving her up. And now…she wants to get back at me for the life she lost.”

  Fredrik says nothing for a very long time and I grow concerned about what he must be thinking. Can he still love her now that he knows what she did? It was never my intention to make him stop loving her by telling him the truth, but I can’t help but hope that maybe he will now be able to see reason.

  “Fredrik?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Fredrik

  “Yes?” I answer her, though at this point, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to force anymore of an answer than those three letters.

  My life is over. Everything I ever thought I knew about Seraphina, about our life together, the love that we shared, it’s all over. Because now I know that there’s no way I can help her, there’s no way I can bring her back to me. She’s a danger to me, to herself and everyone around her. Even Cassia. Most of all…Cassia. Seraphina was disturbed when I met her eight years ago and when I fell in love with her. But I never knew the extent of her illness until now. I never knew that she suffered traumatic experiences as a child just as I did.

  I never knew.

  But she and I are very different despite our somewhat similar pasts. I don’t kill innocent people. I, while although a sadistic bastard and torturer and killer, have limits and standards. I know when to stop. I feel guilt for my mistakes. But Seraphina, I know now, doesn’t understand guilt or remorse.

  How could I ever have been so wrong about her?!

  How could I ever have been so blind?!

  Love.

  Seraphina was right all along. To be in love is to be dead already because eventually it kills us all.

  Cassia raises her head from my leg and pushes her naked body up propped on one arm. She looks into my eyes.

  “Talk to me,” she says and kisses my cheek. “Are you OK?”

  I force a very light smile around my eyes and I nod in answer.

  Then she lowers her eyes and I feel sadness and worry consume her emotions. Reaching out my hand, I raise her chin with the tip of my finger.

  “Now you talk to me,” I tell her gently. “What’s on your mind?”

  She swallows nervously and looks up, her brown eyes soft with worry. “Will you still protect me from her when you finally find her?”

  My heart is dead. Black. No more. But not for Cassia. It just barely beats for her, though for how long it can hold on, I’m unsure.

  I lean over and press my lips against her forehead, cupping the back of her head in the palm of my hand, and I hold it there with my eyes shut tight.

  I’m going to have to do the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life soon. But for now, I will give Cassia whatever she wants from me.

  “I will always protect you from her,” I say, pulling away slowly. “Seraphina will never hurt you again. I will make sure of that.”

  Cassia gives me a warm, thankful look and lays her head back down on my lap.

  We sit in silence for the longest time, me combing my fingers through her hair, until eventually she falls asleep. I move out from underneath her carefully so as not to wake her, and I cover her with the blanket after locking the shackle back around her uninjured ankle. I noticed the key was on the nightstand beside her bed all along and realized that I never brought it back up with me the last time I stormed out and left her alone. That was how she was able to get the shackle unlocked.

  She never tried to escape, and I d
oubt that she ever will, but I can’t take the chance.

  I leave Cassia alone and go back upstairs where I sit on the sofa in my boxers, staring into the darkness thinking about all that transpired. And I remain this way until the light of a new day burns through the curtains and pools on the floor beside my bare feet.

  ~~~

  “Fredrik, what is it?” Izabel says into the phone, detecting the urgency in my voice.

  “I just need to talk to you,” I say after finally breaking down and admitting to myself that I should talk to anyone at all. But if it’s going to be anyone, it can only be Izabel. “Are you back from Seattle? When and where can you meet me?”

  “Yes. I got back this morning. Niklas and Dorian stayed behind to finish up. The other order sent only two men—easy-peasy.”

  “OK, where can we meet?”

  “Why don’t I just come to your house?” she asks warily. “I can be there in two hours.”

  “No,” I say walking to my front door to let Greta inside. “We need to talk somewhere else. Anywhere but here.”

  “Fredrik, you’re really starting to worry me. First you—”

  “Can you meet me in Druid Hill Park?” I cut in. “Same parking lot we met before the Vanderbilt hit last month? Two hours.”

  Izabel pauses.

  “All right, I’ll be there.”

  Running my finger over the screen, the call ends. Greta walks past me offering a rather skittish smile. She’s always been afraid of me, but after unlocking Cassia from her bonds without my permission, she likely didn’t want to come here today at all.

  She sets her purse down on the kitchen counter, dropping her keys in the top of it afterwards. She starts in on cleaning immediately, bending over to retrieve a spray bottle of kitchen cleaner from underneath the sink and avoiding eye contact with me at all costs.

  Already dressed in a pair of jeans, a thick black sweater and my more laid-back Converse shoes, I slip my arms down into my coat and prepare to leave.

  “I’m going to be gone for a few hours,” I say, adjusting the neck of my sweater around the inside of my coat. “Under no circumstances will you unlock Cassia from that chain. Is that understood?” Lastly, I pull a black knit beanie over my head.

  Greta nods with little eye contact. “Yes, Mr. Gustavsson.”

  Swiping my keys from the counter, I hold them in one hand while double-checking for my wallet in the back pocket of my jeans.

  Greta sprays the countertop and begins wiping it down.

  “By the way,” I add, “Cassia might confide in you about the things she remembered.”

  Greta looks up from her work, surprised. “She remembered?”

  “Apparently.” I step up closer, seizing her nervous gaze. “But I don’t want you talking to her about it. Not unless she brings it up herself. And even then, say little in return. Let her do the talking if she needs to, but that’s as far as it goes. Do you understand?”

  The confused look on Greta’s heavily lined face deepens, but she agrees with another tense nod of acknowledgment.

  “Will you be here for dinner?” she asks as I’m making my way to the front door.

  I don’t stop to answer and I step out into the cold winter air, heading straight for my car.

  I stop for coffee and gas and then a newspaper, trying to find things to do to waste two hours. And to think. Mostly I think. How much do I tell Izabel? Not everything, but enough to—I’m regretting this meeting already. There’s nothing that Izabel can even do but give me advice, and since when was I ever the type of man who needed advice? I’ve never confided in anyone in my life other than Seraphina, and Willa before her when I was just a boy under the thumb of evil men. But now…now I’m desperate and I’m closer to no one in this world more than Izabel Seyfried. Victor Faust may be my friend and someone I believe I can trust, but he’s a man, and I’ve never been able to develop the type of bond with any man that I have with very few women.

  My past with men forbids such bonds.

  Two hours drag by endlessly and I spend the last half hour of it waiting in the parking lot of the park with the engine running to keep warm. The sky is gray and covered by thick winter clouds that will start dumping snow on everything at any moment.

  Note to self: When this is all over, move south.

  Izabel’s black Mercedes pulls into the parking lot. She parks next to me.

  “Shit, it’s cold,” she says shuddering while hopping in the passenger’s side of my car and closing the door quickly.

  I pass her a hot coffee in a cup with a lid.

  “You know me so well.” She smiles and her big green eyes brighten thankfully as she takes the cup into both hands to warm them. Pursing her lips she blows on the steam rising from the small opening in the lid and then takes a careful sip, hissing when the liquid burns her lips.

  “So, what’s this all about?” She sets the cup in the cup holder in the console between us. Then she adjusts her long, white coat, pulling it from underneath her bottom and then hides her keys away inside the pocket. Her long auburn hair is pulled into a silky ponytail at the back of her head.

  I hesitate for a rather lengthy amount of time, dropping my hands from the bottom of the steering wheel and into my lap. My head falls back against the leather headrest.

  “Well, before you say anything,” she says quickly, “I want you to know that I did tell Victor I was meeting you here.”

  “I didn’t expect you not to tell him.” I smirk over at her and then jest, “What, you think I planned to kill you?”

  Izabel laughs lightly and nudges me in the shoulder with a half-fist.

  “I tell Victor everything, you know that,” she says with a smile. “Besides, you wouldn’t kill me.”

  I raise a brow and one side of my mouth. “Oh really? You must think you’re special. Got news for yah, doll.” Her whole face breaks into a grin. “OK, you are kind of special,” I admit, but then point at her and narrow my eyes and say, “But don’t let that shit go to your head. I’d still kill you.”

  She smiles, rolls her eyes and rests her head against the headrest for a moment.

  Then she says, “Is this your way of breaking the ice?” Her head falls to the side so she can look at me. “Because I get the feeling whatever it is you have to tell me is something serious.”

  “It is.” I nod.

  “Well,” she says, looking forward at the windshield, “just remember the reason I told you about Victor.”

  “I know,” I say. “Because you keep nothing from him.”

  She raises her head and back from the seat and turns around a little to face me.

  “I admire you for that,” I tell her. “That you’re honest with him.”

  “I have to be. One, I love him. Two, if I’m not honest with him, he might kill me someday.”

  I smile. “I doubt Victor would ever kill you.”

  She looks at me in a sidelong glance. “You haven’t been around him much lately. All that power.” She laughs. “He scares me a little.”

  The smile in her eyes tells me that she’s full of shit.

  “Look, you’re like a brother to me,” she says getting serious again. “And if you ever asked me to keep anything personal about you a secret, I wouldn’t tell Victor, or anyone else. But I just wanted to give you a heads-up before you start talking, so you can be sure that whatever you’re about to say is something I should know, or not.”

  “I know,” I say, “and I appreciate you looking out for me, but I’m only senseless on Wednesdays. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Umm, Fredrik”—she smirks and tilts her head thoughtfully—“this is Wednesday.”

  I sigh. “Yeah. I know.”

  The smile drops from her face in an instant as she realizes just how serious this is, and how I know full well that I’m risking a lot by telling her anything.

  Finally, I pick my cell phone up from the dashboard console and run my finger over the screen to open the live video feed from my ba
sement. Izabel watches me intently while I wait for the video to appear. I watch it for a moment first to see if there’s anything out of the ordinary. Cassia is alone in the room for now, pacing the floor and dragging the chain around her ankle behind her. She’s wearing a thick blue robe over her nightgown that drops to her calves. She looks lost and anxious. I wonder briefly if Greta has been down there with her yet and then conclude that she must have because she had to have taken her breakfast.

  I hesitate, collapsing my hand around the phone, and contemplate this whole thing quietly one last time, making sure I want to open the lid on this issue.

  I hand Izabel the phone.

  Reluctantly, she takes it from my hand and peers down at the screen. After watching a moment, and looking back and forth between me and the feed, she asks, “Who is she?” and then she looks at the screen again.

  “Her name is Cassia.”

  Another long pause.

  Izabel looks up from the phone and at me for a longer time.

  “OK,” she says simply, waiting for me to explain.

  “That’s a live video feed,” I say. “From my basement.”

  Her eyebrows crease with confusion.

  “You have a girl in your basement? I don’t understand.”

  I sigh heavily, having a difficult time trying to figure out how to tell her. What do I start with? What do I leave out? I have to be careful because Izabel is smart and will pick up on gaps in my story easily.

  “I’ve been using her to help me find Seraphina.”

  “Using her how?” Already Izabel looks disapproving. “What does she have to do with Seraphina? How long have you had her down there? Wait—.” She stops abruptly and looks at the screen one more time. When she raises her eyes to me again, full of suspicion and criticism, she says, “Is that a chain around her ankle?”

  “Yes,” I admit.

  Izabel tries to shake off her initial feelings of disapproval to give me the benefit of the doubt. “OK, so you’re interrogating her. She’s involved with Seraphina’s life of betrayal and murder and God knows what else. I get that.” She sets the phone down in the console.