Page 120 of We Are the Match
“Do you know what I do to women like you?” he asks Paris.
She never shows her fear, my Paris, but she lets go of my hand and steps in front of him. “Do you know what I do to men who treat Helen like a belonging?” she asks.
Oh, Paris, my Paris.
I have always been yours.
“Lena sends her regards,” Paris says.
There it is: my father frozen, just for a flash. “From the queen,” he says reverently. “Yes. Yes, of course. It could only ever have been her.” He wavers on his feet as if the news is as physical as a blow to the chest.
And then there is a flash of steel in the darkness, Paris snatching his arm and pinning it to the wall for just long enough to—
His hand falls, still clinging to his knife, blood erupting from the stump of his wrist.
“You will never lay a hand on her again,” she says, her eyes triumphant still when my father’s guards force her to her knees.
I do not wait for them to force me. I kneel beside her. I take her hand.
There is no bullet left to fear. There is nothing left to fear.
There is nothing left but us.
Chapter 45
Paris
The guards are surrounding Zarek now, protecting him, one wrapping the stump of his arm, and I think as I kneel there that maybe I survived just for this—maybe I survived the bombs so thatIcould be a grenade unto myself, breaking apart the people and systems that killed us.
A guard presses his handgun to my temple.
The barrel is cold, the hand that holds it steady.
But I am not afraid.
“Shall I, sir?” the guard asks.
“No,” Zarek snarls. “No, I want her to die slowly.”
Beside me, Helen is quiet, steady, the way Tommy was on the rooftop. She is holding fast to my hand.
I grin at Zarek, sharp teeth and cold, sated fury.
“Who are you loyal to, Troy?” he asks me. “Who sent you? Do you work for my wife, too?”
“Isent me,” I tell him. “I am the girl you could not burn. And I come on behalf of my sisters.”
Does it matter which of them laid the charges, in the end? Zarek bombed the rest of Troy. We were all collateral to them. We were all disposable.
“Bring down her gas can.” Zarek stops, tilts his head. He looks hungry now. “Pour the gasoline over her.”
Helen squeezes my hand, cold metal there.
My lighter returned.
Helen, my Helen, telling me to end him.
And this is his undoing, that he wants to see me suffer, that he thinks he has any power tomakeme suffer. That he has not felt, or suffered, or burned and burned and burned just to stay alive.
