Page 59 of Scythe & Sparrow
I roll my eyes and withdraw my phone, but I don’t dial 911. Not when Rose is watching me with her enormous eyes, a current ofworry buzzing through their mahogany hues. I sigh and lower the device to my side.
“What’s going on?” I ask, gesturing toward Chad’s body. Rose doesn’t look his way.
“I started it.”
“I figured. Why?”
“You could probably take a guess. Or did you miss the part where I said he was a piece of shit?”
“That’s not what I meant.” I hold her gaze steady as Rose’s head tilts, but the blush in her cheeks makes me think she knows exactly what I’m getting at. “I meant,why are you doing this? You clearly can’t stomach the gore—”
“I can too—”
“—and you’re hunting down these men you have seemingly no connection with. But you don’t seem to have much experience doing it.”
Rose crosses her arms.
“As far as I can tell, you’re seizing opportunity as it comes and you’re getting away with it by sheer luck. It’s a fucking miracle that Eric Donovan didn’t wash up somewhere with staples in his eyelids.”
She snorts. “That was pretty cool.”
“Rose,” I say, taking a step closer. “Why are you doing this? Why are you risking getting caught? Why—”
“Because not everyone gets that chance, Fionn,” she snaps. Sudden tears well in her eyes, but she blinks them away, hiding them beneath a simmering rage. “Not everyone is strong enough or lives long enough to fight back.”
We stare at each other, Rose with her arms crossed, me with the phone still clutched in my hand, thoughts of calling 911 drifting further from my mind. “I’ve been in their shoes. My folks were such a fucking mess that I spent most of my childhood with my Gran until she died. And then back I went to that fucking shithole. A piece of shit dad, in and out of jail. A mom so broken she couldn’t look after me. I was about to repeat the same cycle as the hell I lived in. I was only fifteen when my first boyfriend hit me.” Rose’s gaze drops to the ground, and she shakes her head, her arms falling to her sides. When she looks up at me once more, it’s not just the pain of inescapable memories that I see in her eyes. It’s not just determination. It’s a plea. “I got out. I took my chance and ran away. But it’s not enough to just be one of the lucky ones. Not when men like Matt or Eric or Chad will just find a next victim. Someone new to belittle and torture and sometimes even kill. Women like Lucy, or Naomi, or Chad’s girlfriend, Sienna? They need more than just an open door. They need a broken cage. How can I say no when they ask for my help?”
My shoulders fall. I press my eyes closed. Lower my head.Help, she says from memory, her voice untarnished by time. And she’s asking for my help now.
“The Sparrow. That’s what the women call you,” I say, and she nods.
“Have you ever heard of Giulia Tofana?” she asks. I shake my head when I open my eyes and meet her unwavering stare. “She was an Italian woman in the seventeenth century. She made a poison from arsenic and belladonna. As the story goes, she disguised it as face cream, so all a woman would have to do is come to herasking for Aqua Tofana. Many of those women were just like Lucy. And I thought I could be just like Giulia. For a while, I guess I was. But sometimes …” she says, turning her gaze from mine, her eyes glassy as they fix to the horizon, “sometimes you fuck up. You make a mistake. And when I fucked up, it cost the wrong person their life.”
She raises her left wrist to me. I’ve seen the small flower tattooed there before, the initialsV.R.beside it. When she finally meets my eyes, they’re filled with pain. With loss and guilt. I might not have all the pieces. But my imagination fills in the blanks with vivid detail. And suddenly the picture that once seemed so disjointed comes into view.
Her determination to overcome her squeamish nature. Her apparent lack of fear for the consequences she might face. Even her declaration every time I call her out.I started it, she always says. She’s determined to never place the blame on the women who have asked for her help. She will not put the responsibility of the killing on them. And she’s punishing herself, too. For fucking up. For losing someone she never meant to hurt.
I don’t press Rose for more details. I just reel her in to an embrace. It doesn’t matter how tightly I hold on to her, the ache in my chest doesn’t subside. I know the kinds of pain she’s felt. I’ve endured similar suffering, the kind that scars you in a way that never fully heals. But, somehow, it’s worse being powerless to take those wounds from Rose than it is living them myself.
After a long moment, I take her shoulders and back her away just far enough that I can lower my head and look into her eyes. “I need you to go back to the RV,” I say, already knowing I’ll be met with her resistance.
“No, Fionn. I started it—”
“No, you didn’t.” Rose shakes her head, but I stay locked on her shining eyes. “You finished it. And I’m helping you. But I need you to go back to the RV and stay there. I’m going to call the ambulance. The police are going to come. And they’re going to find exactly what this is—a stupid piece of shit who died in a dumbass accident.”
Rose gives me a watery huff of a laugh and shakes her head again. “I don’t want to leave you to clean up my mess.”
“And I will not leave you to do this alone. You and me, Rose, we came from a similar hell. And I want to help you. But the only way I can do that is to make sure you’re safe. Over there.” I point to the RV. Rose looks toward it, but I can still feel her hesitation. “Lights off. Don’t come out unless someone knocks. You were asleep and you didn’t see a thing.”
With a kiss to her temple, I turn Rose’s shoulders and push her in the direction of the motor home.
She takes two steps toward the RV and stops to face me with a weary, worried smile. “Thank you for your help, Fionn.”
I nod once. Her smile brightens. And then she turns away, walking back to the RV in the dusky evening light.
No one ever asked me for help the way she did that first time we met. And I realize now, as she steps into the motor home and turns off the lights, that no one has thanked me for it either.
Not until Rose.
