Page 120 of Phantom
I told Sol I love all of his darkness, and I meant it. He’s taken off his mask for me, bared himself fully, and I’m not running away this time.
He nods once at me before placing his hands on his knees and leaning into Rand’s face.
“You don’t get to manipulate Scarlett any longer. You will only speak to her if she wishes. You live if she wishes. Do you understand?” Rand’s angry eyes face him and Sol yanks Rand’s blond hair up and down, forcing his head to nod. “Good. Glad you understand.”
“Fuck you,” Rand spits back at him, but Sol takes a step away and casually walks to the steel cage near the door. He opens it with an antique key and hands it to me before casually walking inside the cage and calling over his shoulder.
“Choose your weapon, Chatelain.”
“Sword,” Rand growls.
Sol laughs harshly. “Typical. You always did like challenging me in fencing class.” He lays his phone down on a display of weapons before removing two swords from a rack and walking out of the cage.
“Weapon?” I ask, my voice pitching higher with alarm.
“Everyone who finds themselves in this chair fatally injured a Bordeaux, a shadow, or schemed to. I told you they either swim or fight down here, but I always give my opponent their choice of weapon.”
He uses his sword to point at the opposite corner where a desk with paper and pen sits alongside an old-timey telephone.
“This time, I’m giving you another option. Dictate your confession, tell me where my shadow is and who you’re working with, or decide your fate by physical means.”
“Like I said.” Rand narrows his eyes. “Sword.”
Sol chuckles harshly. “I’d say I’m impressed with your courage, but I’ll hazard a guess that it’s your pride, not your bravery, that’s fooling you into believing you can beat me in a fight.”
“So you don’t just… kill him?” A sick, twisted sense of disappointment mixes with the uneasy feeling in my stomach.
“No,” Rand answers. “The Phantom of the French Quarter likes to torture—”
“No, I don’t,” Sol hisses and tips Rand’s face up with the sword to meet his eyes. “Your brother taught me the importance of a fair fight. Only cowards harm the defenseless.”
“Let me guess, true torture is fighting for your life and losing.”
“No. That’s the last victory and redemption you’ll ever have,” Sol answers. When Rand opens his mouth to argue, he slides the blunt side of the sword up to Rand’s eye. “Torture is never getting the chance to fight.”
Before Rand can retort, Sol speaks again. His voice starts off low, as if he’s thinking out loud, but it rises as he addresses Rand directly.
“I was tied up just like this.” He grazes the blade underneath Rand’s eyebrow. Rand shudders, but no blood seeps out. “Do you know what it feels like to have your eye plucked out by a dagger, Chatelain?”
My stomach drops and vomit threatens up my throat again, but I swallow it down. Meanwhile, Sol doesn’t wait for a response as he traces Rand’s eye.
“Thankfully, your brother decided to stab through the sclera. Apparently the iris and pupil are more painful. That’s what the doctor said anyway. And there’s not as much blood as you see in the movies. The blade slid into the white of my eye as easy as softened butter. Then he plucked it out and Ifeltmy eyeball plop onto my cheekbone, right before your brother severed it from my eye socket. A nearly surgical removal, as if he’d practiced it before. He then privately shipped a fucking eyeball to a goddamn teenager backpacking through the Alps on spring break. Ben hadn’t even been told our father was dead yet. He found out after opening his package at base camp. But do you know the worst part of your brother’s torture?”
Rand doesn’t answer, and my lungs seize. I stopped breathing while I listened.
Sol inhales a deep breath. Rage shudders through his frame on his exhale.
“It wasn’t even when Laurent skinned me alive, piece by piece, to send to Ben, and then lit me on fire, all for his sadistic thrill.” Sol jabs his finger toward his unmasked face. “No, the worst part happenedafterI twisted his own rope around his neck, strangling him. It was the feeling of power and vindication I felt over his death. Before that, I’d never liked violence or death. My father’s business washis,and I didn’t want anything to do with it. But Laurent changed the way my mind worked, transforming me into something that enjoys the thrill of the hunt, and the high of the kill. Andthatwas the worst thing he could’ve ever done to me.”
“Laurent’s torture has nothing to do with me,” Rand claims.
I open my mouth to tell Sol about how Rand said Laurent was ageniuson the roof, but Sol beats me to it.
“Now, there’s where you’re wrong. You see… after you taunted me with Scarlett… I decided to look into you. You were, what,sixteenwhen you were self-proclaimedchildhood sweethearts? She was twelve. Now I don’t know if anything actually happened between you. Those aren’t questions I’m going to force her to answer. But that phrase alone makes me want to forego my usual punishment and kill you right here and now.”
My stomach knots itself while warmth blooms in my chest. A mixture of shame and gratitude. I’ve never told anyone about the way Rand touched me. I was too embarrassed and confused then, and I’ve tried to just forget it ever since. For the first time, it feels like that twelve-year-old girl inside of me is finally getting justice when I’ve been too ashamed to stand up for it myself. Sol is taking that burden and doing it for me.
“And it got me thinking.Ifyou were a goddamn pervert at sixteen, I’d had no idea at the time. You hid it well behind your charming facade. If that was the case, then what else did I miss? That’s when I decided to look into the facts of my case a little more, too. Specifically, the videos.”
