Page 50 of Spiders in the Grove

And I closed my eyes and let the darkness take me, the kind of darkness that suffocates with guilt and regret and brokenness.

Javier crouched in front of me; I felt his fingers touching my hair again; I felt the warmth of his hand engulfing my cheek; the tenderness of it, the…forgiveness.

The gun I had found on the shelf, I’d known it was there all along. The first click, it was the real Sarai, the bullet meant for Javier, and with my whole heart when I pulled that trigger the first time, I wanted him dead. But fate spared him, and the shot failed. And he just looked at me, shocked and…hurt that I’d done it, that I could ever do it. And in that few seconds of quiet and stunned confusion between the first and second attempt, I thought of our child; I thought of how if I ever did kill Javier, that I’d surely never see my child again.

The second try, and the successful bullet struck the floor—intentionally.

“Why?” he asked after a moment. “Tell me the truth, Sarai.”

“Because…” I paused, searching for the words. “…Because I…still love you.”

It was a lie; the greatest lie I’d ever told. No, not that I still loved him—a part of me did; the part that had not yet healed; the part still brainwashed by my captor—but that I’d claimed to have killed him. But truly, I did not spare his life because of love for him; I just knew they were the only words he would believe, the only way he would trust me again; the only way he wouldn’t use that last bullet on me. Not killing Javier when I had the chance was proof—for Javier at least—that I did still love him, and that I would do anything for him. Even betray Victor.

“Just take me home,” I said, defeated.

Javier sat on his bottom in front of me, and he raised my chin with his fingers, and he looked into my eyes the way he always did just before we would present ourselves in front of those powerful people in those rich mansions. And that’s when I knew Javier wasn’t going to take me anywhere—he wanted me to do something for him.

“The man who took you,” he began in Spanish, “he’s worth a lot of money—”

“You want me to lure him,” I cut in, already hating everything about this…arrangement.

Javier shook his head. “No,” he said, “I want you to continue as you have been with him; get inside his head, you know”—he smoothed the back of his fingers down my cheek suggestively—“the way you do, the way you’ve done with me. His employer wants him alive, but he also wants to know who else is helping him. You find these things out for me, Sarai; you help me be the one to bring him and his followers in, and I’ll give you the two things you want more than anything in this world.”

“What do I want, Javier?” I felt tears pushing to the surface as I thought about those two things, but I held the tears back, trying to be strong.

“Your freedom,” he said, “and your child.”

I couldn’t hold them down anymore, and they sprang from my eyes—because I believed he was telling the truth. It was my chance, after all those years I’d spent as his prisoner, to be given back my life, left alone to live freely in the world with my child who’d been stolen from me at birth. A normal life. A boring, uneventful life that I wanted so badly I would’ve killed for it.

I didn’t have to think about it, not even for a second—I was going to betray Victor. For my life and my freedom and for my child.

“I’ll do it,” I told him.

Javier kissed me tenderly. He believed me. He believed me because I, too, was telling the truth in that moment.

“You always were my favorite,” Javier said, searching my eyes. “Mi princesa, mi amor, mi todo, Sarai.” The pad of his thumb touched my bottom lip.

He kissed me again, and this time I fell into it, the feel of his warm tongue in my mouth, the memories we shared, the strange and unconventional and forbidden relationship we’d had.

The kiss broke, and he peered into my eyes, and I saw a sort of sadness in his, because even the blackest heart can love.

A muffled shot from outside rang out then, ending our moment.

“It’s Victor,” I whispered in the darkness. “I know it’s Victor.”

“Tell him you killed me,” Javier whispered back. “If he’s as compromised by you as The Order claims, he’ll believe anything you say.”

I nodded nervously, and another muffled shot and movement outside the house made my heart race.

Javier lay on the floor surrounded by debris, and pretended to be dead.

I didn’t think it would work; my heart beating furiously in the side of my neck told me Victor couldn’t be fooled by something so simple.

But I was wrong…

Victor rushed into the room; he took off his black gloves and shoved them inside his jacket pocket. “Sarai?”

I didn’t look up at him, because I was afraid he’d see the lie in my face. He crouched in front of me; my knees were drawn against my chest.

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