Page 72 of Lair

She doesn’t need me to answer; the look on my face is all she needs. A small, wondering smile hitches up her mouth as she takes me in. “What am I gonna do if I never have to worry about you anymore?”

I crack a bittersweet grin. “Live for yourself, babe.”

It’s only when I say it that we both know it’s true. This has been our dynamic for as long as we’ve known each other, ever since that first day we met at summer camp and instantly began comparing the moles on our backs, our dramas at home, and set about—in the unfussy, unspoken way of young girls—figuring out who would take care of whom for the rest of our lives.

Tears of pride are glistening in Cailee’s eyes as she looks at me. “So what are you gonna do?”

When I look out of walled Port Vauban to the millionaires’ quay beyond, the Lair is blazing like a deadly mirage in the sun.

Mrs. Colding is waiting for me on the aft main deck when I get there, hands clasped, hair gleaming in the sunlight, like a replay of our first meeting. As if she somehow knew I would return.

By the time I’m at the foot of the passerelle she’s met me there, and we face each other on the baking dockside for a long moment.

“He’ll be happy to see you,” she states at last. There is no emotion to the words. This exchange has been drained of all drama like some ritual or ceremony.

I nod. I know.

She steps aside, gesturing, and slipping off my shoes I walk bare-footed and straight-backed up the familiar telescopic gangplank with its hooped handrails—passing, once more, into that other world.

I’m almost there when she calls back to me. “Thank you.” I turn, and she settles her face into a new expression, overcoming some internal reluctance. “For what you did.” She lifts her eyes, and there’s that conspiratorial look again, that respect given to a peer. Or even a friend.

I nod again, mouth quirking.

Inside the Lair all is silent, seemingly vacant of crew members. When I come to the door of the VIP stateroom, Jason’s body is gone. A refurbishing crew in white coveralls is laying down a new carpet, overseen by a brooding Captain Redfearn. He catches sight of me and stills, his broad forehead creasing as if weighing something—what my role here means, perhaps, and how it will affect his boat—and juts his chin aft.

The master suite, then.

One of the huge red doors is ajar, as if beckoning. I take a deep, measured breath, and crack it all the way open.

He sits scrawny and alone at the end of the massive bed in a business suit, like a boy in his father’s clothes, his hands slow and clumsy with the buttons. Girding himself in his armor once more. Bespoke protection for his broken heart.

I broke his heart.

“You know, I preferred you without the suit,” I say in a soft undertone.

He jolts to his feet, as if caught in the act of something private and shameful. With him upright, I can see his body has begun to reverse its queer wasting process, and though still thin and gray-faced he no longer looks like a skeletal starveling.

Such swift, such astonishing enchantment.

Only took a gallon of Jason’s blood.

At last, he gets it out. “You came back,” he says, sweeping unthinkingly at his brambly hair.

“Yes.” The word hangs in the silence like a stone.

He tries to pull himself together. “Aurora, I—”

“I saved my best friend’s life today,” I calmly cut him off. He blinks. “One of your kind was gonna have her for an afternoon snack.”

He swallows and slowly sits down again—out of shock or weakness, I can’t tell which. “I’m sorry.” Then he notices the blood on my shirt, and his eyes go round. “How exactly did you—”

“I’m sorry, too,” I say, stepping into the room, and study the bare spot on the wall where his wife’s portrait once hung. “I realized she’d never be safe in this industry. In this world. And that I would never forgive myself if anything happened to her.”

He watches me, uncertain. “Aurora—” he tries again.

“You protected me, Adrian, when I needed it most.” I whirl on him, stopping him cold. “Just as you promised. But I know now. I don’t need you—or anyone—to protect me anymore.”

And I reach behind me, lifting up my shirt, and untuck the bloody cleaver that’s jammed into the band of my shorts.

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