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I nodded. I wanted to leave, and if I understood him, maybe I could convince him to let me go. Right now, I had no idea what was in his mind. More than that, I felt an irresistible need to understand why he did what he did. Why he had taken me, and touched me. Why he gave me pleasure, when all he gave to others was pain. Why he kept me here instead of killing me. If I understood him, I thought, I would have the upper hand.

He stood up and took the book from my hands. I waited silently as he walked to the bookshelf and replaced the book in the empty slot. With a click and a whir, the bookcase turned shut. Rien and I were alone in the library. The walls seemed to be closer than before. They loomed over us both. He came back and sat down on the couch, leaning toward me as though we were conspirators. I saw a glimmer of tears in his eyes again, just a flash, but then he blinked and the tears disappeared. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple jerking sharply. Then he cleared his throat and spoke.

“Let me tell you about myself.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Rien

I studied Sara’s face. Her eyes were a brilliant green, sunk into pale hollows. She needed to go outside. She was like a flower who needed the sunshine, and would rot inside without it. I couldn’t keep her here. And yet, I couldn’t let her go without condemning us both. My heart was torn.

“You talk about suffering,” I said. “But physical suffering is not the hardest kind to bear.”

She turned up her face to me uncertainly. She didn’t understand. Of course not. All she had had to bear was physical suffering. The cold of a nighttime without shelter. The ache of a stomach without food. The pain of a hand clamping down on her throat. My hand.

“I loved a girl once,” I said.

“Who was she?”

“A young girl from another embassy. We were great friends. Her name was Michaela.”

I breathed in. The room seemed stuffier than before, now that I’d closed the door. The air was thicker, like cotton.

“My family, though, didn’t want us to be friends. They knew that our friendship was leading to love. And my mother especially couldn’t stand to see me loving anything.”

Sara frowned. Was I wrong to want to stop there? I couldn’t. Not with her. Sara, of all the girls I’d ever met, was able to see past the surface evil. Maybe to actually see me. I couldn’t hold back.

“My mother was evil. More evil than I turned out, maybe. Both of my parents hated to see me happy unless it was a happiness that they had given me. And they gave me everything. Everything I ever wanted. They gave me everything, but they took her away.”

I closed my eyes, my breath shuddering through my body. I saw her face in my mind, her dark brown curls. The ache that always accompanied her memory ran through me like a blade.Breathe, Rien.

“Why?”

I clenched my jaw.

“Because she wasn’t good enough for our family. They forbid me to play with her. They said her family was traitorous, that they were against what our country stood for. They were Communists, you see. And then one day my father came home and found us hiding in the attic, reading together. I couldn’t disgrace our family name by loving someone from such a low family. From such adisgracefulfamily.”

Sara’s eyebrows knotted together on her forehead. Compassion filled her eyes. Was it true compassion? Nobody could have such compassion for a killer, and yet she looked at me without any trace of falseness.

“What happened?” she asked.

Could I trust her? I didn’t know. There was something in her that made me want to. I had never told anyone this story before. I stood up and faced the bookshelf. When I spoke, my voice was even and calm.

“There was a raid on their embassy. It was to find an alleged traitor. They… they burned the building down. Her whole family was inside.”

The brown curls, burning. Flames crawling through my memories. I closed my eyes.

“They didn’t even burn it down themselves, you understand? They paid men to do it. Because they didn’t want to get the filth on themselves. They wanted a perfect family, a perfect son who would do whatever they told him to do. But their hands were bloody, no matter what. They were evil, truly evil. When I kill those men on my table, I think of that kind of evil and I know what I’m doing is right.”

I looked back at Sara. Tears ran down her cheeks. Alligator tears? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I felt numb as I continued. She couldn’t understand, but now that I was talking, I couldn’t stop.

“So I ran away. I came here. And I kill people who want to escape from their evil pasts. For me, there is no escape. In my dreams, I see her burning.”

I wet my lips.

“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning,” I quoted. “My suffering didn’t have a meaning before I took this job. But I take that suffering and I give it to others. It’s the only trade that makes sense. It keeps me sane. And my life here is perfect. Or it was, before you.”

“Me?”

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