Archangel's Shadows (21 page)

Ash got out. Following, he met her at the front of the car . . . where she reached for his hand and held on tight. “It’s called Banli House,” she whispered. “They don’t have a website or any other online presence. It’s one of those places that’s so exclusive, you have to know someone to get in.”

Janvier’s tendons went taut, jawbones grinding against one another.

“My brother was a younger doctor then,” she said, “but our family was wealthy, established. One of my parents’ friends must’ve recommended this place when . . . when things went wrong.” Her breath fogged the air, her inhales shallow. “The rich usually send their drug-addicted sons and daughters here to sober them up, but Banli House is a fully accredited medical and psychiatric facility capable of handling far worse embarrassments.”

Her hand was squeezing his so hard that had he been human, she would’ve left bruises. Janvier wanted to put a hundred bloody bruises on the man responsible for the echo of horror in her voice. “Arvi sent you to this place.”

“When I was fifteen. He drove me here himself, told me the doctors would help me.” A streak of wet on her cheek that broke Janvier’s heart. “I wanted so much to be normal for him.” Her eyes met his, huge and dark. “He was my big brother and, no matter what, he’d always looked after me.” Voice cracking, she blinked rapidly. “The worst thing is, he truly believed he was doing that this time, too.”

“Cher.”
He turned to wrap his other arm around her, hold her against him, his indomitable Ash who’d fought off vampires and angels hundreds of years older than her and never crumbled.

“They drugged me,” she said, the words a rasp. “To make me better, that’s what they said. There was more, other kinds of ‘therapy.’ They tied me down when I resisted, and then they pumped me full of drugs again.”

Taking a deep, shaky breath, she pulled away but didn’t break the handclasp, her eyes on Banli House. Her nightmare, he thought, to be vanquished. And she’d do it with shoulders squared and head held high.

He was fucking amazed by her.

“So many people touched me and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Orderlies, doctors, nurses. Enough that I began to tune in to them.” She dashed away the tears that had escaped her, stared unflinching at the facility in the distance. “Sometimes they were being nice, trying to calm me during a panic attack after I’d been strapped down, but it just made it worse—at least three of my care staff had worked with the criminally mentally ill, had horrible things inside their heads.”

Her fingers flexed, squeezed his hand again.

“I was drowning in their lives and it was driving me mad, but I had to pretend the therapy was working, that I was
getting better.
Even when I slept, I couldn’t let myself go too deep—I had to be awake enough to fight the nightmares. I was in there for five months.”

J
anvier thought of how strained she’d been in Nazarach’s home, her energy contained tightly inside her skin, and couldn’t imagine how she’d survived the hell of having her mind violated over and over again. “Were the walls—”

“No,” she said, anticipating his question. “Banli House is too young to have become a living entity to my senses. It’s safe for the time being—and if I’d been able to choose my caregivers, choose the ones who had quiet, ordinary minds, I might have been okay.”

Janvier saw she didn’t believe her own words; his Ash wasn’t meant to be trapped and caged. Like a bird with its wings clipped, she would sicken and die. “How did you get out?” he asked through the rage that was a flood shoving against his senses.

“I convinced them I’d stabilized enough that they started to let me out on the grounds.” Tiny lines flared out from the corners of her eyes, her expression wondering. “To this day, I don’t know how I did it. It was as if I put on a different skin like Naasir talks about doing—beneath that skin, I was one step away from total fragmentation.”

“You were tough even then.”

A fast, unexpected smile. “Yes, I was.” The smile faded too soon, her eyes drawn toward Banli House again. “I wanted to run the first day I glimpsed freedom, but I fought it. I knew they were watching me.” Pausing, she lifted their clasped hands, rubbed her cheek against the back of his.

It was a punch right to his heart.

“So I did what they expected me to do,” she said after lowering their hands again. “I sunbathed and read books like the addicts who’d gone through detox. After a while, the staff stopped paying as close attention to me. Then late one evening after final bed check, I squeezed out a window I’d wedged open, and I ran.”

Janvier clenched his jaw, his entire body trembling with the storm inside him. “Where was your brother during the time you were in this place?” he asked, not sure he could ever be civil to the man again.

“Don’t blame him, Janvier,” she said, to his surprise. “I can’t forgive him, but I know why he did it.”

“No reason can excuse such abandonment.” He would’ve died for his sisters, would’ve slayed dragons for them. “A brother is meant to protect.”

“That’s the thing.” A pained whisper. “In his mind, that was exactly what he was doing.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “It wasn’t until I was in here that I understood why he couldn’t stand to be around me once I began to know things I shouldn’t, once I ran to him as an eleven-year-old scared of the ugly things I’d glimpsed in the mind of a teacher who turned out to be a child molester.”

The hurt in her voice as she spoke of her brother’s rejection was old, long accepted. “In that last, Arvi didn’t let me down. He had the teacher investigated, and the man ended up behind bars.” A squeeze of Janvier’s hand. “He’s not a bad person, my brother. He’s just . . . I think I’d better show you why Arvi is as he is . . . Why I am as I am.” Her eyes went to the facility in the distance. “We have to go inside.”

•   •   •

B
anli House grew bigger in front of Ashwini as they approached it, a bloated beast with glowing eyes.

No,
she thought, forcing her jaw muscles to relax, aware she was seeing the facility through the gaze of the scared, confused girl she’d once been. Banli House was no beast; rather, it was a hiding place created by the wealthy to dump their problems where the world couldn’t see them.

Janvier brought the car to a smooth stop in the circular drive, near the steps that led to the entrance. There were planters on either side of it, a small manicured evergreen in each, and the fan-shaped lead glass above the door glowed from the light beyond. “It looks so warm and inviting, doesn’t it?” she said through the choke hold of fear and old panic.

It was never easy, walking through those doors. But if she didn’t do it every single time, the fear would win, it would own her.

Janvier braced his arm along the back of her seat. “This place wounds you
.
We don’t need to be here.”

“No. It’s important.”

“Then I am with you.”

Ashwini skimmed her eyes over him; he wasn’t wearing any visible blades or guns, but she knew he was armed. “Keep a careful eye on your weapons.”

Not questioning her instruction, Janvier gave a small nod.

The front door of Banli House opened as they exited the car and she saw Carl was on duty again tonight. Neatly cut hair, straight white teeth, and creamy skin, his features symmetrical, the nurse was as attractive as every other member of staff. Ashwini had always found that strange. What did the owners think? That rich people didn’t want to dump their embarrassments in a place where those embarrassments might come in contact with the less than attractive?

“Ash,” the nurse said when they reached him. “It’s good to see you again so soon.”

“Is she awake?” Ashwini knew the answer even as she asked the question; the woman she’d come to see had always been a night owl . . . and “clock” time had little meaning to her now. She woke and slept to her own internal rhythms.

Carl nodded, his eyes skating to Janvier. “Should I place your guest on the cleared list?”

“Temporarily.” There was no guarantee Janvier was “safe” in this context until Ashwini had personally cleared him.

Leading them down the hallway, Carl stopped in front of the door to the familiar corner suite. That suite was a lovely one, complete with a private sitting room and a bedroom that looked out over the grounds. It was also padded and devoid of anything that could be used as a weapon.

The antique furniture was bolted to the hardwood floor through the padding, the sheets replaced by fine blankets that couldn’t be torn up and turned into a noose, the fresh flowers displayed in plastic vases that couldn’t be shattered and used to slit the wrists. However, when Carl opened the door after his polite knock received a “Come in,” from the other side, the modifications weren’t immediately apparent.

One of the myriad reasons why Banli House was so expensive.

“Your boots,” Carl reminded her.

She turned to Janvier, having forgotten the routine act in the wake of the sense of loss that so often overcame her here. “You have to take them off.” A heavy tread could damage the padding.

Janvier ran his hand over her hair, in the oddly tender way that tugged at her heart, before bending to unlace his boots as she unzipped her heeled ones. They placed them to the right of the door.

Then Ashwini looked into the bayou green of his eyes one last time, drinking in the way he felt about her at this instant before everything changed . . . and led him inside.

Carl didn’t come with them, but she knew he’d remain nearby in case he was needed to administer a sedative. Ashwini could tell no sedative would be needed tonight at first sight of the woman who sat by the windows, a serene smile on her face.

Seeing Ashwini, she turned and held out her hand, her features a feminine version of Arvi’s, the brown-black of her hair thick and gleaming, with only a rare few strands of silver. “Ashi,” she said, using the childhood nickname Ashwini heard from no one else now.

“Hello, Tanu.” Ashwini settled into the chair opposite her elder sister.

Tanu’s dark eyes flicked up to behind her. “Who’s this?”

“Janvier.” She glanced back and up at him before returning her gaze to the sister who’d been wrenched out of her life when Ashwini was barely nine. “He’s mine.”

“Well,” Tanu said to Janvier with the acerbic politeness that had so often put men back on their heels before they fell hard for her, “you look well nourished, so I assume you have a job?”

“It even pays in more than whiskey.”

Janvier’s drawling answer had Tanu’s lips tugging up at the corners. “I’d watch out for this one, little sister.” The last two words were in the language they’d grown up speaking with their grandparents. “He’s apt to steal your virtue and slip out a window come dawn.”

Ashwini found herself surprised into laughter. “Maybe I’m the one who’ll steal his virtue.”

“I’m not sure your Janvier has any left.” Tanu’s eyes danced and at that instant she was the effervescent beauty who’d once drawn three marriage proposals from total strangers during the course of a single family wedding.

Janvier tugged on Ashwini’s braid. “You did not warn me I would be facing such stern scrutiny,
cher.
”

Tanu didn’t laugh, deep vertical lines forming between her eyebrows instead. “Where’s Arvi? I tell him not to work so late, but does that dratted twin of mine ever listen?”

Ashwini sensed Janvier start behind her as he understood the true scale of the tragedy. “You know Arvi,” she said. “I bet you he took ‘just a glance’ at a pending operation as he was about to leave, and ended up spending hours mapping it out. He’s probably on his way here now.” A guess that had a good chance of being true . . . because her big brother spent more time in Banli House than in his own. Arvi had lost half of himself when he’d lost Tanu, would bleed from the wound till the day he died.

“That’s Arvi for you.” Sighing, her sister rubbed at her temple. “God, this headache.”

Ashwini didn’t offer to get medication. Her sister’s drug regimen was finely calibrated to make sure she didn’t become an addict or end up catatonic. Ashwini hated that Tanu had to be on them, but without the drugs, her sister became manic, prone to self-harm and nightmare delusions that left her screaming.

The aim of the medication was to give her as many minutes of clarity as possible during her waking hours. Banli House was a high-class facility, after all, one that took its responsibilities seriously. If Ashwini hadn’t been entombed here as a teenager, she might even have found it a soothing, caring environment.

Janvier moved from behind Ashwini’s chair. “I may be able to help,” he said and, hunkering down in front of Tanu, pressed his fingers to his own temples in an unusual pattern. “Try that.”

Copying the motions, Tanu sighed. “Where did you learn that?”

“From my
ma-mere
—my grandmother. Sometimes what is modern is not always the best,
oui
?”

“Oui.”
Tanu laughed and patted his cheek, no indication of any tension on her face at the contact. “Yes, you’re definitely trouble. Pretty trouble.” Her eyes met Ashwini’s. “You should chain him up.”

“He probably has the key to the chains under his tongue.”

Tanu’s vivacious gaze dulled in front of Ashwini’s eyes, her head turning toward the window that looked out into the night. “I can hear them.”

“Tanu.” Ashwini touched her sister on the knee.

But Tanushree Taj wasn’t listening, wasn’t even aware of her or Janvier any longer, lost in the cacophony of phantom voices that followed her night and day.

Rubbing her knuckles over the heavy ache in her chest, Ashwini put her hand on Janvier’s shoulder, said, “We should go. She can stay like this for hours, sometimes days.” Ashwini had once returned from a hunt to find her sister hooked up to a feeding tube because she’d gone into a near-catatonic state two days earlier.

Arvi had been sitting at Tanu’s bedside, his voice hoarse from trying to talk her back to the world.
“Please, Tanu. I don’t know how to do this without you. Please, Tanu. Please.”

Throat thick with the raw force of the memory, she wasn’t ready for the intense and painful tenderness she saw in Janvier’s eyes when he turned to her . . . but there was no pity. No horror. He looked at her as he’d always done when he was feeling protective, and the realization made her want to fall into his arms and ask him to never let her go.

Allowing him to tug her up once he was on his feet, she left Tanu with a soft good-bye. “She’s gone,” she told Carl as she and Janvier put their shoes back on. “Please keep an eye on her.” The voices could leave Tanu in agony, until sedation was the only way to give her peace.

“I always do.” The nurse walked with them to the front door. “Your sister is going away more and more. You were lucky tonight.”

“Do you think you can call me when she’s lucid? I’d like to spend more time with her.” Before there was no more time. “But only if Arvi isn’t here.” No matter her own need to see Tanu, Ashwini wouldn’t steal Arvi’s time with his twin. The two had never made her feel anything but included as a child, but nothing could alter the fact they’d been siblings for nineteen years before she came on the scene.

Unlike some male/female fraternal twins, Arvi and Tanu had never drifted apart, despite living vibrant, individual lives of their own. Tanu had gone to a different university from Arvi’s, her social life an active whirl. Arvi, in contrast, had buried himself in medical school, his girlfriends long-term, where Tanu’s boyfriends changed with the moon.

However, when the two came home for vacations, it was obvious they’d kept in constant contact. They’d make comments about small incidents in each other’s lives, laugh over secret jokes, tease each other mercilessly over their love lives, give their excited little sister gifts that complemented one another.

The only time Ashwini had seen Arvi laugh in the past eighteen and a half years was the day five years ago when she’d arrived for a visit to find Tanu coherent and herself. Her sister had been doubled over in a fit of giggles, Arvi’s head thrown back in untrammeled joy as he sat on the floor with his back to the window. When Ashwini would’ve backed away, Arvi had called for her to come in, open affection in his voice.

Ashwini had walked inside, all the pain that separated them buried beneath the wonder of that timeless instant when everything was as it should be. Her brother had held her by his side with his arm slung around her neck, and for a single magical hour, the three of them had been as before, Ashwini quiet and happy just to be in the room with her older siblings while they bickered and talked and made fun of the world.

“Of course I’d be happy to call you.” Carl’s voice cut into the heartrending echo of memory. “I’ll ask the day shift nurse to do the same.” He opened the front door. “Until next time.”

Leaving with a nod, she inhaled the crisp night air in deep gulps. It felt as if the stranglehold around her throat had eased at last, her lungs expanding gratefully. She hated Banli House as much as she loved Tanu. “Let’s get out of here.”