Hero (22 page)

“You couldn’t do what?”

“I couldn’t have sex with him. I can’t, I just can’t do it.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“I don’t care what your debt is. You’re an asshole. Punish me if you have to—send me to the basement, anything—I d-don’t want anyone touching me but you!” There is immediate and complete silence except for my labored breathing. My mouth hangs open. “I . . . I didn’t mean that.”

“You thought I wanted you to have sex with that man?” he asks, his fingers digging into my arms.

I attempt to wriggle from his grasp. “I hate you. Out of everything you’ve done, this is the worst. How could you?”

He releases me, and I fall back onto the bed.

“Cataline, I never—” He stops and kneels in front of me. He takes my chin. “I don’t know how this happened. You and another man, it makes me—it . . .”

He’s struggling for words on his knees, a sight my brain can’t compute. “But, you said . . . and you told me not to wear underwear.”

“For me. The only thing getting me through this night is knowing there’s one less thing separating me from having you. I—”

“I don’t believe you,” I say, trying to dislodge my chin from his grip.

“He thought you were a prostitute.”

“Why would he think that?”

“The outfit,” he says. “My very particular . . . proclivities.”

“Prostitutes?” I whisper.

He shakes his head. “He’ll pay. I promise.”

I heave a stuttering sigh. My mind is still in shambles, trying to piece everything together. “You aren’t mad?” I ask. “That I fought?”

“I should’ve been paying attention.”

I don’t understand his answer, but like butter, I melt against him. He releases my face and lets me wrap my arms around his neck.

“Hey. Don’t worry,” he says softly. “I’ll take care of you.”

“You will?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says. He removes my arms from him before standing to pull back the covers. “Get in, and relax for the rest of the night. I’ll send Rosa and Norman up for you.”

I stare up at him. “Rosa? And Norman?”

“Don’t worry about the party. I can spare them.”

“Oh. I . . .”

“Yes?”

“Nothing. That’s fine.”

“I have to get back to the guests, but anything you want, you tell them,” he says on his way out. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I watch him leave before climbing under the covers. Rosa and Norman are in my room soon after, fawning over me. Norman keeps asking me what I need, but I’m too embarrassed to tell him.

———

“Calvin.”

“I’m here.”

“Calvin?”

“What is it, Sparrow? I’m right here.”

His warm words bloom inside me, and I smile. When my eyes open, a white tuxedo shirt glows in the dark just out of arm’s reach. “Calvin?”

“What?” he snaps.

“What are you doing here?”

He sighs. “I don’t know.”

“What time is it?”

“Late.”

“Is the party over?”

“Hours ago.”

I shift onto my back, but my limbs are sluggish. “It was too much,” I say. “I wasn’t ready.”

“No. You weren’t.”

My eyes threaten to close again, but I make them stay open. “You do good things, don’t you, Calvin?”

“Hmm?”

“The charity. Is it only for appearances? Or do you really care? You can be so cruel.”

There are soft noises as he moves in his chair. “I do it because I committed to it.”

“Committed to what?” I ask.

“To making things better.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I promised my parents I’d make the world better.”

I look from him up to the faux haven the white canopy creates. “Oh.”

“Are you thinking that I’ve made your world worse?”

“I guess so.”

“Earlier you said you didn’t want anyone touching you but me.”

“It was a mistake. I don’t want anyone touching me, including you.”

He laughs deeply, slowly, because he sees through my lie. With gruffness in his voice, he says, “Try and get some rest.”

My eyelids weigh with sleep, so I curl onto my side. My cheek rubs against the soft pillow. “I’ve never met anyone who cares about nothing,” I murmur. “Until you.” I’m drifting, only half asleep when he speaks again, but I don’t hear it. It feels like I only blink, but when my eyes open again, he’s gone.

———

I look up from my book. “Did you say something?”

“I asked how you’re feeling,” Norman says, chuckling.

“Oh. About the same.” I wince when the words scrape from my throat.

“How about some soup?”

I smile and wave my book. “Maybe later. I’m at a really good part.”

He shakes his head. “Too much activity last week. Please take my advice for once, and get some rest.”

I grin at his playful tone. “I will.”

I try reading, but my brain won’t cooperate. It wants to wonder whether or not Calvin will be home tonight. I didn’t see him yesterday or the day before, not since he sat in my room in the middle of the night, and even that’s a blur. I told him I hated him. I do sometimes, and it should satisfy me to tell him so, but it doesn’t.

My glands feel even more swollen than they were fifteen minutes earlier, and my body warmer. Whatever I’m coming down with, it’s happening fast. I stand and wrap my silk robe around me, tying the sash around my waist. I go to the kitchen, having changed my mind about the soup. But as I near the entrance, I come to an abrupt halt.

“. . . has kept him out late these past few nights,” Norman says. “Tonight will likely be more of the same.”

“He’s digging himself an early grave,” Chef Michael says. “He barely sleeps, he’s out on calls all the time. What’s going to happen to this city if we lose him?”

“It would survive like every other city on this planet,” Norman says. “But you know as well as I, Calvin will fight to his last breath.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Will you grab the door so I can toss the garbage?”

There’s a shuffle and a creak when the back door opens. Even from behind the wall, I feel the outside air on my thirsty skin. A shrill ring from inside one of the locked rooms nearly turns me into a pile of bones. Norman curses, and I flatten myself against the dining room wall just as he runs through the doorway toward the sound.

When he disappears around the corner, I peek into the kitchen. I’m alone. I have no idea what taking out the garbage involves, but that doesn’t stop my feet from moving. I beeline for the door and find it ajar. My heart hammers so violently, the cold barely registers. I can taste freedom, fresh air, a future, and it’s exhilarating. Without another thought, I bolt.

The thicket of trees I’ve spent months longingly watching from my window looms ahead. I don’t look back. I don’t hesitate. My heart thuds at the same pace that my bare feet pound the manicured lawn.

If I can make it to the forest, I’ll be free. I’m still in New Rhone, and if my suspicions about my location are correct, the other side will put me within a couple miles of the city. Just on the other side there are people, cars, police, Hero. Everything that represents hope and life. The forest seems massive, but I’ll reach the end eventually. In this moment, I am free.

Once under the canopy of trees, I keep running. Energy and adrenaline feed my burning legs and lungs. My face is on fire, my breaths short and fast, but what circulates through my blood isn’t the mansion’s sour air, and that’s enough to drive me forward. The sash around my waist loosens, and my robe drapes off my shoulders. When it slips off, I don’t stop, too afraid to lose even seconds. I run until I’m jogging, and I jog until I’m speed walking. When I slow, panting, to a regular pace, the cuts on my soles announce themselves. The sun set soon after I left. My hands brush over my bare arms and tug at the hem of my nightgown. I don’t know how long I’ve been gone, but Calvin’s words won’t stop filtering through my mind.

“Fly until your wings fall off, until there's no more sky, but I will find you. I will always find you.”

I take it for what it is: an empty threat. Believing it helped me understand my situation, but I don’t need that any longer. Now I’m free. And in a forest this size, with the head start I have, he’ll never find me before I reach the end of it. Norman will take the brunt of Calvin’s anger, and as I walk, I pray quickly for his safety. But one thing has become painfully clear during my time in the mansion: only I can save myself. When I get home, I will never forget that.

I’m suddenly exhausted, but I walk until the soles of my feet burn and my legs give out. I find a shrub at the base of a large tree and curl into an unobtrusive ball behind it.

Above me, glowing white feathers shape themselves into an owl. Wide, yellow eyes disappear and reappear every few seconds. Tree branches stretch for me from their solid trunks, like they’re trying to snatch me. Dead leaves crunch and twigs snap under my body when I shift, the only noise aside from the curious owl’s hoots. I close my eyes.

Visions swirl around me as I float between sleep and wake: the blurry words of my favorite books, my reflection in Norman’s silver tray, Cal’s endlessly green eyes.

“Little Sparrow,” Calvin calls. “Don’t let me catch you. If you run, I will find you. I will always find you. Cataline. Cataline.”

I moan as my name rings in my ears. I’m shivering on the cold forest floor, and everything throbs, from my head to my throat to my legs and bare feet. I pretend Calvin’s warm fingers massage my numb arms instead of my own frozen ones.

I start and open my eyes when I realize someone
is
calling my name. It’s a man’s voice, but one I don’t recognize. Dread cuts through any remnants of sleep. If Calvin catches me, I know I’ll finally see what he’s capable of. I tell myself over and over that it’s impossible for him to find me, that the forest is too big. I’m terrified it might be him, but what shocks me is that I’m more terrified it won’t be.

Footsteps shuffle so close that I see glimpses of white tennis shoes through the shrubs. I close my eyes and silently recite a prayer for protection. As if that’s ever done me any good. My eyelids turn white under someone’s flashlight.

“Is she alive?”

“She fucking better be. Pretty sure dead won’t get us shit.”

“Touch her.”

A shoe nudges my ribs, and my eyes squeeze shut.

“She’s alive,” he says.

I blink my eyes open to a man squatting over me. “Am I dreaming?” I ask.

He laughs. “Are you Cataline?”

“Who are you? How do you know my name?”

He nods up at the other man and looks back at me. “Get up. You’re coming with us.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.” He grabs my arm and pulls. “Let go,” I yell.

“Come on,
chiquita
. Are you wearing a nightgown?” He shakes his head at the other man. “Beginning to see what the fuss is about.”

“What fuss?” I ask. I get to my feet because I have no other choice.

“Never mind.
Apúrate
. Walk.” As he speaks, his hand cups my backside and pushes me forward. He strides past me, glancing back. “I said
walk
.”

I peel my gloves off and toss them in the passenger’s seat. Norman waits for me at the door where the house meets the garage. “How was your evening?” he asks as he follows me downstairs to the basement.

“Fairly uneventful. Cataline?”

“She was in the library last I saw, but she’s not been feeling well. I believe she went to bed.”

“Oh?” I step into the closet to undress. “What’s the problem?”

“The flu, perhaps. Not sure. Maybe even a fever.”

“Aren’t you monitoring her?”

“I took her temperature earlier and it was normal, but she felt warm.”

I leave my armor in a heap on the floor and pull on drawstring pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt. “When did you last see her?”

“Late this afternoon. Around six.”

“I’m going to check on her, and then we can debrief. Meet me in the study.”

“Very well.”

I stop by the kitchen for the wrapped sandwich waiting for me on the counter. I grab half and head for the library. Cataline isn’t there, so I turn to leave when I notice her slippers near the chair she usually sits in. I shove the rest of the sandwich in my mouth and jog up the stairs to her bedroom. The door is unlocked, so I step in and switch on the lights. When I see her empty bed untouched, my blood runs icy in my veins.