Epilogue: The Dark Duet (8 page)

I couldn’t remember her face. I would always
remember Rafiq’s. Meanwhile a voice nagged me: Vladek is your father. Your
father is still alive.

“Are you okay?” Livvie whispered
against my neck. I could feel her tears dripping on me. I could feel her arm
wrapped tightly around my chest. I could feel her heart beating against my
ribs.

I felt. I fucking
felt
and it was awful.

I pulled her close and ran my fingers
across the small of her back, taking whatever comfort I could find in having
her close to me. She was alive. I was alive. We were together. I tried to focus
on that.

“No, Kitten.
I’m not okay,” I whispered. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take for me to
be
okay. I just know that as long as
you’re with me, there’s a chance that one day… I might be.”

She squeezed me. So much was trapped
inside me, and her love—or whatever it was she felt for me —threatened to coax
it out. I fought to keep it all inside, where I could control it and no one
could use it against me. My life was fucked up. It always had been. There was
no point in dwelling on things I couldn’t control or change. My mother was
dead. Rafiq was dead. Livvie and I were alive. End of fucking pity party.

“I’m so sorry, Caleb,” she sobbed. I
closed my eyes to blink the burning and stinging away. “It wasn’t your fault.”

I swallowed hard.

“I wish that
were true. Once, it may have been, but it stopped being true a long time ago. I
did what I did, Livvie. It was my fault.” We were quiet for a minute as the
words settled. There was something I needed to know. “Livvie, why did you
change your last name to Cole? Was it for James? Or… me?”

“Caleb, I know who you are. It doesn’t
matter what I call you as long as it’s what you want.” She sighed. “I did it
because…” She shifted uncomfortably.

“You loved me.” I closed my eyes.
“Trust me—I didn’t miss the past tense. I understand.” I didn’t understand.

“Caleb, it’s not…” she whispered and
pressed closer. “It’s just… what you said about change. We’re changing. We’re
both different, and until we know what that means, I don’t think—”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Livvie.
I just want to be here. Right now. With you. Fuck the rest of it, because I
don’t care. If there’s anything else you need to tell me, please do it now.
Let’s get it over with and tomorrow we can start over. I want to start over,
Livvie. Can we do that?” I kept stroking her back. It kept me grounded.

“I’d like that. But what will we tell
people? We can’t tell them the truth, and I can’t leave my life behind again,
Caleb.”

“What about the FBI? Are they still
watching you?” I had a momentary flash of rage as I imagined coming face to
face with Agent Reed. I’d pound his face into the ground—present tense!

“I’m supposed to meet Reed on Thursday.
I know you don’t like him. Hell, I’m not sure
I
like him.” I could hear the smile in her voice and it irritated
me. She’d compared him to me one too many times. “But he’s a good guy. He
wanted to check on me since I told him I felt like someone was watching me.
Aside from him and Sloan, I don’t deal with the FBI. I don’t have anything they
want.” She nudged my ribs. I sighed.

“Well, you
didn’t
. You do now. With any luck you’ll
be able to get rid of Reed easily. Tell him you have a secret admirer from
school or something. I’m sure you do anyway. If you tell him there’s nothing
for him to look into, he’ll be suspicious.” A voice in my head asked me if I
could get away with getting rid of him for good. I calmly ignored it. I was determined
to be someone different. I didn’t want to be a killer anymore.

“Okay, but what about the other stuff?”

“One day at a time, Livvie. I’m not
ready to start explaining our relationship any more than you are. Let’s take
our time coming up with our story.”

She propped herself on her elbow and
leaned down to kiss my chest. She wiped at the wetness she had left on my
shoulder.

“I swear I’ve
done more crying in the past two days than I’ve done in the past year.” She
smiled. “I think I’m done now. I really didn’t want to have to tell you all
that stuff. It broke my damn heart when I had to hear it from Reed, but you
deserve to know about your past.” Her gaze traveled from my eyes to my chest.
She stroked me casually with her fingers. “The way you looked that day… he
wasn’t worthy of your grief.”

I placed my hand on top of hers and
cleared my throat.

“It’s over. I
don’t want to talk about it.”

Her expression turned playfully
wistful.

“If you’d have found me sooner, we
could have celebrated your birthday. I lit a candle for you last month. I had
to eat the cake myself.” She smiled. Her words were strange to me, but I
laughed too.

“What kind of
cake?”

“German chocolate. It was soooo good,”
she groaned. I smiled, and at last it was truly genuine.

“Well, it’s just
as well. I don’t eat a lot of cake.”

“I do! Then again, I’m eight years
younger than you and my metabolism can handle it. You have to watch your
handsome figure.” Her hand shifted down my chest and rubbed my abdomen.

“I think I do alright,” I said. I
wasn’t shy about my body. I had no reason to be. “So weird to have a birthday,
though. Do you think I look twenty-seven?”

Her smile was coquettish.

“I think you
look… delicious!” Her hand traveled further down my abdomen until she brushed
my cock with her fingers.

“Delicious, huh? That’s a new one. I
was thinking virile, or the male personification of perfection.”

She laughed out loud. Her laugh was
infectious. I loved the way it was a little too loud to be lady-like.

“Oh, Caleb.
You’re those things too. But right now? I’m more interested in your tastiness.”
She slid down on the bed and took my cock in her hand.

“Oh! Well in that case… taste away. If
you have any more cake, I’d be happy to provide the frosting.” She wrinkled her
nose and I laughed. 

I lay back and let Livvie blow more than my mind.

Livvie’s meeting with Reed went okay.
He wasn’t an idiot though, Livvie recounted to me. He wanted to hang around for
a few days and make sure Livvie was safe. I didn’t like him. I suspected his
visit had more to do with uncovering secrets than keeping Livvie safe.

He spoke to Livvie’s friends, her
co-workers, even the kid at the restaurant Livvie liked to go to. It was a good
thing I had paid someone to give my note to the waiter. If he’d given Reed my
description, we would have been pretty screwed. It took a great amount of will
power to steer clear of him. I knew there were certain things Livvie would not
forgive.

Livvie and I had no contact during
Reed’s visit. I discovered more nightmares and a level of boredom I had never
experienced before in my life. I was grateful for the internet until I was
unable to resist doing a search for “Missing child+James Cole”.

There were a couple of results, but
nothing that jumped out at me. I was kidnapped before the internet had become
commonplace, before Twitter and Facebook, and 24-hour news. Back then, milk
cartons and mailers were the best people could do. James Cole never stood a
chance.

That night I dreamt I was trapped
inside a child’s body. I was with Narweh again and my strength meant nothing.
He laughed at me. I didn’t go online for a week.

I never like it when I dream. It’s
usually about things I’d rather not think about. When I was a young boy and
worked in the brothel, I never dreamed. At least, not that I can recall. There
were mornings when I would wake and have new and interesting ways to murder
Narweh when the time came—but I never attributed them to my dreams.

The first dreams I can recall began
when Rafiq brought me to live with him. The uncertainty of my new fate had the
tendency to terrify me. I have never felt comfortable sharing my
feelings—especially my doubts, fears, hopes, and desires. They are what make me
vulnerable and more than anything, I hate being vulnerable. Once Rafiq had
gained my trust, once he had given me a destiny and a purpose, I didn’t dream
so much.

The dreams resurfaced in the weeks
following Livvie’s kidnapping. I had dismissed them at the time. I knew I was
conflicted over many things: My desire to move on with my life. My confusion
over Rafiq’s increasing secrecy. The nagging sense of doubt over kidnapping
Livvie. The fear I was becoming Narweh. The dreams intensified the more my
feelings for Livvie had begun to develop. I denied it then. I see it now.

The nightmares I had after I left
Livvie at the U.S.–Mexico border were some of the worst I have ever had. If you
know anything about me—and we’ve well established you do—then you can perhaps
imagine the horrors I had to choose from. The truth is, I don’t let these
things, the horrors of my past, drag me under. Quite the contrary—for so very
long, they fueled me. Considering what I’ve been through, I often think I’m
very well adjusted. I can handle anything the world throws at me, but for
someone who tries to plan his moves ahead of time, uncertainty about my future
leaves me disturbed as nothing else.

I thought finding Livvie would give me
certainty, but I was learning that happiness also presents new ways to suffer.
Misery, I understand. Happiness is terrifying.

Also, Livvie’s words about “other shit”
coming to the fore made sense to me. For the first time in my life I didn’t
have anything to do. No one had any expectations of me. I had enough money to
do anything and go anywhere, but I had no idea what I wanted to do or where I
wanted to go. I had idle hands. My mind was the proverbial devil’s playground.
It seemed as though everything I had kept tucked away in the dark recesses of
my mind was escaping into my consciousness.

I breathed a deep sigh of relief when
Reed left Spain and Livvie could finally come back to me. I still had the
nightmares, but waking up to her warm body made it easier to come back from the
anxiety.

***

It was October, and the weather was
becoming unpredictable. On some nights it was the perfect excuse to spend hours
in bed. Livvie and I fucked like rabbits—and a few other animals too.

Although Livvie’s presence brought me
solace after a nightmare, I hated how weak it made me feel to accept it.
Instead, I took to staying up after Livvie went to sleep. I slept while she was
out in the world of the living. I still had the dreams, but I didn’t wake up to
darkness.

All in all, things were good. Aside from
the dreams, I didn’t have anything to complain about. However, I’d be lying if
I told you I wasn’t beginning to get more than a little restless. Livvie had a
job, she went to school and had friends. I didn’t have any of those things.
Trust me, I wasn’t butt-hurt over it. I didn’t begrudge her those things. It
was simply becoming obvious to me that my life was completely different from
what I had known. What does a former kidnapper/murderer do in retirement?

After three weeks of idle hands, I
decided to buy a car. I bought a 5-Series BMW. It wasn’t as sexy as the
Lamborghini, but it did the trick. I could go for long drives and avoid my
sterile hotel room. Even when I was out, I kept to myself. Having decided I
would be staying in Barcelona indefinitely, I didn’t need or want to draw
unnecessary attention toward myself. It was a huge risk just being with Livvie.

It didn’t take long for Livvie’s
friends to realize something had changed. She’d all but abandoned them those
first three weeks. She worked three nights a week and went to school Monday
through Thursday. She spent most of her free time with me.

“So,” Livvie began as we sat down to
eat the meal room service had brought up. “Remember when we said we’d take
things one day at a time and figure out what we were going to tell people when
the time came?” She bit into a piece of asparagus. I swallowed the chunk of
steak in my mouth without chewing.

“Yes.”

“Well, I think we should start talking
about it. Claudia and Rubi are starting to complain about the amount of time
I’m
not
spending with them.” She
smiled at me.

I stabbed a piece of broccoli like it
owed me money.

“Why is it
their business? You’re an adult. You don’t need their permission to see me.”

“Caleb,” she admonished. “They’re my
friends. They’ve been there for me. If you’re going to fit into my life, you’re
going to have to find a way to get to know my friends. I can’t keep coming over
here every night. It’s exhausting. I have a life!”

“And aren’t you lucky? Good for you.” I
shoveled food into my mouth and avoided her eyes. I didn’t know why I was so
angry. She’d made a perfectly valid argument and I’d shit on it. Her smile
quickly disappeared.

“You know what?
How about I just quit my job?” she spat.

I looked up from my plate.  
Here we
go…

“Livvie—”

“No!” She was on a roll. Her eyes
screamed of crazy. “It’s perfect! I’ll leave school and cut my friends out of
my life. Then you can have me all to yourself! You can keep me in your dark
little room and fuck me stupid. You can
own
me. It’s what you want, isn’t it?”