This can’t be the end of us, Victor…it can’t be the end of everything.
But I feel like it is. I feel it deep in my soul—this is the end. I’ve been in countless life or death predicaments, even before I met Victor, but this one…this one I know in my heart isn’t going to end the way all the others did. Is this what it feels like when a person knows she’s about to die? They say you always know, that you just feel it, that your time is short.
Victor feels it. I think maybe that’s why I’m so convinced of it myself. If he has no hope of getting us out of this alive, then what’s left to hope for?
I wish I could talk to him, just one last time.
I don’t care that he wanted me to…stop loving him. I don’t care. I’m pissed, and I’m hurt that he’d give up on us like that, but I still love him. I understand him. And I forgive him. I forgive him because I understand him like no one else can.
Turning my ear toward the speaker, I take a deep breath and try to mentally prepare myself for everything else that’s about to happen. For what this crazy woman is going to do to me. For how many more times that cattle prod will shock the hell out of me. For whatever else I might hear Victor tell Apollo. For how I’m going to die—instinct tells me it won’t be quick. For a brief moment I think of Fredrik, and Niklas, and Nora, and James; for a longer moment I think of Dina. I feel guilty for what she’ll go through when notified of my death. It hurts my heart to imagine her sitting there on her faded orange sofa that smells like potpourri, crying into her hands.
Many minutes pass, and all I can hear coming from the speaker are noises from Victor, but no voices: him shuffling around inside the cell; grunting and growling and yelling indecipherable words under his breath; the squeaking of the skin on his palms rubbing against the fixed bars of his cage; his pants legs brushing as he paces. And all the while I listen, wishing I could reach out to him to say something to console us both, this woman is, of all things, fixing my makeup and hair.
“What’s the point of this?” I ask her.
“You’ll see,” she tells me, and then places the tip of an eyebrow liner pencil to my left eyebrow.
“It’s a shame about your hair,” she adds.
I don’t say anything in response, and she continues with her work. I continue to listen, like she told me she wanted me to do, but for a long time all I hear is more of the same from Victor. Secretly I glimpse the knife on the vanity, out of my reach but easy enough to get to if I wanted. But ‘easy’ is what worries me; these people were smart enough to put Victor, of all people, where he is now, so I’m confident that ‘easy’, in this case, is just an illusion.
After another five minutes or so, and still nothing has changed, I try to get the woman to talk.
“What’s your name?” I ask her.
“Do you really care what my name is?” she says, and I feel the heat from the curling iron getting a little too close to my ear. “Are you wanting to bond, Izabel?” Her question is laced with sarcasm.
“No,” I answer honestly. “I don’t play that bullshit game. I’m just tired of the silence.”
I see her smile slimly in the reflection of the mirror; steam rises from my hair as she releases it from the curling iron.
“I can see why Victor loves you,” she says.
“Thought you didn’t believe he loves me?”
Her smile spreads. “Oh, I never said that,” she answers. “I believe he loves you, sure, but in what way he loves you is the big mystery. There are many different kinds of love.”
“Victor loves me in the way you think he doesn’t,” I point out, icily. And I know that he does—I don’t question it at all. It just infuriates me that this woman, whatever the hell her name is, thinks she knows Victor better than I do.
“My name is Hestia,” she finally answers, ignoring my rant as if it’s not worth her time refuting. “Apollo is my brother. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“Do you really care?” I come back.
She purses her lips, rolling another section of my hair into the hot metal. “Not really,” she answers. “But for the sake of conversation.”
“I might have half brothers and sisters,” I say with a shrug. “Couldn’t really tell you; my real mother had a weak spot for men, and she wasn’t exactly a safe sex kind of woman.”
“Ah, well, most of us wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for women like her—I sure as hell wouldn’t be.” Then she says suddenly, “Why haven’t you asked why you’re here? I’m curious. Not once have you begged me to tell you what this is all about, or tried to reason or bargain with me. Surely you care about that.”
“I’m not gonna beg anybody for anything,” I tell her straightaway. “And it doesn’t take a genius to know the basics of why we’re here. Aside from that whole revenge thing your brother wants, most of it is pretty self-explanatory. It’s the same old story, a typical scenario of vengeance”—I shrug again—“I could ask you for specifics, but I already know you’re not gonna tell me anything you haven’t already told me, so why waste my breath?”
Hestia picks up a bottle of hairspray and presses her finger down on the pump; I shut my eyes to keep out the tiny beads sprinkling my face.
“Well, just so you know,” she says, setting the bottle down, “there’s little typical about this scenario—that I can assure you.”