“I didn’t ask for any of that,” I say, my voice small.

“It was a mistake bringing you here. I thought I could control my urges, but instead I found new ones. I’ve only ever been with prostitutes or desperate women who let me do anything I want to them.”

My throat tingles. “Why are you telling me that?”

“Because you need to understand the kind of person I am. I’m not built for a girl like you. I’ve broken you over and over. And if you stay here, I will continue to.”

The light pouring in is suddenly too bright, and my wrists throb painfully with the speed of my heart. “If I stay here?”

His eyes drift down to my bandaged arms. He stares and stares until I think he’s never going to speak. Finally, he asks without looking up, “Did you mean to do it?”

“At night I’ve prayed for Hero to save me from you. But he’s not coming. Because you are him, and he is you.” I force myself to also look at the wrists I tried to empty. When the knife sliced into my skin, it was a special kind of ecstasy. Watching the blood pour out didn’t scare me. “I don’t even know how I got there. I just remember the feeling.” I blink up to find his eyes back on my face. “It felt more right than anything I’ve done since I arrived.” The look he gives me could almost pass for anguish if I believed he was at all capable of such a thing. “Yes,” I say. “You bent me so hard that I finally broke. But I loved you anyway.”

The stillness that follows is palpable. I understand that I simultaneously love and hate him the way he is simultaneously good and evil. I can’t grasp why that matters, though, because they just feel like words to me now. The only truth I comprehend is that good and bad, love and hate, right and wrong, captor and captive—none cannot exist without its opposite.

“I’m going to give you what you wanted all along,” he says.

My dry eyes blink slowly. Does he know he’s what I wanted all along? Does he know about the crush I had a lifetime ago, when he was something to look forward to each day?

“Your freedom,” he says. “I’ll arrange it.”

My head is light, my body heavy. This is what I wanted. This is what I ran for, what I jumped for. Any concept of love is irrelevant, because I don’t know this man. I know nothing about my hero, and so, I know nothing about myself. He wields that much power over me. Not only did he take my body, my mind, and eventually my heart, but now he’s ripped me of my sanity, of the capability to feel anything.

I don’t know what he expects from me as he watches and waits. Relief? Defiance? Does he think after learning the truth I could love him enough to stay?

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay?”

“Yes. Make the arrangements.”

41

Calvin

I can’t expect Cataline to want to stay crushed in my tightening fingers, but to release her feels wrong. It’s the knowledge that I’m what’s most harmful to her that urges me to stand from her bedside. It’s the horror of her loving me that makes me walk out the door.

Norman stands waiting in the study with his hands folded in front of him. “How did it go?”

I nod once. “It’s time for her to go.”

“You’re making the right decision.”

“Somehow I knew you’d say that.”

“Where will you send her?”

“Does it matter?” I ask. “Anywhere that’s not here. Somewhere neither the Cartel nor I can touch her. Let the office know I won’t be in for a while. Carlos will have my undivided focus from now until Cataline’s left the country.”

“I’ll start getting things in order. I do think it’s best I handle Cataline from here.”

I squint at him and cross my arms over my chest. “I’m not an idiot, Norman. Don’t tell me what’s best.”

“Fine, sir. It’s just that she trusts me.”

My nostrils flare. “Why shouldn’t she? You’ve spent the last three months fussing over her.”

“If you go to her with a plan, she might think it’s another trap.”

“I get it. I understand. If not for me, she might be drugged senseless and shoved into the role of Cartel prostitute. But you’re right. I’m the one who trapped her.”

“You’re exaggerating. They only wanted her to get to you. They have no use for her otherwise.”

“Is that so? Tell me more, Wise One. Let’s say their plan worked, and, using Cataline as bait, they got me where they wanted me. Let’s say they killed me. You think their next step would be to send her on her merry way after all she’d seen?”

“It would take a great deal to kill you, sir.”

“So I should’ve taken that chance is what you’re saying?”

 “I think there were options you chose to ignore. But it’s too late now, and we have to deal with the mess. In fact, I should go check in on her.”

“Right, go ahead. Run to her room and feed her chicken soup as you wipe her tears.”

“Don’t get defensive when you’ve put yourself in this position. All I’ve done is treat her like a human being. I warned you to be careful.”

“Just go,” I say, rubbing my temples. “I’ve had enough for one day.”

“I’d say we all have. She needs some time to recover, but then I think it’s best she leaves at once.”

“Good,” I say. “Fine.”

When Norman’s gone, I scrub my hands over my face. Cataline won’t let me be. Cataline wild at the window. Frowning when she lost at eight-ball. Hugging my neck after being mistaken for a prostitute.

She haunts me, and it continues for days.

I’m selfish. I can’t watch her go. Norman has his instructions. When the sun rises on the morning of her departure, I’m already on the road to New Rhone.

My parents decided my fate before I was even born. When they died, that fate was sealed. I’m charged with making the world a better place, with serving justice in their absence. As I leave the mansion, it occurs to me that I’m driving away from the only thing I ever actually wanted for myself.

42

Cataline

Norman gives me a medium-sized suitcase, but I don’t have anything to put in it. I arrived with nothing, and as I stare into the closet full of expensive pieces, all I can think is that these things aren’t mine.

When Norman finds me in the same place he left me, he tells me to leave my suitcase and leads me up the forbidden staircase. I’ve cut the memory of Calvin as Hero off at the root every time, but now that I’m back in the doorway, it’s proving difficult. I turn my face and inhale deeply as Norman waits. When I’ve collected myself, I enter what appears to be another study. I can’t imagine Calvin picking out the rug with threadbare spots that sits under a large, oak desk. Yellow lamps break up brown leather chairs and wooden end tables. Worn book spines are organized by author. I glance at Norman from under my lashes and then at the phone centered on the desk’s surface.

“For emergencies only,” Norman says. “It takes incoming calls only. Sources around the city alert us to imminent danger. They don’t know too many specifics. Master Parish likes it that way. Demands it, rather,” he says with a hedging smile. “You know me as a butler, but my most important job is to receive calls, investigate their validity, and send Hero on assignment.”

The alarm-like ringing throughout the house that sends Norman running every time makes more sense now. I walk over to a bulletin board covered in newspaper articles and photographs.

“That’s my doing,” Norman says from behind me, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “Master Parish despises it. There isn’t much to show because he insists on limited exposure, but it’s important to me to track our progress and success.”

I finger an article: “Hero Strikes Again? Witnesses claim mystery man lifts overturned car to rescue elderly couple”

“He’s a good man, Cataline. He’s done a lot of good here. As you can see, he loves this city, and it loves him back.”

“His parents did this?” I ask.