“See? You’re not freezing right now, are you? It’s because here is where you’re meant to be, Anca. With me. Play.”
A few solo notes break the salty air as he plucks the strings.
“No!” I yell out, wrapping my arms around her, as far as they can reach. I don’t want him touching her, tainting her. “Get away from her!”
He knows what I mean, of course. He’s always known, hasn’t he? “Okay, Anca! Okay. I’m stepping away. But you can’t let a beauty like her to go to waste. Play. Here. Where you’re not afraid, not even of me.”
He’s right. I have no fear here. Why aren’t I afraid to play with him?
Because he trained you that way, Anca! Don’t listen to him. The voice tickles at the edge of my brain.
I shake my head. Leave me alone.
No. This time the voice is Marius. I’m not leaving you, Anca. In the darkness I can see him, his eyes, his hands reaching out to me. Don’t listen to him, Anca. You are a star. Wherever you are, whoever you’re with, whatever you play. Remember the joy. Remember the fun. Remember the cheers, the love. For you.
Go away, Marius. Please. Just leave me here. I’m not good enough for you, for anyone, I beg him, but he just stands there, smiling, holding his hand out to me.
Why won’t he just go?
“Anca. Play!” The Maestro’s voice cuts through the fog in my head.
No. Tell him no. Do it, Anca…you can do it. It’s my voice now, not Marius, but mine. Mine. Telling me I can do this.
“N-n-no.” I stammer, fighting for every syllable.
“What did you say?” The Maestro’s voice booms in the dark.
“I sa-, I said, no. No!”
“I’ve asked so nicely, though, Anca… but it won’t always be this way. My patience has limits.” His voice, once so cajoling is suddenly hard, and then I feel it. The point. The cold, hard point of steel right there against the back of my neck.
No, no, not now. Not now that I’ve finally regained my sense of self. I can’t go this way.
But I know how crazy he can be, he had to be, to even get me here in the first place. Who knows what he’s capable of now… now that he’s heard me say no.
But I’d rather be dead than under his control for another moment longer.
“Maestro…”
“Yes, my dear, are you ready?” He asks, twisting his wrist, pressing the point deeper against my neck.
I bite my tongue to keep from screaming. “I’m… ready… I just have one request.”
“Anything for you, my angel. Anything for you.”
And I take one long breath, as if it will be my last.
Marius
She’s not there, in her room.
She’s nowhere to be found.
We’ve spent the last hour scouring the hotel, inside and out, and the venue and everywhere in between.
“Tell us again, Hailey!” I beg our PR manager, searching her words for any detail I might have missed the last 15 times she’s repeated her steps.
“Guys I wish I could tell you something that might help, I’m just as worried as you guys are.”
“And you’re sure she was okay? When you left her?”
“Well, she wasn’t happy and laughing, but she wasn’t sobbing or anything, I wouldn’t have left her if she had been. Jez? You know I wouldn’t have left her alone in that state, right?”
Jez gives Hailey’s shoulder a squeeze, “I know. I know…”
“So where could she have gone? And why won’t she answer her fucking phone?”
“Are we even sure she took it? I mean, maybe it’s somewhere around the room.” I get up, turning the couch cushion over, finding nothing but loose change and dust. “Goddamn it!” I curse, throwing the cushion against the coffee table. There’s a loud crash as it knocks over the flower vase, scattering glass, water and flowers all over the floor.
“Fuck it all to hell,” I growl, falling to my knees to collect the shards in my hand.
“Hey, be careful. Just… just leave it, man. Someone will take care of it, can’t be damaging your hand.” Jez says, his voice tired, tired from worrying.
“Really? You think I care about my hand at a time like this?”
He narrows his eyes and looks like he has a sharp retort, but not before something on the floor catches his eye.
“Marius… did you send Anca the dahlias?”
“Um, no, she doesn’t like them. They remind her of…”
“Yeah, I know.”
“So, who sent these?”
Hailey looks up from her phone. “They were downstairs when we checked in, reception said a fan had left them for her. There’s a card.”
Jez glances at me, his eyes wide. “Marius grab the card.”
I forget that I’m too mad to take orders from him for the moment and reach for the soaked card lying amongst the vase debris.
“Open it.” He says after I just hold it in my hands.
I do, and it takes a split second for the blood to run cold in my veins.
“Oh my god.”
“What?”
I hand it to him, and his skin turns white in the same amount of time it takes for us both to jump to our feet.
“He’s got her.”
I nod. “It’s got to be him.”
“What’s going on??” Hailey yells, trying to get our attention.
“No time to explain, Hails, just get everyone back here.”
“I think I know where they are.” I tell them.
Jez nods, “I think I know too.”
Anca
I wonder all the time what my mother and father thought about in that split second before their car accident, what they were doing. Was my mother smiling at my father as she teased him about the way he was dressed or was he growling at the way the car smelled too much like lavender, her scent.
Did they have that luxury, knowing that it would all be over for them soon? Or in those last moments, were they still thinking that the years lay far ahead of them, to be with each other, with Jez and me?
I just know that now, faced with the very real possibility of it all being taken away, I’m thinking of them. Of them, of Jez, and of Marius.
There’s no fear.
Just sadness.