90

Portia
Helga stumbles backward, the sound she makes, the low keening, strange almost inhuman. She catches herself on the vanity as Mara scrambles out of the way.
My towel has fallen. I stand over the woman naked and raise the lamp again. I bring it down harder on her forehead. Blood splatters across the mirror and she drops to her knees, eyes unfocused, mouth open but no sound coming.
Mara, who has backed away a few steps drops to her knees to stare at the woman.
“Again,” she says.
I glance at her but she’s staring at Helga. Helga turns her head to look at Mara.
“Again,” Mara repeats. “Harder.”
I bring the stand down one last time and this time, she falls backward, her bulk shoving the vanity, dropping a perfume bottle onto the carpet.
Mara crawls toward her, peers at her face. She sits back on her heels and looks up at me. She smiles and begins to rock.
“He’ll hurt you,” she says to me.
I drop down to my knees too, cover myself with the towel then take her hands. “Mara?”
She blinks, looks up at me. I see how her eyes glisten with unspent tears. A decade’s worth of tears. Her mouth opens and for a second, I think I see a flash of something, someone else in her eyes. But then it’s gone, and she shakes her head.
“I’m Elizabeth,” she says.
“No. Elizabeth is dead. You’re Mara. I know your grandmother, Lenore.”
She shakes her head again and shifts her gaze to the dead woman. “I’m Elizabeth,” she says again while she undoes the strap that Helga had tied to her belt.
“Elizabeth. Sometimes Lizzie. Never Mara.”
She takes the strap, curls it up and tucks it into the pocket of her dress. A dress for a much younger girl. She then moves to Helga’s pockets and from inside she takes a candy bar and what looks to be a small army knife. She flips the tiny blade open, tests the tip more deftly than I’d think she’d know how and tucks those away too.
“The windows are locked but you should go. You’ll have to use the door,” she says to me as she gets to her feet. “He can’t punish me. I don’t belong to him anymore.”
“You don’t belong to anyone,” I say, rising too. “I know Elizabeth’s family. Her brothers.”
She stops, turns to me. “I told you. I’m Elizabeth. If you say I’m Mara, he’ll be even angrier and then he’ll punish you. You need to go now. Before he sees,” she says as she takes a seat on the chair she’d been instructed to sit on before. I realize what I’ve just done, wondering if I’ve put her in even more danger than before.
More footsteps sound on the other side of the door. I look from it to her. She’s humming a tune, a strange, creepy little lullaby.
“Sweetheart,” I say, walking to her. I wipe the few drops of blood that got on her face off. “What did they do to you?”
The door opens then, and I spin around.
Two soldiers enter followed by Felix and another man. A big man. He’s in a suit that barely contains him. He looks a little older than Callahan. He has blond hair and blue eyes that are so pale they’re almost eerie to look at.
They take in the woman lying on the floor. Felix’s eyes land on the lamp, then me.
“What did you do?” he asks through clenched teeth.
The man beside him laughs outright. He pats Felix on the shoulder and Felix looks so small next to him. “You have trouble, Felix,” he says with an accent that I’m pretty sure it’s Russian.
“No trouble I can’t handle,” Felix spits, eyes on me.
The man, what was his name? Petrov? Yes. Petrov’s eyes land on Mara who is still sitting in her chair. He smiles at her. “Do you like my gift, little doll?” he asks her, his tone different when talking to her.
It makes my stomach turn.
“I’m too old for teddy bears,” she tells him outright.
Felix mutters a curse and takes one step toward Mara, but Petrov catches him by the shoulder.
“What would you like then, little doll? What would make you happy?”
She just stares at him, her face expressionless.
“Tell me what gift you’d like,” he says.
“A gift?” she asks him, rising to her feet.
He nods, appraising her. “Name it. It will be yours.”
“I can have anything I want?”
I stand by and watch this, unsure what the hell is going on.
“Anything.”
“Don’t let him punish her.” She points to Felix.
My gaze snaps to Mara as Petrov’s lands on me. He walks toward her. I go to move between them, but someone grabs my arm to hold me back.
He’s a fucking giant. He towers over her.
“That’s what you want? You can have anything. That’s what you ask for?”
She nods.
“And you’ll be my good little doll if I give you what you want?”
She nods again.
“No, Ma – ”
Mara’s gaze snaps to me, quieting me, and I see not a little girl in her eyes but someone much older. A survivor. One so brutally damaged, so broken, I’m not sure she can be unbroken.
She looks back up at Petrov. “Will you give me that?” she asks, her tone suddenly sweet.
He smiles dotingly, nods once, turns to face Felix, his hand wrapping possessively around the back of Mara’s neck.
I want to kill him. I want to lunge at him. Because men like him deserve to die.
“This is Scarfoni’s wife?” Petrov asks although I’m pretty sure he knows.
Felix nods.
Petrov looks at me, appraises me, nods. “Felix won’t touch a hair on her head, will you, Felix?”
Felix shifts his gaze to me, hate in his eyes, and I hear the wording, the exact and deliberate formation of Petrov’s sentence.
“I will not touch a hair on her head,” Felix repeats, eyes narrowing, a wicked little grin twisting his lips.
“Then we shall take our leave,” Petrov says. “Come,” he tells Mara.
Mara turns to me. She gives me a strange, crooked smile and something inside me constricts because I know what will happen to her. I think she does too. And there won’t be a thing I can do to stop it.
I watch him walk her out of the room. Felix keeps a smile pasted on his face as they disappear. He then turns to walk toward me.
“How could you do that? Let him take her? She’s a little girl. Just a little girl.”
“She’s not your problem. In fact, you have much bigger problems to worry about, Cousin.” He nods to the man who has hold of me. The soldier starts to walk me out of the room.
“You promised not to hurt me! Let me go!”
“I will keep my promise. Just like I kept my promise to let your husband know Fernando Mancini’s location.”
I stop. “You did that?”
He nods.
“You set him up?”
This time he smiles. “I always keep my promises, Cousin.”
We step out into the hallway just as another door opens and another woman, one I vaguely recognize from the boat is escorted out.
“Let me go!” I fight the guard now, knowing Felix sent Callahan to his death. Knowing I’ll join him soon.
“I won’t touch a single hair on your head,” Felix continues calmly as if I haven’t spoken at all. He turns to walk in the opposite direction.