Rafe sputters as the door closes behind Stasi. “I’m going to—,”
“No,” I say quietly. Rafe pauses, and Silas turns to me. “No, you’re not.”
Matching red spots flare up on my twin’s cheekbones.
“Kit,” Rafe hisses. “Did you see what she did?”
I saw. Saw the way her eyes watered, the way her fingers shook. The humiliation in her face as Rafe poked at her. Like he was ripping open her insecurities and dangling them over her.
“There is a line,” I point out. A line that we are dangerously close to crossing.
Rafe huffs, but he doesn’t meet my eyes. “She’s here to be punished, Kit.”
Punished, yes. Abused, no.
“I want to see her punished just as much as you do,” I throw back at him. “But this isn’t the way to do it.”
Silas sighs, leaning back in his chair as he watches Rafe dab uselessly at the green stains on his shirt. “It was only for a day or two, Kit. Not forever.”
“She’s been here for twenty-four hours.” I spread my hands. “That’s enough, Silas. I never knew you to be cruel. Keeping her in chains and not letting her clean herself is cruel.”
He jerks as though I’ve landed a physical blow. “It’s a taste of her own medicine. It’s not going to kill her. And she’s got a water supply, for fuck’s sake.”
“Is it?” My words are soft. “Because there was no mention of chains in the reports we read. If this is to be an eye for an eye, let it be a true one.”
Silas frowns as I wait. He knows I’m right.
“Fine,” he says finally. “I’ll take the damn chains off.”
I shake my head as Ellen pokes her head around the door, assessing the damage. “I’ll do it when we’re done here.”
Rafe gets up with a curse. “I need to change.”
My older brother’s eyes linger on my face as he leaves. “Remember why she’s here, Kit. However easy it may be to forget.”
I have not forgotten.
The rest of dinner is silent. Rafe returns in a clean shirt and trousers, barely touching his food. None of us are in the mood for conversation. But our eyes stay on the door, flicking away every time Ellen walks through it.
Wondering if she might come back, full of fire and ready for another round.
But dinner ends without any sign of Stasi. Silas passes me the keys with a frown, but he doesn’t say anything as I push my chair back.
Rafe glowers from his seat. “I’d leave her for tonight, at least.”
My response is clear as the door to the kitchen closes behind me.
When I enter, Stasi is at the basin, washing dishes. Ellen catches my eye, and I jerk my head towards the door in a silent request. When she hesitates, her eyes flicking to the girl with hunched shoulders, I hold up the keys in answer to her unspoken question.
“Anastasia.” My voice is soft, but she still whirls around, soap suds flying into the air as a hand presses against her chest. Brown eyes drop down to the keys in my hand.
“Come to tighten them up?” Stasi lifts her wrists. “If you want me to be able to work, I’d leave them as they are.”
The words sound casual enough, but her mouth is twisted. When I take a step, she flinches, and I pause, eyeing her. “I said I wouldn’t hurt you.”
She casts a quick glance to the door behind me. “I learned a long time ago not to take what people say as the truth.”
I study her, pondering her words. “Do you mean us?”
She half-shrugs. “I… not in particular. Just… everyone.”
Everyone.
Frowning, I take another step, and then another, until I’m right in front of her. Stasi blinks as I kneel. “What are you doing?”
“Taking these off.” Leaning back on my heels, I look up at her. “Unless you’d prefer they stayed on?”
She shakes her head, letting loose a breath. “No. I – yes. Please. Take them off.”
Slowly, I wrap my hand around the cool skin of her ankle. It feels small in my grip, almost frail, and when I slide the key into the lock and undo it, Stasi flinches again.
I glance down, my throat tightening at the band of red that appears as the shackles loosen. Raised, thick welts, as though the metal has been rubbing against the fragile skin. “These were done too tightly. Why didn’t you say anything?”
She yanks away from me, reaching down to massage the abused skin. “Like you would have cared.”
There’s no heat in her words. Just exhaustion, as she pushes the metal off. It clinks as it falls to the floor, and my mouth tightens. “Who says I don’t?”
The words slip out, and she shoots me a disbelieving look as I stand and move my attention to her wrists. A thick metal band circles each one, linked by a chain as I flick through the keys in my hand for the right one. “Please. As if you’re not all intent on making my life as horrible as it can possibly be for as long as I’m here.”
She lets out an audible breath of relief as the shackles loosen, and I turn her wrist gently, inspecting the marks. These were on tighter still, the skin almost raw underneath. The sight of her skin, marked up like this… my mouth firms.
“Who put these on you?”
My voice is harsh in the small space, and her eyes lift to mine. “Parrish.”
“Parrish,” I repeat slowly. “Who the hell is Parrish?”
She scoffs. “You’d like him. He’s part of the I hate Anastasia club too. Maybe you could all wear matching badges.”
She tries to pull her hand away, but my grip tightens. “Tell me about him.”
She looks away from me. “Nobody. He was a guard. An asshole guard.”
A guard.
I do the math in my head. She was in that cell for weeks, based on the headlines. A month at least.
“Did he hurt you anywhere else?” I ask quietly. My finger traces the marks, and she hisses.
“Stop it,” she whispers. “It doesn’t matter, Kit.”
The denial rises up in my throat. It doesn’t matter?
“It matters,” I say shortly. “Tell me.”
She pulls, but I hold steady. “Why? So you can hold it over me? Laugh at me? Tell Rafe, so he can throw it at me as a punishment? I don’t think so.”
The bitterness in her voice smacks into my skin like bullets. “We wouldn’t do that.”
I know my twin. Better than he knows himself. He may be angry, may throw words around in sharp strikes, but I know that if he finds out about this, finds out that somebody put marks on Anastasia’s skin, Parrish is a dead fucking man.
Although not if I get to him first.
Her laugh is sharp shards of hopelessness. “Sure.”
I finally let her wrist go, only to slide my fingers down, entangling them with hers. She freezes. “Wha- what are you doing?”
Maybe Silas was right. It would be easy to forget, to lose myself in the feeling of her hand in mine. Exactly where it was always supposed to be.
My words drag from my chest, brusque and deep. “Come with me.”
For a moment, I think she’ll argue. Think she’ll rip her fingers from mine, and if that happens, I might just drag her with me anyway.
But she doesn’t. Her fingers slowly curl around mine, a silent acceptance. “Where?”
I lead her from the kitchen, glancing around for any sign of my brothers or Ellen, but the hall is deserted. We head up the steps into the hall, and then up to the second floor. Stasi hesitates as I push open a door. “Kit.”
I squeeze her fingers in response.
Trust me.
She follows me into my bedroom, her head twisting as she takes it in. “A little different to how it used to be.”
A little, but not a lot. My bed sits in the middle of the room, the four-poster covered in sheets of pale gray. The wooden floor is clearer now than when I was a teen, but stacks of sheet music still sit in piles, most of them unrecognizable under the red ink I like to scribble over them with.
“You still play?” Stasi’s voice is a whisper, and I nod as I cross to the bathroom and pull the door open.
“Sometimes.”
Although not as much as I used to.
I turn to survey her, leaning against the door as she bends down to pick up a sheet before she straightens, her eyes moving to mine. “Why am I here, Kit?”
I tilt my head to the room behind me. “I thought you might want to clean up a little.”
Stasi’s face twists in sudden hope. “You… I can use your shower?”
She sounds so shocked that I stare at her for a moment. “Did you think we’d leave you like this forever?”
And I see the answer, in the way the crease between her eyebrows dips low. In the confusion that enters her eyes.
She did. She expected us to leave her chained up, to restrict access to basic human needs like hygiene.
“Stasi.” My voice is rough. “Jesus. We’re not animals.”
But I suppose we haven’t given her much reason to believe we aren’t.
Not waiting for a response, I duck inside the bathroom, flicking on the hot water and testing the temperature. A stack of clean towels rests on the shelf, and I pull one off for her.
I feel her eyes on me when she appears in the doorway. “Kit…”
I point to the towels, cutting off whatever she’s about to say. My chest feels tight, and I avoid her eyes. “Use whatever you need. There’s some washing stuff in there. I’ll… get you something to wear. Take as long as you need to.”
She shifts. “Okay.”
Her voice is small. I wait until the door closes to start searching for clothes. There aren’t many options. I grab a shirt, my hands hesitating over a pair of clean boxers before I grab those too.
We’ll have to get her something. She can’t spend the next twenty years wearing my underwear.
I approach the door slowly. Twenty years.
It finally starts to sink in.
Twenty years as her jailors.
But also… twenty years of taking care of her. That’s what we signed up to, in our anger. Because none of us, not me, not Silas, and not Rafe either, despite his bravado, are going to let anything truly bad happen to her, even as she serves out her sentence.
Although we haven’t started off well.
I raise my hand to knock, to call out, but then I pause. My ear presses against the door.
The soft, choking sobs are barely audible over the water. But I hear them, anyway. Each one feels like a sharp knife, sliding into my chest.
Slowly, I close my eyes. Turning, I sink down onto the floor, bringing up my knees and resting my elbows on them as I lean back.
Shit.
