Page 1 of Heal Me

1

LAVINIA

Tonight will be the last night I sing. The last night I get to share my voice with the world. The last night the world gets to hear my voice.

I’m going to miss this. Standing on a stage and pouring out my emotions to an audience that watches in silent awe. The crowded bar is unusually quiet tonight as I sing the wistful hymn of my home country that my mother used to sing to me. I think it’s because they sense the unspoken—that I’m saying goodbye. In that potent act, I’m also reminiscing every wonderful and horrible memory.

The love and loss of my mother and sister. The hope my voice gave me, and the loss of innocence it caused. I sing for the ugly marks on my body that are constant reminders of the hell I went through when thinking luck had finally smiled upon me. But luck had nothing to do with the charming man who promised to take me away from these dingy bars and present me to the world. His smile was a hoax. A demon in disguise, luring in its prey.

He would have shown me fame and fortune if I had stayed with him. Of that I am sure. But the price was too high. Luck turned out to be a sick sadist with a knife who loved to cut into flesh. He crushed my hope and took me from my home country. A land corrupted and ugly, yet beautiful and magnificent in its own right. A place that offered my mother refuge when she fledfrom my father—the man who had offered her fields of gold. A man who came from the same country as the devil that lured me in.

The irony. Now I’m stuck here in Romania, without a penny to my name, unable to go home. I’m stuck wandering from one decrepit town to another, singing in these dingy bars, having lost everything I once held dear.

Everything except my voice and my face, which were too valuable for him to mar. No one wants to see an ugly woman sing, he always said. So he kept the ugliness restricted to places only he could see. And me. I see the ugliness each and every day. The scars covering my body. Red slices from where his knife broke my skin. Round burns from where he stubbed out his cigarettes.

A tear spills from my eye, and I realize the crowd has collectively lost its breath. I nearly lose my own. Because luck has finally turned my way. It has given me the exact end I wanted.

My eyes fall shut as I sing the last word. The last note I will ever sing. The room is dead still as the sound fades. No one moves; no one breathes. Not even me. The air buzzes with the intensity of emotion I’ve just instilled in each and every one of the men who has been listening attentively for the past hour.

This is a gift. Your ability to evoke such profound emotion,my mother used to say. Her words have never felt more true. I feel more connected to myself and the world around me, knowing I have left a piece of beauty among the barren brutality that pervades everywhere I go. I have given these people a glimpse of that hope I have always felt but have finally given up on.

I want to apologize for not giving them more of it. I want to promise to return. But I can’t do that. I have to leave, just like the hope left me.

2

DORIN

The crowd is stunned. Struck silent by the angelic lilt of her voice, which lingers even after she’s gone. A melody that will forever haunt them. No one has moved a finger or dared to draw a deep breath after she left the stage three minutes ago. I’m surprised to find I haven’t either. She has woven her spell around me like she has everyone else.

Finally, the clapping starts. One person becomes two, two become four, and soon, the whole room is a loud din of constant noise. Clapping and cheering. Too many people. The noise dissolves the spell. Pollutes the beauty and casts the bar back into its sordid lowliness. Pathetic people, peeling paint, and a scent of grime so thick it sticks in my lungs the same way her song sticks in my mind, refusing to ever leave.

All the ugliness takes me back to my childhood. My father’s nasty breath as he came home and woke me with a grip around my neck, yelling at me to get up and clean up the broken bottles.

With a jerk, I rise from the stool, badly needing to escape—the place, the crowd, and the memories. This is why I rarely leave the secluded peace of the castle in the Carpathian Mountains. It’s the one place where I’m in control and the chaos of the world can’t reach me.

Shoving at the cheering people, I jostle toward the exit and draw a heavy breath of fresh mountain air to cleanse the filthfrom my lungs. At least I didn’t have to go to a polluted city to get this girl. If it had been anywhere else, I might have sent someone to get her, but I’m the one who found her, and she’s my prize to claim. I heard her singing as I went into a bar, as shitty as the one I just left, to get a quick drink. I wanted to take her right then and there, but I already had a body in my trunk and didn’t want to sully her with the foul blood of the slimy beast who thought he could cross me. When I came back for her the next day, she was gone, and I’ve been roaming these filthy towns for a week, searching for her.

I hide in the alley behind the bar, where I can watch both the rear exit and the front in case she dares to venture through the hungry crowd. Something tells me she won’t do the latter. This girl was off the stage quicker than a mouse scurrying into its hole at the sight of an eagle descending from the sky. If I’m right, she’ll be out in a few minutes, relieving me of the annoyance of having to wait.

Leaning back against a wall, I fiddle with the syringe in my pocket. As much as I like to hear them scream, I don’t enjoy the hassle of getting a struggling girl out of a town, no matter how small. If she were any other girl, no one in this shitty town would care if I took her, but with this particular one, I’m thinking they’d have my head if they knew what I’m about to do. So I’m drugging her and saving the thrill of her screams for the seclusion of the dungeon—where I can do my thing in peace.

Five minutes pass, and I’m starting to wonder if I’ve read her wrong. But no. I easily recognized the look in her eyes as she cast a final glance at the crowd. That itchy eagerness to flee from everything and hide. I know it all too well myself.

Five more minutes and I’m getting really fucking irritated. I have done more than enough waiting in my life, and I’m not gonna stand around waiting for a girl one minute longer. Especially not one as eager to leave as her.

Stepping up to the back door, I carefully try the handle. It slides right open. It’s almost too easy. I steal through a dark corridor, wincing as the vile smell once again infests my airways. At the end, I peer into a dimly lit backroom, expecting to find her there.

But it’s empty. So I step into the room and look around—at the mirror above the table, where she must have sat before going on stage, the half-empty bottle of water she must have used to nurture her voice, and the tattered coat still hanging over the back of the wooden chair. Frowning, I step closer and notice the small purse on the table too.She’s still here?

I scour the back area, checking the small toilet and a few closets without finding another trace of her. Then I unwillingly make my way back into the rowdy bar, do a round there, and go back as empty-handed as when I started.

Something’s off. I feel it in my gut as I pick up her bag and open it. Her wallet is sitting right there. It’s like someone took her. Someone other than me.Or maybe she ran,I think as I notice the paper towel with black stains in the open bin. She did look utterly lost as she stopped singing. So lost, in fact, that I’m not surprised she would bolt without grabbing her things.

What the hell is going on with you, little songbird?

I grab her wallet and fish out her driver’s license as I shove through the back entrance. Lavinia Corina Petrescu. Such a pretty name. It’s almost a shame I’m replacing it with a number.

Her address is not far from here. I recognize the street name from when I passed through town on my way here. I get into my car at the side of the road and drive as fast as the weathered cobblestone will allow. Walking would be faster, but I need my car close by, so I can stuff her in the trunk as quickly as possible and go unnoticed.

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