Page 96 of Rapunzel Is Losing It

“We’ve both been turned into people who function differently. We depend on each other because we have to, and because we can. I think that makes us lucky.”

“Lucky,” I smiled and turned in his embrace, “I do feel incredibly lucky to have you, Victor. Don’t ever forget that.”

The doorbell cut off any response he had for me, his body immediately turning rigid. “Are you expecting anyone?”

I shook my head. Anyone who needed a key had one, and I had yet to catch up with Silas.

Victor pulled me into the kitchen and firmly closed the door to the winter garden before telling me to stay put. I waited and listened to the short exchange at the front door. I didn’t recognize the other voice. Then the door fell shut and the house quiet before I could question it.

“Bike messenger,” Victor said as he came back, carrying a small cardboard box. “I need you to sit down with your back to me.”

“Why?”

“Because Petya sent this and I don’t know what’s in it.” His eyes narrowed and his head swiveled. “Where’s Irina?”

“I don’t know.” Dread seeped through my stomach. It only took one or two old mafia movies to guess the horrible contents of that box. “She’s been staying at your place. She might just be next door.” I stepped up behind Victor,snaked my arms around his waist and buried my face between his shoulder blades. “I won’t look. Open it.”

I listened to the rustle of the cardboard and to Victor’s still breathing, and felt his tense muscles ease in my embrace.

“It’s fine,” he said, “it’s an invite.”

Without letting go, I ducked under his arm to stand by his side as he lifted the silver-foiled card from the box. There was no envelope. Why would you send an invitation card in a- I yelpedand squeezed my eyes shut before I could even fully register the bloody sight beneath the card.

“Fuck,” Victor hissed and shuffled me behind his back again.

Severed finger.

That had been a finger. Cut off. Blood dried and crusted now, but there had been enough to make it clear that the finger had been freshly separated from the hand when it got packaged.

Victor closed the box again and turned around, cradling my face in his hands. “I’m sorry, Cordelia. I’m so sorry. Are you alright? Look at me.”

I blinked up at him, the concern in his bright green eyes enough to elicit a trembling smile. “I’m alright.” I waited for the nausea to hit, but it didn’t come. I supposed that was the advantage of seeing blood splatter every time I closed my eyes. “Do you think that’s Irina’s?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to take another look.” He smoothed the hair away from my face, eyes still searching my features for a hint of wrongness. “Tell me what’s going on in your head.”

“I keep waiting to feel horrified. Or sick. It’s a horrible, sickening thing.” I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “Something must beverywrong with me not to feel worse than startled.”

“Zhizn’ moya.” He chuckled and gently kissed me. “My uncle cuts off someone’s finger and sends it to us by bike messenger, and you think something is wrong withyou?”

“I feel like I should be throwing up. That would be the normal reaction.”

“I have to take another look.”

I nodded and glanced at the box. “I want to see.”

“Are you sure?”

“I owe that much to whoever this finger belongs to. It was sent to us as a message. They… they deserve to have that sacrifice honored.”

Victor’s hand wrapped around the back of my neck and he pulled me to him just to lay a kiss to my forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you,” I replied and kissed his biceps. “Now show me the finger.”

He flipped the box open again. The card already lay discarded to the side, so the finger was right there, out in the open. White skin, black polish, small and slender enough to belong to a woman. A slim silver ring rested between the knuckle and the blunt and bloody edge of the finger.

“It’s Irina,” Victor confirmed.

“How do you know?”

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