Page 48 of Sapphires and Snakes
Mystill-beating heart.
“She didn’t even deny it,” I mutter. Pat and I sit in a too-large corner booth at a wine bar inherterritory. The stem of my glass is smooth between my fingers, the deep red merlot as full as it was when the server delivered it. I have no idea what clothes I’m wearing, where I am on a map, what the people who work here look like. All I know is I’m not in her house.
And may never go back.
“Didn’t deny what?” Pat’s feet are up on the booth’s seat, their ankles crossed as they munch on a plate of cheese and crackers. They scan the bar like someone might jump out from under a table and attack us.
I twirl my glass and watch the wine slide back down. “She was using me. To hurt the family.”
Pat nudges the plate of cheese toward me without saying a word. I ignore it. They brush off their palms, crumbs littering the tabletop, and lower their feet to the floor to turn and level an unamused look, their blue eyes as unyielding as arctic ice. “Enough wallowing. Tell me.”
The wine is so red it’s almost purple. I wonder if my blood would match; if it was poured into a glass like this, would someone mistake it for a full-bodied merlot. I’m already bleeding, heart sliced so many times it’s flowing internally, bloating my body. All it would take is a spigot slammed into my chest to tap the crimson flood.
“Zarina,” Pat prompts.
I raise the rim to my lips, breathe in the scent through my nose. And then set it back down. “I traded three secrets,” I begin.
Pat listens as I tell them the story in starts and stops, between shuddering breaths, through a thick throat. I lay out everything I know. The bad investments, the selling of property to cover them, the map with the swarm of grayish-black—crows in my mind, now—devouring the red, and the thread of revenge woven through all of it.
Crows keep grudges, I remember. They recall human faces of those who wronged them. They attack them, play tricks on them. Too proud of their intelligence to have a fear of man, a fear of god. Just likeher.
“Fuck.” Pat frowns at the table as they digest the information that already threatens to bury me under its weight.
“Yeah.” I finally lift my glass and take my first sip of wine. It’s dry on my tongue. And while I’m sure there are hints of blackberry and chocolate, all I register is that it’s warm. Down my throat, in my belly.
“What does this mean?” they ask.
I watch the legs run down the glass. “I don’t know.”
“You have until we leave this bar to figure it out, Z.”
“I don’t fuckingknow, Pat,” I snap.
They rub their top lip, considering the bartender as they unload a rack of newly washed dishes. “Well, let’s start with where we’re staying tonight.”
“Notthere.”
“Then where?” Their frustration frays their voice at its edges. “We can’t go home. We’re not protected outside her territory. And we’re far less protected outside her house.”
“I can’t go back there.” The thought of seeing her now drains the blood already heavy in my rib cage down to my feet, anchors me to the spot. If I see her tonight, tomorrow, I might slam a knife into her chest, carve it wide open in search of her heart. Or I might collapse into tears and scream myself hoarse. I refuse to do either. “I can’t.”
“Okay. A hotel?” Pat suggests.
“Fine.”
“I’ll ask Darius?—”
“No.” I ball my fist around the stem of my glass.
Pat releases a sigh that seems to originate from the depths of the Earth, full of impatient patience. “Zarina.”
“No.” I shoot them a stern look. “I don’t want any of them to know where we are.”
They lean back against the booth, swirling the wine in their glass and staring at the newcomers seated at a table across the dining room. They narrow their eyes, like the pair are more thancolleagues grabbing a drink after work. Maybe they are. I don’t know. I don’tcare.
Pat disregards them, so they must not be a threat. “We have our phones on us. We’re driving their car. They’ll know anyway.”
I wrinkle my nose. If they want to be logical about it, fine. “Then we leave them here and call a cab using the bar’s phone.”
