Pawn (The Pawn Duet #2) - T.M. Frazier Page 0,1
in a breath at the contact. The feeling of her touch lights up my senses and makes me temporarily dizzy. She quickly withdraws her touch as if pulling her hand from a flame.
“It really is you,” I whisper, looking over this new older, yet broken version of my sister. I try and pull the door open, but it’s locked. I look around for a key or something to pry it open, but I don’t see anything in my immediate view. “We’ve got to get you out of here,” I tell her.
She shakes her head and cowers back to the other side of the cage as if she expected me to be as imaginary as she’s been in my life for years. But the reason I know she’s real isn’t just because of her touch but because all of the millions of times I’ve imagined my family, conjured them like imaginary spirits to stand before me and keep me company in the lonely world I’ve created for myself, they’ve always appeared to me the same. Healthy. Whole.
Nothing at all like the shattered human being caged before me.
My throat feels thick and dry with unshed sobs. I’m balancing the weight of the world on my chest, and I feel it pushing against my rib cage and threatening to crush my already fragile heart. If this is some sort of game––some sort of new mental breakdown I’ve not experienced before–– don’t know how I can get over it.
“What happened to you?” I ask, trying to steady my voice the same way one would when coaxing a frightened animal from hiding. “How is it possible that you’re here?”
Tears well up in her red-rimmed eyes. She pushes a stiff strand of hair from her face that falls right back into place. She crawls forward slowly until we’re eye to eye. She smells like feces and something putrid, but I don’t care because she’s real and she’s here. She tentatively wraps her hands around mine, which are white-knuckling the bars. We both take in deep, shaky breaths. She’s silent for a moment, but after she looks me over again, her eyes meet mine.
She opens her mouth to speak.
The words don’t get a chance to leave her mouth because the loud crash of the door opening startles us both. She leaps back into the corner of her cage as several heavy footsteps cross over the concrete. She’s shaking violently. I place my finger to my lips, and she nods. I crawl slowly and quietly behind the cage, fitting myself behind a pair of empty beer kegs.
A crack of separation between the barrels gives me a small view of Percy and Darius as they approach. “What the fuck is this, old man?” Percy asks, waving his hand at the cage where my sister is pretending to be asleep.
“This is a gift. For your wife,” Darius announces proudly. “From you.”
Percy scratches his bald head. “Okay, but why?” He lights a cigarette.
Darius wags his finger at Percy, then crouches down to admire his captive. “Because she will love it. Because it will make you a hero to her to give her the gift of a life. You know how she’s always rescuing things. Injured birds, stray fucking cats. Now, she’s not the only one. You’re now a rescuer and, therefore, more relatable. Loveable, even. A perfect gift.”
“And why is that?” Percy asks, crossing his arms over his chest.
Darius places his hand on Percy’s shoulders. “You are going to be a married man, and more importantly, the future leader of The Reich. You need to exercise control in every situation. You and Michaela have known one another since you were children in The Reich, but you don’t know each other as man and wife. Not yet. I see how you two interact with one another. You act like complete strangers.”
Percy scoffs. “Yeah, but you ever think that’s because we haven’t seen each other since I got locked up? She was just a kid then. I was just a fucking teenager. We don’t know each other as adults. And I don’t know, but maybe, because having an arranged marriage doesn’t exactly make shit any less awkward?”
“Exactly, this is a fresh start between you. If not a fresh start, then consider this a lesson in control. Use this gift to influence your new wife. Threaten her with it when you have to. Kill it in front of Mickey if and when the time calls for it.”
Referring to my sister as it has me