Reviving Izabel

My throat is dry. My stomach is a rock solid mass of knots.

She’s right, I didn’t give her enough credit. She’s much smarter than I ever knew. I knew she was intelligent, but she quite simply, just blindsided me.

She doesn’t smile or gloat, she just stands there looking at me with focus and strength and the kind of determination that scares the shit out of me. Sarai’s vengeful bloodlust runs deeper than I knew, deeper than she let on to me.

How could I have missed this?

“And then there are the rich men who Javier toted me around to, showing me off to them to make them want to buy the other girls from him,” she says, sneering. “I remember what you told me. John Gerald Lansen, you told me is the CEO of Balfour Enterprises.” She nods, affirming the revelation on my face. “Yeah, I remember a lot of things. And I spent a great deal of time at Dina’s before I left for Los Angeles to kill Hamburg, researching these men. Slowly remembering their names, their faces, putting that two and two together to find out who they are, where they live, how much they’re worth. When I wasn’t thinking about you, I was immersed in them, learning everything I could about them so that I could slowly kill them all off one by one.” She steps right up to me and gazes into my eyes. “And that’s what I intend to do.”

“You can’t do this without me,” I say.

I’m getting angry. How can she say these things, make such a decision that doesn’t involve me?

My hands are shaking.

I look away from her, knowing that if I look too long, I’ll fall helplessly into the depths of her green eyes.

“Foolish,” I say, ready to call it a night and be done with this ludicrous conversation. “I’m going to shower and get some sleep. You can join me if you want.”

I want her to say yes.

I feel like she’s not going to…

“I won’t be joining you,” she says. “I meant what I said. When this is over, when they’re dead, I’m leaving.”

I whirl around at her, my hands in half-fists at my sides, the cuffs of my white dress shirt somehow seeming tighter around my wrists. “You’re not going anywhere. Not like that. I won’t let you.” I laugh dryly. “Jesus, Sarai, you really do have a lot to learn. I’m dumbfounded by how you don’t see how stupid this is!”

“Stupid?” she scorns. “No…OK, maybe you’re right, but what’s more stupid than anything that I’ve just explained to you is thinking that I could ever have any kind of life with you. I hate myself for what I’ve put you through, for what I’ve put Dina through. And here I am, like an orphan dropped on your doorstep, expecting you to take care of me and feed me and teach me how to live an unconventional life and not get killed doing it. You didn’t ask for this and I never should’ve thrown it on your lap the way I did.”

My teeth are starting to taste like plastic as I grind my jaw so hard and for so long without realizing. My chest rises and falls with deep, angry and even fearful breaths. I feel like I haven’t blinked in minutes, my eyes are begi

I’ve never felt this way before…not since I was a child. I’ve never been so furious and…scared.

“I’m sorry that I put you through this, Victor,” she says softly and with sincerity. “I want to thank you for everything you’ve done to help me. I doubt that anything I could ever do or say to you will make up for your help. I know. But the least I can do is leave you alone and let you live your life the way you know how. You don’t need me in it fucking it up all the time.”

She turns her back to me and starts to walk away.

“Sarai!” I shout and she stops instantly. I try to calm my voice. “Just…just wait a minute.”

She turns to face me.

I’m stumbling over every single word in my mind, trying to pick each one out of the disarray and put them all together properly so that they make sense. But it’s hard. It’s so damn hard!

“I…,” I look down at my dress shoes, over at the wrought iron patio chair, up at the strands of her hair blowing against her soft, bare shoulders. Back at my shoes again. “…I don’t want you to go.”

“But I have to, Victor,” she says with such kindness and understanding in her voice that it nearly breaks me in half. “You know I have to. It’s the best thing for both of us.”

“No,” I say simply, sternly, rounding my chin and gathering my composure. I will not accept this. “You’re staying with me. I can keep you safe. We won’t talk about this anymore. Now let’s go to bed.”

I reach out my hand to her.

“No, Victor. I’m sorry.”

I grab her hand and pull her to me. She doesn’t stir or recoil or even look surprised for that matter. I grab her cheeks within my hands and I stare down into her beautiful face, her almost childlike eyes, though they are so illusory. A little wolf hides behind that doe. My little wolf.

“I-I want you to stay with me.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s what I want.”

“But that’s not a reason, Victor.”

“It doesn’t matter, Sarai, you need to stay with me.”

“But I’m not going to.”

I shake her, her cheeks still engulfed by my hands.

“YOU CAN’T LEAVE!” My soul is trembling. I ca

She still doesn’t flinch, but I see a thin layer of moisture begin to coat her eyes.

She shakes her head in my hands, gently.

“I’m going to leave and there’s nothing you can do to change that.”

“NO, SARAI!” I roar. “I NEED YOU IN MY LIFE!”

I pull my hands away from her abruptly and look down at them, wide open in front of me, as if they have betrayed me somehow. My chest swirls chaotically inside as if emotions that have lain dormant all my life have finally awoken and don’t know what to do with themselves anymore.

Wanting only to hide myself away in my room so that I can try to understand what just happened to me, I turn on my heels and head for the glass door.

“Victor,” I hear her call out softly behind me.

I stop. I can’t bring myself to turn around.

I feel her step up behind me, the warmth of her presence, the sweet scent of her skin.

“Look at me,” she says with a voice as light as the wind.

Slowly, I turn around.

She steps up and places her hands against my cheeks, gentler than I had done to hers. She tilts her head to one side and then the other, gazing into my eyes with her tear-filled ones. She pushes up on her toes and kisses me lightly on the mouth.

“Don’t hold any of it back,” she says with soft urgency. “Say everything you’re feeling right now. In this very moment. No matter how wrong or uncomfortable or foreign it seems, say it anyway. Please…”

I didn’t notice when my hands came up and hooked around her wrists. I hold on to them gently, as her fingers touch my cheeks. And I search inside myself, trying to understand what she’s doing to me. What she’s done to me. I think about what she said and against my hard external identity, I want only to give her what she wants.

“I’ve…Sarai, I’ve never felt this way before.” I can’t look her in the eyes, but she forces my gaze anyway.

“Tell me everything,” she urges. “I need to hear it.”

The desperation in her voice is passionate and matches what I feel deep inside. I search her face. Her eyes. Her pouty mouth, lips parted ever so slightly that it makes her mouth look i

But her eyes…

“Sarai, you are important to me,” I say desperately through an urgent whisper. “You’re more important to me than anything or anyone. To have you here, with me, isn’t a burden. I want to train you. For as long as it takes. I want to wake up every morning with you next to me. I need you in my life more than I have ever needed or wanted anything.”