Reparation of Sin Read online

  The strange dress coupled with what he said, with what I’ve prepared myself for, makes me feel uneasy.

  The Tribunal.

  It almost makes me think of witch trials of the past because what I’m wearing is ceremonial, and if there's one thing I’m sure of, it’s that The Society stands on ceremony.

  I pull my still-bare feet up onto the cot and hug the blanket to myself. No shoes. My feet are freezing. I’ve eaten the bread and another bowl of cold soup. This time, there was an apple too, and I devoured that. The water is gone. Now I sit here waiting for him to return. I’m anxious for it. The longer I sit here, the more time I have to make up stories of what happened. To ruminate over Santiago’s collapse. I won’t let myself go further, though. He’s not dead. I have to believe that. But what happened?

  I’m nodding off when I finally hear the sound of footsteps outside. When I sit up, I catch a fast-moving shadow pass by the window before hearing the key slip into the lock. Before he pushes the door open, I remember to pull the blindfold down. I tied it looser so I can open my eyes behind it. I can at least make out shapes then.

  He walks in and stops. I wonder what time it is. It’s pitch-black now. But the canopy of trees could be making it seem later. I’ve slept off and on and have lost all track of time.

  “Up,” he says.

  I stand, dropping the blanket.

  He looks me over, and I see his head move in a nod. “Good. Arms out.” He walks toward me as he says it and drops something on the cot.

  “Tell me first about my husband. Tell me—”

  “We are not bargaining,” he says. “Arms, or I’ll bind them behind your back.”

  My head is tilted up to his face. He’s still wearing the cloak, but even without the hood up, it’s too hard to make out any features between the dark and my blindfold.

  I extend my arms, and he binds them, the same cool feel of leather from his gloves against my skin. I wonder if he wore them so he doesn’t have to touch me. Once my wrists are tightly bound, he leans to pick up whatever he’d tossed onto the cot, and I realize it’s a cloak when he drapes it over my shoulders. The heavy wool scratches my neck and smells musty. Old. He closes the clasp at my throat, then pulls the hood over my head.

  My heart races. I’m on full alert as he takes my arm and leads me toward the door. I’m slow, though, too slow for him.

  “Come.”

  “My feet,” I start as I climb the stone steps and then walk out onto damp grass.

  “A small price to pay,” he replies before I can say more.

  He leads me with an iron grip, and I have to trust he’s not going to steer me into a wall, but soon, the grassy floor gives way to gravel. Small stones. And I hear the sound of a car engine start. A door is opened.

  “In.”

  Climbing into the car, I smell the leather of the seats and feel the dry, comforting warmth of the heater. He gets in beside me and closes the door. A moment later, I feel the car shift as someone else climbs in—the driver, I guess—and we’re off.

  We’re headed to IVI’s headquarters. At least I'm pretty sure that’s where The Tribunal sits. I know what it is. I think I knew when he first told me, too. The Society’s version of a court where members who break the rules are questioned, tried, and sentenced. It wouldn’t stand up in any court of law in the world, and I’m sure it’s illegal, even, but those sort of things don’t seem to hinder any IVI activities. The Society is a self-governing organization independent of the law, almost like a country in and of itself.

  It’s where Hazel will be sent if she’s ever found. She’ll have to stand before The Tribunal, where three probably hundred-year-old men will determine how she’ll be punished. No trial for her. Just sentencing. It’s how it works. Our father won’t even be there to protect her, and there’s not a chance Abel would help her.

  Is that what’s going to happen to me? But why? Why would I stand before a tribunal? What have I done?

  A chill runs through me, and I turn my head to look in my captor’s direction.

  “What do you think I did?” I ask, my voice small. Because I am being punished. Or I will be. By keeping me in that cell, he’s holding me until…I pause. Until things go one way or the other with Santiago, I guess.

  Which means he’s still alive. Or he was.

  My heart sinks.

  He turns to me. I see that much. “We found the source of the poison.”

  “Poison?” My mouth goes dry.

  “Cleverly done. But not clever enough.”

  The car pulls through the gates at IVI, and he falls silent as I hug the cloak closer around my trembling shoulders.

  5

  Ivy

  He removes my blindfold the moment we are inside but then draws my hood back on. My cloak is scarlet red.

  I look up at him as my eyes adjust to the dim lights, but all I see beneath his hood is the hard surface of a black mask.

  He studies me for a long moment, then turns to walk ahead of me up the wide, winding staircase, his every step echoing off the stone.

  Someone clears their throat, and I glance behind me to see two men standing there. He’s not taking a chance that I’ll run. Not that I’d know where to go or get far if I did.

  I turn back to watch his form round the corner, then take a deep breath and follow.

  We’re not in any part of the compound that I’ve been in before. This place is darker. Colder. Lonelier. From the window on the first landing, I pause to glance outside at the small courtyard below. The single platform there. The post.

  Panic takes hold of me, and I fall back a step only to bump into the rock-hard chest of one of the men behind me.

  “I…” I shake my head, backing away from him. He doesn’t touch me, and I feel like a pariah. All of them avoid touching me. He doesn’t come after me but waits as I steady myself. I glance once more through the barred window at that platform, and my mind wanders back to my history lessons. How the condemned man or woman would watch as the scaffold was built outside their window and see the place where he or she would be executed.

  Obviously, they don’t carry out executions here, I tell myself. Surely, that’s a step too far. But there are other things. Other medieval punishments.

  The man behind me clears his throat, and I continue up the stairs, not letting myself look out the window on the next three landings. When I reach the last one, my captor is waiting for me outside of two hulking doors, dark wood carved with the insignia IVI.

  “Come,” he says when I stop moving.

  My bare feet are silent on the cold stone as I approach and stand before him. He unclasps the cloak and pushes it off my shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. I see his gaze drop to the strange garment, and I remember how vulnerable I am. How naked beneath this sheath.

  They think I poisoned Santiago. Has he died? Is that why I’m here now?

  The question of what they’ll do to me is second to the echoing of has he died circling round and round in my head.

  A sound like a gavel comes from inside, and my heart jumps as I face the doors when they are opened. My mouth goes dry as the large circular room comes into view. Raised high in the center is the dais upon which three men—The Councilors, my judges—sit behind a large desk made of the same wood and decorated with carvings as intricate as the doors.

  On either side and set at a lower level is a large banister, stone like the walls and ground, with empty chairs behind it. And in the center, I’m walked to a wooden stand where a man opens the small gate, and I step up into it before he closes it again.

  Ceremony. The Society loves it.

  My stomach turns, and I try to swallow the dryness in my mouth. Just as the doors close, I hear a sound from behind and above me. I shift my gaze back and up to the gallery, where I see a single witness. Because that is what she is. A witness to my trial.

  Mercedes.

  And even from this distance, I see how red her eyes are and how pale her face is. I feel a tear sl
ide down my cheek, and I think it’s true. He’s gone. Santiago is gone.

  The gavel strikes, and I startle, turning to face The Councilors.

  6

  Santiago

  "Take a slow sip."

  The voice resonating above me is familiar, but he is little more than a blurry shape. A rhythmic, steady drone of beeping is a pattern I am intimately acquainted with, and the smell is one I'll never forget. Disinfectant. Cold metal. Dying flowers undoubtedly perched on the ledge of a sill somewhere in the distance.

  I'm in a hospital room. That much, I understand.

  Someone adjusts my bed, forcing me further into an upright position as I try to speak. A straw bumps against my lips, and that familiar voice offers encouragement.

  "It will take some time to get your senses back. For now, you can relax and try to take a drink. We've already moved you to the most secure wing of the hospital. Armed guards are stationed outside, and you've been under the care of Dr. Rousseau. You're in excellent hands, Santiago."

  The name Dr. Rousseau confirms there is some truth to the dissembled thoughts running rampant inside my brain. I had thought it was all a dream. The masked gala. My wife, dressed in shades of gold and black, floating across the floor like an apparition. Her half-butterfly mask shining beneath the soft glow of the overhead lights. She looked like a seductress with that blood-red lipstick. And she took that role to heart when she kissed me. A kiss that would lead to my collapse, and then inevitably, what I was certain would be my death.

  If Dr. Rosseau is my attending physician, there can be no other explanation. IVI does not call him in for garden variety cases. He is the poison specialist. A master of toxicology with laser-sharp eyes and a gift for discerning even the most subtle of biological threats. He is at the top of his field, and he would not be here to treat anything else that might ail me. His presence is confirmation I was poisoned, and it does not require a stretch of the imagination to know without a doubt it was by my own wife’s hand. Or more accurately, her lips.

  I reach for the hem of the blankets weighing me down, trying to fling them off. But I only manage to drag them about an inch before my arm falls limp to my side. It is difficult to comprehend the weakness I feel. It’s a weakness more indicative of being hit by a train and dragged for days, slamming against every object in my path. I have felt the limitations of my body before in such excruciatingly dark times, but I can no longer stew in silence while the Moreno family continues to destroy what is left of mine.

  I need to see my wife. I need her to look me in the eyes and confess her sins and beg for mercy like she has never begged before. Quiet rage fuels my resolve as I imagine her falling to her knees, my fingers wrapped around her throat as she spews her lies from those pretty, poisonous lips. It’s a thirst that can’t be tamed. And logic isn’t part of the equation when I make another attempt to free myself from the confines of my bed.

  "You need to relax," the voice beside my bed instructs me. "There will be time for vengeance later. For now, you need to work on one thing at a time. Let's start with a sip of water."

  I don't want a fucking sip of water. I need to see my wife. I want blood and vengeance. Nothing can mend this cavernous fissure in my chest. Nothing but the certain horror on Ivy’s face when she sees me resurrected from the dead, proof that she will never escape me. In life or death, I will haunt her to the ends of the earth. And there is no time like the present—when the wound is still fresh—to seek her out and exact the punishment she so rightly deserves.

  But in the face of my determination is the hindrance of my blurred vision and limp body. I may be alive, but I don't know the extent of the damage she inflicted. Try as I might, my voice won’t cooperate to allow me to speak. And my muscles are about as useful as broken bow strings with my exhaustion weighing me down. I try and fail again to move myself, the monitor echoing my growing frustration as I come to terms with one undeniable truth.

  Ivy thought she could be rid of me so easily. All this time, Mercedes was right. Ivy had lured me in and made me weak. She made me see something in her that never existed. Something worth saving. Now I am left to stew in the starkness of clarity as I process her betrayal from a hospital bed.

  A grunt of pain leaves my parched lips as I pat around my hand and yank the IV out. I’m determined to free myself from these confines, but within moments, two sets of hands are on me, forcing me back into bed as I try to fight my way out. I might as well be fighting Goliath.

  There’s nothing left in me.

  And despite my fit of silent fury, they've got the IV secured in a new location within seconds, pumping a sedative into my veins.

  "Welcome back." The distorted voice greets me as my eyes flutter open and focus on the ceiling.

  My vision has improved, and now I can make out the details of the room around me. It's dark, cold, and apocalypse-proof, judging by the thick walls. So, I know I must be at one of the IVI locations, but I’m not certain which one. Several medical facilities are located throughout the city and hundreds more around the country. Then there are the possibilities of worldwide locations, which leaves me to conclude I could be in any of them.

  I spent more than my fair share of time staring at similar walls during my recovery from every excruciating operation when they tried to piece me back together and make me whole again. I swore I would never come back to a hospital. I would never again set foot in one of these rooms. Yet here I am.

  I'm not certain how much time has passed since that first day when I woke to the voice beside me, informing me I was in the care of Dr. Rosseau. Since then, I have had incremental improvements in my strength, vision, and muscle control. But it has been difficult to determine to what extent since they have kept me sedated most of the time. I know because every time I attempted to move, I couldn’t, and while my thoughts were screaming loud, I could not give voice to them.

  I am certain they suspect I would tear them limb from limb to get out of here, and they would be right.

  Slowly, I turn my gaze to the man beside my bed. The familiar face of a friend. A man I trust implicitly.

  Lawson Montgomery. Or Judge, as he is better known.

  He has been here every day, to some extent. I tried several times to speak to him, but he seemed to understand what it was I needed and took it upon himself to inform me that Ivy and Mercedes are both in his care until I make a full recovery. Which means he captured my wife before she could make her great escape.

  I was relieved to hear the news, but that relief swiftly turned to bitterness.

  She is a traitor. There is no question in my mind. I am certain of it, and I have had little else to do but replay that moment over and over. That kiss. The kiss of death she so eagerly bestowed upon me.

  Poison fucking Ivy.

  For days, I have laid here, strapped to a hospital bed like a goddamned lunatic, going out of my mind with alternating rage and frustration. I asked myself how she could possibly do this to me. How I didn't see it coming. And there is only one answer.

  She is a Moreno. Regardless of our marriage certificate. Regardless of my mark inked into her skin. She still carries those defective genes that will forever make her a viper. And I am more certain of it now than I have ever been.

  My wife will die by my hand. As sure as the sun will rise, I will spit on her grave once I've wrung every last ounce of life from her body. She thinks she has known suffering, but she has never experienced the true depths of my depravity or what I am capable of. And there will be no peace in my soul until I taste her blood on my lips as her life slips away.

  She will bear my children. And she will know nothing but misery until her last breath. That is the promise I make to myself in the quiet solitude of my thoughts. It is the only solace that gets me through each passing day, waiting for the time when I can return to her, the devil reborn.

  "I know what you're thinking," Judge tells me. "It's written all over your face, Santiago. But I should tell you, we haven't yet been able t
o find the evidence to condemn her. We've searched the compound. Her purse. Your car. Every inch of every space she encountered that evening, including The Manor. But it's turned up nothing."

  I reach out for the water on my bedside table, hand trembling as I bring it to my lips to take a drink. And for the first time in days, I try again to move my lips—to form words—and to my surprise, it actually works. My throat is dry, and it’s uncomfortable, but I forge on, insisting on having my answers.

  "No sedative today?"

  Judge cocks his head to the side and shrugs. "Not as long as you don't get ahead of yourself again."

  "Tell me everything," I rasp. "I need to know."

  He studies me for a moment, trying to determine something for himself. "I will tell you as long as you give me your word that you will stay here until you are given the all clear from Dr. Rosseau. I'm getting rather tired of sedating you."

  "You have my word." I meet his gaze so there can be no misunderstanding about my intent.

  There is no question I want to leave this place, but he is right, and I can see that now. It would only give Ivy more pleasure to allow her to see me in such a state. To allow her for one second to think she had truly hurt me. As if she could ever possess that power.

  "What is the last thing you remember?" Judge asks.

  "Ivy kissed me at the gala, and then I collapsed," I answer coldly.

  He nods, folding his hands across his lap as he considers where to begin. "You were very lucky Dr. Rosseau was in attendance that evening. He heard the commotion when the paramedics were wheeling you away, and he rode to the hospital with you. When he'd heard what happened, he began decontamination right away. They stripped you down, and he cleaned your skin, examining the traces of lipstick. He said it was oily, which, amongst your other symptoms, indicated something quite unexpected."