Chapter 26—Persephone

The moment I open my eyes I remember what I did last night—or more specifically this morning.

It was around two a.m. when I had my stint of insanity.

This time I had one of my more powerful episodes.

My therapists used to tell me they happened because I feel guilty.

God knows how many therapists I saw, and how many different courses of treatment I had, but I’m still caught in limbo.

I was dreaming about Athena and Lilah in the meadow again and I really believed they were alive and everything was okay.

I truly believed it but when I snapped out of my reverie and saw Lukiyan’s face I knew I was dreaming again. Except this time my brain couldn’t handle the truth.

I ended up saying things I shouldn’t have said. I think I said just enough for him to guess there’s more to me than meets the eye.

Soft piano music filters into my ears when I roll onto my side and my face brushes over the silky pillow.

I almost believe I’m imagining it then I realize I’m not. It’s quiet and barely there, but I hear it because it’s Clair de Lune—my piece.

That’s what’s playing. That piece holds a special place inside me and when I dance to it, I’m lost in each note. It was the piece I auditioned with for the New York City Ballet. That night, from the moment I started dancing and took a look at the judges faces I knew I’d gotten the part. As I danced I felt like the part in their new show was made for me.

Who could be playing the piano at this hour?

The sun has barely risen and the house doesn’t usually seem to come alive until around eight.

Glancing at the clock I see it’s five-forty five.

The music is calling to me so I grab my dressing gown, throw it on and head downstairs to the room where I saw the piano in the other day.

It was in one of the halls toward the back of the house.

The door is ajar, so I peek in and find Lukiyan sitting behind the grand piano. His fingers glide over the keys with the eloquence of a pianist who’s played in hundreds of concerts and composed even more pieces.

It’s strange to see the large tattooed man with the wicked smirk and sense of style playing the piano.

Lukiyan Romanechka has his emotions under such stringent controls that he doesn’t show anybody any part of who he is unless he wants to.

What I’m seeing here is another glimpse of the man. The more I see of the man, the more the monster fades, and the more I want to stay with him.

There’s already a warm smile lifting his sensual lips, it widens when he lifts his head and his eyes lock on me.

“I hope I didn’t wake you.” His grin turns sheepish.

“No. I was awake already and heard the music.”

“Come here.”

I walk over to him and he slips an arm around me, guiding me to sit beside him.

I do, snuggling against his massive muscular arm.

“I didn’t know you play.”

He drags in a breath. “I do sometimes. My real mother taught me how to play. She used to tell me that when she was little she’d make a wish on her birthday that she could keep going to her dance classes. She’d play this song and dance to it when she couldn’t go.”

That raises my interest. “Your mother was a dancer?”

“She did ballet until she was twelve, then had to give it up when her family could no longer afford lessons,” he explains. “She used to take me and my sister to the ballet. This was her favorite piece.”

“It’s mine too. My… sister used to like it as well,” I confide in him. “We used to play it while we hung out in the meadow near the house. She’d paint and I’d dance. I… feel close to her when I hear this song and I’m dancing to it, it’s like doing something magical where we’re still together.”

I suspect he has questions after last night. Not that I’m ready to be the open book people wanted me to be after Athena died, but I don’t want him to think I’m crazy.

“It’s true you know,” he says with a brighter smile.

“What’s true?”

“The magic. Can’t you feel it? My mom used to say that magic was all around us, we just have to tap into it. When you do, you find pieces of yourself you think you’ve lost forever.”

I smile at that. It’s sweet and I want to believe it. “Your mother sounds amazing.”

“Thank you, she was in many ways.”

I’ve never met anyone who was adopted speak like this about their birth mother.

“What happened to her, Lukiyan?”

“Very bad things. It wasn’t just one thing that got her killed.”

“Killed. Somebody killed her?”

He looks away with deep sadness in his eyes, then nods, his fingers playing over the notes of this piece that I’d christened the sad notes.

“She was a drug addict with a bad choice in men. They’d come to our home and hurt her. We lived in Russia until I was eight and we left when she got in trouble. We came here, and it was the same shit.” He pauses for a moment and I wonder if he’s going to tell me more.

“She met this one particular guy who was a complete psycho. He’d beat her and beat us too. We always had social workers coming to see us, threatening to take us away. Mom would beg them and promise to do better. She’d do better for a little while, get rid of him, then he’d come back and life would be shit again. Then something happened that I never knew. The week before she died he nearly beat her to death and she took us to a foster home. She told me she loved me and asked me to remember her.”

“Did you ever see her again?”

“No and I never knew that was going to be the last time.” That’s why he kept her name. “The next time I saw her face was on the news. They’d found her body washed up from the river. She’d been shot five times. Her killer was never found.”

My soul trembles with sadness for him as I imagine what he must have gone through at that young age.

I was seventeen when I lost my mother and it felt like the world ended.

I don’t know what I would have done at twelve years old, and on top of that being placed in a foster home with his sister must have been difficult too.

“I’m so sorry, Lukiyan. I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you and it’s okay. I guess I’ve had time to allow it to sink in and I got some retribution when I found her killer myself, years later.”

The coldness in his voice suggests that man no longer lives, so I don’t ask.

“It gave me some peace I suppose,” he adds. “Although it will never bring her back.”

This is the most he’s ever spoken to me.

When he glances at me again, it’s with openness in his eyes and I realize he’s giving me an invitation to share my story. I just don’t know if I’m ready, or if I can speak the words.

Or even if I should.

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.” He smiles. “I didn’t share what happened to me so you would share, those dark things that eat us alive can only be spoken about when we’re ready. Or with certain people.”

He holds my gaze with adoring eyes.

I relax my shoulders and decide to try this—talking. I feel that if anyone can understand me, it will be him. “Maybe I should talk, because I’m always bottling things inside. My sister was the more talkative twin. I think you would have liked her more than me. There was nothing boring about her.”

“There’s nothing boring about you.”

“If you’d met her, I doubt you’d think that. She had so much life in her.”

“I’m sure that’s true, but I know myself and I know I would have still chosen you. I don’t think this is what you want to tell me though is it?”

I swallow hard and shake my head. “Do you remember what I said earlier about her? I mean when I was on the beach.”

“Yes, I remember.” His hands still on the keyboard as he stops playing, and he turns to face me.

I shuffle too, feeling like I might have some newfound strength to talk just from looking at him.

“I was already dying when the massacre took place. It was the start of my heart giving up on me. The doctors thought it was a miracle that it hadn’t before and that I could dance the way I did. I wasn’t supposed to live that long, but I did. I didn’t want to die. I was on a donor list for a long time and when I went to school, I barely did anything. I think sometimes they were humoring me because of who my father is.” I blink rapidly to clear my eyes. The next part is the hard part. “The day of the massacre my mother and sister locked me in the safe room. Mom was killed and Athena was taken and sold. The men who owned her raped her repeatedly. When Father found her, she was a broken mess, but she also got pregnant. She decided to keep the baby even though she was completely broken. We all supported her. All of that happened, and the thing that drove her insane was losing that baby.”

“What happened to the baby?”

“She was born with the same heart defect as me. It’s genetic but the kind of condition that can skip one person or a generation, even several then randomly reappear. It’s on my mother’s side and no one had had it since her great, grand uncle who died in his thirties. I got it, but Athena was a carrier. Her baby got it in the worse kind of way and there was nothing we could do. She died before she was a year old and that’s what drove my sister crazy. She loved that baby with all her heart and she couldn’t handle the loss.”

My voice tracks off when my mind does and I think of that hard time I lived through.

We’d just lost mom, who would have known how to comfort us, and I was virtually dead myself.

“I took a turn for the worse and ended up in a coma. Things got so bad that my choices were a heart transplant or death. Because Athena had practically lost her mind, no one knew what she was really up to. No one knew she was about to save me. She’d gone to her lawyer and made a will just for her heart. She wanted it to go to me if she died. That night my…sister shot herself. When I woke from the coma she was gone.”

The tears that fall now can’t be stopped. This was the first time I’d used all those words to explain what happened.

I move my nightdress away so he can see my tattoo. “This was her last painting. Roses with blue butterflies. The scar reminded me of her death, but the tattoo reminds me of how she lived.”

He pulls me into his powerful chest for a hug and I rest in his embrace which reminds me of a safe haven.

“I’m sure your sister would have loved the way you remember her.”

“I just wish she was still alive.”

“I know, but she lives in you, and you get to live for her.”

I lift my head and gaze into his eyes. I’m still crying but I manage a smile.

“You still mystify me.”

“Maybe it’s better that way.” He dips his head slightly.

“No.”

“I think if you could figure me out, I’d be less interesting and you wouldn’t like me as much.”

“I think I’d like you just the same.”

“Really, Persephone?”

“Yes, Hades.”