35

35
Scarlet

Kyro’s eyes are fixed on mine. He won’t let go of my eyes, holds them hostage. For someone who was tortured for hours he seems oddly cheerful.

He’s always like that—odd.

His hands don’t leave my body. It’s late, but he’s peering into me the way he does. It’s stripping, but even bare he’s careful.

His hands, larger than mine, maybe more bloodstained, are more careful than me. 

“You don’t have to stay up,” he murmurs, his hand in mine. 

“Can’t sleep anyway.” I shrug. 

His eyes…those eyes. Crazed, fervent, reverent. He’s looking for something to believe in. A new god. I suppose that’s my role. 

I wonder why he needs it. I guess he’s lived a more godless life than I have. 

He lays up with me, his body hanging off the bed, cheek pressed against my breast, those eyes on mine.

“Red,” he murmurs, mindlessly. Begging. 

I should be ashamed. More than I am. But I can’t turn away from these eyes. 

“Red tell me you love me.”

“I love you.” I whisper. He smiles softly, closed his eyes, savoring the taste of it. I shouldn’t let him give himself to me like this.

I shouldn’t accept it. But I want it. “I love you, Kyro. I really do.”

I feel him twitch against me, he always does when I tell him I love him like just the thought is arousing. He tucks his face into my chest closes his eyes

“And you? Do you love me still?”

He shakes his head. “What I feel for you has never been love. It’s something deeper. Worse. More.”

I swallow. “What would you call it?”

“Worship. Devotion. You tamed me. I’m your dog. You have to take care of me now.”

I close my arms around him. He doesn’t even flinch at the hands that betrayed him. How can he not hate me? How can he stand to be touched by me?

They shake against him, my hands. I wonder if he notices. If he does he doesn’t mention it. And despite his every assurance that he’s worse, that this is just a hitch in the road—I know it isn’t.

How can he be worse? He’s never done this to me. He would’ve never done this to me.

Slowly though, guilt—shame is bleeding from me. I can’t help but cleanse myself of it. You have to. Push it in the trash and start fresh. Everything you have to do, every person you have to become—chucked in the trash.

A clean slate. 

The best spy in the world damn near, begging me for even a scrap of love. 

I too, am a good spy. But I’m a bit different from him. He does what’s necessary and only what’s necessary. He doesn’t get attached to his covers.

Every person I’ve pretended to be—every character I’ve created lives in me. They fight for control for ownership.

The more I become, the less me shines through. I think she’s been extingued now, whoever I was at first.

I’m a chameleon.  

I stroke his hair. Such dark hair, it’s touching his back. Then the role I play is Scarlett? This is the person I am, for now?

But which version?

Scarlett the whore?

Scarlett the lover?

Scarlett the goddess?

I cock my head and kiss his scar. His breathing slows. It’s completely even. He’s not asleep. I just smile. How cute. Playing possum.

“I’ll find us somewhere to go,” I stroke his face. “A little island hidden away. Somewhere two monsters can be left alone. Our own little cage.”

His brow furrows. 

“But first, I need you to tell me: who do you want me to be?”

Kyro stirs. “You’re still guilty. I feel it, it’s in your shoulders.”

I relax them with a sharp breath. A shiver goes down my spine. With his eyes closed? A cold hand slithers up my back, something dreadful and foreboding.

I shake it off.

“Of course I feel guilty—”

“Why?” 

His eyes are open now, intense, burning with something I couldn’t begin to place. Now his shoulders are tense. His fingers twitch for his pen.

“You of all people should know guilt will not absolve you. You may as well not feel it at all.”

Ouch. I look away. He’s right though. And it does not good to wallow in it. I bury with the rest of things I’ve done, dig it a little grave in the back of my mind.

Then I step over it. 

Usually I’d pause, and contemplate burying myself with it. Finally taking that leap into the abyss—into sweet nonexistence. 

But there’s no need to stop now. I’ve betrayed my country. I betrayed him. I’ve survived this long, dying like this would be pointless.

I mean…I may be on the run but I’m free.

I’m free.

Free of orders, of masks, of the burden of lives. Free of the flag. 

The only thing I’m not free of is him. And for now, that’s fine with me.