J. Redmerski - Behind The Hands That Kill

“Answer her,” Apollo finally speaks up.

He steps forward.

“No, Apollo,” Artemis says, without looking at him. “Please let me do this. You’ll get your turn, but right now, it’s all me.”

Apollo holds his position, and his tongue.

Artemis crosses her arms. “You asked my brother,” she begins, “why fifteen years—let me tell you the real answer to that question.” She cocks her head to one side. “In the beginning,” she says, “I just wanted to be prepared; I needed to be trained. I wasn’t anything when you knew me; I was just the daughter of criminals, a sister to a traitorous brother. I could hardly defend myself from a mugger at a bus station, much less hunt down a dangerous and elusive, not to mention elite contract killer, and manage to kill him without him killing me first. And I knew I had to keep to the shadows, stay dead to you.” She stands directly in front of me, fiercely holding my gaze. “And I did it. I pulled it off, to my surprise, to my brother’s surprise.” She pauses, and then says, “I guess since you thought you killed me, you had no reason to look out for me, giving me the chance to fly under your radar until I was ready. And when I was ready, Apollo said something to me the day I planned to make my move against you—tell him what you told me, Apollo.”

“I said it was a shame she couldn’t get you where it would really hurt,” Apollo speaks up.

“Yes,” Artemis says. “That’s what he said; half-joking of course, but I saw it as something else”—she twirls a hand in gesture—“I thought it would be perfect poetic justice to do just that: kill the one you love right in front of you since you felt it so easy to kill me.”

“It was not easy, Artemis,” I say with truth. “It was the most difficult thing I have ever had to do.”

“But you didn’t have to do it!” she shouts, and it stuns me. Then she calms her voice again and adds, “You could’ve found another way; if anyone can find a way, it’s you, Victor. We all know it, you know it. You didn’t have to kill me.”

“You are right,” I answer, again with honesty. “I could have found another way.”

“You admit it,” Apollo says with condemnation.

Artemis turns from my cage and puts the palm of her hand against her brother’s chest, stopping him from moving forward. She shakes her head at him as he stares me down. And after a few tense seconds, he steps away, glaring icily at me. But when his angry eyes pass over Izabel sitting obediently on the chair, my blood runs cold. Stay away from her , my eyes tell him. Stay away from her…

“Why fifteen years?” I bring the subject back, trying to avoid the latter. And to distract Apollo from Izabel.

Artemis turns. “Because it took that long for you to fall in love again,” she reveals. “I was willing to wait. I was patient. I wanted this moment to be perfect. After eight years, I thought I’d never get the chance. But still, I waited. Ten years, and you were as cold and unloving as the day you slit my throat. But still, I waited.” She grabs the bars again, and brings her beautiful face closer between them. “Then finally, I got the news: Victor Faust has gone rogue from The Order, allegedly because of a girl in Mexico”—she glances briefly at Izabel—“and I knew, despite Apollo telling me that it couldn’t be true, I knew that it was. I just felt it”—she holds a closed fist against her chest—“here in my little black heart, a heart that used to beat only for you…I knew it was true.”

Her hands slide away from the bars. But her gaze never falters.

“Why did you kill me, Victor?” she asks.

“That is not a simple question to answer, Artemis.”

She shakes her head, smirking.

“I thought I knew why for a long time,” she says. “The last words you said to me as you held that knife to my throat, told me everything I thought I needed to know—but I was wrong.” She looks back at Apollo and holds out a hand. “Give me the key.”

Apollo steps up solidly, argument in his features. “No, Artemis, I don’t think—”

“Please, brother, just give me the key,” she insists. “Victor won’t hurt me. Not because he gives a shit, but because he knows”—she looks me right in the eyes, threatening me with her gaze—“that if he does, you’ll kill his precious little Mexican redhead.”

Against his concerns, Apollo sighs, reaches into his pants pocket and places the key to my cage into Artemis’s hand. Then he motions to his left and right, and seven other people leave their positions and walk forward; three stand behind Izabel, pointing their guns at the back of her head; the other four stand at the opening of the cage, guns pointed at me. Apollo unsheathes a knife from his belt and holds it to Izabel’s throat. “I won’t think twice, Victor,” he warns.

When Artemis feels that the message has gotten across to me, she walks around to the front of the cage and inserts the key into the lock. She turns it fully and it clicks; I notice the hands of those standing at the entrance, tighten nervously on their guns.

Artemis passes the key off to the nearest guard, and then the cage door opens with a creaking sound. She steps inside the cell with me, closing the door afterward; it automatically locks. Carefully, slowly, she approaches me—secretly I look for evidence of any weapons on her, but she has none so far as I can tell. That is a shame.

“Just kill her, Victor,” Izabel calls out from the chair; her voice is now smothered by Apollo’s hand; his other hand putting pressure against the knife at her throat. “Say another word,” he taunts her, pressing the back of her head to his midsection, “and the gag goes back on.”

As desperately as I feel I need to speak out against Apollo, I know that I cannot, or it will give him more power. Ignoring Izabel, as much as I possibly can, may be the only thing that saves her. At least for a little while.

“Tell me, Artemis,” I say, looking up at her. “Tell me everything you have wanted to say. I will listen. I owe you that.”

She steps right up to me, places her palm on my beating heart. And she smiles, softly, innocently, the way she used to. But behind it I sense the devil within.

“Oh, you owe me more than that.” She waits, allowing her words to sink into me.

“You didn’t kill me,” she finally goes on, speaking in a gentle tone, “because you thought I’d had an affair. You killed me because you were looking for a reason all along. I’d remembered what you told me about that woman, Marina. Of course, I didn’t know the story the way you told it here tonight—you kept things from me because of what you are—but still, you told me more than what you were supposed to.”

“Yes, I did,” I speak up. “There were many things I did and said that I should not have.”

Artemis’s hand slides down my chest and away from me.

“Yeah,” she says, agreeing with deep regret, “and because of that, because you loved me, and stepped in a hole so deep you couldn’t see over it, you knew the only way to pull yourself out was to end my life. You knew that if you didn’t kill me, that The Order would kill you . But most of all, Victor, more than anything”—she points her finger at me—“more than anything, you needed to kill me for yourself . Not because you worried about what Brant Morrison would think of you, or report about you; not because your life was hanging in the balance by The Order—you killed me because you needed to, because you hated what your love for me did to you.” My ears ring and my head snaps sideways as her full palm smacks against the side of my face; the skin burns like fire, but I resist the urge the reach up and touch it.