Selena Kitt - Beauty

“Jolee.” The sound of her name drew a startled gasp from her throat and she actually took a step back into the forest. “Come here.”

He’d known. He had known she was following, had probably known the instant she was out of the house. She crept forward, wary, picking her way through the rubble, and came to stand beside him. They stood quietly like that until he reached over and took her hand, squeezing gently.

She found the courage to speak. “What is this place?”

“It was my home.” He kicked at the ashy residue. “Our home.” She wanted to ask, but she was afraid to break the spell they seemed under. Silas was talking about his past? Was she dreaming?

“Who’s we?” she prompted gently.

“Isabelle.” He gave another great sigh. “I haven’t said her name out loud in five years.”

“She was your wife?” Jolee guessed. “What happened?”

“She was killed.”

Jolee surveyed what was left of their home together, her heart breaking for him. “In the fire?”

“No.” Silas’s voice hardened, his grip growing tighter on her hand. “My brother took her and he killed her.”

“Carlos?” Jolee whispered, incredulous. Although she knew what the man was capable of-she really shouldn’t have been surprised. “But why?”

“Because I wouldn’t give him this.” Silas gestured toward the forest, to the hundreds of thousands of acres of land that lay beyond. “Our father left it to me, and I wouldn’t let him destroy it.”

Jolee leaned her head against his shoulder, her heart swelling with pride, knowing how much he loved the land, how he protected it, just as he protected her. But oh, god, how it had cost him. She couldn’t even imagine his pain.

Silas glanced down at her, offering a small, sad smile behind his mask. “But really, he did it because he wanted her, and she wanted me instead.”

Jolee’s spine straightened. “I don’t blame her.”

He began to walk, slowly pulling her with him. “They left me here to die.”

“But you survived,” she countered, finally understanding his scars, the mask.

“My body did.” Silas drew her around the rubble to a white fence, an old trellis there filled with roses. They had grown up wild from the ashes, thick and red, weaving their way up the trellis and blooming open toward the sun.

“So beautiful,” she murmured, reaching to touch one of the velvety red petals.

“I don’t know how they survived.” Silas reached into his pocket and withdrew his hunting knife, a monstrous thing, and cut one of the stems. “These were Isabelle’s roses.” She watched him, thoughtful, as he trimmed the thorns, talking the whole while. “Isabelle tried to play peacemaker between us. She invited Carlos to dinner. I should have known better, but I thought…I hoped…” Silas studied the flower in his hand. “He drugged us both. I woke up duct taped to a chair with the house on fire.”

“Dear God.”

He lifted the flower to his masked face, breathing in. “And Isabelle was gone.”

“How do you know she’s…I mean…” Jolee swallowed, almost not wanting to say the words. “How do you know she’s not still alive?”

“I’ve looked for her body.” He gestured toward the forest again. “It wouldn’t have been the first time Carlos had someone killed. You know that as well as I do.” Jolee nodded, feeling sick.

“You were my last clue.” Silas reached over and tucked the rose behind her ear. “If Isabelle had been alive, Carlos would have taken her, made her his. Instead, he had you.”

“She would never have betrayed you like that.”

“I don’t know.” He tucked her hair behind her ear along with the flower, shaking his head. “My brother can be charming. He seduced you, didn’t he?” She didn’t have a response for that, didn’t want to think about it. Instead, she turned to look at Isabelle’s roses, wondering at their beauty in the midst of the devastation. There were no other plants growing, even after all this time, amidst the wreckage. The soil must have been completely drained after the fire. And then it occurred to her.

“Silas, she’s here.” Jolee knelt in the soil, her hands turning over the dirt, knowing somehow that she was right. “She’s right here.”

“I feel her here too.”

“No.” She looked up and met his eyes. “He buried her right here. With her roses.” Silas’s eyes widened in realization. She saw the emotions passing, just in his eyes-the horror, the anger, the sorrow. And then he sank to the earth beside her with a howl of rage and pain so great it hurt her heart, tearing at the dirt with his bare hands. He’d dug down two feet, bleeding at his knuckles and fingernails, before Jolee located a shovel at the other end of the rubble. It was rusted through entirely at the handle, but the business-end still worked.

He accepted it with a grunt when she handed it over, making quicker work of the soil under his feet. She sat with her arms curled around her knees and watched him until he found her, still eerily preserved and recognizable.

Jolee knew Silas had forgotten about her sitting there. He was lost in his memory of Isabelle, the woman whose body he held and rocked, dead in his arms. I’m not a part of this , she thought.

So she turned and headed for home. She knew he would come to her, when he was ready.

* * * *

He couldn’t have thought of a better resting place for her. He hated his brother for thinking of it, for burying her here. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it himself. All these years, she had been right here. How many times had he come back to walk this perimeter, reliving their life together? He could still see her pruning her roses, singing to herself. Now she was giving new life to the same roses she had so lovingly grown. Thanks to his brother.

Carlos had always taken whatever he wanted. Had she refused him? Silas knew she would, although what had he done to her while she was drugged? Or worse, while she was awake, by force? That thought burned and he tore two roses off the bush, breaking off the stems, ignoring the rip of thorns against his bleeding palms.

He had said his goodbyes, his final goodbyes, and buried her again under the roses. Now he stamped the dirt down under his feet and began tearing the roses apart, scattering the petals over her grave.

He stood a long time, thinking about his past, about his future. He hadn’t realized, until he saw Isabelle’s body, how much he’d hoped she was still alive somewhere. Now he had closure, and knowing she was really gone changed everything. His brother had taken her, had probably raped her, and then, when she refused to bend to his will, had killed and buried her.

He’d imagined the scenario so often it had become truth in his head, but now he knew it was true, or at least, a close approximation.

He’d planned his revenge all along, sabotaging Carlos at every turn, but never going so far as to completely put him out of business. What had he been waiting for? Silas wondered. He could have gone to the police at any time, shown them where Carlos had buried other bodies-

men like Jolee’s father, people who had gotten in his brother’s way.

I’ve been waiting to find her, Silas realized, squatting down and sifting his fingers through the freshly packed dirt, spreading the rose petals. And now that he had?

His plan to expose his brother, to sacrifice himself in the process, would hurt Jolee. She cared about him too, he was sure of it. Even if she could never really love him-who could love the monster he’d become?-his death would be a hard blow for her. She’d grown used to him, comfortable. He would be leaving her alone, unprotected, to fend for herself.

He thought about Isabelle, but he also thought about Jolee, who had followed him, who had witnessed his unabashed pain and who had been the one to realize where his wife was buried. She had come to mean far more to him than he’d realized.