The Paper Swan(8)

He continued staring at me impassively, like he didn’t hear me, like I wasn’t worth answering.

My eyes swung back to the mirror. He’d hacked off my long blond hair and dyed it jet black: butchered it with a blunt pair of scissors and poured some caustic store-bought color over it. Bits of blond hair still stuck out under the dark pieces, making it look like I was wearing a cheap, goth wig. My gray eyes, that had always called attention to my face, faded against the harsh dye job. Combined with my pale eyelashes and brows, I looked like a living ghost.

My nose was scratched, my cheeks were scratched. Dried up rivulets of blood were caked over my ears from where he’d ripped my hair out. Deep, blue hollows ringed my eye sockets and my lips looked as painful and cracked as they felt.

My eyes stung with unshed tears. I couldn’t reconcile this person with the girl I was a few days ago, the girl who was going to turn heads on her twenty-fourth birthday. My father had to know by now that I was missing. I would never have skipped out on the birthday bash he was throwing me. He must have talked to Nick, the last person I’d been with. I didn’t know how many days had passed, but I knew my father had to be looking for me. He would hire the best and he wouldn’t stop until he found me. If he’d tracked my car down to the quay, he would already have considered the possibility that I was on a boat. The thought comforted me. Maybe he was close. Maybe all I needed to do was buy some time so he could catch up.

I felt under my blouse and sighed with relief. It was still there—the necklace my father had given my mother when I was born. It had been passed on to me after her death and I’d worn it ever since. It was a simple gold chain with a round locket. The locket had a transparent glass window that opened like a book. Inside were two rare gemstones—alexandrites—and a pink conch pearl.

“Here,” I unclasped it and dangled it before Damian.

It wasn’t like I could trade it in for my freedom, since he could easily just take it from me, but if I could lure him with the promise of more, if I could whet his appetite with monetary compensation, maybe I could buy some time and stall whatever he had planned for me.

“This is worth a lot of money,” I said.

He didn’t seem to care. Then the indifference left him. His whole body stiffened and he took his cap off. It was an odd gesture, the kind of thing a man does when he’s informed of someone’s death. Or maybe he did it out of reverence, like when you’re standing in front of something big and beautiful and holy. Either way, he reached for it, very slowly, until it was swinging from his hand.

He held it up to the light and for the first time, I saw his eyes. They were dark. Black. But the kind of black that I’d never seen before. Black was One. There were no shades to black. Black was absolute, impenetrable. Black absorbed all the colors. If you fell into black, it swallowed you whole. Yet here was a different kind of black. It was black ice and burning coal. It was well-water and desert night. It was dark tempest and glassy calm. It was Black battling Black, opposite and polar, and yet still . . . all black.

I could see my mother’s necklace suspended in Damian’s eyes. It reminded me of what it’s like to stand between two mirrors, staring at the seemingly endless line of images fading into the distance. There was something in his eyes, in his face that I couldn’t place. He seemed mesmerized by the locket, like he’d fallen into some kind of a daze.

He had a chink in his armor after all.

“There’s more where that came from,” I said.

He tore his eyes away from the necklace and looked at me. Then he grabbed me by the arm, dragged me through the galley, up a short set of stairs, and onto the deck. I stumbled after him, my legs still wobbly and weak.

“You see this?” He gestured around us.

We were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles and miles of dark, rolling water.

“This,” he continued, pointing at the ocean, “doesn’t give a f*ck about this.” He shook the necklace in front of my face. Your gems are nothing but washed up grit to me. “Pity,” he said more softly, holding the locket up to the sun. “Such a pretty little thing.”

My father couldn’t decide what color of stone to get my mother. He told me he had chosen alexandrites because they were like the rainbow. They went through dramatic shifts in color depending on the light. Indoors, they looked reddish purple, but here in the sun, they sparkled with a bright, greenish hue. Their light glinted off Damian’s face.

“Such a pretty little thing,” he repeated quietly, almost sadly.