The sobs grow more frantic, her fingers grasping desperately for the fabric around her legs. But when they lose their grip, she loses her resolve. She whimpers as her hands find a new place to latch onto, digging into the floorboards, no longer looking forward, but instead, as far away as she can see.
When I realize what I’m witnessing, my hands fly to her shoulders, prepared to shake her free from the illusion plaguing her mind. “Sinisa! Sinisa, wake up! It’s not real. It’s not real! It’s just a memory. I-it’s not happening again. You’re safe. You’re…”
I find fault in everything I say, switching directions only to find another dead end. It is real. I mean, it did happen. All of what she’s going through right now, she’s already been through, and I can’t do anything to help her. I can’t do anything to undo it because she’s reliving it all again.
And if it wasn’t for me, she would’ve never even known. She would’ve never had to go through this violation ever again.
It’s all my fault.
I reach out to her again, this time to take her cheeks into my hands, but I stop short. Poison oozes from her skin when I get too close, and it sends me scuttling backward across the floor like a scared child. I rock myself against the wall, helpless to what I’m watching. I keep looking over her, like I’ll see the man on top of her, hoping I might be able to tackle him away and end all of this.
But all I see is air. No one can stop what’s happening.
Except, that’s not entirely true.
Suddenly, Sinisa’s hand clenches onto something cylindrical, though all I see is air. I perk up just as she swings whatever down into whoever was atop her. Cheering her on, I inch closer, eager to see her triumph.
Sinisa shuffles to her feet, sniffling but with a wildfire burning in her eyes. Her entire body shaking, her breathing rapid, she releases a guttural battle cry and lunges forward atop her assailant. The invisible object in her hand strikes again and again, her empty fist crashing into the floor five times in total before slowing, panting on hands and knees. But she’s not done. Her eyes flick up like she sees a sudden movement and she delivers one final blow, seeming to leave her weapon behind inside her target before she scrambles back, hugging her knees to her chest as her breath grows ragged again.
I don’t need to see the memory to know that she is covered in blood.
I don’t need to see the memory to know that Sinisa’s only crime was wanting to protect herself.
15
Sinister Memories
Sinisa
I stand from the pool of blood I am sitting in just as it disappears, replaced by a room I don’t recognize. Not at first. I am too distracted, left haunted by the encounter. Though he is dead, though his body has somehow vanished, I still feel the rough, unwanted grasp of his hands on me.
Trembling, I am frozen solid despite the warmth from the fire. It is like I am a ghost, here but somewhere else.
It’s not until I see Acari perched nearby, gaping at me with remorse, that I remember where I am and what just happened. Self-consciously, my hands fly to cover my exposed body, only to find that I am clothed in a red tunic. My red tunic. The clothes of a Reaper. I find the comfort I need in that thought. I am a Reaper, and that was nothing more than a memory. A nightmare. Something I was meant to have left behind.
My throat is dry, and my cackles are raised. I’m ready to maul the next person that utters one wrong word in my direction. There’s a rawness in my chest that can’t be undone, like my heart has been ripped clean out of me. No, wait. Perhaps the opposite. Retrieving that memory has set my body ablaze with emotion. I want to scream and cry. I want to be alone and I want to be comforted. I am terrified and brave, enraged and relieved, proud and ashamed.
And all of these things are familiar, like they belonged to me before I became who I am, before I was reborn.
I look down at my hands as if seeing them for the first time. Darkness pools at my fingertips, lurking like deadly poison beneath my skin. But for the first time in three years, I don’t feel so dead.
By the time I look up, Acari has inched even closer. “I’m—I’m so sorry. I didn’t know—I should’ve warned you—I couldn’t…”
“It’s not your fault,” I bite out, anger rising within me. I shouldn’t be the one comforting him. He didn’t just experience the worst night of his life. “You should get some rest. When Crow returns, we should be ready to head out as soon as possible.”
“But you—” Acari holds out his hands, stuck there for a moment. When he swallows though, closing his eyes, he rotates his shaking hands in an attempt at composing himself. “Are you all right?”
It is a dumb question and I’m tempted to tell him as much. I don’t know exactly how the tea he gave me works, so I don’t know if he actually saw it all or what, but I know he knows enough to realize I am not okay. Far from it. That had been my life, every week, sometimes every night, for years. It had taken everything in me to make it stop and I knew the consequences. Being a Reaper was far more preferable than having to endure another second of that man’s unwanted glances and grazes.
It still is.
But having the memory of it fresh in my mind is dizzying. It’s like I’m thirteen again, and I’m back in the orphanage, back in my bed, shaking, wondering if he will be
