And I was wrong before that nothing could hurt me.
Whatever was left of my heart has now disintegrated. It aches in a way that there is no cure for. This is a memory that will haunt me for eternity.
I don’t know how my father can look himself in the mirror every day. But I can’t stop. There is a hunger inside of me to know more. To know everything. So I keep digging. And in the bottom of the box, I find six more tapes. Numbered, just as the ones hidden away in Javi’s wall were.
They are identical to those tapes. In brand and size. It is not a coincidence. It didn’t make sense for Javi to keep those tapes hidden away if they were blank. And it wouldn’t make sense for my father to have the same amount of tapes, with the same numbers.
The only conclusion that I can draw is that my father replaced them with blanks and took the real tapes.
I head to the conservatory and fire up the projector. I start in order, with the first tape. The image flickers to life, and it is Javi. Javi as a child. A child in the operative program. Being tortured. Burned. Beaten. Interrogated. Trained.
I can’t look away from the horrors on the screen. Not this time. I owe him this much. No matter how dreadful it is, I owe it to him to feel his pain. To understand it. Even if it is too late.
My father comes to visit him in the tapes. He sits across from him at a steel table and asks Javi to give him progress reports. Javi refuses to speak to him. Sometimes he is strong. Stubborn. But there are times when he cries. When he pleads with my father to take him home with him as he promised.
My father always says the same thing. Soon. Another lie. One so easily spoken from his lips. It is something I can’t comprehend. I feel as though I am losing my mind. I feel as though I am watching a movie that isn’t real.
I don’t know how this man can be so different from the one who raised me. The only father that I knew. The one who was distant and busy, but always loving. Fiercely protective. They were two different men.
One good.
One evil.
But they both lived in my father’s body. They both inhabited his mind. And they are both responsible for the horrors that were done to Javi. Horrors that I can no longer refute. I have seen the evidence. I have seen all that I need to know.
I watch the tapes on repeat. Until I am consumed with hatred and sadness. With rage and regret. Until there is nothing left for me to do but to put pen to paper and write one more song.
My last song.
Chapter Forty-Five
Itossthe girl over my shoulder and drag her through the desert. Within minutes, the compound is in chaos behind us.
This desert landscape is unforgiving, but it is no match for those with a thirst for freedom. And these operatives do thirst for freedom.
Their figures scatter around me in the distance. I pay them no mind, and they do not bother me either. My only focus is on the horizon, up behind the dune where I know River and Ray will be.
I do not have many bartering chips. At this point, I only have one. Ray is not invested in her life, but I know River will do anything for her. It does not give me much to work with, but she is the only hope I have.
When I reach the top of the dune, I have my freshly acquired weapon at the ready, targeted directly to the back of her skull. But River knows me well.
He has prepared for the occasion. The guards have either been dismissed or disposed of elsewhere, and only Ray lies bloody and helpless at his feet.
River has his own gun trained on Ray’s face, but his eyes are on me.
“Let the girl go, Javi,” he instructs.
“Why should I?” I challenge. “It makes no difference to me whether Ray lives or dies.”
“Oh?” he arches a brow. “And what of your Bella? What would you tell her about daddy dearest? How he died like a dog in the desert after he had finally come home. And would she believe you?”
He knows very well that she wouldn’t. How could she after all that I have done to her? After the lengths I have gone to for my revenge. Bella would not believe that I did not kill her father. And I don’t know that she could ever forgive me for such an offense either.
“You know she wouldn’t,” River answers my unspoken thought. “How could she?”
“I will trade you then,” I tell him. “The girl for Ray. The deal is done. You have no reason to kill him.”
River considers my proposition. Despite his cool demeanor, he is desperate. River does not really know how to handle desperate. His eyes keep darting to the girl, trying to get a look at her face. But he cannot.