solution that would work. More than work, I have found one that will benefit us both. I suggest you thank me, rather than verbally abusing me.”
“I think your ego can stand it.”
“I don’t have an ego, Chloe. I see things as they are, as they need to be in order to work. It’s not about ego, it’s about knowing my place in life and ensuring that I meet every obligation. I will do it for Aden and when you are my wife, I will do it for you.”
When, not if.
Chloe felt as though she was breaking apart inside. Like the world, the world she knew anyway, had cracked and was shattering around her, taking away any sense of certainty, any idea of where the right path was.
She was standing in the dark, wishing she had a lantern so she could find her way.
But she had a feeling there was no right way. Not now. There was only the way that would hurt the least, the way she could best manage.
If only she knew for certain which direction that was. Because one choice would lead her back to Oregon, back to her life as she’d planned it since she was a teenager. But it would lead her away from Aden.
And the other way would lead her straight into the lion’s den. Straight into the thing she feared the most.
But she would be here. Would be with her child.
And he really could be hers. No more holding herself slightly at a distance to keep herself from breaking.
She swallowed, fear, grief, making her throat tight, making it hard to breathe.
And in the darkness, she saw the light. It came with an image of Aden. Because in that instance she realized that out of every desire she had, that one would never lessen. The connection with him would never fade.
Jobs would change, what she wanted in terms of work would change. The people in her life would come and go. She would move out of her apartment, and lose her attachment to the old one. She would complete her doctorate and find new, more challenging goals.
But no matter what changed in that part of her life, no matter where her priorities shifted to, her love for Aden would remain. It would be the constant, no matter what she was surrounded by. And if she chose to leave, the grief, the pain at being separated, would be the companion to that love.
She couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear the idea of embracing ephemeral, temporary things for the one connection she had that had ever felt real. Permanent. For the only family she had.
It was more than even that now, more than just a desire for her family. Aden was her son. No matter what the truth might be genetically, the truth of her emotions was that he was nothing other than her own child.
“All right, Sayid, I will marry you,” she said, the words getting stuck in her throat.
There was no look of victory on his face, no sense of triumph, just a single nod, his expression remaining as cold and unreadable as ever. “And I will have it arranged. The sooner the better.”
He turned and strode from the room, leaving her standing there, surrounded by books and whiteboards. That at least was a familiar comfort.
A part of her had always feared marriage, but in that vision, she’d been weak. Clinging to the man she called husband, as her mother had done.
No, that wouldn’t be her life. Because in order for a man to have that kind of power over her, she would have to love him. And she didn’t love Sayid. She never would.
More than that, he would never feel any passion toward her.
There was no emotion in him, and in that there was safety.
Sayid was as cold as ice. And she welcomed that. Clung to the safety in his lack of emotion.
As long as there was no passion, there would be no danger.
SAYID RAN, THE SAND HOT even through his shoes. The sun was a punishment, sending heat through his skin and into his body, burning him from the inside out, cleansing him.
He stopped and looked around him. There was nothing visible in any direction, the slight hill behind him concealing the palace from view. And everywhere else… there was simply nothing. Nothing but open space. Red sand. Bleached sky. No walls. No bars.
Even so, it felt as if chains were tightening on his wrists, binding him, squeezing his throat, threatening to crush his windpipe. He had nightmares at night, every night, of the blackness. Of being bound, unable to move. Of waiting. Waiting for the crack of the whip, the blade of a knife, over flesh.
Waiting for pain he couldn’t show he felt. Crushing the agony down, turning it inward so that no one would ever know how close he was to being broken.
He bent at the waist, his hands braced on his knees as he tried to block out that feeling of being trapped, the sense of walls closing in on him. Usually, being out in the Attari desert helped. The vast openness, the sense of unending space relieving the dark claustrophobia that lived inside of him.
This time it didn’t stop. He felt trapped, felt as though he couldn’t breathe.
He sat down, uncaring that the sand burned his legs where his shorts exposed them to the elements, not caring that the sun beat down on him with all the cruelty of a whip.
He felt as if he would burst, his breath coming slow and hard, pressure building inside of him, rage, so strong, so uncontrollable that he had to let it out. Only here. Only with the desert as witness.
Only here could he allow himself to feel the crushing weight of all that had been placed on him at birth. There had been chains on him long before he’d been taken prisoner. Chains put on him, first by his family, by the expectation that came with being the son meant to oversee the military, meant to oversee the protection of a nation. By all he’d been forced to give up, held captive to the life he’d been born into.
But in the end, he kept the chains of his own free will. He had tightened them. In that prison cell, the one that had stolen a year of his life, he had suffered indignity. Had lived in filth, had been stripped naked, every sign of rank and stature stolen. And then the skin had been stripped from his body.
But the harder they had pressed, the stronger he’d made his walls. The greater the weight, the deeper he buried his pain. He was the symbol of the strength of his nation and no matter how hard he was pushed, he knew he could never break.
Knew he could never allow weakness, emotion, to come in and crack the walls. That torture, the captivity, was the time in his life he’d been created for. Was the reason he had been broken, then remade, in his youth.
He had taken beatings already, had already lost all he’d cared about. At the hands of his uncle. The only family involved in his daily life. But it had been necessary.
And then Rashid had died. And another weight had been added to him. More defenses had needed to be built. And the man had been buried deeper still. But it was no longer a refuge, not like it had been during his time with his uncle, or in the enemy prison.
