The Secrets of Roan Island

28. Ruby

28

Ruby

I wish I felt numb. But my mind sparks and jolts, desperately trying to process what I’ve seen. This would all be easier if I could shut myself off like I did with David, disassociate and find that place where there’s nothing.

But I can’t do that with Noah. He’s too all-consuming in my thoughts. Too dangerous. The extremity of what I’ve discovered, the panic clawing from my gut into my throat, won’t allow me to distance myself from any of this. I want to scream and scream while equally wanting to crawl into his arms. It’s ridiculous that he still seems safe.

I’m shaking uncontrollably like a dragonfly in a storm. Even my insides are vibrating. My heart, quivering. I don’t want to believe he killed those women, but how can I deny it when he outright confessed? I try to wrap the blanket tighter, but it slips from my shaking hand, momentarily revealing one breast before I grab the fabric and pull it back up to my neck.

Noah holds up a finger. “Give me a minute.”

He leaves the library in a flash of movement and returns seconds later with another, thicker blanket. When he goes to wrap it around my shoulders, I snatch it out of his hands.

His mouth turns down along with his eyes as he takes the seat across from me. The same one he sat in last night when I… “Not there.” My voice comes out hoarse and scratchy.

He nods and sits down on the leather couch. I want to ask him to move again, because looking at that couch just reminds me of how sweet he was bringing me food and water after making me come so hard I almost passed out.

Instead, I move to the library table, facing away from him. He joins me a second later, sitting directly across from me, hands folded in front of him.

Neither of us speaks.

I should walk straight out of this replica house up to my bedroom, collect my things, and find a way off this island. I can’t imagine any acceptable explanation for what I just saw.

Except I can’t bring myself to leave. I need to understand, because my heart feels like a hot air balloon that suddenly popped.

He shifts uncomfortably.

Good. He should be uncomfortable. I have so many questions, but I won’t be the first to speak. I’m not even sure where to start. If he wants to explain himself, I’ll listen, but I won’t make it any easier.

My eyes drift to the laboratory door behind him. All those women…

I gasp, unable to hold back the emotion.

Noah’s eyes jump from the table to my face.

My hand flies to my mouth as their faces flash through my consciousness again, their desecrated bodies. So young. Pretty, as far as I could tell. Normal. Any of them could be my sister. Or my friends in the CWS. Or me. Noah said he wouldn’t hurt me, but how do I know he’s telling the truth? I want to trust him—against all reason, I want to trust him—but how can I when he’s got bodies hidden away in a locked room?

Noah takes a deep breath. “Do you remember when I told you Mavarri can change DNA with their bite?”

Shit. A new fear I hadn’t thought of barrels through my mind and bursts out of my mouth. “Is that going to happen to me? Did you somehow change me last night?” My hand drops to my thigh where he fed from me, gave me his venom.

“No. That was just… feeding.” For a moment his eyes flash dark, but then he blinks and controls himself. “Twice a year, our venom changes. When the moons align on Summer and Winter Solstice.” He pauses and runs his hands through his hair. “There are accounts that this change in our venom can turn a human into a Mavarri. ”

His expression is pained, and his gaze darts to the laboratory before returning to his hands on the table. I narrow my eyes, studying him, trying to read between the lines and piece together everything I’ve seen.

“You tried to turn those women. And it killed them.”

His jaw ticks. He nods.

“How many? How many people have you tried to turn? How many have died?”

“Please, Ruby, you have to understand.” He reaches for my hands, but I tug them away. His whole face twists as if in pain. “The Mavarri are a dying race. We’re the last, as far as we know. My father. My brothers. Me. And–” He stops and shakes his head. “My father is obsessed with carrying on our lineage. He forces us–”

“Don’t give me that excuse, Noah!” I stand up, needing to move, to put some distance between us. But I can’t walk away. With one hand clutching the blanket around my shoulders and the other fisted at my side, I fling my accusation, “You knew it would kill them, and you still did it anyway. You murdered them!”

“You’re right.”

I thought he would fight, justify his actions. I didn’t expect him to admit guilt. With his elbows on the table, he drops his head and shoves his hands into his hair, curling his fingers in the dark strands and pulling. He looks so broken, I want to go to him, wrap my arms around him. I dig my nails into my palms to fight the impulse.

“I hate that they died. I’ve done everything I can to find a solution, an answer, to figure out how to get the transition to work—that’s why I’ve kept their bodies, so I can use the tissue samples and test their reactions to the venom. But it’s not enough. Every year, they die. I murder them.” Something in his demeanor shifts, and he looks up at me, gaze hard, sealed off. “And I’ll do it again.”

His words suck the air out of my lungs. My knees give out. If I wasn’t standing in front of my chair, I’d fall to the ground. Instead, my backside hits the hard wood as I stare at Noah. And he stares back.

“Why?” I whisper.

Noah’s laugh isn’t pleasant. “My father won’t be denied. We tried to refuse him. He… isn’t kind. And Mavarri patriarchs have an ability…” He shakes his head. “A sort of mind control.” His chest spasms with another bitter laugh. “A gift my father perverts in the cruelest way. And if I fight against his control, he hurts my siblings. It’s better to comply.”

I grimace, disgusted by a father who could do that to his children.

“Don’t judge me, Professor. You have no idea what I’ve had to endure.”

I narrow my eyes and point back toward the laboratory. “What about what those women endured? The price they paid. What about them, Noah?”

His shoulders sag. “I’ve been trying to find a solution. I just haven’t been fast enough.”

“This is what you wanted help researching.”

“I didn’t ask for your help.” His words are filled with venom.

“Shemaiah did.”

He stands and paces the length of the room and back, tension coming off of him like heat. He’s a captive tiger with nowhere to go, trapped in a cage of his father’s making. His own making too.

As my mind reels with all he’s told me, one question rises to the surface. “Did they know? When you took those women, did they have a choice?”

“Those ones”–his hand swings in the direction of the laboratory–“did.”

Those ones . So others didn’t. They didn’t know the risks or consent to them. I force out what I need to ask. “Who were they, Noah?”

In my gut, I already know the answer. These were the women I’ve been researching. Noah’s family is responsible for the prostitutes who caused an uproar when they went missing fifteen years ago, and the ones who have quietly disappeared more recently.

“Abigail, Iris, Murial, and Jackie. Those are the names of the four women you just saw in the morgue. They were from The Essik Sanitorium and Hospice.”

My mouth drops open. “You abducted poor and sick women?” Rage burns my blood. I charge at him, jabbing my finger into his chest. “You think that makes it okay? That you can just kill those women because no one will miss them? Because you’re stronger and bigger and have some inherent superiority you didn’t earn?”

“No.” He takes my hand, stopping my attack. “It’s not okay. It’s never been okay.” He’s so close I can feel his breath. And even though I want to rage at him for what he’s done, I also want to fall into his arms and cry for those women. All those women.

“My father used to have his men prowl the Crimson District and lure unsuspecting prostitutes to our Solstice ceremonies. But a few years ago, I started going behind his back to the hospice. I would find women with incurable illnesses, ones who could pretend to look healthy for a few hours to fool my father. I gave them the only thing I could. A choice. Die as they were. Or risk the chance to be healed knowing that it might result in death instead. Those women chose this path.”

“Healed? What do you mean?”

“Mavarri DNA repairs itself in ways humans can’t. We don’t get sick. We don’t die from natural causes or old age. We must be killed. And that’s not easy to do.” He looks down at our still joined hands, and I jerk away.

I shouldn’t have gotten so close. I take a step back.

“It doesn’t matter.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “The transition never works. They always die.”

The grandfather clock chimes. Each note drives home the passage of time. I mirror him and wrap my arms around myself.

“Do you understand now? If you stay here, my father will try to turn you. I’m certain that’s why he brought you here. He probably wants you dead because of your research but doesn’t want to waste a death. He’ll try to transform you first. That’s why I had to lock you up and tell him you’d already left.” He stops, and his eyes bore into mine. “I can’t let you die.”

“You could have let me go.”

“I tried!” he roars, his hand flying toward the door. “I did everything to get you to leave and still you stayed. And now you’re under my fucking skin!” He winces before his gaze hardens, and I get the impression he’s shoring himself up, shielding himself from what he’s about to say. “You have two choices. You can leave the island immediately. I’ll sneak you off to keep you safe. Or you can stay and help me, but I’ll have to lock you up to keep you hidden from my father until after Solstice.”

Before I know what’s happening, he draws me close, his nose running the length of my neck. “I can’t lose you, ta’ari .” His whisper is broken and desperate.

I shudder to think of all the choices he’s made, the things he’s done. But I don’t draw away from him. Cursing my inability to resist, I hold as still as a statue, knowing if I move I might end up clinging to him, offering him comfort he doesn’t deserve. Because right now, I can feel his pain. I can’t explain it, but I know how much all of this has hurt him. The depth of it is almost unbearable.

A throat clears from somewhere behind me, and I spin to see Jafeth leaning against the door, arms crossed, a lazy smile on his face. “You’ve been holding out on us, brother.”

Noah growls, low and deep. “It would be wise of you to leave and forget you saw us, brother .”

“Now, why would I do that?” Jafeth’s eyes follow the movement of the blanket as I tug it up, a pointless shield against a creature like him. “Noah told us you left with the rest of the new moon group. You should have seen how livid Hammish was.” His gaze travels to Noah. “How’s your arm feeling, brother? Your eye at least looks better.”

I study Noah’s face, for the first time realizing there’s a slight coloration around his right eye, green and putrid yellow. He told me how horrible Hammish could be, but it sinks in differently now. Noah took a beating for me. To keep me safe and off Hammish’s radar.

“Shemaiah’s still laid up in bed, if you’re wondering.” Jafeth’s tone is no longer playful. It’s cold, calculating. “Imagine my surprise at learning all of that was unnecessary.”

Noah silently puts himself between me and Jafeth.

Jafeth looks between us. “I don’t particularly care what this is about, but I don’t like taking a beating I didn’t choose.” He tugs on his clothing, straightening his already straight lapels. “Especially one that’s pointless, because Miss Rose is still here.”

“She’s leaving,” Noah says, voice sharp and hard.

“I’m not.” I’m as stunned at the decision as they are, but once it’s out of my mouth I know it’s the truth. I can’t leave. Not knowing that they’ll kill more women soon. If there’s any chance of stopping that, finding a solution, I need to stay.

Noah’s shock quickly morphs into a hard expression. “You can’t stay now that Jafeth knows. Hammish will find out.”

“I thought you said you were going to let me choose. That you wouldn’t be like him .”

His scowl digs deep grooves in his face, making him look older, tougher, more foreboding. He stares at me, but doesn’t say anything. After a long pause his chin dips once.

“I’m going to help Noah with his research.” I push back my shoulders in defiance, setting my resolve. “You, Jafeth, are going to get my clothes from wherever Noah hid them, and then you’re going to keep your mouth shut.”

“Not a word of this to Father,” Noah says. “You know what’s at stake.”

“If we fail to find a solution, I’ll kill Hammish myself,” I say.

Noah scowls.

I turn and stare at him. “There’s no way I’m letting you harm a hair on another woman’s head.”

“You’re a little hellion.” Jafeth grins manically. “I can see why my brother likes you.”

That earns him a growl from Noah and a threatening, “Mine.”

“We’ve been over this,” I say. “I’m not a possession. And I’m most definitely not yours.”

No matter how much I felt like it last night.

I’m not staying for Noah. I’m staying for those women. That’s all.

But when Noah offers me a tentative, apologetic smile, I can’t help wondering if I’m lying to myself.

“So, where are her things, Noah?” Jafeth says as if he already knows the answer, though I can’t venture a guess.

“In my room,” Noah mumbles. I’ve never heard him mumble before. The blush on his cheeks could almost be endearing if I wasn’t so angry with him.

Jafeth laughs. “Typical Noah, obsessive to a fault.” His gaze travels up and down my blanket-covered body. “Do you really want me to get her things? She’s rather lovely like this.”

Noah takes a menacing step forward.

“Stop it. Both of you.” I glare at Jafeth. “If you aren’t back here in ten minutes, I’ll… I’ll…” What could I possibly do to a Mavarri? It’s pointless to threaten anything, even in jest. “Fuck! Just bring me my clothes.”

I can hear Jafeth’s laughter all the way down the hall.

Once he’s gone, Noah goes to one of the shelves and pulls out a worn journal. “This belonged to my great-great-grandmother. She’s the last human we know of who turned without dying. Start here.”

I take the journal, hug it to my chest, and nod.

He walks away, but when he reaches the laboratory door, he pauses and turns back. “Thank you for staying.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “I’m not doing it for you.”

“I know.” His expression is sad, but there’s a bittersweet smile on his lips. “Still, I’m grateful.”