I Should Die

THIRTY-SEVEN



THE DOOR REOPENS ALMOST IMMEDIATELY, AND Louis enters with a tray. Although his raised eyebrows hint of curiosity as to what just happened between me and his mistress, he says nothing. Setting the tray down, he wordlessly pours a glass of water. He lifts my head and helps me get some of it down before replacing the glass and feeding me an orange segment.

My fury slowly cools as I study him for the first time. I see what must have been an awkward boy of thirteen or so, before he took on the deceptively charismatic facade that is part of the revenant transformation.

As Vincent explained to me last summer, when revenants animate, they become more physically alluring than when they were human. It is their superstrength: People are attracted to them, and thus more prone to trust them.

In the bardia’s case, this is a good thing—more lives saved. But in the numa’s case, it is to their victim’s peril. When the numa want to be scary, they sure as hell are. But when they are in con-man mode, they can be as poisonously charming as Lucien was when he tricked my sister into falling for him.

What could this boy have done at such a young age to animate as a serial betrayer? I wonder.

Louis avoids my eyes as he stands to go. And although I know he’s only following Violette’s orders, I thank him as he leaves the room. He pauses in the doorway, looking curiously back at me before shutting the door and leaving me alone with my thoughts.

Time passes snail slow and my limbs ache so much that tears leak from my eyes. I’m not crying; it’s just my body’s response to the intense pain. Which makes sense: My dead human tissue is coming to life again. I shudder with horror. Vincent didn’t tell me this part of his story.

He didn’t tell me a lot of things. Because he never thought I would be in this situation. Neither of us suspected me of being like him. Although, now that Violette has enumerated the reasons, I realize we should have seen it. If there hadn’t been the belief in Vincent’s being the Champion clouding the issue, we probably would have.

And if we had, well, things would have been different. We wouldn’t have had to deal with the issue of my mortality and his living forever. Because I had the chance to become immortal. That’s the cruel irony: Now that I have the possibility of spending eternity with Vincent, someone is going to take it away from me. Is going to kill me—again—and burn my body.

Just let her try, I think, my rage making me feel all-powerful. I struggle violently with my bonds, convulsing like a madwoman in my despair, but the only result is bleeding arms.

I measure time with the beat of my slowed-down heart and the change of light outside the boat’s window. It must be mid-morning when Louis enters the room and begins the feeding routine again. Eating and drinking while flat on my back is difficult, to say the least. But I am so famished that I manage to chew and swallow everything he gives me—and keep it down.

“How old are you?” I ask finally.

His eyes widen, and then narrow. His jaw clenches and he shakes his head. Quickly folding up the tray, he leaves the room.

I close my eyes and try to relax, but every muscle in my body is jumping. I am desperate to move, but only my feet and hands are free to rotate. So I work them. And then I flex my fingers and toes and try to relax. There’s nothing else I can do, besides imagining what my family must be thinking right now. They believe I’m dead. They are mourning. Once again. My heart actually physically hurts as I picture them, so I cast the image out of my mind and begin thinking of escape.

I study the locks on the windows and memorize the layout of the room. I don’t know what I’m capable of, so it’s hard to strategize. I wish I had asked Vincent more questions about revenant powers.

And what if I am the Champion? What was it that Vincent told me . . . besides the “anterior powers” that Violette had described. Strength. Endurance. I wonder if I have superpowers. I strain against the bonds again and nothing happens. They don’t snap like threads. Okay . . . I’m not the Hulk. I can only hope the endurance part is right. Because if not, being tied to this bed is going to drive me insane.

As the sun outside the window reaches the zenith—midday, I think—my desperation grows. Violette said that my strength would be back in a day. I have to get out of here before then. More than my fear of being killed again is my determination not to be her key to becoming a Champion-fueled supervillain and wiping out the bardia.

I remember the story about that numa who absorbed the Indian Champion’s power and the destruction he managed to wreak before he was stopped. Violette doesn’t need any more persuasion to tempt people to follow her. And add, I’m just guessing, more than double a revenant’s strength, endurance, and all that, she could have Paris under her control in no time at all. Not to be comic-book-hero dramatic, but if I have the fate of Paris . . . and eventually France or even beyond . . . resting on my shoulders, I better the hell find a way to get out of here.

Louis is back, doing the whole silent nursemaid routine once again. But this time, I’m determined to get him to talk.

“I know you’re not supposed to speak to me. But I’m guessing you’re not much younger than I am. And I’m also guessing you might not want to be here.”

I watch the practiced blankness of his expression drop for a second, as his eyes meet mine, and then he puts the mask back on and continues to feed me. But I have seen what I was looking for: sadness. Despair.

I swallow the bite of apple he’s feeding me and think of what to say. Where are those supernatural powers of persuasion when I need them? I decide to tell the truth. “I never asked for this, Louis. I don’t want to be the Champion. I don’t even want to be a revenant. I just want to go back to being a normal human girl and never see that scary medieval freak again.”

Louis freezes, not knowing what to do. My anger seems to make sense to him, but my honesty leaves him confused. I can see that what I said touched something in him.

Standing, he walks to the door and shuts it carefully, and then comes back to sit next to me. “She doesn’t want me to talk to you,” he whispers. “I’m supposed to tell her the second I think you’re trying to persuade me to help you.”

“Well, I guess that’s normal if she believes I have enhanced powers of persuasion,” I say. “She must trust you a lot to leave you alone with me.”

“Trust?” he guffaws. “Why do you think she’s here on this boat, never more than a few yards away from you?”

My nose is running, and the one thing I want more than anything else in the world is a Kleenex. I sniff a few times, trying to wipe my nose on my shoulder, and Louis jumps up to get a towel and dabs at my face.

“Thanks,” I say. And then something occurs to me. “Back in the hotel room . . . why did you apologize when you grabbed me from behind?” I ask as he folds the towel and places it on a side table.

He watches me from across the room. Deciding. Then squeezing his eyes tightly shut, he rubs his forehead worriedly. “I was almost fourteen when I died—just a few months ago,” he says in a voice so tight it sounds like his throat will burst.

Exhaling, he walks over to me. “I didn’t mean to kill anyone. Okay, yes, I did. But I was just temporarily . . . insane I guess. I hated the guy so much for what he had done to us and my mother.” He shudders and shakes his head. That’s all he’s going to say about his past.

“I’m just . . . I’m sorry about all of this. I don’t want to be this way. She found me and made me her favorite, and all I want to do is die. But that’s not even possible for me anymore.”

I don’t know what to say.

“I have to go,” he says, and begins to leave the room.

“Wait!”

“What?” he asks, turning to me.

“Thanks.”

“For what?” He looks suspicious.

“For talking to me. For wiping my nose. Just . . . thanks.”

“I didn’t do anything,” he says, narrowing his eyes. And turning, he leaves, shutting the door behind him.

I lie there, staring at the ceiling. Louis is like Violette. A freak of nature. He must have become a numa by accident, the same way she became a revenant. And now he is doomed to be her partner, at least until she gets bored of him. Which, for Arthur, took about five hundred years.