Please stop, she said, and he said, But you’re so wet.
The printouts they gave her at the hospital read The body may react to unwanted sexual contact with arousal, including vaginal wetness and orgasm. This does not indicate consent.
But in the moment she’d thought, horrified, If my body is acting this way, isn’t that saying yes?
How could she trust mind over body when her mind had told her terrible things? That her body looked wrong, completely wrong, every time she glanced into a mirror? That she should destroy it. That she should unravel and unstitch it with scalpels and needles.
She closed her eyes and thought, Be quick.
It was after, on the bus, that she cried. Couldn’t stop crying. Then she understood: This was her body’s way of speaking to her. Inarticulate and raw, a primal howl of pain. She should have trusted it. Should have listened. The dysphoria she’d felt was real—she wasn’t a girl after all, but a boy. And this agony wasn’t from rough sex. It was from rape.
There.
I said the word. In real time, to a real person.
Oh, fuck.
Tamsin braced me as I stumbled to the bathroom. For a ridiculous moment I hesitated between the doors, staring at the signs—pants, dress, meaningless fucking gender binary—till she pushed me bodily into the men’s. I sank to my knees, face in my hands. Sobbing like a child.
Tam knelt beside me and simply held on.
Nothing in me but that map of blood and nerve lighting up my lungs. The place where sorrow dwelled.
Later, drained, I stood at the sink splashing icy water on my face. My skin had an ill pallor. The strange thing, the thing I didn’t expect: I didn’t see Sofiya peering through.
Just me. Renard.
“It was him, wasn’t it?” I said. “The man you killed. That cop.”
Tamsin watched me in the mirror. “He disappeared under mysterious circumstances. I heard his body washed up near Gravesend. Death by misadventure.”
“That’s why you’re here, living in hotels, getting paid under the table. You’re still running from it.”
“Perhaps.”
“Your sister sent you to Laney for protection.”
“Turned out I had some useful skills, and a powerful boredom, and a shite opinion of men. Frankie knew Laney’d have a use for me. So she hired me on.”
“And told you to watch Adam.”
“Yes.” She slid between me and the mirror. “What’s the collateral you have on her?”
In the early days of Black Iris, before Ellis upgraded our tech, we ran ops old school: me, a gun, and a name and address.
No one to watch what I did.
No one to judge.
Teach him a lesson, Laney would say. Make sure he never does it again.
At first, I thought rage would frighten them most. I tossed them around like rag dolls, let them feel how flimsy and frail they were in my hands. Relieved them of a few teeth, a fingernail, the joint of a toe. It was usually enough.
But not always. Some took a beating and came back stronger. I knew this process well. Some wounds are forever, and the scars harden inside you like diamonds, a sparkling, razor-sharp lace surrounding your heart. It can’t be removed but also can’t be broken. Diamond is the hardest naturally occurring substance on earth.
The most dangerous people out there? They’re made of scar tissue.
It was time to adjust my strategy. Think long term.
I smacked them around, but before any serious damage was done I drew my knife and said, I’m giving you a gift. I’m letting you go.
Snick. Bonds cut. Gushing gratitude till I added:
I’ll be watching.
Any moment, any day, if I see something I don’t like—bothering a girl who wants to be left alone, pressuring her, hell, even bitching to a bro about being friend-zoned again—I’ll strike. Take a finger, an eye, maybe a ball, depending on my mood. (Here I’d trace the named body part with the tip of the knife, for dramatic effect.) So keep that in mind, bud, when you’re out living your shitty little life.
I’m watching you.
Laney said, Whatever you’re doing differently, it’s working.
One night I got a call.
Some kind of accident. She needed my help. When I got to the warehouse Laney stood over a man lying in a pool of blood thick and dark as tar. Paralyzed, but alive. One side of his face twitched, short-circuiting. Laney told me what he’d done—drugged girls, violated them, scared them into silence with threats of revenge porn—and she’d decided that for once, vengeance was too kind. She wanted him wiped from the face of the earth.
Why am I here? I said breathlessly.
So I can give you this. She passed me her phone. On it, a video of her pulling the trigger. I’ve put blood on your hands. Now you have something on me.
Why? I’d said.
She tapped SEND, forwarding me the video. Because a day will come when I’ll ask something of you that you don’t want to do. This is your collateral. This is how you’ll know I won’t betray you.