The Darkness Gathers by Miscione Lisa

Author:Miscione, Lisa [Miscione, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Suspense & Thrillers
ISBN: 1905005261
Publisher: Snowbooks
Published: 2006-02-10T18:30:00+00:00

Part Two

But the darkness pulls in everything: shapes and fires, animals and myself, how easily it gathers them! powers and people—

—Rainer Maria Rilke

Twenty

She had made such a mess of her life. And it wasn’t the first

time or even the second. Nothing had happened the way they promised her it would. She was ashamed of herself for ever believing that it would be different. No one had ever been honest with her except for Radovan, and he was gone. She felt small and cold inside.

The room was dim, candles burning down low on the dresser, and the hour late—or early, depending on how you looked at it. She could hear him breathing deeply, sound asleep. How he slept at night, she didn’t know, with all that blood on his hands. She wasn’t nearly as guilty, and yet she hadn’t slept in months. His heart was a black, dead place, and she hadn’t seen that until it was too late. Wasn’t that always the way with men—they seemed like a savior until they had you bound and gagged. Then the mask came off and you were stuck with a monster.

She slid out from beneath the cotton and down covers of the king-size bed and walked over to the mirror above the French wood dresser. Lighted from below by the candles, she looked like a hag, with deep black circles and wrinkles etched around her eyes and mouth, the skin loose and pasty. The candlelight illuminated the stray wisps of her hair, and she fought back tears. Her beauty was one of her only commodities, and it was fading fast. Not that, if she was honest with herself, it had ever proved much of an asset. For her or for Tatiana. Beauty had always been her biggest problem. That and a weak heart. But Tatiana was strong, unlike her mother. She wouldn’t grow up to be the pawn in the ugly, dirty games of men. If Jenna could get the two of them out of this new mess she’d gotten them into, there would be no more men. They’d make it on their own somewhere. Women did that in the world; it wasn’t like Albania, where you were little more than a whore and a maid your whole life. They’d have plenty of money when the deal was done. Somehow, they’d make it right, where the money had come from; somehow they would find a way to remove the stain. She pushed the thoughts from her head. It was better not to think on it, on what she had become to save her daughter and herself.

“What are you doing?” he said from the bed, his voice sleepy and impatient.

“I can’t sleep,” she said, her voice taking on the soft and apologetic tone she always used with him. It was the voice her mother had used with her father.

“You worry too much,” he said. “You don’t trust me?”

“Of course I do, darling,” she said, walking over to him and placing a hand on his face.

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