Blue (31 page)

Anytha erupted into tears as Inali pulled the phone away from her ear and pressed the button to end the message.

“That was perfect. I even felt a little bit emotional,” Inali said, folding up the blade again, then putting it back into his pocket, standing up and slamming the door behind him.

C h a p t e r 
28

Anytha sat curled up in the corner of the room, clutching her stomach as it growled from hunger. She didn’t know if Inali had intentions to kill her, but she did know that she hadn’t eaten in at least two days. A few days ago, Inali had come by during the night. He’d poured out her bathroom jug and given her a new water jug, and thrown some granola bars at her, which she gobbled down immediately. Just remembering the taste made her mouth water. She never thought she would look forward to seeing Inali, but she hoped more than anything that he would show up with more food.

She could only estimate that she had been here for at least a week, although the hours ticked by slowly. Every morning the light in the clinic outside would turn on, and then stay on for a few hours until the shuffling ceased and it went out again. Two more girls had come into the room to be told they had the same “virus” that Tabitha had been told she had. Anytha knew, like Tabitha had said, that they were probably actually pregnant.

Anytha had so much time to think that she couldn’t help but mull over every possible scenario of why Inali might have thrown her in this room. Had he wanted her to hear what she was hearing through the hinges? He must have known that she would. Did Inali kidnap the girls before the flood? Could Inali have foreseen the flood somehow? Could Inali have caused the flood somehow? With all of the miraculous feats, she wouldn’t rule anything out. Were these girls, including her sister, pregnant from rape? Did Inali rape Tabitha? Could Inali be the father of her biological niece or nephew?

The light at the hinges grew dim, and the shuffling outside stopped. Anytha curled up into the fetal position and wept openly in the corner of the closet, remembering the words she had said to Ari on his answering machine. She heard them in her head, resonating and beating against the walls of her skull like a hammer pounding the nails into her coffin. Ari was her only hope of escape, and now he wouldn’t think twice about looking for her. She cried until her eyes grew weak, and she clutched her growling stomach. She began to drift off to sleep when she heard the door open to the clinic outside.

She heard the jingling of keys, the door to her closet opened, and Inali turned on the light in the closet. Anytha squinted and felt a flash of pain cross her forehead as her eyes adjusted to the light.

“Here. I’m sure you’re hungry,” Inali said gently, handing her a box of granola bars. Anytha ripped open the box and tore one open, shoving it into her mouth and barely even chewing before swallowing.

Inali sat down next to her in the closet, blocking her way to the door. Tonight he wore a dark gray suit with a crisp, white shirt and a black tie. Anytha ripped open the bars and forced them down her throat, afraid he might take them away from her when he left.

“You know, Anytha. I’m not a bad guy,” Inali said, sitting down next to her on the floor and hanging his head between his knees. “I hope you know that I would have never done this to you if you hadn’t found me out about the girls. I think back to our conversation in my office, and I wonder if—somehow—I could have avoided bringing you here. I replay that scenario in my mind every day. I wonder if there was any way that I could have convinced you. Any way that you would have believed me, and just left, still believing that your sister was dead. I wish it wouldn’t have had to come to this.”

“Well, you can just stop wondering. I knew the moment that you said her name, you knew where she was,” Anytha said, swallowing a piece of granola bar and taking a long drink of water.

“Yes. I always seem to come to that conclusion, every time I go back to that moment, and I wish that you weren’t that smart. It seems you’re the only one who’s not charmed by me. Everyone else seems to think I am an upstanding citizen. Everyone else thinks I’m such a great guy, and aside from you being in this closet—I am,” Inali said, rubbing his forehead in his hand.

“So, upstanding citizens kidnap teenage girls and tell everyone in society that they were killed in a flood?” Anytha asked. She heard the words as they came out of her mouth, and knew that her sass wouldn’t be doing her any favors, but it tasted sweet as it came out.

“You know nothing of the life that I have made for these girls. I have provided them a lifestyle that they could have only dreamed of. I have given them everything that anyone could ever want. And I did them a favor by acting as if they were killed in that flood. Black market harvesters won’t look for afflicted people that are dead,” Inali said, standing up and staring down at Anytha.

“So, I guess upstanding citizens tell a bunch of ignorant, teenage girls that have just been raped that they have a ‘virus’ instead of telling them that they’re pregnant, too?” Anytha asked, standing up and looking Inali in the eye. She could tell that Inali felt unrelenting guilt about having her in this closet, and she wanted him to feel it even more deeply.

“Raped?” Inali asked angrily. “Darling, you are very mistaken. They weren’t raped. They were begging for it. I put those girls in a room full of handsome, young, wealthy men, and they couldn’t control themselves. They wanted it just as badly as the men did.”

Anytha felt the anger rise up inside her. She realized that Inali was still completely deceived, thinking that everything he had done was perfectly acceptable.

“I can’t believe that you don’t see it,” Anytha said, stepping toward him and staring at him in the eye. “You really think that you are doing good. You have really convinced yourself that everything that you are doing, you are doing for the benefit of these helpless, young girls. And everyone is fooled. I just can’t believe it—I just—I just can’t believe that I’m the only one that sees all the evil that you are capable of.”

Inali slapped her across the face.

Anytha clutched her cheek and fell back to the ground.

“No, Anytha,” Inali said, squatting down over her limp body, taking her head in his hand, and pressing hard against her neck. “Not even you know what I am capable of.”

“What? Are you going to kill me now?” Anytha asked, feeling his fingers wrap tightly around her neck.

“You see, Anytha. I win either way. How do you think that I have the power to heal? Do you think that’s just a coincidence because I’m so prayerful and holy?” Inali asked as he increased the pressure around her neck, and continued to press her head against the wall. “My Power is the blood. That moment—that empowered moment that I always tell my camp members to tap into when they seek their Power—that moment for me was when I pushed through the legislation for blood to begin being drawn in the compounds. The Power increased when I opened my first compound. My Power is in the taking of the blood. The blood from the compounds. The blood from the clinics. And cases like that of your dear mother are exceptionally sweet. If that test had come up positive, and she had decided to sell the baby to the compound, I could have harnessed the power of their blood for years, which is obviously better for me. But when your mother’s test came back negative, and the baby turned out to be normal, like you, she decided to take another route. She made an appointment at my clinic. Too bad we didn’t all hit the jackpot with another Tabitha. But that’s okay. I win either way. The blood from the clinic is exceptionally powerful in itself. There’s something about the act of actually stopping the blood from pumping through a beating heart that makes it exceptionally powerful for me. When that little heart stops, it’s like I can feel it in my spirit.”

“This isn’t you, Inali,” Anytha squeaked out as he cut off her voice and began pushing on her neck, almost completely stopping her breath. Anytha stared him in the eye, and he looked away for a moment. Then he turned back to her, clenching his jaw and tightening his grip around her neck.

“No, Anytha—nobody else will ever know that I’m evil. Your mother was easy to seduce, a few little healings and she was convinced,” Inali said.

Anytha tried to scream as she gagged under the pressure around her neck.

“Your sister,” he continued, “will be a bigger challenge. She’s spunky, like you. But I’ll get her too. Somehow, I’ll get her to fall for me. She’ll give me her innocence. You see, there’s a third way that I can get Power from the shedding of blood. And that’s from innocent, young girls like Tabitha. And I like to think that I’m pretty good at getting it, and the girls seem to think I’m pretty good at it as well. Oh, and Tabitha will be sweet.”

“Well, how about mine?” Anytha rasped from behind his hand, barely able to breathe, much less mutter the words.

Inali loosened his grip. “Yours?” he asked.

“Yeah. If you’re going to kill me, why don’t you take mine first—my innocence?”

“It doesn’t work if I steal it,” Inali said. “It only empowers me if you give it of yourself freely.”

“Well, Tabitha didn’t seem to have given hers freely,” Anytha said. “And she’s not convinced that she just has a virus either.”

“What are you talking about?” Inali asked, releasing the pressure on her throat and grabbing her by the chin.

“The baby,” Anytha said, coughing and gagging. “Tabitha’s baby.”

Inali let go of her neck and stepped back as Anytha wrapped her hands around her neck and let out a loud shriek in pain.

“I haven’t done anything to Tabitha. What are you talking about?” Inali asked, backing away into the doorway as Anytha attempted to get up on her knees.

“What do you mean? Didn’t you put me here to tell me that Tabitha was pregnant? To torture me with the thoughts of what you might have done to my sister?” Anytha asked, trying with all of her might to stand to her feet, coughing as she spoke. “You’re the one that sent me here to hear Tabitha say it herself.”

Inali walked toward Anytha, pulling his knife out of his pocket and flicking it open, pointing it at her throat as she coughed and looked into his eyes.

“Oh, for the sake of your sister—you better be mistaken,” Inali said, kicking her hard against the wall, turning around, and slamming the door behind him.

C h a p t e r 
29

Ari clicked the button on his answering machine for what felt like the hundredth time in the last few days. In her voice, he could hear the desperation that she must have been feeling as she recorded it. Every time her voice would say, “I love you, Ari,” the pain would hit him again.

He loved her too. More than anything in the world. He walked over to his dresser, opened the top drawer, and picked up the little, black velvet box that he had stashed away underneath some folded t-shirts. He clicked it open. It was a small diamond, but he knew that she would have loved it. His only regret was that he wished he would have asked her sooner.

He had played the message over and over again, hoping to find a loophole, a way that he could be with her again. He went through every scenario, even pressed *69 and called the number back, but when there was no answer or machine; he figured she had called him from a payphone.

Everything within him wanted to drive to Pretoria, pull up in front of her house, and go directly to her father to give him a piece of his mind. He was angry, and he knew that he had the right to be. Once again, her parents’ terrible decisions were preventing Anytha from being a part of a loving relationship where she could find happiness. Once again, her parents were selfishly choosing their own ludicrous ideals over their own daughter.

Every time he thought about it, he would feel hot anger welling up inside of him again. Last time he had followed her parents’ logic out to its end, he had taken out his frustration on a pillow on his bed, then forced himself into a cool shower. How could anyone hold their unborn baby hostage until their daughter gave them what they wanted? Knowing Anytha’s heart of gold, and her dedication to saving her little brother or sister’s life, Ari knew that she would selflessly hold herself, and her happiness, hostage to save the child.

He had played through the scenario multiple times in his mind. Driving to Pretoria. Walking up the steps. Knocking on their door. Trying to make Anytha’s father understand that he loved his daughter, and without hurting his pride, trying to convince him that if he loved his daughter too, then he would let her be with him. But knowing their track record of terrible decisions, Ari sincerely wondered if showing up at their door could really mean the demise of the unborn child. The decision already seemed fragile in their minds, and it didn’t seem far-fetched to believe that his untimely profession of love for Anytha could be the final brick that collapsed the very illogical and fragile wall they had built. Ari knew that if his showing up on their doorstep had any effect on Delah’s decision to keep the child, Anytha would never be able to forgive him for knocking on their door. Ari knew that even though Anytha still loved him, if his interference altered the fate of her unborn sibling’s life, there would be nothing that could erase it from their relationship. All he could do was wait. There was nothing that he could do until either the baby was born, or Delah decided to terminate the pregnancy despite Anytha’s desire to see her carry it out to completion.

Today, staring at the ring that only ten days ago he had hoped to slip on her finger, the waiting was tearing him apart. He leaned over his dresser with his hands on the corners and tucked his head down. His stomach turned at the thought that even after all this pain, even after all the waiting, and all the suffering, Delah still had the right to make the decision to go into Inali’s clinic and stop the beating heart of her unborn child if she so desired. Ari knew that even after all Anytha’s hoping, even after all the sacrifice, Delah still had the ability to crush Anytha’s hope. The stopping of one heart would break another.

The thought of the waiting was pulling Ari to the door of his apartment to drive to Pretoria, but the thought of the potential cost of his appearance held him captive in his own home. He pressed the button on the answering machine one more time, just to hear her say, “I love you, Ari,” and sat down on his bed, putting his face into a pillow.