The Swan and the Jackal by J. A. Redmerski Page B

.
    And here I am today, nearly a year later, and not only have I not found Seraphina, but I’ve developed feelings of remorse and sympathy for the very woman I need to help me draw Seraphina out of hiding.
    I can’t do this.
    I’ve never felt so conflicted about anything in my life before this. I’ve ruined this woman, Cassia, this sweet and innocent and almost child-like woman who wouldn’t kill a spider if it was crawling across her leg. All for the sake of finding my beloved Seraphina. I’ve been using this poor girl to draw Seraphina out like drawing venom from a snake bite. And I hate myself for it.
    But it’s the only way.
    Cassia is the only way.
    Opening my eyes, I see that I’m white-knuckling the counter, all of my fingers clamped down hard against it.
    I raise my eyes to the small oval mirror in front of me.
    Tiny flecks of blood are sprinkled about my unshaven face. Disgusted, I fill my hands with water and splash myself, two, three, four times before I’m satisfied. I reach out and pull the hand towel from the rod hanging on the wall and dry off. There’s blood on my shirt, I notice, and I strip it off quickly.
    How could I have been so careless?
    When I finally shut the faucets off, I can hear Cassia crying again without the water to drown it out. And it sears through me.
    Goddammit, I was never cut out for this. Not this . Feeling pain and sorrow for someone, anyone, and letting it control me. With Seraphina, I never had to feel it. Not like this. So goddamn unpleasant. We were alike, she and I, like two damaged souls cut from the same sadistic cloth. We thrived on pain. We got off on it. Whether it was our own pain, or the pain of someone willing to let us enjoy theirs.
    “What do I do?” I ask myself aloud, looking into the mirror. “Fight it like I have been the past year? Or, do I give in to it?”
    I shake my head no. No. No. And pull my fist back and slam it into the mirror. Shards crack and fall into the sink, breaking into even smaller pieces, but leaving my skin unbroken. And when I look back into the mirror, all I see are pieces of myself that are missing. Not the glass, but of myself.
    I’ve never been whole, not since the day I was born to a mother who left me wrapped in a shirt beside a public toilet.
    I step out of the restroom and look first at the television screen mounted behind the Plexi-glass. Dante is still struggling in the chair. He seems more alert now that I’m not in there with him. He’s scanning the dark, dank room—the only part of this old house I never restored—for a way out, or something to use in which he can free himself. He has no idea that I’m watching. But he’s not going anywhere. Houdini couldn’t get out of those restraints.
    “Please, Fredrik, please turn it off,” Cassia says with a whimper.
    I don’t hesitate, despite something in the back of my mind—the dark, malevolent part—telling me to leave it alone. That she needs to see it, to hear it, to smell his pungent blood through the cracks in the wooden door that separates the rooms.
    I walk over to the television and take the remote down from a shelf on the wall next to it, pressing my finger on the Power button. Cassia winds her frail fingers through the top of her hair, her face buried behind her knees.
    “I’m sorry,” I say standing over her. “I—.”
    “Lemme out’o ‘ere! Omeone ‘elp!” Dante cries out in garbled, choppy words.
    Glancing back down at Cassia, her fingers begin to tighten in her hair as if she’s trying to pull it out, inflicting pain on herself to block out Dante’s cries.
    “Fuck!” I march back across the room toward the wooden door and swing it open, slamming it against the wall.
    The whites of Dante’s eyes grow stark underneath the floodlight. Blood, more black than red, covers his face, pouring down his chin and soaking into his T-shirt. His face is swelling; his lips red and purple and puffy.
    “Be quiet,” I snap.
    “M’beggin’ oou! On’t