Pandora's Box (61 page)

He bent and kissed her on the lips. “I’ll be quick.”

“’Kay,” she whispered, pulling him down by the hair for another kiss. “I love you.”

I love you more.
“I know,” he smirked at her.

She smiled. “Lord Convinced.”

Sophia was fast and deep asleep in their bed when he walked out of the bathroom.

He lay down and gathered her into his arms, spooning her and putting his broad hand under the T-shirt, against her stomach. She sighed happily, with an expression of utter rapture on her face, even in sleep, drawing joy from that simple caress.

Alistair felt in heaven with Sophia lying in his arms; never was there a place he’d rather be than in bed with her close to him.

Friday, April 1
^st
, 2011.

4.51 a.m.

The room became black and empty, and Sophia knew exactly where she would be, exactly what it was going to change into. This was what it felt like, this was what it looked like, the edges of reality crumbling away.

She forced her eyes to open. She was inside the dungeon, but she couldn’t see through the smoke as shots erupted around her.

“No!” she cried out. Her arms felt very heavy and she struggled to run away. “No! Not again!”

The clouds of smoke retreated and she saw she was carrying Ethan’s bloody body. She tried to hold onto him but her hold slipped as she stumbled on corpse after corpse that Uó threw in her way.

“No,” Sophia said, her voice shaking. “This is just a nightmare. Just a nightmare.”

“No, murderer. This is your reality. The reality you have created.” He laughed. And again, louder. His mouth opened full of sharp teeth when he said, “You’ll lose another man. Each time I come back, I’ll take another one from you.”

Sophia felt the ground shaking and a mean creaking sound filled the dungeon. The rock floor cracked open and tall flames came up from the fracture, the noxious fumes of sulfur choking her.

Under his horns, Uó’s black eyes gleamed evil when he offered, “Unless, of course, you’d prefer to immolate yourself.”

Sophia heard her name being shouted all around her. On one side of the widening crack, Gabriel and Ethan were chained to a wall and on the other side, Alistair. They were shouting and pleading as the flames got closer to them.

She didn’t think twice; she jumped as Uó cackled with evil glee.

When she looked up, Gabriel, Ethan and Alistair had morphed into demons, their arms flapping as black wings and they dived after her.

Screaming, Sophia fell and the jaws of hell closed above her.

Alistair had been trying to wake a thrashing Sophia for a few seconds when she pushed him away hard and bolted up on the bed.

Her hands flew to her head and, with her eyes glazed wide, she screamed.

She screamed until her breath was gone and her throat was raw. Feeling empty, tiredness came over her. Her shoulders hunched and her head dropped as she gulped air in great, deep breaths.

Alistair pulled her into his arms murmuring soothing words. She was trembling like a leaf in the wind but the big crash he was expecting didn’t come. It was stuck inside her, imprisoning her in guilt. A guilt he knew too well. She had to vomit it out.

Sophia had healed him. She had soothed the beast that was eating his insides and had cauterized what remained of his wounds. Now, he would do the same for her. With love and patience.

Open Pandora’s box and face your demons, Sophia.
“Do you want a glass of water?”

She nodded and put her forehead on her knees, breathing slowly, in and out.
What is this place where I have to kill myself and the ones I love?

“Here,
mo gràdh.
Drink,” he whispered, sitting by her on the edge of the bed. “Want to talk about the nightmare?”

“Thanks.” She accepted the glass, drinking the water in great gulps as she looked around the room, before facing him. “Why was I chosen to receive so many graces?”
All this wealth cost me so much, so many loved ones, that some would think it a disgrace.

“Why?” He frowned at her question, struggling to hear her inner monologue. He didn’t have her years of therapy, but he had learned much from her and from Dr. Volk in the last year. She was asking something completely different. “Why not? You are less responsible for them than you wish to be.”

Her haunted eyes sought his. “So, all I have to do is free myself.”

All? And you think it will be easy?
He raised his ink-black eyebrows. Her eyes were no longer that mix of yellow and brown. They were dim and dark brown. “I guess, sweetheart, that to be free, one has to speak the truth. Are you willing to?”
Open up, Sophia.

Lord Veritas-vos-liberabit.
“Maybe.” She sighed and put the glass on the bedside table. “Once you’ve been in hell, you have a much greater appreciation of Heaven.”

“Beautiful. But you’re speaking in riddles.” His knuckles caressed her cheek. “The truth is not a riddle. The truth can be unwoven slowly. It waits until you’re ready. It may hurt, but it doesn’t devour you if you answer wrongly. What is devouring you, my love?”

You can’t even start to imagine.
“The fantasy…”
feeling too powerful.
“The power…”
using it wrongly.
“The knowledge…”
of everything I’ve done wrong, it’s too much.
“Sometimes, it’s too heavy a burden to carry alone.”

“So, share it. I’m here to share life with you. Past, present and future.”
Why are you boycotting us? Why are you thinking only about the bad moments?

Reminders of those last days whispered and whispered in her head.
I’ve studied so hard, learned so many languages and have so many material things. What for?
“How much of a failure am I?”

Her head itched. Fighting against the physical and psychological pain, Sophia fisted her hands. She hardly cared when her nails dug into her skin. She wanted to rip the memories out of her mind just as she wanted to rip off the bandages.

A failure?
He looked at her astonished. “You’re not a failure, sweetheart. Never could you be.
This
is a fantasy. You have to deconstruct it.”

She breathed out a shuddering sigh.

“Sophia, look at me,” he asked. When she lifted her eyelids, he said to her, “We are just human. We are less powerful than we idealize and we are much more powerful than we realize.”

In the Game Room.

Saturday, April 2
^nd
, 2011.

1.43 p.m.

“And Alberto?” Felipe asked, his hands entwining together as if he were suffocating Alberto’s neck between them.

Alistair paced the length of the Game Room, checking if Sophia was still sitting on the bench looking at the kids playing. Carolina, Alice and Domitila had just arrived from their walk and were chatting with her, Angelica, Elena and the twins. “It’s as if he’s disappeared into thin air. Isabel informed me he checked-out from his hotel the day Sophia was kidnapped.”

“Have the Brazilian police already been informed?”

He turned to look at the five men sitting on the sofas and armchairs. Tavish, Lachlann, Felipe, Leonard, and even Alexander were gathered together. Alistair marveled at how Sophia and he had such a devoted and loving family. He walked back thoughtfully. “Aye. But Isabel doesn’t believe he has left the UK yet.”

“So how are we supposed to keep her safe?” asked Felipe.

“The security all around Craigdale has been reinforced,” said Lachlann.

“The last guests depart today. We are closing the resort while he is still at large and—” Alistair snapped his mouth shut as he saw Tavish stand up and his lips working for a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
Sophia.
He turned to see her walking up to where they were without really approaching them.
Oh, fuck.

They all fell into an awkward silence.

“Quick,” she sneered. “Change the subject. She’s back in the room.”

“Sophia, it’s not like that,” Felipe soothed, rising from his armchair too.

No. It never is, is it? So how is it?
Her face contorted as if she was going to cry. Alistair stepped in her direction but stopped when she raised her palm. “Who is at large? What are you not telling me?”

Christ!
“Sophia. We just don’t want you to worry. We know what you’re going through—” 

How? How can you think you know?
She looked open-mouthed at Alistair for a moment before she exploded. Pointing a trembling finger at him, she screamed with rage, “You’ve been lying! You don’t know anything. And neither do you.” She spat the words at Felipe, when she saw her brother stepping in her direction. She backed away from them, breathing heavily. At the door, she shook her head, hissing, “You have no idea.”

She broke into a run, leaving all of them looking at her back.

Alistair pinched the bridge of his nose and blew out a long, tortured breath as he stepped outside seeing her pass the hothouse. Felipe walked with him after her, followed by Tavish and Lachlann.

“She is right, you know? None of us know what she’s going through.” Tavish said calmly as he stepped in front of Alistair and Felipe. But his stance was tense when he raised his arms to block them. He looked over his shoulder at Sophia as she ran away. He swung his turbulent gaze back to the men with an understanding that neither of them had. “And it’s not very nice of us to keep her in the dark. We are underestimating the brilliant woman she is by treating her like a child.”

“We can’t let her run away like this. She is not dressed for the weather. She is sick—” 

Lachlann put a hand on Alistair’s shoulder. “She is not sick. She is pregnant and under a great amount of stress. That was just hormones. Blowing off some steam will do her good. She’ll come back.”

Alistair didn’t answer.

He stood there watching her run, run away from him.

He knew his wife. He knew she didn’t like lies. He was afraid he had pushed her too far.

Uneasiness crept through Alistair’s spine and settled on his shoulders.
If she doesn’t return in half-an-hour, I’ll go after her.

Chapter 35

In the center of the maze, Under the cherry tree.

2.31 p.m.

Sophia could barely breathe from the sheer effort of it, and she sank to the ground, wishing it would open up and take her, once and for all, as in the nightmare.

She hated that Alistair had stopped talking as if she were unable to deal with the facts.
That’s not fair. They are just trying to protect me.

She looked up at the sky, angry at herself for being so unbalanced that he felt the need to lie to her and yet, so frail that she could understand him so well. Scattered clouds were lazily trailing by. She felt as if nature were forming a little nest to hide and protect her inside the tall maze.

She welcomed the peace, but at the same time, she also wanted to scream, to shout and to destroy something. She could almost hear Dr. Kent say that her duality was a most natural reaction to a situation like the one she was going through.

Without a drop of humor, she laughed and whispered to a hummingbird that was tasting the flowers, “We humans are such complicated and confused beings that we call the animals beasts.”

A draft of air swirled around her, thick with moisture and the crisp spring scents of the Highlands.

Warmed by the soft sun and lulled by the birds’ chirping, Sophia drifted slowly to a deep sleep.

3.2
4 p.m.

“You found her?” Alistair inquired over the intercom, as he checked again with each security guard. There was no sign of Sophia and the sky was getting darker and cloudier with every passing minute.

She couldn’t have left Craigdale since she was on foot, but the property covered acres and acres comprising the loch, the beach, the farmland and the woodland. Security cameras covered some of it, but Sophia appeared in none of them.

Something could have happened to her.
He marched out of the room and almost crashed into Leonard as he came in. “I’m going to look for her.”

Leonard peered at his watch. “Well. She could be on her way back to the house already. Why don’t you give her a little more time?”

Because I’m freaking out.
“Nae. You stay. Father is heading out with Felipe to the loch and to the gardens. I’m going east and Tavish Uilleam and Alexander to the west. We’ll be on the radio, channel seven.”

“Alistair,” Leonard looked worriedly at his brother-in-law’s taut face. “Aren’t you making this a bigger problem than it really is?”

If you’d been through what I have, you would understand.
“Leo, you may be right, you may be right.”
But I don’t give a fuck.

4.12 p.m.

He galloped through Sequoia Alley shouting Sophia’s name.

“She is not by the lake,” informed Felipe by the radio. “Lachlann is driving around once more just to make sure.”

“Tavish Uilleam?” Alistair asked and also received a negative answer but the western area was larger and the Land Rover could only cover the area up to the woodlands. The rest would have to be done on foot.

At the entrance of the maze, Craigdale Beast reared and shook his head wildly.

“Okay, okay.” Alistair patted the sweaty neck of his stallion and turned back to tie him to one of the cherry trees nearby.

Oh, Christ!
“Sophia!” Alistair shouted, his deep voice fraught with fear. At first, when she didn’t answer or move, he thought she had fainted and hurt herself. The white Louis Vuitton scarf had been undone and her Channel pink-and-white flats were off her feet and far from her. He ran to her and dropped to his knees.

As he realized she was only sleeping, a rush of relief went through his body leaving his hands trembling.