“Chloe. I am not going to kill you. I am not going to hurt you.”
“But you should. I killed a man.”
“I know.”
There is another very long silence. Words are all we have, but they are not enough. It takes her time to find the ones she needs.
“I thought…” Her bottom lip quivers and she pulls the blanket I wrap around her shoulders up to hide it. “I thought if I killed them, I’d feel strong. I thought I would have avenged him. But…”
“But you just feel sick and weak.”
She looks at me. “You’ve killed people, haven’t you.”
“It was war,” I say. “It is different.”
“What I did was murder. I belong in prison.”
“You belong here, with me.”
“But…”
“No buts,” I say. “Frank should have taken precautions. He knew you were loose. The entire Order did. The fact that he had no security and no means of stopping you was his fault.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“Actually, I do. We play high-stakes games in the Order. Life and death. We know what we forfeit if we make a mistake. You were pushed to your limits. You were mad with grief, hunted by everyone. I warned him that you would be dangerous. He didn’t listen.”
* * *
Chloe
Darko is so calm, so collected as he paces back and forth in front of me. It helps me to be calm too.
“Did you really tell him that? Did you believe it?”
“That you are dangerous? Of course.”
“I… I didn’t know I was.”
“All people are dangerous when pushed to their limits. I wanted to capture you quietly. The others decided on the road blocks and the television campaigns. They wanted to put pressure on you, and look where it got them. You came out fighting, Chloe. You had nothing left to lose.”
“I didn’t even…” Tears threaten to choke me. “I didn’t even fully mean to shoot him. The gun… it just…”
“They tend to fire when stressed people hold them,” he says. “What is done is done. You cannot undo your actions any more than I can undo mine, or the Order can undo theirs. We all make mistakes. Repeatedly.”
“They’re going to want my blood, aren’t they?”
“No.”
“No?” That doesn’t make any sense to me. I killed one of their allies.
“Do you know what happens when pigs are slaughtered?”
I am taken aback by the question. “No…”
“Pigs, if they are kept in a group, will panic and defend one another if the butcher comes for them. If they sense death, they will scream and fight and bite, but if they cannot get to the butcher, they bite each other instead. And if one of them is killed before the others, they will fall on him and consume him in minutes.”
“That’s disturbing, but I don’t see how…”
“The Order is like a group of swine. They are already dividing Frank’s assets and interests. They don’t care about you, Chloe. If anything, you’ve proved yourself.”
“I have? What about justice?”
“Justice is something infants and idiots believe in,” Darko says, his lip curling disdainfully. “There is no justice in this world. There is no right, and there is no wrong. There is only power. Those who wield it and those who do not.”
If I had heard him say that a week ago, I would have called him an asshole and said that he was wrong. I used to believe in justice, a natural order of right and wrong, but now I am not so sure. If I think back over the events of these past few days, and even over my life as a whole, what true justice or fairness has there been in it? I was born into more wealth than most of the world can imagine. I did not earn it. I was just given it. And then, later, my father was taken from me, and that was not fair either, but what claim do I have to fairness? After all I have been given?
I mourn his death. I am furious at those who killed him, but that is not justice. That is vengeance. I do not apologize for that. I am not sorry that man is dead. I would not kill again, but that is not because they do not deserve it. It is because I do not like the way it made me feel.
I have been brought up hard against the bedrock of reality. All the pretty lies and notions of culture and society have been stripped away and I see the world as Darko does. There are only the things one can do, and the things one cannot do. Everything else is just a lie designed to placate the people who are farmed by those in power, milked for their resources and their labor.
“You’re right,” I agree softly. “You’re absolutely right.”
He crosses over to me and crouches down in front of me. My barbarian in a suit puts one arm on either side of me and gazes deep into my eyes. “There is no justice,” he says. “But there is law. My law. And you fall under it. You will not run from me again, Chloe. I will not allow it. And you will be punished for running in the first place, for your disobedience. Do you understand?”