Chapter Thirty-Four

Petra

I zip my bag closed and pull it off the bed, rolling it out to the front door. I am flying to Istanbul to meet Lenox, and Philip will drive me to the airport. Moving through my apartment, Consuela’s pale face as she spoke with Dan floats in my vision—haunting me.

She is ruined. That is what love gets you. Ruination.

My eyes catch on the figurine of Medeina in the windowsill. The pale light of the cloudy day glows on the brushed metal. The figurine’s face turns toward the city, the wolves surrounding her both protectors and charges. We can be two things at the same time.

Cold rain pings on the roof and splatters gently against the window behind her. Next to Medeina a yellow rose sits in a small antique glass vase—Lenox placed it there. He has started bringing the figurine gifts. I made my disdain for his new practice known, but…it warms my heart to see his offerings. My shoulders sag. My fate is sealed.

A knock at the door startles me, and I whirl around. It is too early for Philip to be here; besides, he would have rung the bell downstairs and waited for me to buzz him up. I’m not wearing my arm holster but it waits, along with my coat, on the back of the couch. I cross to it on bare feet and unholster my weapon, then slowly, quietly approach the door.

Gun down, I lean forward and look into the peephole. On the other side of the fish eye lens a woman I don’t recognize waits. She wears a black puffer jacket and a yellow scarf. Shiny black hair pulled into a pony tail exposes a handsome face with large dark brown eyes and thick brows. Her skin is several shades lighter than her eyes and slightly red—as if she spends time in the sun and wind.

“Who are you?” I ask through the door.

“My name is Zerzan Khani,” she answers. “The Her Prophet sent me.” Her voice is throaty and accented, more energetic and aggressive than a native speaker.

My body goes cold. What would the Her Prophet want with me?

“Take off your jacket,” I say.

She nods, recognizing that I want to see if she is armed. Zerzan unzips the jacket revealing a black thermal shirt that hugs her athletic frame. She unwinds her scarf, exposing scars on her neck—four slashes that look almost like the work of some giant pawed beast. Holding her winter wear out to the side, she turns slowly, showing me that there are no weapons on her waist or under her arms.

Facing the door again, she slips her coat back on and turns out the pockets before doing the same to her black cargo pants. Finally, she pulls up her pant legs, exposing the tops of laced boots and bare ankles.

I unlock the door and open it. She waits for me to step back and gesture her inside. Zerzan walks through the short entry hall, her gait assured and movements lithe. She waits at the threshold of my living room while I lock the door again.

Zerzan’s gaze drops to my gun, still at my side, then back up to my face. She raises a brow, waiting for direction. I motion with my chin for her to enter the living room. I follow her as far as the couch.

She turns to me, her back to the shrine on my windowsill. “You are shorter than I’d thought you’d be.”

I huff a surprised laugh. “I haven’t put on my heels yet,” I say. Her lips quirk into a half smile. “Why are you here? What do you want?”

“We want you to come and help us,” she says simply.

I blink a few times. “I am happily and fully self-employed,” I finally respond.

Her half smile grows into a full one. “You are happy?”

“Very.”

“You are hunted.”

My eyes leap to Medeina—just a flick of a glance but Zerzan caught it. I’d bet good money there is very little this woman misses.

Zerzan glances over her shoulder at the figurine and her rose. “Medeina,” she says, turning her gaze back to me.

My eyes narrow. “Yes,” I say. “How do you know?”

“When you killed Billy Ray Titus you chose to change the world—”

“I did it because it made sense for my business,” I interrupt her. “Not because he was a misogynist racist scumbag.”

Zerzan’s lips twitch as if she is trying to contain a smile. “Do you kill all the misogynists in your business?”

“I’d have to practically wipe out the industry,” I raise a brow. “But most misogyny is,” I shrug, “not harmless but…useable. It is not so bad to be underestimated. But Billy Ray Titus, he overestimated women—believed we ruled the world like some dangerous overclass that needed to be brought down.” I shake my head. “That is a dangerous belief I could not work to my advantage.”

“So you killed him,” Zerzan states. I shrug. “Did you enjoy it?”

The question quiets the room somehow, as if she seeks a truth that cannot be revealed. “I felt nothing,” I say, believing it but also not. It felt good and wretched which add up to nothing.

Zerzan nods, her eyes holding mine, as if she understands—deeply. My heart beats a little harder and I breathe in through my nose, trying to calm it, but my body seems to know something my brain is refusing to recognize. Zerzan turns to the windowsill and moves closer, hovering over the shrine.

I suppress the urge to grab Medeina and hold her where Zerzan cannot touch her—to protect her. How irrational! “Do you feel nothing for Medeina?” she asks.

“You ask a lot of personal questions for a stranger who showed up uninvited at my door,” I say, my grip tightening on the gun—again, my body sensing things my mind has not yet grasped.

“To keep her in such a place of honor, you must believe.”

“She was my mother’s,” I say.

“Ah, yes.” Zerzan turns back to me, nodding, as if she understands.

“She is a reminder that blind faith is dangerous,” I say, a satisfied smile stealing over my lips. Blind faith like yours. “My mother’s insistence that Medeina would protect us destroyed our lives.”

“Your life is destroyed?”

My lips tighten into a line. “No. I have everything I want now, but I lost everything as a child.”

“You almost died because of your mother’s faith?” Zerzan asks, raising a brow. “So you decided that there are no beliefs worth dying for?” I snort. “How sad,” she says, beginning to move away from the shrine. With each footfall tension drains from my body.

“It is not sad,” I say. “It is rational.”

Zerzan shakes her head. “It is irrational to believe that you can live a life so unconnected from others; no human is an island. No saint without sins.”

“I am not an island,” I say. “I have someone—”

“And do you have faith in that person?”

I don’t answer for a long, drawn-out moment. “That is none of your business,” I say finally, my voice quiet. This woman needs to leave.

“Lenox Gold is a powerful, wonderful, dangerous man.” She says dangerous as if it is the same as wonderful—as if the two are synonyms. She is dangerous.

“You have me at an unfair advantage,” I say. Her gaze drops to the gun in my hand as if to argue the opposite but I press on. “You know so much about me, and yet all I know about you is your name and that you have a message—that you want me to help you.”

“Do you want to know more?” She asks the question as if she really wonders can I handle knowing more. It is a challenge, not a curiosity.

“I think it is time for you to leave,” I say. “I am not interested in games.”

Zerzan sinks into one of my armchairs and smiles up at me. “I won’t be leaving until you agree to come with me.”

“I have a flight to catch.”

“It won’t take long.”

I shake my head. “You have come to the wrong door. Your prophet has misled you. I am not interested in helping.”

“That is a lie.”

A mirthless laugh escapes my lips. “It is not. I assure you. I am a selfish creature who thinks only of money and power. Whatever cause you have—freeing women from the tyranny of patriarchy—”

She cuts me off. “It’s not just women; patriarchy helps no one. Supremacy of any kind is a fantasy—one that can never be realized and only leads to pain for all. The oppressed and the oppressor live in misery.” She shrugs. “Though if we were keeping score, we could say it’s worse for the oppressed, if only because they recognize the injustices and stupidity of the system which denies them equity. Do you know the goddess Cassandra?”

I sigh. “You should join Joyful Justice,” I suggest. “Call them. I am not a vigilante, an activist, or a theologian. I am a business woman.”

“You know your desires.” She says it so flatly that it takes me a moment to recognize her words. “Can you imagine a world where all women recognized their desires and pursued them? You killed Billy Ray Titus because you wanted to—”

“Because it served me.”

“It served your desires,” she corrects me gently. “We want you to teach other women how to do that.”

I laugh. “How to kill raging misogynists?”

“In a sense.” She smiles almost sheepishly. “How to know their desires well enough to be willing to do what it takes to realize them.”

Something stirs in my belly. “No.” The word pops out as if she’d asked me to…I don’t even know. “I can’t.” My lips tremble. I bite down to stop the emotion.

“You must.” Her voice brooks no argument. “This is not a request. This is destiny. I am not a woman. I am a messenger.”

I shake my head and sneer. “Do not be ridiculous. You are as foolish as those Action Men. As—”

She cuts me off. “Then why are you shaking?”

“I’m not,” I lie, straightening my back. “I am leaving. I have a flight to catch.” But I don’t move.

“You know you are meant for more than what you’re doing,” she says, her voice quiet and sure.

“You are delusional.” I let out a small laugh. “I have all that I want and more.”

She shakes her head. “Your desires are not all fulfilled.”

I raise a brow. “You are very wrong about that.”

“Yes.” She smiles, a soft blush coloring her cheeks. “Perhaps your sexual desires are fulfilled. But you know you can do more. That your impact can be bigger.”

“I don’t want to have an impact,” I snarl. “I want to be rich, and live in luxury, and have amazing sex with an incredible, attractive man who adores me. I have all that. I don’t want to give any of it up.”

“But the man you love is more than that. He is not just a tool for your satisfaction. He makes you want to do more.”

I laugh and the sound echoes in the small apartment. “That is just untrue.”

“Then why did you let me inside?”

“I should have turned you away.”

“Why didn’t you?” She leans forward, her elbows landing on her knees, as if to push her advantage, as if she is getting close to her goal.

“It seemed safer to let you in than turn you away. But now that I’ve heard what you want,” I roll my eyes, “it is time for you to go.”

She smiles, a wide and beautiful sight—her grin easing the pressure of our conversation. “You let me in because you were meant to.” I shake my head and laugh. “Because my being here at this moment is part of your destiny?”

“Maybe it is my destiny to turn you down. Or even to kill you. Who are you to decide what path is meant for me?” My voice is filled with laughter. She is foolish, and I am right to make her leave. I have a flight to catch. A life to live.

“I have faith.” Zerzan says it quietly, sucking any humor from the air with the bare truth of her words.

“That is dangerous and stupid. Faith is nothing without reason.”

“And reason is nothing without faith.”

We stare at each other—her leaning on her knees, me still on the far side of my couch.

“I am asking you to help change the world, Petra. I am asking you to join us. To help raise women up—to raise all humans up. We are all one, Petra. Humanity is only as free as the most chained of us.”

“That is drivel.”

“You can leave,” Zerzan says, waving her hand at the door. “But you will be hunted no matter what. You can choose to fight, to press forward, or you can wait for the final blow to arrive when your guard is down.”

“I can handle the Action Men,” I say with a satisfied sneer. “They are delusional. Crazy. No match for me.”

“Can’t you see that the place that craziness comes from—that’s where faith comes from? Really, that’s where everything comes from. Everything is created in our minds before it is born onto this earthly plain.”

A sudden flash of lightning sends blinding light through the apartment. I point to the window. “Weather doesn’t. We don’t create that with our minds. Faith is no match for reality.” It is so obvious I feel like a fool for saying it out loud, but this is what arguing with the faithful will do to a rational person.

“We create our experience of it,” Zerzan says. “We name it, we give it meaning.”

“Lightning can kill you. I didn’t make that up.”

“You are more likely to die at the hands of man than nature.”

“Are men not natural?”

She shrugs. “Are any of us natural anymore?”

“I am done with this conversation,” I say, my words clipped. “Do not make me ask you to leave again.”

“Just come with me and meet the prophet, speak with her; then if you still decide you want no part in this, we will bother you no more.”

I chew on my lip, considering her request—meeting this mysterious prophet whose message is being embraced by millions around the world holds an intrigue. Seeing her face, knowing more about her, would grant me incredible power.

Zerzan smiles as if she can see the decision on my face. “It won’t take long,” she promises. “You can push back your flight a day.”

Yes, I can. I can do whatever I want.