Forbidden Desires

The key doesn't turn.

I jiggle it, a useless little dance I've done every night for three years, and the deadbolt stays stubborn. From inside the apartment, I hear the muffled thump of music. Not my music. Something with a heavy, grinding bass that vibrates through the cheap wood of the door and into my palm.

My first thought is that I've got the wrong door. I step back and squint at the brass number: 4B. My number. The one I've stared at through tears and exhaustion and the kind of bone-deep weariness that makes a person see double. It's definitely 4B.

The second thought, the one that makes my stomach drop like a stone in a well, is that someone is in my home.

I'm not a person who panics. Panic is a luxury for people who haven't spent ten years as a public defender, who haven't sat across from men who've done unspeakable things and had to find the words to defend them anyway. Panic is for people who haven't learned to compartmentalize their own terror into a neat, manageable box. But right now, my heart is a frantic bird beating against my ribs, and my hand is shaking as I slide my phone from my coat pocket.

The music stops.

The silence is worse. It's a held breath, a waiting thing. I hear footsteps, heavy and unhurried, approaching the door. The chain rattles. The deadbolt clicks. The door swings open.

He's got my towel around his waist. My favorite one, the thick gray one that's soft from a hundred washes. Water drips from his hair onto his bare shoulders. He's tall, broad in a way that makes my doorway feel small, and he's looking at me with an expression I can't read. Not surprise. Not guilt. Something closer to amusement.

"Hey," he says. "You're early."

I don't know this man. I've never seen him before in my life. He has a tattoo of a snake curling around his left bicep, and a scar that cuts through his right eyebrow, and he's standing in my apartment like he owns the place. Like he's been here a hundred times. Like I'm the one who's out of place.

"Who the hell are you?" My voice comes out steadier than I feel. Good. Ten years of practice.

He leans against the doorframe, and the towel slips a fraction of an inch. He doesn't bother to adjust it. "You're Lena."

It's not a question. I don't confirm it. I'm already calculating distances, exits, the can of pepper spray buried somewhere at the bottom of my bag. The hallway is empty behind me. The neighbors are probably asleep. It's nearly midnight.

"Your sister sent me," he says.

The words hit me like a physical blow. I haven't spoken to my sister in six years. Not since the night she showed up at my door with a black eye and a story I didn't believe, not since I told her I couldn't help her anymore, not since she walked out and never came back. I've spent six years trying to forget the sound of her voice.

"Nice try," I say. "My sister's dead."

Something flickers across his face. It's gone before I can name it. "She's not," he says. "And she needs your help."

I should slam the door. I should call the police. I should do any of the hundred sensible things a sensible woman would do when a strange man is standing half-naked in her apartment claiming to know her dead sister. But I don't. I stand there, frozen, my keys digging into my palm, and I think about the last time I saw her face. The bruise under her eye. The way she said my name like it was a plea.

"Prove it," I say.

He reaches behind the door and pulls out a duffel bag I didn't notice. It's black, scuffed, the zipper held together with a paperclip. I recognize it. It's the same bag she carried when she left. The same bag she had the night she showed up bleeding and broken and begging me to let her stay.

He unzips it and pulls out a photograph. It's creased, faded, the corners soft with handling. A picture of two girls on a beach, arms around each other, grinning at the camera. I'm the one on the left, twelve years old with pigtails and a gap-toothed smile. She's on the right, fourteen, already beautiful in a way that made people stop and stare.

I haven't seen this photograph in twenty years. I thought it was lost.

"She said to tell you she's sorry," he says. "For the things she said. For the things she did. She said you'd understand."

My throat is tight. My eyes are burning. I want to believe him. I want to believe that somewhere out there, my sister is alive, that she's thinking of me, that she needs me. But I've been played before. I've been lied to by experts. I've watched men with kind faces and gentle voices destroy lives with nothing but words.

"Where is she?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "I can't tell you that. Not yet."

"Then you can get the hell out of my apartment."

He doesn't move. "She's in trouble, Lena. The kind of trouble that doesn't go away. She sent me because she trusts you. Because she knew you'd listen."

"I don't even know your name."

"Kai." He says it like it should mean something. Like I should recognize it. "I'm a friend. That's all you need to know right now."

I look at him. Really look. The water still dripping from his hair. The way he holds himself, coiled and ready, like a man who's spent his life expecting a fight. The scar through his eyebrow. The tattoo on his arm. He's dangerous. Everything about him screams it. But there's something else there too, something in the way he looks at me, something almost like pity.

"Get dressed," I say. "Then we talk."

He nods and disappears into my bedroom. My bedroom. I stand in the hallway, my back against the wall, and try to remember how to breathe. My hands are shaking. My mind is racing. I think about the photograph, the way her smile looked, the way mine did. I think about all the years I spent trying to save her, all the times I failed. I think about the last words I said to her, the ones I've replayed a thousand times in the dark.

I told her I was done. I told her not to come back.

The door opens and Kai steps out, dressed now in jeans and a black t-shirt that clings to his chest. He's holding the duffel bag. He's looking at me like he's waiting for something.

"She's not going to make it without you," he says.

It's not a threat. It's not a plea. It's just the truth, laid out between us like a body on a slab. I should say no. I should tell him to leave and never come back. I should protect myself, the way I've been doing for six years, the way I've built an entire life around.

But I think about the photograph. I think about the beach. I think about the way she used to braid my hair and tell me stories about the future, about the life we'd have when we were grown, about the house we'd share and the dogs we'd adopt and the way we'd never, ever be like our parents.

I think about how much I miss her.

"One hour," I say. "You get one hour to tell me everything. And if I don't believe you, you walk out that door and you never come back."

Kai smiles. It's not a warm smile. It's the smile of a man who's won something he wasn't sure he'd win. "One hour," he agrees. "But you're going to need more than that."

He's right. I don't know it yet, but he's right.