METANOIA

Difference

The smell of semi-sweet wine was in the air, because half an hour ago Antonio had opened the bottle he'd taken from the restaurant on the ground floor of my hotel, where he'd borrowed some candles that played warmly on the walls. Holding the glass with the red drink by its thin stem, the man slowly stretched his pleasure as he walked from my bed to the open balcony, beyond which the wind tilted the tops of thin trees, scattered leaves in the air, and the sky was covered with dark blue cotton wool — the landscape before my eyes seemed more like one of Aivazovsky's paintings of the turbulent sea than something real, existing. I was sitting on my bed, with my wet back in a light T-shirt pressed against the soft headboard, my naked arms resting on the heavy blanket, the IV leads sticking out of the elbow on my right arm. Leaning my temple against the soft fabric, I stared languidly at the man who, blinking slowly, was relaxedly studying the sea distances that opened up from my balcony.

"What would it take for Jensen to choose a stranger over his own sister?" asked Antonio thoughtfully, taking another sip of wine while my heart slowly skipped a beat from the burning sensation in my chest.

I pressed my lips together.

"Maybe Vincent brainwashed him," I said quietly.

"Maybe this is all your brother's cunning plan. To pretend to be Boyd's friend and then betray him?" like a sixties James Bond film, Antonio turned sharply toward me, shooting his curious gaze down my body while I only barely breathed, feeling the effects of the sedatives. Without noticing my reaction, the man disappointedly drained his glass of wine and turned his back to the sea like a child.

"I'm beginning to suspect that you have a unique talent," he said without looking at me.

"Which one? I have enough of them," I tried to smile, but my body muscles were completely petrified.

"Creating drama around you," the man sneered, but that I only covered my eyes.

I took deep breaths, feeling the slow scent of sea breeze, wine, and candles transform into the warm and spicy sandalwood that filled Vincent's apartment — the smell of him. Despite my fainting spell, I listened intently to Thomas's account of Boyd's life and realised that he was probably one of the many children who had been forced to grow up in a world of violence and murder. But I couldn't shake the feeling that all Vincent and my brother's interactions were based on Liam's devious plan — though that, too, contradicted the information the deputy had told me, for Boyd didn't approve of his father's business. Either way, they'd conspired behind my back and co-operated for at least a year, playing a play for me.

"Give me cigarettes and a lighter," I muttered tiredly, trying to get rid of the intrusive thoughts in my head. I should have killed Vincent on the spot in cold blood — leaving him with a bullet in his thigh, I knew Jensen was bound to help his friend.

Antonio quickly complied with my request, carefully passing the items into my cold hands. The tangy burnt flavour immediately coated my tongue, making me drool unpleasantly, but the bitter smoke I inhaled penetrated my lungs so deeply that the world around me evaporated, as if my life were a transparent image on a water surface with sharp raindrops beating against it. A momentary pleasure surged through my head while a wave of relaxation washed over my body — one might have wrongly assumed that I felt better than before, but I could hardly tell whether it was because of the sedative, which I presumed Thomas had slipped in discreetly, or because of years of abuse of my own body, whose struggle for survival had overtaken my principles. It was easy to confuse the constant calm with a feeling of emptiness — I looked at the world with the same eyes, breathed the same air, touched the same furniture as usual, but it felt different, as if it had been different before, unfamiliar to me.