Read Online One of Us by Iain Rowan - Free Book Online

my legs weak.
    I turned back to walk into the house, and a curtain fell back down over a window a couple of houses down. It was not good to be caught prying into the activities of others on this street. I looked up at the windows of the house I had just left, and saw the woman there, smoking. She did not look down at all, just stared out across the roof tops. I walked back in and up the stairs to wait for Corgan.
    I did not have to wait that long. I heard the car pull up outside the house. I expected to hear the front door bang open and the sound of running footsteps on the stairs, but this did not happen. Instead what I heard was a measured, unhurried tread on the stairs, and then a stroll along the landing to the room. The door opened gently, and Corgan stepped in.
    “Elena? Go and wait in the car, there’s a love.” His voice was quiet and pleasant, as if he were making small talk at a party. She said nothing, just put her coat on, picked up her cigarettes, and walked out past me, not even looking at me. As she brushed past though, I felt her hand touch mine, just for an instant.
    Corgan wandered over to the window, looked out. Then he walked back across the room, and closed the door.
    “So,” he said pleasantly. “You wanted to see me.”
    I took a breath. I wanted my voice to be calm, not to tremble and show the fear that I felt. I did not want to be like a frightened mouse.
    “Yes,” I said, but then I had to take another breath before I could continue. I curled my hands so that my nails dug into my palms. I had to curl them tight, as my nails were not long. The sting kept me focused, and stopped the panic that wanted to rise in my throat and choke me. I took another breath. “I will not do it.”
    Corgan didn’t say anything, just looked at me, smiling just a little. Then he arched an eyebrow.
    “This—” I waved at the bed, at where Elena had been sitting. “I mean I will not do this, any of this, I know what you do and I will not work for you.”
    “Ah, will you not,” Corgan said, shaking his head as if I was a naughty child. “We had an agreement, Anna. You’re not keeping to it. This wasn’t our arrangement. I’m a busy man, yet you call—you demand—that I come out and see you. I thought we had an agreement.”
    “Fuck your agreement,” I said. “I did not know that I was making it with a man who sells women like they are sacks of flour.”
    I waited for his rage, for a fist, but it did not come. He stood, looking thoughtful. That only made me more angry.
    “I spit on what you do, you are shit. And as for what you have asked me to do with that poor girl, you will burn in hell for that, Corgan.”
    “Oh, for more than that, Anna,” he said, his voice very quiet and calm. “For much more than that. But she’s hurt, Anna. You’re a doctor. You’re my doctor. You doctors have an oath, don’t you? Leaving the poor girl, hurt. You should be struck off.”
    “Don’t mock me,” I said. “Bastard. Fixing her up so that the same disgusting men can beat and mark her another time, maybe worse this time, just for their sick fun, that is not part of it, that I will not do, it disgusts me to even think of it, you disgust me.”
    “I see,” he said, his voice still quiet, reasonable, his hands still by his sides, no hint of the violence I thought would have come. “And you’re absolutely firm on this, are you?”
    “I am. I don’t care what you do, hurt me, whatever. I will not.”
    “Not a chance of me changing your mind, is there?”
    “Not a chance. Whatever you do to me.”
    He pursed his lips in thought, nodded. “OK. I don’t really have any choice but to do it your way, do I?”
    I kept my hands clenched to prevent them from trembling. Corgan needed me, he needed what I did for him, and this meant that I had some power, no matter how small. “Then bring her back so I can treat her now”, I said, “one last job. You can have the papers back now, I do not want them. But I