Bend For Him

by Hamel, B. B.

  She grunted like I’d punched her in the gut. “Did you really have to do that to Vlas? He wasn’t so bad. He was my cousin. I mean—” She choked on her tears and stopped talking.

  I gave her a long look. “Bathroom’s down that hall,” I said, gesturing. “My bedroom’s the first door on the right. You can stay there. Window sticks, so don’t bother. I’ll be on the couch.”

  She stared at me. “You’re not going to… tie me up?”

  “No. I’m going to assume you’re not stupid enough to think you can get away. But I’m guessing you’ll have to learn the hard way at least once.”

  She stared hard in my eyes for a long beat then turned and stalked away. She went into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.

  I sighed and slumped against the wall.

  I was exhausted and had a headache. I knew Hedeon wasn’t done punishing me, and Robin definitely wasn’t going to make this easy. Maybe killing her would’ve been the better call.

  But hell, she didn’t deserve it. So I’m stuck with her pretty ass for the time being, at least until I can ransom her back to her piece-of-shit uncle.

  I went into my small kitchen. The cabinets were chipped and painted blue. The white ancient refrigerator chugged along. I took out a beer and cracked it open. My couch was brown cracked leather and the coffee table had a glass top. All the furniture was from thrift shops. I had a few paintings on the walls, a few sports posters, nothing special. The place was pretty drab overall.

  The only bit of color was a splash of green from the plants I grew near the window.

  I filled a glass with water and gave them some. I whispered to them as I did it, said their names, and smiled to myself before sitting on the couch for the night. I heard the shower turn on then turn off by the time I finished my beer. I heard the bathroom door open and shut, then my bedroom door shut.

  I reclined back on the couch, shut my eyes, and tried to sleep.

  2

  Robin

  Sunrise woke me. He didn’t have blinds on the one window in his room. Birds chirped outside the window. His queen bed squeaked when I moved. There wasn’t much in his room: a dresser full of clothes, a closet with a couple suits, two nightstands full of books.

  No guns, no knives. Nothing I could use as a weapon.

  I threw my legs over the side of the bed, closed my eyes, and tried not to scream.

  The day before flashed through my mind. Getting up early to go to work only to find Vlas still up from the night before, half drunk on vodka, watching reality TV. Spending the day at my boring as hell job managing a diner the Volkov family owned. Coming home after and finding Vlas passed out exactly where I’d left him.

  Then two men breaking into the apartment. Vlas’s face as they shot him in the skull. The way his blood splattered on my skin and made a strange dripping sound on the hardwood. The scream in my throat that wanted to come out but got stuck.

  The weird killer saving my life.

  I don’t know how I ended up here. I should’ve been dead. That shorter guy wanted to kill me, right then and there, but Leo talked him out of it.

  I should’ve been dead.

  But I wasn’t.

  A sob finally escaped my lips. I covered my face with a pillow and cried. I kept seeing Vlas’s head explode and the strange, almost bored look on Leo’s face as the body slumped to the floor.

  It was like he’d done it a thousand times. Like he was stocking a grocery store refrigerator with a tray of meat.

  Vlas didn’t deserve that. Well, maybe he did. He wasn’t the best guy in the world. The only reason I was living with him was because his father put an extra couple thousand dollars per month in my checking account and paid the rent and utilities. I was Vlas’s babysitter basically, and he knew it.

  He didn’t make my life harder. He could have, but he didn’t. He drank too much, stayed up too late, and didn’t bother getting a real job. There was serious pain behind his eyes and I could never figure out why.

  I never asked. I probably should have.

  Didn’t matter now. He was dead.

  Poor Vlas. He couldn’t handle being in the family. He was never good enough, even if he was an aggressive dick.

  I put the pillow aside and stood. The apartment was quiet. I couldn’t hear that weird guy moving around out there. I opened the door and prayed it wouldn’t make any noise.

  The hinges were silent.

  I stepped into the hall. The decor was thrift store chic. It smelled like a cigar factory mixed with mothballs. The place was hot, almost stifling. I crept down the hall and grimaced at every sound.

  The living room was quiet. I could see the door just ahead. I walked to it on my toes and made it as silently as I could.

  I reached for the locks and slowly slid back the chain. It came open with the softest, most terrible noise I ever heard. I reached for the deadbolt next and turned it.

  It made a loud thunk noise

  I froze, my body ringing with terror.

  “Oh, man, almost.”

  I let out a scream. I didn’t want to, but it was a primal reaction. I turned and pressed my body against the door.

  Leo sat on the couch, feet up on the coffee table. He smiled and waved.

  “Morning,” he said.

  “Fuck.” I put my hand on my heart. I felt lightheaded. “Were you watching me?”

  “Yep,” he said. “Woke up as soon as you opened the bedroom door.”

  “Fuck.” I leaned my head back against the door. “Oh my god. I think I’m having a heart attack.”

  He stood up. “Come here.”

  “No,” I said. “No, no, no.”

  He sighed. “Are we doing this now?”

  “Get away from me.”

  “Can we just skip this part?”

  I turned to the door and grabbed the knob. I turned it, but it was locked. My fingers trembled as I tried to turn the little latch.

  His hands grabbed my wrists. “That’s enough.”

  “No,” I said and tried to get away. I threw my elbow back and caught his chin. He grunted and released my wrist. I grabbed at the knob again, unlocked it, and started to open the door.

  He grabbed me again. This time, he grabbed me harder and pulled me from the door. I screamed in anger. The door was half open. I could taste freedom.

  He pressed his palm against my mouth then and all I could taste was the salt on his skin.

  “Stop,” he said as he hugged me hard against his chest.

  I remembered him kissing me the night before. I remembered the way his lips tasted like sweet seltzer and anise seed.

  “Let me go,” I said into his palm.

  He held me until I stopped struggling. I panted hard and tried to catch my breath. He released me and walked to the door. I watched him shut it and lock it again with a sinking feeling.

  I wasn’t going to get away.

  He turned to me and rubbed his face. “That was a good shot,” he said.

  I said nothing.

  He stretched and cocked his head. He still wore the same clothes from the night before: black t-shirt, black jeans.

  “You hungry?” he asked. “Want some coffee?”

  “I want to go home.”

  “That’s not on the menu, ducky.” He walked past me into the kitchen. “Like eggs?”

  “This isn’t going to go the way you think it is.”

  He shrugged, got out a pack of eggs, and fished a pan from beneath the stove. “What do you think I want from this, huh?”

  “You think you can ransom me back to my family.”

  He made coffee first. He moved with a strange gentle deliberation. I kept seeing him kill Vlas over and over in my mind, but the memory didn’t square with the handsome, almost gentle-seeming man in front of me in the kitchen.

  “That’s the general idea,” he said as the coffee pot began to gurgle. “But you think that’s a bad plan, huh?”

  “My family doesn’t give a shit about me.”
/>   He smiled. “Hard to imagine that’s true.”

  “It’s very true. My uncle’s not going to pay a dime for me.”

  “So then why were you living with his only son?”

  I hesitated. “I was a babysitter. It was… it wasn’t a good job.”

  He grunted and put the pan on the stove to heat up. He looked at me and ran a hand through his thick, hard hair. “Toast?”

  “You’re not listening. This isn’t going to end well.”

  He waved that way. “This already sucks,” he said. “I kind of thought you’d wait a while longer before trying to run away.”

  I clenched my jaw. “Just let me go. Then you can go back to doing whatever it is you’re doing with your boss.”

  “Hedeon,” he said. “And no, thanks.” He poured a little oil in the pan, swirled it around, then cracked four eggs inside.

  The eggs fried and the oil crackled.

  I threw my hands up in frustration. “I’m not kidding. My uncle’s not going to pay for me.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “Dead.”

  “Mother?”

  “Might as well be dead.”

  He looked at me and arched an eyebrow. “How’s that?”

  “I don’t feel like telling you my sad fucking story,” I said.

  “Fair enough.”

  “I was only watching Vlas because it paid a little extra money. I have a job at a restaurant my family owns, but other than that, I don’t see or talk to them and they act like I don’t exist.”

  He broke the eggs apart then looked at me. “Over easy?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “I hate a runny white,” he said. “I always flip mine. You good with that?”

  “I don’t give a shit about the eggs.”

  He shrugged, flipped the eggs. When they finished, he made up two plates, one with toast and one without.

  “Two fried eggs over easy,” he said. “Enjoy.”

  “I’m not eating.”

  He broke his yolks and ate the eggs with the toast. “I understand your frustration,” he said. “But try to think about your position objectively. You watched me kill your cousin last night. You got his blood on your face. There’s still some staining your clothes. He’s dead as fuck, and now you’re in my apartment. You’re technically my captive.”

  “Technically?”

  He waved a fork in the air. “The only reason you’re alive is because I think you’re worth something. And here you are, telling me you’re not worth anything at all. Is that about right?”

  I opened my mouth and stared at him. “Uh,” I said.

  “Is that right?” he asked. “You’re saying you’re worth nothing, and all the trouble I’ve gone through to keep you alive was for nothing?”

  “I, uh—” I stopped myself. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m not worth anything. But you can just let me leave. I don’t care that you killed Vlas and I don’t care—”

  He put his plate down. His fork rattled against the plate.

  “You need to understand something.” His voice was soft and his eyes stared into mine. I felt a slow chill make its way down the length of my back. “My boss wants you dead. Pavel would’ve killed you last night and gone home happy if I hadn’t stopped him. If you keep telling me that you’re worthless, I won’t be able to keep you breathing for very long. Do you understand?”

  “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “I want cooperation.” He gestured at the plate in front of me. “Eat something.”

  I stared at the plate then shoved it away. “No, thanks.”

  “Robin,” he said, his tone warning.

  “I’m not just going to… play along. I keep telling you that I’m worthless, so if you want to kill me, just make it fast.”

  He came around the counter. I took a few stumbling steps backwards and nearly tripped on my own feet. He grabbed my wrist and held it tight. He was a big man, inches taller than me, rippled with muscle. He could break me into pieces if he wanted.

  “This isn’t going to work,” he said.

  “That’s what I keep trying to tell you.”

  He shook his head. “No, your attitude. It’s not going to work. If you can’t start trying to convince me that your life is worth a damn then I don’t know how I’m supposed to convince my boss.”

  I wanted to hit him. I was worth something. I was a person and life had inherent meaning. I had hopes, fears, dreams. I wanted to be something more than I was.

  His grip tightened. It almost hurt.

  “Tell me you’re going to think about why I should keep you alive.”

  I nodded once. “Okay,” I said. “Just let me go.”

  He released me. I took a few more steps backwards to put some space between us.

  “Coffee’s ready,” he said. “Get a mug. Fill it up. Take your eggs into the bedroom. You can eat in there.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “I need to shower and I don’t trust you to stay put. So get in my room.”

  “You’re locking me in?”

  “Yep.” He crossed his arms. “Please, explain to me why I shouldn’t.”

  I glared at him and said nothing. I walked over to the counter, got my plate, filled a mug with coffee, then brushed past him. I saw a little smile out of my corner of my eye and I was tempted to throw the hot coffee in his face.

  Except I didn’t think that would do anything other than scar him and get me killed.

  I walked into the bedroom. He shut the door behind me. I heard him drag something over. I tried the door and pushed, but he’d jammed it shut.

  “Stay put,” he said, voice muffled. “Enjoy your breakfast.”

  I heard him walk down the hall. I heard the bathroom door shut.

  The water turned on and I pictured it rolling down his handsome face, down his muscular torso, dripping down onto the tub at his feet.

  I put the plate down on top of his dresser and sat with my back against the end of his bed. I sipped the coffee and stared at the closet door.

  I didn’t know how I was going to survive this. Once he realized that I wasn’t lying, they were going to kill me. He wanted me to somehow justify myself to him, but there was nothing to say.

  I was worthless. Just some half-breed bitch that nobody wanted.

  I closed my eyes but refused to cry.

  3

  Leonid

  Robin stared out the window as my car rolled through the mid-morning traffic.

  “We’ve got two goals today,” I said. “Get you some clothes and some other essentials then meet with Hedeon to decide your fate.”

  She grimaced. “Sounds easy.”

  “The harder part is getting you stuff,” I said. “Can’t bring you out in public, since you’ll make a scene. For now, we’ll just meet with Hedeon.”

  “What makes you think I’ll make a scene?”

  “Oh, come on. The first person you see, you’ll go running up to them and beg them to save you. It’ll be embarrassing and annoying, and it won’t work. I’d really like to skip that.”

  She frowned like she hadn’t thought of that. Maybe she hadn’t, but she would sooner or later.

  “So what are we doing instead?”

  “Hedeon’s got a place nearby,” I said. “We’ll sit and chat.”

  “Why do you work for him, anyway?”

  I squinted at the road in front of me. “I don’t feel like going through the intricacies of my relationship with him.”

  “Just seems to me that you’re a smart enough guy, you don’t need—”

  “Stop,” I said, keeping my voice level. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, and it’s only going to annoy me.”

  She shut her mouth.

  I pulled around the block until I found a spot across from a baseball diamond. Some young kids played football in the outfield. I parked, got out, and escorted Robin onto the sidewalk.

  “Kids won’t help you,” I said. “You’ll j
ust scare the hell out of them.”

  She glared at me and followed as I walked around the car and crossed the street. A riot of plants grew between a tall, black wrought iron fence to the left. Robin sulked as we headed down the block beneath large shade trees growing big enough to break and deform the concrete around them. I turned left at the end of the block and came to a large gate in the fence.

  “Here we are,” I said.

  Robin crossed her arms. “A community garden.”

  “Bingo.” I pushed the gate open. It made a loud creaking noise. “Come on in.”

  She hesitated, but followed. I shut the gate behind her.

  Hedeon’s patch was toward the back left corner. An older woman stooped over a crop of tomatoes in a wide-brimmed tan hat. She picked at weeds and flicked small bugs away. I saw Robin stare at her, and wondered if she’d try to make a move, but she kept silent. I tugged her along toward where Hedeon knelt with his hands in the dirt, his brow sweating from the sun, his pants already brown from mud.

  “You’re late,” he said.

  “She dragged her feet.”

  He looked up, squinted at Robin, then looked back down. He pulled a couple more weeds.

  “Nice garden,” Robin said.

  “You talk again and I will beat you until you lose teeth,” Hedeon said.

  I sighed. “He means it,” I said. “Do us all a favor. You’re pretty with your teeth.”

  She glared at me but didn’t say anything.

  “Cops are all over the body today,” Hedeon said.

  “I figured they would be.”

  “Pavel’s a mess. Thinks he’s gonna get caught. DNA evidence or some shit.”

  “Pavel’s a moron.”

  “I know.” Hedeon grunted and rocked back onto his heels. “I used to think you were the smart one, at least until—” He gestured vaguely at Robin.

  “Ah, come on. She’s not so bad.”

  “She’s a liability.”

  “She’s worth something. Right, Robin?”

  She gave me a tight glare but she nodded.

  That was a good sign. Maybe the girl didn’t want to die after all.

  “Maybe.” Hedeon pursed his lips. “I was hasty last night. I can admit it.”