by Raine Miller
I slipped and slid on the polished hardwood floors as I raced to him. Slamming through his office door, I saw him. Beautiful, dashing, and debonair as ever. He caught me up in that inhumanly powerful embrace. Finally.
After forty-eight hours of hell, I was home. Against all odds I had made it back. Like the cat from that creepy little song, “Hope came back. We thought she was a goner, but Hope came back. She just couldn’t stay away.”
Enrique’s face was grim. I didn’t care. He could scowl at me all he wanted. I was elated to be home, nothing else mattered. He started to ask, “What the hell happened …”
I interrupted him, gasping to catch my breath. “Bite me now!”
He frowned deeply, but complied, latching onto my black and blue, bruised neck with those wonderful little razor-sharp fangs. Heavenly euphoria. All the pain, worry, fear, degradation, anxiety washed away in a tsunami of euphoria. “Oh God, I love you so much.” I blathered as I melted into his embrace in sublime happiness.
He gave me a moment to collect myself and then the questions started. “What happened Hope? Who did this to you? Where have you been?”
I started to regain some vestige of my sanity, but I could hardly figure out where to begin. “Arana … he … beat me … raped me … I was tied up. It was Lia! She did it!” I didn’t make much sense.
“What’s all this business about Arana? What does Lia have to do with it? She said you left her at the Blue Smoke!”
“It was Lia! She called Arana. She set me up! He’s one of Faustino’s Traquetos. He tried to kill me, but Lia set it all up. She’s lying to you!”
At the point I’d caught my breath, clear-headed enough to speak coherently, I picked up on Lia’s thoughts. She was nearby and coming in fast. By the time I read her intentions, she’d made it through the office door. She had her tiny little twenty-two pistol in one hand, and a huge chef’s knife in the other. She stood five feet away, pistol aimed at the back of Enrique’s head.
She wanted to kill me. Enrique’s authority blocked her. The only option left was to kill him. I heard her click the trigger and I screamed, “No!” as I shoved Enrique down.
Wired on adrenaline and high on venom, I guess I’m a little stronger than I thought. Enrique went flying across the room sprawled on his back. Her first shot missed, but she adjusted her aim and fired over and over. I saw one shot nail him in the shoulder before I hit her screaming at the top of my lungs in rage. We both went down in a tumble, her gun sliding across the floor. I couldn’t think of anything but stopping her. I couldn’t let her take Enrique from me. I just got him back. I couldn’t lose him, not to her, not like this.
We grappled, spinning and flopping. I rolled to the top position, punched her in the nose, and went for her eyes. Then I felt something cold and sharp cut into my belly, the chef knife. I grabbed her wrist to stop her, but she was so damn strong. That little Asian psycho was stronger than a man. I couldn’t stop her. That huge knife plunged in and out, over and over, fast and mechanical like the needle of a monstrous sewing machine.
Then all of a sudden I was up and flying through the air backwards, snatched up from behind. I landed on my back, my head crunched against the steel file cabinet. A real bell ringer. My vision blurred, doubled, wouldn’t focus. I saw a shadowy blur of Enrique and Lia grappling on the floor. I tried to get up. The world tilted and spun. Game over for me. I collapsed, my vision turned black. My life bled out onto the beautiful, custom hardwood floors as I lost consciousness.
***
CHAPTER 22
I dreamt of Enrique, of being in his arms, bitten over and over. My dreams vacillated between scenes of wonderful ecstasy and periods of agony. My whole body ached and throbbed, and my guts burned as though branded with an iron. I’d press a button and the pain would die down, but it was ever present beneath the surface, lurking, waiting to return as soon as the button medicine wore off. Enrique disappeared for hours at a time, and then he was there, biting me, holding me, whispering to me.
I dreamt of Arana and Lia, nightmares. They chased me. Arana’s eye sockets were vacant gaping wounds, lidless. He caught up to me and held me down. Lia came and stabbed me in the belly with her knife, over and over. In other nightmares Lia had me tied down, waiting for Arana to come back and beat me again. Maybe he’d kill me this time. I struggled with the cords wrapped around me, and then a woman appeared, trying to calm me down. I begged her to untie me, to let me go. I told her Arana’s coming, he’ll kill us both if I don’t get away. I told her help me find Enrique. She assured me everything was fine, and then she pressed the magic button. The pain and anxiety drifted away.
Mostly I dreamt of Enrique. I told him how much I loved him, how much I missed him. He’d hold me. He kissed me where it hurt and the pain went away. When he left I missed him endlessly. The man was everything to me. I couldn’t imagine my world without him.
I awoke one day in a hospital bed in my room. The couch had been removed. The new bed took its place. I felt groggy-drugged, morphine or some other opiate pain killer. At the edge of my thoughts floated some vague anxiety related to something vitally important. It nagged at me, something unresolved. I couldn’t focus, but it pressed at the edge of my awareness.
I tried to recall the issue, something about Enrique? I had to tell him something … about … what? What was I supposed to tell him? And where was he? I could sense him nearby in the penthouse, in his bedroom. Why wasn’t I in the bedroom with him?
The past filtered into my consciousness piecemeal, Lia, Arana, rape, torture, escape with Conchita, the fight with Arana, all the way back here to the penthouse. Lia! Lia wanted me dead! She wanted to kill us both!
I sat up in bed. The world spun and then slowly righted itself. My heart rate jumped up, the monitor beeped double-time. I had to get to Enrique, had to stop Lia. I tried to get out of bed, but the monitoring wires and IV’s had me tied up. I ripped them off, tossing it all on the floor. A woman barged into the room wearing a nurse’s smock, the woman I had dreamt about, my nurse.
“What are you doing?” She ran up to me and grabbed on to my arm. She tried to push me back onto the bed.
“I have to get to Enrique!” I growled at her. “Get out of my way!”
“He’ll be in at seven. You need to get back in bed!” She wouldn’t back off and tried to push me again.
“You don’t understand!” I shoved her back and headed for the door.
She grabbed my hand. “You need to take it easy, calm down.” I back-handed her with a whip-crack of my left hand. She went flying and hit the floor with a smack-thud sound.
“Leave me alone!” I screamed.
Lia might be coming any minute now. She could be anywhere. I ran out of the room into the hallway. I knew where to find Enrique, but I couldn’t go to him unarmed. The bitch was too strong to take on without a weapon. I had to protect Enrique. I found a brass lamp, tore off the lampshade and hefted its solid weight in my hand. It felt like a good five pounds, might do the trick.
Then I remembered her knife. That’s what I needed, a knife! My turn to cut into that bitch. See how she likes it. As soon as I thought of it I pulled up my hospital gown to look at my stomach. There were bandages wrapped around my torso.
“Ha! Thought you killed me! I’m not so easy to kill, bitch!” I smiled, something like that wicked fat cat from Alice in Wonderland, a Cheshire cat grin.
I found the block of knives in the kitchen, the large chef knife missing. The bitch still had it. I grabbed the next largest knife, a razor sharp seven inch blade.
I made my way to Enrique’s room, watching and listening carefully, scanning everywhere for any sign of someone in hiding. In his room with the door locked and closed behind me, my exhaustion set in. I wanted to lie down and sleep right there on the spot. His room was pitch black, not a hint or speck of light. I groped for the light switch, lamp and knife held ready. Nothing moved, the room was dead silent. Enrique lay in bed asleep, alone.
After a m
oment of utter silence I slinked around the room, checking everything, the walk-in closet, under the chairs, the bathroom and shower stall. I checked every nook and cranny that might possibly hide a five foot tall Asian vampire cunt from hell. She wasn’t there. I imagine I looked pretty wild in my open-backed hospital gown creeping around with a brass lamp and a knife.
I decided the room was secure, so I might as well barricade us in. I had a steady burn in my gut and my bandages turned red by the time I finished moving the heavy oak dresser in front of the door. As I threw the dead bolt on the door, it occurred to me how weird that was. Who the hell has dead bolts on bedroom doors? Fucking vampires.
Enrique was totally out, in that dead-like comatose sleep. His body felt cool to the touch. I couldn’t really tell if he was alive apart from an ever so slight air flow out of his mouth. He still breathed, he must be okay. It seemed like there was the faintest heartbeat when I put my ear to his chest.
God, he was such a beautiful man. He looked flawless, a sleeping beauty of dark hair, pale white skin, and neatly trimmed black goatee. I loved looking at him. But I was so tired, and my belly hurt, and I just couldn’t stay awake no matter how hard I tried. It occurred to me, if Enrique slept for the day …. then so did Lia. Nothing to worry about.
I awoke to Enrique’s hand on my forehead, a concerned look in his eyes. He was saying something, I caught pieces of it. “... should be in your bed …. where’s your nurse? ...”
I remembered everything in a flash, Lia, the knife, sunset! I reached under the pillow, whipped out my chef knife and sat up in bed, ready to do battle. I was up on my feet, swaying, knife held out.
“Where’s Lia?” I croaked.
My throat was so horribly dry, I could barely speak. My head swam and spun from the sudden movement. I almost fell over with vertigo. Enrique jumped up to catch me, his strong arms holding me tight, supporting my weight.
“It’s alright. She’s gone now. She can’t hurt you anymore.”
“She wants to kill us! She’ll come back! We have to stop her!” My voice broke.
“Calm down. Here have a drink.” He handed me a glass of water. He forced me to sit down on the bed. I was still amped, ready to rumble, but too dizzy to stand.
“She’s dead, querida. She left me no choice but to kill her.”
It took a minute for his words to register. Lia dead? Gone?
The realization stung. Surprisingly, I didn’t want her dead. I just didn’t want to live with her hate anymore. But how could she die?
“Really … are you sure? Can she die? Can’t she like … come back?”
“Not when I separated her head from her body. No one survives that.”
“You took her head off?” I shuddered in grossed-out surprise.
“Si, querida. The only way to ensure she could never hurt you again. I forced her obedience, but where there’s a will there’s a way. She found ways around my power over her.”
“How … I thought she couldn’t hurt me. How could she attack me?”
“My orders were that she couldn’t harm you. But I allowed her to defend herself. You attacked her. Granted, she was shooting at me, but your attack allowed her to defend herself … very aggressively.”
“She stabbed me … over and over.”
“I know. It’s a miracle you survived, querida. I’m so very happy you’re alive and well. I thought you were gone. You looked like death warmed over.”
His words reminded me of everything I went through from Lia’s devious betrayal and Arana’s vicious assaults. If only he’d have taken me with him, none of this would’ve happened. Lia would still be alive. My life would still be perfectly wonderful. He didn’t care enough to take me with him. It was his fault, everything was his fault. Lia would still be alive today. We would still be a happy little family if he hadn’t left us.
I wanted to cry, but my tears of self-pity were all used up. Outrage, fury, abandonment, I could still cry in frustration and rage. “You left me here with that psycho! Did you really think that just because she behaved herself for a few weeks that somehow, magically, she had changed?”
He was taken aback at my reaction. He didn’t seem to know what to say.
“You knew what she was! Your minds were linked! You knew she was insane! She lived with you for twenty years. How could you leave me alone with her?”
“I’m so sorry Hope.” He wouldn’t look me in the eyes. How could I trust a man who couldn’t look me in the eyes?
“That’s all you have to say? She made me whore for her bite. She made me fuck another man for hours just to get one fucking bite! Is that what you expected her to do? How could you not know? She had no secrets from you!”
“Apparently she did. I was unaware of all this.”
“That’s only because you didn’t give a shit. You didn’t care enough to call me for more than a few seconds, one time. You didn’t care enough to check on your psycho servant and your bloodslave sex toy! You didn’t care what she did to me!”
“I’m so sorry, querida. I’ve never had to consider how dangerous she could be. She obviously learned to keep secrets from us both. I thought her incapable of blocking you out of her mind. She figured out a way to fool us.”
“She dumped me off with Arana after I threatened to tell you what she’d done to me. She planned to get rid of me all along. You gave her the perfect opportunity.”
“I’ve never had another person living in our home before. I never had to deal with her jealousy. It was always the two of us until you came along.”
“Yeah, you decided I had to stay. When you forced me into staying, Faustino thought I ran out on him. He was so angry, he took it out on Arana. Lia dumped me off with Arana, he wanted me dead. Arana wanted revenge. He never planned to give me back to Faustino.”
“You’re right, Hope. I can’t deny it. It’s my fault. I never considered how vulnerable you could be to Lia’s sick manipulations.”
But he should have known. How could he not know?
“Maybe you wanted her to get rid of me. Take care of the problem? I knew it was all too good to be true, the employment contract, all the promises of long life. You were speaking the truth when you told her how soon I would die!”
“No, querida, she was jealous of my feelings for you. I only said those horrible things so she wouldn’t feel threatened by your presence.”
“Don’t querida me! If you knew she was so damn jealous, then why did you leave me alone with her to be abused and raped and beaten half to death? She only bit me once! One time in four nights!”
“You’re upset right now, understandably so. Let’s not argue. Come, let me take care of you.”
“Do you know what Arana did to me? He beat me for hours. I was tied down to the bed as he beat and raped me for two whole days! He tried to kill me several times – choked me off. I could be pregnant, he didn’t wear a condom! I wish he’d have killed me! I wish I was dead!”
He tried to hug me, I pushed him away. I still had the knife in my hand. I pointed the blade at him as I shook and cried.
“You don’t love me! You’ve never loved me! I was your little sex toy. You and Lia played with me, almost killed me twice. And when it was no longer convenient to keep me around, after I’d picked everyone’s brains to find out who was loyal to you, you decided to let Lia take out the trash. You let Lia get rid of your little problem!”
“It’s not true, querida. I made a mistake. I thought she had accepted your place here. I didn’t realize what she planned.”
“I told you she wanted me dead. I begged you to protect me from her. I gave you everything, every part of my heart and soul and body, and you left me here with her. I told you something bad would happen. I begged you to take me with you! But you listened to her! Did you honestly think her feelings towards me would change in the weeks she spent in Spain?”
“Yes I did. That was my mistake, trusting her. She said she could see the benefits of having you around for business. She sa
id she was okay with the arrangement.”
“The arrangement, hunh? The arrangement where you watched her damn near suck me dry, fucking me till I could hardly walk? That happened while you were here. What did you think she would do the moment you were gone? And did you tell her about how you supposedly care for me?”
“We didn’t really talk about it. I admitted I liked having you around, I enjoyed your company, our lovemaking.”
“You mean sex? It’s not lovemaking when you don’t love someone. She believed I was just your sex toy. You let her believe that. So that’s how she treated me after you were gone. Her own personal sex toy to fuck and abuse at her whim.”
“I should’ve told her the truth. That’s another mistake I made.”
“You told her the truth. And she did exactly what she thought was right in her twisted mind. I just don’t understand how you couldn’t see any of this coming.”
I was irate, swinging the knife back and forth. I was ready to kill, to strike out in vengeance for what had been done to me. He stole my thunder and wrath when he grabbed me and bit down on my neck. Pain, fury, hate, all gone in a flash. I was a slave to the venom, betrayed by my biology.
“I loved you and you left me to die alone in pain.” I cried, wanting to hurt him, wanting him to make love to me. Not sex, love. It was all wrong. I was stuck with this creature who callously, mercilessly, used my biology to manipulate me. I hated him.
He was the first man I’d ever loved, the fairytale dream. But it was all a façade, an invention of my own mind. He never loved me.
He released his bite. The magic drained away, all that remained was my shattered illusions. “I hate you.”
***
CHAPTER 23
My nights flew past without incident. I did my job precisely as contracted. I attended all required meetings, wrote lengthy, detailed reports of everyone’s mundane thoughts and consulted with Enrique on certain key points in our after-the-meeting meeting. It all became routine. No big surprises. The property maintenance guy wanted a raise, an export company hoped for a better shipping rate. The real estate agent was horny for Enrique, and willing to violate her code of ethics by sleeping with him if it might finagle a better commission on a piece of commercial property he was bidding on. He respectfully declined her offer, and did not give her a higher commission. In fact, he considered firing her. Each night was more or less the same as the one before. Attorneys are still the laziest bastards on the planet, and yet somehow manage to catch the highest hourly rate for the least amount of work.
