by Jette Harris
“Witt, it’s going to have to be you. Your door and Monica’s are the only ones that aren’t reinforced. You can break through and let us out.”
“Man, fuck that noise!” Witt replied. “For all you know, he’s listening to us right now, waiting. The moment I hit the door, he’s either going to Tase… Taser me—or hit me with that fucking wand.”
“That’s a risk you’re going to have to take,” Heather said.
“No, fuck that.”
“When did you become such a fucking sycophant?” Z demanded.
“A what?” Witt’s face burned.
Although everyone had been speaking in hushed tones, Monica did not. “Leave him alone!”
“Both of you,” Z muttered. “You’re both on his side.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Monica yelled. She had been listening to Witt being attacked and lost her temper. “He beat me. He raped me on the side of the fucking road. Don’t you dare—!”
“Monica, he’s raped all of us,” Heather reminded her. “Them as well.” She raised her voice. “All of us, Zachariah. We’re all in the same boat. We’re all coping with it differently. But we all need to get out.”
“You’re going to get all of us killed,” Witt muttered.
“We’re all going to die here anyway if we don’t. I’d rather die trying to get out than in the process of being raped. Personal preference.”
“Colossus might not kill us,” Monica suggested, “if we cooperate. I mean, he doesn’t beat me anymore. I do what he says, tell him what he wants to know, and he… he’s actually pretty nice...” Her voice trailed off as she realized the absurdity of what she was saying.
“What do you mean, ‘Tell him what he wants to know’?” Heather asked.
There was a pregnant pause.
****
Heather got the feeling she had been left out again, just like the bonfire parties.
“He asks a lot of questions,” Monica explained. “He likes to talk a lot. He doesn’t talk to you?”
“No…” she replied. “I’m usually unconscious, or fighting, or—you know”—she dropped her voice to a mumble—“getting raped.”
“He’s never asked you anything incredibly personal?” Z sounded surprised.
Heather fell silent. The question hadn’t felt incredibly personal when Rhodes asked it, but that was perhaps because she didn’t often have conversations that were not incredibly personal.
“Did you know?” Rhodes had asked her. He was done with her, but continued to hover. His hand was heavy on her hip. It felt as if it were burning her skin.
“Did I know what?” She was hiding her face in the pillow, not ready to face the world again.
“Did you know that I was going to be your catastrophe?” he elaborated. “When you walked in, you looked at me like you had a sense of what I would do.”
Heather snorted. She was lucky he couldn’t see her face, because she rolled her eyes. “Asking that is—” she stopped herself before going into sensitive territory. She hugged the pillow tighter.
“Is what?” He leaned forward, putting more weight on her.
She spoke with hope that he would back off. “I only looked at you like you were not my science teacher.”
“That’s not what you were going to say.” He shifted so more of his body was pressing against hers. His skin emitted heat like a furnace.
She clutched her hands tighter under the pillow. Perhaps if she said it fast enough, it would be like pulling off a Band-Aid. “Asking me that is like asking if I knew my parents were going to die when I first saw their new car.”
“Did you?” He poured salt into the wound.
“There is no foreboding.” She glared at him. “If I’ve learned anything from tragedy, it is that there is no way to see it coming. Not with them, and not with you. It’s not a tornado; it’s lightning. And don’t think for one minute”—she shoved him off and leaned up—“that you are my catastrophe.”
Rhodes stared up at her with an open-mouthed expression akin to awe, then grabbed her throat and yanked her back down. Pressing her face into the mattress, he leaned with his forearm across the back of her neck. The bones of her spine strained under his weight. She gasped for air. If he shifted any more weight onto her, her neck could snap. His mouth brushed her ear.
“I am your catastrophe, Heather Stokes. You will not survive this. I will be the death of you.” When he released her, she did not move.
Looking back on it, Heather realized it had been pretty personal.
Monica’s voice cut through her epiphany: “He’s never asked you about us?”
“Yeah,” Witt and Z chimed. While Z sounded excited, Witt sounded worried.
Now Heather was lost. “What about you?”
“Anything,” Z replied.
“Everything,” Monica said.
“No…” Heather answered. “So, Colossus, he… he asks for gossip?”
Witt snorted.
“Well, yeah,” Monica said.
“Do you tell him?” Heather’s throat was tight; She had trouble squeezing the words out.
“If you don’t answer him, he’ll become physical again,” Z said.
“But—but—don’t worry,” Monica assured her. “He can’t really tell when you’re lying, or if you’re telling the whole truth. Sometimes he’ll try to call you out on it, but, you know… there’s nothing he can really do about it.”
Heather breathed a sigh of relief, but it was cut short. A low chuckle began just outside her door, welling up into laughter. Her breath stuck in her throat. One of the other closets opened. Monica cried out, then began to whimper.
Witt had been wrong.
25
Z had been afraid to move for so many reasons.
After Rhodes had pinned him to the floor, Z was overwhelmed by the sensation of being ripped open, then something far worse, like his muscles were petrifying. He screamed in pain and pressed his face into the carpet to sob. As soon as he stopped struggling, Rhodes slowed, then stood. Z gasped with relief, believing the man was done with him.
He was wrong.
Rhodes grabbed him by the hair and attempted to pull him to his feet. Still petrified, Z’s knees buckled, leaving Rhodes with a handful of chestnut hair. Puffing it away, he wrapped his arms around Z’s chest, hooked his arms in a chicken-wing and dragged him out of the room. Half-way across the landing, Z’s legs began to cooperate. He struggled and kicked, but he could not throw Rhodes or get his feet under him. Rhodes dragged him into a bedroom and swept his feet out from under him. Squatting down, he lifted the boy like a sandbag and dumped him on the bed.
Grabbing the blanket, Z rolled off the other side of the bed. He used it to cover himself as he backed against the wall. Rhodes laughed. He pulled a bottle of water out from under a bedside table and drank. Swinging his arm, he splashed the remainder of the water across the room at Z. He laughed again when the boy flinched.
“Get on the bed,” he said, pointing.
“Fff—” Z began, but stopped himself. “You can go to Hell,” he said instead.
“Don’t make me come get you.”
Pinning down his courage, Z raised his chin. “You’re going to have to.” His voice shook despite the brave words.
Rhodes tossed the bottle aside and jumped up on the bed. Z darted around, but Rhodes jumped down onto the trailing blanket. Tangled, Z flew forward, slamming his jaw shut on the edge of his tongue. His mouth filled with searing pain and the metallic taste of blood. He saw stars. The room lurched about him as he regained his feet and ran toward the door.
The door was locked. Who the fuck locks a door from the outside?
The answer collided with him from behind, pinning him. Rhodes twisted the boy’s arms until the tendons felt like they were tearing.
“Come to bed,” he whispered.
“Just kill me!” Z begged. “Just—just—kill me now.”
“Not yet,” Rhodes replied. Z wished he had simply gotten
on the bed. He began to scream. He could barely hear Rhodes murmuring as he thrust: “I will—I promise—but not until after I’ve had my fun.”
When Rhodes had finished with Z, he let him fall to the ground and donned a pair of jeans that had been lying on the Bedroom floor. He left without another word. Z clutched his knees to his chest. The hardwood floor was uncomfortable. The room grew cold. The petrified sensation was slow to fade and left him with the dull ache of an open wound. He wanted to lie down, curled up in a ball, but was afraid to shift his legs.
A crack! shot through the house, followed by splintering and banging. Each sound made Z flinch. When he clenched his jaw, a jolt of pain shot through his broken teeth. Digging his nails into his scalp, he opened his mouth in a silent, desperate scream. He began to shudder with sobs.
Soon after the noise faded, the Bedroom door swung open, hitting Z and knocking him off-balance. Rhodes peered around the door and snorted at the obstruction.
“You’re still here,” he observed. “I’m surprised you didn’t try to break down the door, or jump out the window… but it seems you learned your lesson.”
The man’s voice pulled Z out of his shock. Anger and bitterness boiled up in his chest. He took a deep, rattling breath to reply, but kept his mouth shut. Rhodes sounded like his father.
Disappearing around the corner, Rhodes returned with another bottle of water. He surprised Z by sitting against the wall between him and the door. He opened the bottle and offered it to the boy. Z fixed his eyes on a point on the floor. Rhodes stretched his legs out in front of him and drank the rejected water.
They sat in silence for a moment. Z fought the urge to glance at him. He was plotting ways to kill him when Rhodes spoke: “Who beat you?” His tone was so conversational and the question so personal, Z was caught off-guard.
“The fuck did you say?” He turned to glare at him.
“I asked,” Rhodes’s voice hardened at the boy’s tone, “who beat you.”
Z found the ability to move. He shifted his legs and slid his hands down to cover his genitals. Rhodes finished the bottle and threw it across the room. It ricocheted off the walls in the corner and landed spinning on the floor under the end of the bed.
“If you don’t want to talk,” Rhodes said, “there are other things I can think of—”
“Why?” Z demanded. He checked his tone and repeated, “Why do you want to know?”
“Because I’m a curious guy.”
“What makes you think I was beaten?”
“If you hadn’t been, that would have been your first question.” He locked eyes with the boy. Z fought to hold his gaze, but was so disturbed by the sense Rhodes could read his thoughts, he broke away.
“My father… used to… sometimes,” he answered. Rhodes nodded. “You don’t even have to ask most times,” Z continued, more to himself than to Rhodes. “Isn’t that always the case?”
“No,” Rhodes replied. The finality of the word made Z look him over. His eyes landed on a pock-shaped scar on his right side, just under his ribcage. He found another one, larger, on the opposite side of his torso. Seeing as Rhodes felt at liberty to ask personal questions, Z took liberties as well.
“Did you get shot?”
“Yes,” Rhodes replied, running his hand absently over the exit wound.
“How?”
“Someone fired a gun at me.”
Z rolled his eyes. Rhodes’s hand flew up, smacking him.
“Don’t you roll your eyes at me,” he growled.
Z nodded, eyes closed. He could feel blood from his nose running over his mouth and down his chin.
Pushing himself to his feet, Rhodes jabbed a finger toward the bathroom. “Clean that up,” he told the boy, then disappeared into the Bedroom.
26
Rhodes jerked awake. He hadn’t intended to fall asleep, but the strange hours he had adopted forced him to take sleep when he could get it. If he hadn’t known any better, he would have thought he had a rat. At first, he thought it was the sound of digging and crumbling that woke him, but after a moment, Z spoke again.
“I said, stop!” Z warned. “Whatever he does, if Colossus comes in here and sees that you’ve messed up your closet, he will make it much, much worse.” The sounds stopped for a moment. Heather made that disparaging hiss between her teeth. Rhodes hated that sound… or loved it. He couldn’t decide. “I should know,” Z added.
Rhodes had made it clear to him that he would have been gentle for their first encounter had Z not damaged his door frame. Rhodes had spare doors—but not a spare door frame; He had to improvise to make repairs.
“I’m going to get us out of here,” Heather replied.
Rhodes sighed. There was a crack and the sound of crumbling. She had just pulled a large section of drywall away, exposing the interior of the closet walls. Rhodes shot to his feet.
“Oh, merde.” She had exposed the rebar.
“You’re not even wearing any clothes,” Rhodes said. “How are you going to escape without any clothes?”
“Fuck…” Witt murmured. Silence fell. No one breathed.
Rhodes pulled Heather’s door open. She was a sight to see: pressing herself against the back wall, hands covered in gypsum chalk. It dusted her dark hair. There were streaks and handprints all over her face and body. She attempted to cover her nakedness with her arms and hands, streaking her breasts and pubic hair with white.
The wall to the right was marred with pits and furrows. A large chunk had been pulled away. It lay on the floor among piles of chalk dust. The hole in the wall exposed two iron bars, four inches apart.
Rhodes surveyed the damage, letting Heather sweat in silence. Finally, “I’m still waiting to hear your master plan.”
“I haven’t thought of that part yet,” she breathed.
Despite himself, Rhodes smiled. He was surprised she had kept her humor this long. Even though she was within reach, he beckoned her forward. She shook her head. Fear didn’t show on her face, but she was trembling.
“Look at this!” He gestured toward the damage as if he cared. “I’m going to have to fix this.” He ran his fingers around the edges of the hole. “Whatever you were doing, Just Heather, you wasted your time. This is too low for comfortable voyeurism, and too high to be a glory hole.” Heather’s guarded expression broke: her mouth twitched upon hearing the unfamiliar term. “What, you don’t know what a glory hole is?” he chuckled.
“It’s a glass-blowing term,” she whispered, unsure. Witt snorted, but she continued, “It’s a—”
Rhodes prevented her from embarrassing herself further. “It’s so much more than that!” He pointed to the floor in front of him. “Get on your knees; I’ll show you what it is.”
Heather shook her head. “I’ll bite you,” she warned in a small voice.
“I will kill you.”
She shook her head, regaining her certainty. “You would go into shock before I could even spit.”
Despite the threat, he smirked. (Damn, she’s good.) Grabbing her arm, he pulled her out of the closet.
Witt had been pacing the small area of his closet. He jerked his head up when Rhodes pulled his door open. Freezing mid-step, his eyes widened at the sight of Heather’s naked body. Blushing, he turned away.
But Rhodes had other plans. Pulling Heather in front of him, he forced her hands away from her body. He managed to pin her arms over her head by lacing his hand around her left arm, behind her neck, and grabbing her right.
“Look at her, Witt,” Rhodes said admiringly. He grabbed her chin with his free hand, and forced her to face the boy. “She’s not much in the face, but her musculature is amazing.” He released her chin and ran his hand down her body as he spoke, making her squirm. “It’s almost as impressive as yours and Z’s. She’s not soft, like Moné-sha, not like most women. What do you think?”
Witt had been avoiding looking, but now he glanced over her. He shrugged. “She’s OK,” he muttered, looking down at the floo
r.
Rhodes shoved her into the boy. Witt held out a hand to steady her, but she retreated into a corner, covering herself again. He fixed his eyes on Rhodes.
“Witt,” Rhodes said, “you’re familiar with the concept of a glory hole.”
Blushing, Witt dropped his eyes to the floor and nodded.
“Ever use one?”
He shook his head, beginning to fidget.
“Heather doesn’t know what a glory hole is. We’re going to illustrate the concept for her. Show her what we worked on yesterday.”
Witt’s face flushed almost as red as his hair. He made an almost-imperceptible shake of his head. Rhodes stepped forward, putting a hand around the back of Witt’s neck and pulling him away from the wall.
“Show her how it’s done.” He gently forced the boy down to his knees. Realizing what was about to happen, Heather closed her eyes and faced the wall.
“Imagine—Heather, open your eyes, you’re being rude to Witt.”
She took a deep breath and forced herself to stare into his black eyes as he spoke.
“Imagine, now,” he began again, “a hole in the stall of a public men’s room, about this height.” He placed a hand on the top of Witt’s head, then undid his jeans and pulled out his penis. Witt met his eyes for a moment before taking it into his mouth. Heather’s face flushed, and she turned away again.
“Arguably, a straight man cannot be accused of being gay if he sticks his cock through the hole, and he cannot see whether it is a man or a woman servicing him on the other side.” As he spoke, Rhodes ran his hands into Witt’s hair, steering his pace. “I don’t concern myself with such things, as you can see. You should watch, Just Heather. He’s not perfect, but he’s quite good… I’m going to teach you next.”
The thought made her gag. Rhodes chuckled. He continued in silence, then stroked the boy’s face. “Don’t swallow,” he whispered. “Don’t—” He closed his eyes and grunted.
Heather attempted to dart past him. A hand shot out, slamming her against the wall. He turned to her, still holding his bottom lip between his teeth. Witt recoiled, startled. Rhodes beckoned him to his feet. Taking Witt’s face in his free hand, Rhodes pressed his mouth over the boy’s. Heather gagged again. Rhodes pushed Witt away, grabbed Heather’s face, and his pressed his mouth over hers. She yelped. Bending double, she vomited watery bile onto the floor.
