by April Lust
Hannah shut her eyes, facing the abyss of her own mind, trying to crawl her way into sleep. Maybe if I want it badly enough, she thought, I can sleep forever. I can just never wake up. It’s better that way. That’s what I should have done from the start, rather than try to give Alex a better life. I should have just given up. I should have just given in. Trying was bullshit. She should have just accepted the truth. She was weak. She’d always been weak. It was dumb to pretend otherwise.
Ping.
It took her several seconds to realize where the noise came from. But then realization dawned on her, making her stomach feel oddly sick. “My phone,” she said out loud, hoarsely whispering in the empty quiet of her hospital room. It should have felt like a lifeline. It should have felt like a relief, to finally hear back from Evan, but it was too late by now, she knew. Alex was gone. Salvatore had him, and she was never going to get him back.
Still, she swung her arm forward to the bedside table, reaching out for her phone and pulling it forward so that she could see the message through her blurry eyes, still clogged up with the tears she shed earlier that night.
What she saw made her blood stand still in her veins.
The text read come right above an image attachment. It was Evan, tied to a chair, his eyes swollen shut while fresh bruises and tiny cuts lined the rest of his face. He looked like he was knocked out cold.
Hannah barely had a second to absorb what she had just seen before the phone rang, Evan’s name flashing across the screen. She swallowed thickly, desperately trying to summon up the courage she needed, before she hit “accept” and pressed the cell phone to her ear. “Hello?”
“Hey, there, doll,” Salvatore’s voice said on the other end. “How’s it hanging?”
“Where’s Alex? Where’s Evan? Are they…are they still alive?” Hannah asked, her voice panicked and strained as she sat up in bed too quickly.
“They are….for now,” Salvatore said, dragging out the pause in between his words to convey his threatening message. “You want them to stay that way, Hannah?”
Hannah nodded before she remembered that Salvatore couldn’t see her. Unless he’s watching me right now, she thought, a shiver running up her spine as she looked around her to check her surroundings. “What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“Oh, it’s simple. Just come.”
“Where?” Hannah asked.
“Home, where else? The old hotel. Come, darling, and we’ll work something out.”
Hannah’s stomach clenched painfully, her heart throbbing in her chest. “What does that mean?”
She could hear Salvatore click his teeth impatiently on the other end of the call. “Just come out first and we’ll see.”
“How do I know you haven’t already killed Evan? You could be bluffing to get me to come out,” Hannah argued.
“You hear this?” Salvatore said, a whooshing sound filling Hannah’s ear as he moved the phone around. At first she just heard heavy breathing before a baby’s cry pierced through her ears. Alex. Shit. “See, your baby’s still alive. If you want him and Evan to stay that way, you’ll come out, as soon as possible. Goodbye, Hannah.” He hung up immediately, oppressive hopeless silence filling Hannah’s ears in place of the sounds of her baby boy.
She was still lightheaded from fainting earlier, but she had to get up without attracting the attention of any of the nurses. She slowly shifted and put her feet on the ground, carefully standing up and taking an experimental step. It took all of her energy, all of the effort left in her bones to move. But she did it. She pushed forward, finding her shoes on the other side of the room along with her big bag.
Hannah quickly slipped her feet inside her boots and swung the bag over her shoulder, heading for the door. She walked down the hallway casually, trying not to be noticed by anybody, but as soon as she turned a corner she broke out into a run, stumbling as fast as she could for the stairs. She kept going, her body relearning how to move with every step she took down until she exited out into a parking garage.
Shit, I don’t have a car, Hannah realized, looking around at the lines of SUVs and vans that surrounded her. Oh, well. Her old tricks from her teenage days would have to pay off for her one last time.
She chose a small blue car, pulling a long thin wire out of her bag to slip through the crack in the window and crack the lock on the front door. Her wrists weren’t cooperating with her, so it took a few minutes longer than it should have, Hannah constantly looking over her shoulder every few seconds and ducking out of sight whenever a random person walked down into the garage and went past her. But eventually the lock clicked open and Hannah climbed inside, slamming the door shut behind her.
What are the chances that a key is waiting for me? Hannah wondered, searching the glove compartment for a spare. When her trembling hands finally landed on the key, she brought it to her mouth and kissed it repeatedly, tears pooling in her eyes as a result of the miracle that she had just been granted. Maybe God is watching out for me, she thought despite the circumstances. I still have a chance.
She pulled out of the garage as quickly as possible, speeding down the main road until she could get on the highway, heading for the old hotel that used to be her home.
When the silhouette of the old mansion appeared on the skyline, her tongue went as dry as sandpaper in her mouth and the contents of her stomach swam around in her gut like fish trying to escape a bowl full of water. Just a couple of weeks ago she’d run from this place, and at the time she swore never to come back. How had she failed so terribly?
Enough whining, she berated herself, pressing down on the accelerator to get to the hotel faster. You have to go in again. You have to.
She had no choice. Evan had looked…he’d looked horrible, tied up the way he was in that picture. There was no way she could leave him there to die. But what if I’m too late? Hannah wondered, her heart pounding in her throat violently at the thought.
I can’t be too late. I can’t be, she argued with herself. There’s no way. I haven’t…I haven’t told him yet… Her inner monologue trailed off.
What? What haven’t I told him? Hannah thought as her car rapidly closed the distance stretching out in front of the old hotel.
That he is loved, she answered herself, and she knew it to be true the way she knew the earth was real, the way she knew that blood ran in her veins. It was like the love she felt for him had been hiding inside of her all of her life, waiting for this moment to finally wake up. It was exactly what she needed, energizing every cell in her body. Preparing her for war.
Time to stop running. Time to face the music, no matter how ugly it is. Time to save my boys.
The car rolled to a stop in the front driveway. She wasn’t trying to hide. She was going to walk in with her head held high, even if one of Salvatore’s guards put a bullet into it a second later. Hannah exhaled shakily. She decided to leave her bag in the car. It would only be taken away from her anyway.
Hannah got out of the car, locking it and shoving the key deep in her back pocket as she approached the front door of the old hotel. She used to love this place a little bit. It was the first home she’d had without a leaky roof. That counted for something, some feeling of security that she’d never expected to feel as a kid. But now as she walked inside, she couldn’t feel anything but dread.
As soon as she passed through the threshold, two broad hands landed under her arms, picking her up and holding her in midair. Hannah kicked her feet a little but didn’t actually resist.
“All right, all right, I’m coming willingly, hands off,” she said to the hulking guard that had lifted her and now patted her down, clearly looking for a gun or a knife or anything else she could use as a weapon. She held her breath as the guard patted down her back pocket, but he didn’t notice the key inside. At least there was a chance, however small, that she could still get away in the car if she got the opportunity to run back outside after grabbing Alex and Evan.
After another f
ew seconds of searching, the guard was finally satisfied, but he grabbed her hands and held them behind her back, squeezing tight around her wrists.
“Is that really fucking necessary?” Hannah asked, trying to pull out of the guard’s grasp.
“Shut your trap,” the guard said. “Walk.”
Hannah did as he said, going forward into the entry hallway, turning corners when the guard unceremoniously shoved her left or right. Eventually she realized where they were going: to her old bedroom, where Salvatore used to keep her holed up with Alex. But before they could get there, Salvatore appeared out of one of the side rooms, causing the guard to freeze in his tracks before pushing Hannah forward in Salvatore’s direction.
“Hello, lover,” Salvatore said, an ugly grin spreading across his face. “You know, there was a part of me that hoped you wouldn’t come.”
“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?” Hannah asked, feeling the sick burn of hatred climb up her back and lower neck as she stared at the man who had imprisoned and then hunted her.
Salvatore shrugged a little, stepping forward to grab Hannah’s hands. “Oh, you’re cold,” he said, rubbing her wrists with his fingers. Hannah trembled and yanked her hands away out of his grasp.
“Okay, I’m here, I did what you wanted. But don’t fucking touch me, Salvatore,” she said, suppressing the urge to spit in his face.
He sighed deeply and cocked his head to one side, looking at her like she was an animal in a zoo. “I’m sad you came, because I thought that maybe I was wrong. Maybe you didn’t love him. But you do, don’t you?”
Hannah narrowed her eyes and scowled. “None of your fucking business.”
“But that’s where you’re wrong,” Salvatore replied. “It is my business, because you’re mine, Hannah. You’ve always been mine. All I wanted was for you to come home, come back to me, but instead you—”
Hannah cut him off, her disgust becoming too much to bear. “No, no, you didn’t want that, otherwise you wouldn’t have sent your fucking goons after me, trying to murder me and steal Alex—”
“And you fell in love with one of those goons,” Salvatore interrupted her, making her fall silent. “What’s going through your mind, Hannah? What is your silly stupid little head thinking of? You think anything will be different with him? You think he’s any different from me?”
Hannah just stared at him, watching as his face got redder and redder as his anger mounted. She felt herself start to tremble, the way she always would right before Salvatore hit her in the past, but she tried hard to quell the shaking as best as she could. Don’t give him the satisfaction, she told herself. Don’t give him your fear.
“Answer me,” Salvatore demanded. “You think he’s better than me? You think he’s not going to get fed up like I do by the stupid fucking bullshit you say and knock you around? Huh?”
Hannah swallowed to clear the lump in her throat, image after image after image of Evan flooding her mind at the thought. He was a murderer, just like Salvatore. So what was the difference, really? “He’s not a monster,” she whispered. “That’s the difference.”
She saw the hand aiming for her face before it connected. That didn’t make the pain any less real, her cheek stinging with the force of the impact. She cupped her cheek and rubbed her skin to make the pain go away, but she didn’t duck her head or drop her eyes like she would have in the past. She faced him down, staring as hard as she could into his eyes. I know what you are, she said silently with her gaze. And deep down inside you do, too.
Salvatore’s chest rose and fell rapidly, his face going a deep red as if he could hear the silent words. “You want to see how mean I can be? You haven’t seen shit yet.”
He launched forward and grabbed Hannah by the hair, dragging her across the hallway towards her old bedroom. No matter how hard she tried, she hadn’t escaped this place. This was where she was going to spend the rest of her life, no matter how short that might be. But as she crashed into the room and saw Evan, slowly sitting up straight in his chair, she thought, at least I won’t die alone.
***
Evan
It took Evan an eternity to open his eyes. That’s what it felt like, as if he’d spent a thousand years struggling with the pain to lift his eyelids. But he did it. He opened them, staring now at the crotch of the guard standing above him. Evan focused as hard as he could to lift his head, seeing a gun dangling down in front of his face from the guard’s hands.
Salvatore had been out of the room for a while, as far as he could tell, and Evan wondered a little vaguely where he’d been, but ultimately he didn’t care. Any second without him was a tiny moment of freedom, a few seconds where he wasn’t being beaten or cut into.
But then, suddenly he heard two voices shouting, one male, one female. A moment later two bodies stumbled gracelessly into the room. It was Salvatore, holding onto Hannah by the nape of her neck. Hannah. Hannah, no!
Evan had never felt more like crying ever before in his life. He thought for sure Hannah would stay away, that she would know better than anybody that there was no way out of this situation. Now they were all going to die: Hannah, Evan, Alex, all together. It was all for nothing.
“So, it’s a big fucking party now, isn’t it?” Sal shouted, pulling on Hannah’s hair until she visibly winced. “Fucking cunt.”
“Let her go,” Evan whispered, struggling to speak louder. He must have lost a lot of blood earlier; he felt so weak. But he still straightened up in the chair, trying once again to flex out of his restraints despite the guard standing over him with the gun.
“Yeah, okay, I’ll do that,” Salvatore said mockingly, shoving Hannah to the ground with all of his might. Hannah tried to get back up immediately, but Salvatore put his boot on her back and pushed until she sunk down to the ground. “Yeah, stay down. Stay where you belong, bitch.”
Hannah grunted weakly and tried to flip over onto her back and stand up, but this time Salvatore kicked her right in the stomach, causing her to cry out in pain and clutch her torso.
“I’ll fucking kill you,” Evan vowed between clenched teeth, but Salvatore just laughed at him, deep and full-throated.
“Yeah, keep talking that talk, big man,” Salvatore taunted him, gesturing to the guard dangling the gun in Evan’s face. “You know, I tried to give you both a chance. I invited you back into my home after you betrayed me, and you still give me this fucking attitude. Acting like I’m this big evil guy when really—” Salvatore slammed his fist against the wall, cracking the plaster a little. “Really, I’m the victim here. I’m the one who’s been betrayed. I’m the one who’s been hurt and cheated on by this fucking bitch. I would have forgiven you, too. Really, I would have,” Salvatore continued, leaning over to look in Hannah’s eyes and talk directly to her. “But you had to keep disrespecting me, always disrespecting me, always making me mad, always turning me into somebody I don’t want to be.”
“Fucking liar,” Hannah croaked out from her place on the ground. “You fucking love being who you are.”
Sal smirked down at her for a minute before the grin slipped off his face and was replaced by a scowl. A second later, he leaned over her and spat in her face. “After everything I’ve given you, taking you out of the trash where you were born, accepting you, cleaning you up, turning you into a real woman—after all of that, this is how you repay me. Ungrateful cunt.” Salvatore raised his boot again and slammed it down into Hannah’s legs.
“Stop it! Just stop it! Hit me instead, please!” Evan begged, the effort of yelling burning his damaged vocal cords.
Salvatore threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, Evan. Evan, Evan, Evan, you stupid little man. I expected better from you, you know. Not the loyalty thing, I mean. All hitmen are opportunistic pieces of shit at the end of the day, but I thought you were smart, you know? I thought you had your head on straight. Instead you just went and got distracted by this evil vindictive bitch. I made the same mistake, thinking she could love me. But there’s nothing good
or pure about her. She’s just gutter trash, and she’ll never amount to anything. Especially now.”
Hannah started crawling in the opposite direction from Salvatore, and at first Evan thought she was trying to get away, but then he realized where she was going. Alex. Alex was in his crib, crying for his mother.
“Uh, uh, uh!” Salvatore yelled, like a teacher reprimanding her. He walked ahead of her and scooped Alex out of his crib, cradling him in his arms. “My baby. Not yours, Hannah. Not anymore.”
Hannah chocked out a sob, and Evan felt like a thousand daggers had just been buried in his chest. “Don’t hurt him, Salvatore!” she cried out hysterically. “Don’t you dare fucking hurt him!”
“Now, why would I want to do that?” Salvatore asked, a mocking edge to his voice. “He’s mine now. He’s not going to be corrupted by your weakness any longer. He’ll grow up to be strong, like me.”
