by David Nees
An hour later she came down to the main floor. She went to the kitchen and put the kettle on to boil some water.
“Making some tea?”
“What does it look like,” she said. Her tone was full of sarcasm.
“How about making me a cup?”
Evangeline didn’t answer but she did pull a second cup from the cupboard. With the tea made, she sat down on a chair across from the couch where Dan was sitting. She avoided eye contact with him and stared out of the window. The afternoon light bathed the mountains to the east in a yellow glow. It looked like they were lit up by floodlights. The sipped their tea in silence, both taking in the view.
“You ready to talk about your father?”
The girl seemed to shrink in her chair and shook her head.
“We need to talk at some point. You’re getting healthy again. I could take you back now, but I want to hear your story.”
“You’ll have to kill me. I won’t go back. I’d rather die.”
“That’s kind of what you were doing to yourself with the drugs and the pornography, committing a slow suicide.”
“What do you know about it? You’ve seen me? So now you judge me? You’re just as bad as those assholes who pay to watch.”
“People pay to watch?”
“You are so stupid. They pay to watch the scenes being filmed. We put on S&M shows while making the films. Feriz makes money in production and in distribution. He’s got it figured out.”
“Not anymore.”
“You killed him. And some of the guards. How many others did you kill?”
“He was not your friend. He got you hooked. He’s enslaved other girls with the drugs and then used them to make his movies. Have you ever thought about what he does with them after he’s used them up?”
She looked over at him.
“Did you see any of the girls disappear? Not be around anymore? Ever wonder where they went? Did they just decide to leave and live a normal life?”
She shook her head obviously not wanting to acknowledge the truth of what Dan was saying.
“They didn’t come to a good end. I can assure you of that. Either he prostituted them or put them into more violent films where they may have been injured or worse. There’s a market for that sick stuff and don’t act like you don’t know it. You’ve seen the dark side of men, but it can get even darker.”
Evangeline shrank back from Dan’s words. “I don’t know what went on.”
“But whether or not you knew it, you were headed in that direction. If your addiction got too bad or when your good looks faded with the abuse and the drugs you were going to wind up in a similar scenario.”
She stood up and glared at him. “You don’t know. Those are just words. What I know is that you kidnapped me and now you’re going to put me back in hell. I’d rather die!”
She stomped up the stairs and back into her room.
Dan sat there. Going too fast. But how do I get her to open up so I can listen the way Jane told me to do? He got up and put his cup on the sink. First, she has to talk.
That evening was more peaceful. Evangeline apologized to Dan and Dan said he was sorry for speaking harshly to her.
“I might have been headed in the wrong direction, I know that. But I can’t go back and I can’t live with what I know.”
“Tell me. It will help you to talk about whatever is bothering you.”
She gave him a sardonic smile. “‘Bothering you’. Such a gentle phrase. It doesn’t begin to describe what I know. I can’t speak of it. It’s a something that should never see the light of day.”
“If you keep it to yourself, it will fester. It will devour you from the inside out.”
“It already has,” she said sadly. She got up. “I’m going to lie down and hope I can sleep through the night.”
The sky was clouding up and a storm was brewing. Dan could see the rain coming down to the east. It moved towards them and would soon climb the slopes and wash over them. It would be a noisy night with rain thrumming on the roof and lightning and thunder cracking overhead.
Maybe their conversations were making progress. Dan couldn’t really tell, but if they were, it was slow, maybe too slow. He didn’t want to stay too long and he had a decision to make.
Two hours later, Dan opened the door to Evangeline’s room to say goodnight. She was asleep, wrapped up in her covers. The rain had started and the pounding on the roof was louder in the bedrooms than down on the main floor. He was glad she could sleep. That was a good sign. Hopefully he could as well.
He locked her door and went into his bedroom. An hour later he was asleep.
Chapter 20
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A round 2:00 am an especially loud clap of thunder woke Dan. He got up and went to the bathroom. One the way back, he unlocked Evangeline’s door and peaked in. There was a lump in the bed like she was hidden under the covers but something didn’t look right to Dan. The window was open. He stepped over to the bed and gently pulled back the blankets. There were only pillows underneath.
Evangeline had pretended to be sound asleep when she heard Dan open her door to check in on her. She lay in the bed for another two hours. The storm increased in intensity and noise. Around midnight, she got up and put on her clothes. She only had her jeans and T-shirt, both of which Dan had washed. The sweater was in her room. She put it on. Then she went to the window and opened it. The rain was coming down hard, but the steep hillside protected the back of the chalet from the onslaught of the wind. She climbed through the window. The slope rose up so her drop was not three stories, more about ten feet. She slid down the side of the cottage, holding on to the rim of the window.
When she was fully stretched out, she took a deep breath and let go. In a moment she hit the ground. She was facing the wall and her feet flew out from under her and she slammed back against the hillside. The wind was knocked out of her. She just lay there with the rain drenching her face. After getting her breath back she got up and slithered down to the foundation and made her way around the wall to the opposite side of the cabin from where the car was parked.
She was limping. Her left foot had twisted when she hit the ground. It would be all right. She only had to go downhill to the village. Once there, she could get some help and be safe from Dan taking her back. He had been gentle with her, but he could scare her as well. She saw how lethal he was, yet so solicitous of her well-being. It didn’t matter. She brushed any friendly thoughts out of her mind. He was going to deliver her to her father and that would be like delivering her to her death. She’d get help. Maybe the authorities would capture him and arrest him, maybe he would get away. Evangeline didn’t care. She only cared that she not be sent back to Zürich and her father. She’d disappear again and this time she’d avoid the pornography industry.
The fastest way downhill was to cut through the forest and fields, going straight down rather than following the road which snaked back and forth. The woods seemed safer than the road as well as faster. She slipped and slid across the field in front of the chalet. Once she’d reached the evergreen trees with no one seeing her, she breathed easier. From there on, she’d be out of sight. The rain beat down. It quickly soaked the thick wool sweater which became very heavy. Still it was better than just a T-shirt. It was a cold night up on the mountain.
In the woods there was some protection from the downpour although large drops of water would fall after building up on the fir needles until they couldn’t hold the water. They would hit her in the head and shoulders with loud, wet splats. The sweater, already large for her, stretched and hung loosely around her. It repeatedly snagged on the stiff dead branches sticking out from the lower parts of the trees. The snags held her up and she pulled and ripped herself free numerous times. Emerging from one swath of woods, she walked through a waist-high hay field. Out in the open she was pummeled by the wind and rain. She tripped and fell, sliding ten yards down-hill. She picked herself up. Her clot
hes were now muddy. The sweater hung limply from her arms and slipped off her shoulder. Her hair was matted down, some of it sticking to her face. She kept wiping her face and eyes with the back of her hand which was covered by the wool sweater. She trudged on and crossed the road to go into another field.
The next section of woods was tighter going, but the wind and rain were less intense under the trees. She twisted through the conifers, one branch grabbed her so hard she was stopped in her tracks. She angrily jerked forward and the sweater was ripped off, the buttons pulling through the water-stretched eyelets. Evangeline grabbed at the sweater but it stubbornly remained hooked by the branch. She swore and set off without it.
She crossed the road again and gained the next lower field. The rain lashed her arms, now exposed. She stumbled forward, slipping down into a muddy ditch on her back. She lay there and caught her breath. Then she started up the bank of the ditch only to slip and fall face-forward into the mud and slide back down. A string of curse words erupted from her. She again crawled up the muddy bank. At the top, covered in mud, she got up and staggered forward. She began shivering intensely. How far is it to the bottom?
Her strength, not fully returned from her withdrawal, began to fail her. Got to make it to town. After crossing the road again, she walked over the shoulder of the hill. The ground fell away in the steep drop, her feet slipped in the wet field, and she went tumbling and rolling down the slope. It was steep enough to be difficult to walk in the dry and now impossible in the wet. When she finally stopped she was face down against the ground. The hay smelled fresh in the wet but provided no comfort.
With a groan, Evangeline got up and started off again. Finally she reached another patch of the forest and entered it with some relief. The branches now scratched at her torso and arms as she stumbled along in the dark, guided by the slope, always downhill.
Ahead the darkness lessened as she neared the end of the woods. She stumbled forward, on the sloped ground, trying not to trip over fallen branches. Stepping out of the woods, too late she saw that she was at the top of a bank cut into the hillside to make a bench for the road below. The wet ground gave way under her feet and she went tumbling down twelve feet of dirt and rocks banging to a stop in a ditch next to the road. She didn’t move.
When Dan saw the open window and confirmed Evangeline’s absence from the bed he ran to get dressed and went out to the Land Rover. She’d go downhill, try to get to the village. He stopped for a moment. Did she go straight down, across the fields and woods or keep to the road? He didn’t know how much head start she had but it could be as much as two hours. He grabbed his flashlight and went back around the house. She’d go around the chalet away from the car area. He went there and then started straight across the field.
He moved fast with the benefit of the flashlight. When he reached the woods, he slowed his pace to look for signs of her passing, freshly broken branches or footprints. He didn’t see anything but kept going. She would go down, that would be her frame of reference, always downhill.
He crossed the road and continued through the next field. In the next section of woods he thought he could see freshly broken branches but could not be sure. Coming out of the woods, he crossed the road again. He jogged down the hill on the far side of the road, his boots giving him some traction. His light exposed a ditch ahead and Dan slowed down. Evangeline, with no light would not have seen the ditch. There was a good chance she would fall into it. He started off parallel to the ditch and went fifty yards, his flashlight playing along it, looking for signs of her passing. Seeing nothing, he turned around and retraced his steps, going fifty yards in the other direction. There he found the marks, the signs of her slipping, of her crawling up the opposite side.
With a swelling of relief in his chest, Dan crossed the bank and headed downhill. He now had her trail. She would not vary her path from downhill and he would do the same. He crossed the road again and entered the lower field. His flashlight picked out the shoulder where the hill dropped away. Dan slowed his pace and shone his flashlight around. He suspected that the drop-off might catch Evangeline out and she might fall. The waist-high grass should show him evidence of that if it happened. Sure enough, he found a swath where the grass had been disturbed, partially knocked down. It was wider than if someone walked down. She rolled down the slope. I hope she’s all right. He slid his way down the hill on his heels and butt.
He entered the next woods section. He was still on her trail. How far ahead was she? Dan guessed he had to be moving faster than her with his light and boots. He pushed through the woods, trying to go faster. He didn’t need to go slow, looking for signs, he was on her trail, like a hound homing in. Up ahead the flashlight showed horizon. There was a drop off. He slowed his pace and carefully approached the lip of the cut bank. He played the light along the bottom of the bank and there, in the ditch, he saw her lying face down.
Chapter 21
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S he was barely conscious. Her body was cold. Icy water ran down the ditch sluicing around her body, chilling her even further. Dan looked around. Further up the road the bank tapered off as the shoulder leveled out. He picked her up and carried her up the road. When he was beyond the bank, he trudged up the hill and back into the woods. There was no dry place to be found, but the rain and wind were less fierce inside the pines. He laid her down on a thick bed of needles and took off his coat to cover her. She moaned and shivered but didn’t regain full consciousness.
That done Dan went back to the road and started running back up to the chalet. He was a little over a mile away by road. He settled his body into a quick jog. This was going to be as bad as any training run, over a mile uphill in hiking boots in the rain and wind. His lungs began to burn, as his forceful breathing kept pumping cold air in and out of his lungs. He sounded like a steam-driven locomotive with each explosive exhale. The legs began to feel heavy but he wouldn’t slow, pumping his arms ever harder to help thrust his body forward.
The picture of Evangeline lying in the ditch drove him forward. He picked up his pace and just as he had done in training runs, shut his mind to everything but the image of his goal, the parking area and the Land Rover.
Finally, the chalet came in sight and with a new burst of energy Dan hammered across the gravel and grabbed the door of the SUV. He got in and raced back to where he had left Evangeline. He ran up into the woods. It took a few minutes of circling around to find her. She was shivering uncontrollably. Dan picked her up and carried her down to the SUV. He put her in the back, turned around and drove back to the chalet.
He brought her up to the bedroom and stripped off her wet clothes. She lay naked on the floor.
After toweling her dry, he picked her up and placed her on the bed and pulled the covers over her. Then he went to get more blankets. She was semi-conscious but couldn’t talk, her body racked with violent shivers. Got to get her warm. Build a fire? No time. Dan’s mind raced over his options. He checked the closets and found a down comforter which he put that over her. Her body’s not going to reheat by itself. Without an additional heat source, she could just get colder until her body shut down. After running through questionable options, Dan took off his clothes, grabbed a towel and violently rubbed his body until it became red. He wanted blood near the surface of his skin.
With only his underpants on he slipped into bed with Evangeline and pulled her to him. He was nestled up against her back, maximizing the skin to skin connection. His arms wrapped around her and pressed her back to him. Her shivering continued. Dan could feel how cold she was. He started rubbing her arms and legs with his hands and moving his body against hers, trying to transfer heat into her.
With the addition of his body heat, the cocoon under the covers began to get warmer. Slowly her shivering diminished. When her shivering lost some of its intensity, Dan got up and went down the hall to the bathroom. He filled the tub, warm to start. When the tub was full, he went back and carried Evangeli
ne to the bath. He slid her into the water and then began adding hot water to the mix, gradually increasing the temperature so as to not shock her system.
After ten minutes she looked up at him. “You found me.”
Dan nodded. “You scared me. It’s a cold night. You could have died out there.”
“I wanted to get away. I don’t want to go back. You saved my life…but you’ll end it if you send me back.”
Dan could see she was trying to process all that had happened.
“Don’t talk now, just get warm.”
He stood up.
“You’re not dressed,” she said. “Were you taking advantage of me?”
He couldn’t read her expression, whether she was kidding him or not. Then she lowered her gaze to his crotch. Feeling suddenly embarrassed, Dan turned towards the door. “I’ll get you something warm to drink now that you’re conscious. Don’t get out of the water yet.”
When Dan returned he had his clothes on. He handed Evangeline a mug of hot tea with honey in it.
“Drink this, it will warm you and give some energy.”
“No fair. You’re dressed and I’m naked,” Evangeline said. Her complaint was accompanied by a sly smile.
Dan turned his head. “You’re right. I’ll get you a bathrobe. Your clothes are too wet and dirty to put on.
Later, after she got out of the bath, Evangeline came down to the main floor wrapped in a terry cloth robe.
“This is cozy,” she said.
Dan didn’t say anything. He was unsure of how to respond to what were now pleasant comments. Hours ago, she was desperate enough to run away into the storm, now she seemed oddly friendly.
It was getting brighter outside, but there would be no sunrise this morning. The skies were still laden with clouds and the rain and wind continued, although more intermittent now.
