“We didn't know,” he was saying. “We had no way of contacting you. We only knew what they told us, and even then, we couldn't be sure of the truth — ”
“Christina.” My mother's voice. Her dark eyes assessed me through the bars. Hooded, as though she had been sleeping. She raised her eyebrows. Even in prison, the arches were still perfect. “Is that you? I barely recognized you; you've lost so much weight.”
“Nice to see you, too, Mom.”
“Is that all you have to say to me, after all this time? “'Nice to see you?'”
“You abandoned me. What am I supposed to say?”
“Think of this from your father's and my perspectives. When that organization began sending us threatening telephone calls, we didn't have time to think. They didn't mention you at all. Why bring you to their attention? Our staying in that house would only put you in danger.”
Bullshit. “But that isn't what happened. They did know. And you left me there — like a sitting duck. Plus, there was that message. The one on the machine. You had to have known.”
“Message?” Dad looked confused.
“She's talking about a warning I had the detective leave her, just in case.” My mother looked annoyed at having to explain herself so much. “You're completely missing the point, Christina. Listen — ”
“No! You listen. You don't know what's happened to me over the last couple weeks. What I've sacrificed by coming here. While you and Dad were running around and fleeing the country, I was almost killed. Yet whenever people pressed me for information about you, I lied, like a good little girl. I said nothing. I risked everything — because I thought you would save me. But you didn't.” I drew in a deep breath. “Now — what have you really done for me? And complimenting me on my prison weight loss or giving me one pathetic warning don't count.”
“We turned ourselves in to save you, you ungrateful child. Isn't that why you're free?”
“Liliana, Christina, do we have to talk about this now?” my father pleaded. His eyes were restless, searching the darkened corridors for guards. It was plain to see he thought our argument was going to attract unwanted attention. “Christina, your mother really did try her best to keep you alive, but I really think we should focus on getting out of here. We can work out the details later, go to family counseling, anything you think is necessary” — my mother muttered something sarcastic — “But for now, I think — ”
“It doesn't really matter what you think,” Michael said, in a voice like steel. I felt him come up behind me. “The only reason this girl is alive is me.”
“Michael, no — ” I cut off as he wrapped his arms around my waist.
“Let me handle this.”
“That voice! I recognize that voice,” my mother growled. “It's the hijo de puta who kidnapped Christina.”
“I think you owe your daughter some answers. I'm interested in hearing them myself, actually.”
What the hell is he doing?
“You think you — you — of all people have a right to tell me how to do my job?” my mother squawked. “I'm not telling you a thing! Get away from my daughter, or I will scream for the guards!”
“Liliana, no!” Dad cried. “Are you crazy?”
“You do that and they'll kill us all.” I felt the mean laughter as it vibrated through his throat. “Come on, Mrs. Parker-de-Silva. For once, in your miserable fucking life, think about somebody besides yourself — because I'm not letting you out of this cell until you do.”
Dad sighed. He knew Mom's rages too well. “Hear him out. We don't have much choice. Looks like we'll have to deal with this sooner, rather than later.” To me, he said, apologetically, “The call came so suddenly, we didn't know what to do. Adults panic, just like children. Maybe worse than children, because we have the ability to do so much more harm. You were in school. We didn't want to pull you out and drive you into a panic. We had no way of knowing that they knew anything about you. I suppose we made some bad decisions. I'm sorry, Sweet Pea. If I could do the whole thing again, I'd do it differently. I really would.”
He was crying. I'd never seen my dad cry before. Coulda, woulda, shoulda — why hadn't he made the right choice when it really mattered? Why hack at all?
Michael seemed to be thinking the same thing. “Your wife left her at my mercy. I am curious. Did you think I was bluffing? Or were you simply not concerned? I have difficulty believing any real mother would willingly allow her child to be raped.”
The irony of that statement. I wanted to throw up.
“Liliana — what the fuck is he talking about?”
Mom looked Michael straight in the eye. “He demands no money. Instead he makes cheap threats to sound like a bigger man. What kind of man trades information for a girl, instead of asking for something sensible?”
“Mother!”
“You stupid bitch,” Michael said softly.
“What do you want from us?” My dad still looked sick.
“I am here to help you at her request.” He nodded at me. “If you follow my instructions, you have a chance at survival.”
Mom looked hopeful, then angry. “I told you to get your hands off her.”
“I have kept her alive,” he said in a chilling voice. “Which is a lot more than you can say for yourself, leaving her with a man like me.”
“Don't talk to my wife like that.”
Michael turned towards me. “I've had enough. Give me on of the hair pins.”
I handed him one. Ignoring my father, Michael jimmied the manual lock while checking over his shoulder for guards. The door slid open after a few terse seconds. “Get out,” Michael said. “Quickly. Use the door on the left.”
“We came in through the right.”
“Which is exactly why you should take the door on the left.”
“It's a trap,” my mother said. “He's trying to kill us, as before.”
“I'm not so sure it is.” Dad gave me another hug. “I am so, so sorry, Sweet Pea. Thank you for saving us. You're my little Guardian Angel.” It was a sad hug, an apologetic hug, and it made me feel…nothing. I was numb. Dad shot my mother a furious look, so full of disgust that she actually balked; Mom never balked at anything.
She recovered quickly enough. “Coming Christina?”
“No.”
“What? You want to stay with him?”
“No. I am going to save the woman who helped me when nobody else would. And I'm sorry to say this, Mom — because I still love you — but that person wasn't you. I wish that weren't true, but it is.” She flinched. I felt bad for a moment, until I remembered all those nights I had spent cold, alone, and unhappy — because of her. My heart hardened…just a little. “Get out of here,” I added. “That's what you really want. I'll just slow you down. Just as I always have.”
She looked stunned. “I feel like I don't know you anymore.”
“You never did,” I replied, just as coolly. “You were always too busy thinking about who you would like me to be that you never thought to ask who I actually was.”
Mom shook her head. Even now, she couldn't deal with anything that contrasted against her world views. Catholic guilt made children in perpetual debt to their parents for a gift that was immeasurable and holy and impossible to repay: life. My sudden rebellion was not because of any fault of hers, in her eyes, but through some failure of mine.
“You look different. Act different.” She scowled at Michael, clenching her hands into fists. “What did you do to my daughter, puto?”
Michael turned on his heel. “Are you addressing me?”
“Yes, I am talking to you…you…mamagüevazo.”
I flinched. “Mamá.”
She'd just used one of the most profane insults particular to Domincans. Her tone left little need for a translator, and Michael narrowed his eyes accordingly.
“You rob my daughter of her innocence, turning her into a whore no decent christian man will want — and then brainwash her? To turn her against me, her ow
n mother? Who bore her from her own womb? You monster! When will you be satisfied? You — ”
He backhanded her across the face. “Shut the fuck up.”
She pressed a hand against her cheek. “What?”
“Shut the fuck up,” he repeated, “And get out of here — or I'll kill you myself.”
Mamá looked at him. Then at me. Then she ran. I closed my eyes and turned away.
“Come on.” Michael gripped my wrist. “We don't have much time.”
I swiped at my cheek with the heel of my hand. “Just a moment.”
“Your mother is a vain woman. Too accustomed to getting her own way. She's not worth a moment of my time. Or yours.”
Words could be as cruel as knives, though. Her old modeling photographs were on the mantle, above the fireplace. One of my friends once told me it was like a shrine, but I hadn't understood — until now. I used to look at them and hate myself, wondering what was wrong with me that I didn't look like that. Now I realized belatedly there was no problem with me. The problem was with her. She didn't like herself, but she liked me even less for not surpassing her own personal standards. Even if I had, that still wouldn't have been enough. She liked lording her superiority over people. I could be the most successful model in the world and I suspected she would still consider me inferior to her own talents and abilities, resenting me for what she undoubtedly would consider a “lucky break.”
The truth had been staring me in the face this entire time, and I'd been too blind to see. My parents weren't perfect people. I knew that, obviously, but hadn't really understood the implications. I'd been taught never to question; that my parents were on a level of authority surpassed only by God. But my parents weren't divine. Not hardly. They were people, fallible, with weaknesses and flaws. My mother, with her unfulfilled hopes and cripplingly low self-esteem — what kind of woman attacks her daughter for passing remarks one of her catty friends makes? I'd completely internalized the insults. Now they made me think. Was my mother really ashamed of me? Or was she ashamed of herself and looking for a scapegoat?
I understood, but that didn't mean I liked it or that it hurt any less. My parents' flaws had caused them to disappoint me when I needed them most. I still loved them; I wasn't sure if I could ever forgive them. Just the look on my mother's face when she looked in my eyes and shamelessly called me a whore. “She wants nothing to do with me,” I said sadly.
“You cut right to the core of her. Of course she wants nothing to do with you. You made her look inside herself and see how self-centered she is. Nobody appreciates being disillusioned. But you're alive. Your parents are alive. The cowardice gene appears to have passed you over. You ask me, you've got a lot to be grateful for.”
Grateful. Yeah, right.
“You don't think so?”
“I found out my parents value their lives over my own today,” I said. “It kind of sucks.”
“You think you're the only person this happened to? I've seen many people take a fatalistic approach to danger — to hell with everyone else. If people are meant to live, they'll live. If not, more room for the rest of us. There's a reason that kind of mindset prevails, darlin. Attachments make people vulnerable; they can be used as a weapon against you. Because when you think about it, it's pretty fucking counter-intuitive for survival to be thinking, 'What if that bullet hits her?' instead of 'What if that bullet hits me?'”
I didn't know what to say. It was a surprisingly profound statement, especially coming from him. Emotions had seemed to be a foreign language to Michael: one he refused to learn. He'd said countless times he considered them a fatal weakness. And yet, what he just said implied insight into the minds of others. Insight, sympathy, and maybe even a bit of regret.
Maybe that was wishful thinking, on my part. I was one of those fatally flawed people who actually had emotions, with a tendency to romanticize to boot — but somehow, I didn't think so. I opened my mouth to issue some Hallmark sentiment of my own but was drowned out by gunfire.
Michael:
With a feeling akin to gratitude, I whipped around and returned fire. By now, my eyes had gotten adjusted to the darkness. I saw several guards drop. A savage joy filled me each time I felled one of the fuckers. I nearly forgot about the girl standing beside me. Her face was drawn, turned away from the carnage. I gritted my teeth. Readjusted my aim.
Click.
Empty.
A sign from God, the girl would say, given her hatred of violence. The guards had started to advance the moment they realized I was out of ammo — and that had been my last viable gun. I was starting to reach my limit and I suspected Christina had reached hers long ago. She stumbled along beside me. I practically had to drag her.
“Where do you think A is?”
I tried to hide my annoyance. “Probably Node Five.”
“Why so high a number? She never killed anyone.”
“You don't need to kill people to be dangerous. Sometimes just knowing things is enough.”
If A was in Node Five, the place would be swarming with guards. Not just the regular kinds, which were bad enough, but the special ops guys. The ones with the bulletproof armor and riot shields.
“I don't remember this many doors being open before,” said Christina.
She was right. All of the office doors were hanging ajar. With no manual locks, there was nothing to keep them from opening.
“There they are!”
A bullet shot past my neck.
“In here.” I darted into one of the laboratories. The equipment was far too expensive for the guards to risk more careless shots. Glass instruments and electronic equipment and wires were strewn about, organized into haphazard piles awaiting assembly or experimentation.
If this place led where I thought it led then…yes, we'd be close to weapons storage. That door hadn't had a manual lock back when I'd worked here all those years ago, but they could have upped the ante on security since then. I forced myself to stay focused. The guards were coming through the doors, edging around the tables. They wouldn't shoot unless it was point-blank. They wanted us trapped in here. But the easternmost door wasn't blocked yet.
“Get ready to run in three seconds,” I whispered. “Two…one…”
“Wha — ”
I tightened my grip around her wrist and darted around the tables, keeping low. A single shot went off, followed by a smash and a curse. One flight of stairs and two corridors later, we were in the weapons storage room. Am I good or what? I gave the door a push, holding my breath. Would it open?
It did.
During my first week on the job, I'd been assigned as a researcher. Richardson had sent me on a business trip to Target Island to see what an internment base looked like, as well as to stock and itemize all the hand-held weapons used by the IMA. As most young men do when dangerous weapons are thrown into the mix, I'd all but drooled. The IMA imported weapons from all over the world. Spectre M4 submachine guns, grenade launchers, TT33s and AK-47s were just a couple of the nasty toys that the IMA just had lying around, gathering dust. There was also a wide assortment of knives, bulletproof armor, and emergency equipment like flares, smoke balls, and tinned rations.
I strapped one of the kevlar vests over my chest and grabbed one of the handguns, a Firestar, feeling like a kid in a goddamn candy store. Handguns were the weapons I used most often, and the ones I was most comfortable with, though I snagged a mine launcher and its detonator and a couple knives to be safe. The vest had pockets for auxiliary weapons and I placed these latter in the corresponding compartments.
In a small bin in the corner I found some fingerless gloves. I flexed my fingers and the leather squeaked satisfyingly. After spending literally hundreds of hours in this room, I knew it like the back of my hand. This was my element. I turned my head, and caught Christina looking at me strangely. “Yes?” I raised an eyebrow as I strapped the detonator around my wrist, beneath the gloves, where it would remain concealed from sight. “See something you like?�
��
She shrugged and looked back at the shelves of guns.
I helped myself to a couple smoke balls. A diversion could come in handy if — when — they fixed the generator. They were probably working on it even now .Then they would be back with reinforcements. That girl was going to need protection. Inside or outside, her white shirt made her a walking target. She might as well have been a flag of surrender.
“Come here,” I said. She turned away from the grenade launchers with a guilty start. The first vest I found for her was too big. I managed to find a smaller size. She jumped when I fastened the belt around her waist. I wanted to roll my eyes. “It needs to be tight. Trust me, you don't want this gaping open on you.”
“It's heavy,” she whined, tugging at the straps. “Is it supposed to be this tight?”
“It's heavy because it's lined with lead. To keep you from getting fucking shot.” I tested the straps, tightening and loosening as I saw fit, before pulling back and studying the overall effect. Very sexy. No. There's no time for that. I clicked my tongue in impatience. “You need a gun.”
“I don't want one.”
“Too bad.”
I got her one of the TT33s, a small silver handgun with a kick. I suspected she would find it less intimidating because of its size. “Be careful with this,” I warned her. “None of these have been fitted with silencers. It may look harmless but it isn't a toy. It makes a lot of noise when fired and you can kill somebody with it.”
She stared at the gun as if expecting it to come alive and bite her.
“Have you ever fired a gun before?” I queried, already knowing what the answer would be.
“No.”
“Do you want to learn?”
“No.”
“Let me rephrase that, then. You're going to learn.” I grabbed her hands, trapping beneath mine in such a way that her finger was on the trigger. I showed her how to take aim. “Sometimes it helps to close one eye. This is the safety. Always treat a gun as if it's loaded. Keep it on at all times…unless you're firing, of course.” I raised her arms, aiming at an imaginary target. “Relax your shoulders.”
Cloak and Dagger (The IMA) Page 23
