Heller's Regret

by JD Nixon

  “Hugh, it’s Tilly.”

  “Chalmers,” he said in surprise. “Why are you ringing me? Where are you?”

  “I don’t know where I am.” Not meaning to, I started crying. His warm voice was the most wonderful thing I’d heard in ages.

  “Don’t cry. Try to describe where you are.”

  Through snorts of tears, I gave him the best details of my surroundings I could manage. “I’m in one of the outer southern suburbs of the city. We just came from a road leading to the Lake Tranquillity Boot Camp.” I told him the name of the street I was ringing from and described a few of the more noticeable buildings near me.

  “Let me check my online maps.” I heard him tapping on his computer. “Okay, I think I know where you are. Stay put and I’ll be there soon.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered, hanging up.

  The taxis and relatives eventually arrived and the women piled into them, raising more than a few eyebrows at their filthy appearances.

  “I don’t want to leave you alone here,” said Gloria when her husband arrived, looking pretty unhappy at being up so early. She hesitated at the door, torn between making sure I was safe and the allure of home.

  “I’ll be all right,” I assured. “My friend’s on his way. And it’s light now.”

  She reluctantly climbed into the car and waved as it drove her away.

  My wait for Farrell seemed eternal, but I kept my eyes fixed on the road for his silver 4WD patiently. A vehicle from the other direction pulled up at the curb near me, forcing me to scrabble to my feet in fear of them being run over.

  “Hop in,” Farrell said, poking his head out of the window.

  I collapsed on his passenger seat, falling asleep immediately against the door. He leaned over to fasten my seatbelt, dropping a quick kiss on my cheek.

  “Hey,” I mumbled. “I felt that.”

  “I couldn’t help myself with you looking so fresh and beautiful.”

  “You really need glasses, Hugh.”

  Chuckling, he drove to the Warehouse.

  Chapter 5

  When we pulled up at the front, he gently shook me awake. I slowly roused, dazed, thinking I was back at the boot camp.

  “You’re home, Chalmers.” He dared to reach out to stroke my cheek. “What happened? You look terrible.”

  I touched my hair, a tangle of sticks, grit and leaves. My tracksuit was dirty and stained with sweat. The ripe smell of my body odour offended even me.

  “I’ll tell you later. I’m too tired to talk.”

  “When you’re ready.”

  I smiled weakly. “Thank you for picking me up, Hugh. I couldn’t have walked another step.”

  “You know I’m always here for you.”

  “Thank you,” I said again, slipping out of his vehicle.

  I was dying for some water, maybe some food, but most of all, sleep. But first, I had a score to settle.

  I let myself in the front door, but instead of going straight to my flat, I detoured to the security section. I threw open the door, surprising the handful of men readying themselves for another day’s work.

  Ignoring them, and their curious glances, I marched directly into Clive’s office. He looked up, half-standing when he saw me.

  “Guess what? I’m home again,” I snarled.

  “You’re not supposed to be back yet,” he said, coming out from behind his desk.

  Burning with fury, I slapped him hard across the cheek. “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”

  Not even bothering to gauge his reaction, I made the most dignified exit I could manage, considering my legs were about to collapse under me, and my track pants were falling down. I staggered up the stairs, quietly letting myself into my flat. I loved Daniel to death, but I didn’t even want to see him at the moment.

  I threw back two glasses of tap water, my stomach complaining afterwards. Feeling nauseous with tiredness and hunger, I went to my bedroom, kicked off my runners, sending grit and dirt flying around the floor. I wouldn’t say I climbed into bed, but more toppled into it and immediately sank into a deep sleep.

  I didn’t wake until it was dark. When I unglued my eyes, Heller sat on my bed, looking down at me with concern. He held his palm against my dirty cheek.

  “Matilda . . .” he said, lost for words. “You don’t look well. You’re too thin.”

  I struggled to a sitting position. “Tell me you didn’t order Clive to send me to that place.” He hesitated for a moment. “Tell me!” I screamed at him.

  “My sweet, I’m worried about upsetting you. You’re so angry.”

  “Get out of my flat!” He stood, looking down at me with a million emotions crossing his face. “Get out now!”

  He left. I made my stiff way to the bathroom to splash my face, an action that did nothing to clean me, merely smearing the dirt into mud streaks. I went to the kitchen to drink another two glasses of water, my stomach rebelling again, before returning to bed and back to sleep.

  I didn’t surface again until the very early hours of the morning. I lay in bed for a while stretching out my cramped muscles and luxuriating in the feel of laying on something soft. Much refreshed from sleeping, I took a shower, needing to wash my hair three times before all the detritus flushed away.

  Dressed in wonderfully clean pyjamas, I buried the tracksuit at the bottom of my kitchen bin, never wanting to set eyes on it again. Feeling guilty about yelling at Heller and not giving him a chance to explain, I made my way up to his place and let myself in.

  He’d been asleep in bed, but the noise of me entering his flat, no matter how quiet I’d been, had woken him. He was alert and waiting for me when I came to his bedroom.

  I stayed at the doorway and we stared at each other for a while, neither of us moving. He held out his arms and I gratefully fell into them, letting myself be enveloped in his warmth. We didn’t speak for a long time, holding each other.

  “I didn’t instruct Clive to do that,” he nuzzled into my hair. “In fact, after I left your flat, I went to see him.” He was quiet for a moment. “We had words.”

  On the one hand, I felt bad about that, because the two men were very tight and rare harsh words from Heller would have upset Clive. On the other hand, I couldn’t care less. He’d overstepped the mark and he deserved it. I was so angry with him at the moment I would have liked the opportunity to have ‘words’ with him myself.

  Heller felt my waist, frowning in the darkness. “Have you eaten yet?”

  “Not for a long time.”

  “I’ll make you something.”

  I dozed again, comforted by the domestic sounds of him in the kitchen, not something I heard very often, though he was more than capable of feeding himself.

  He came into the bedroom to fetch me to eat. I sat up groggily, sleep-tousled, letting him lead me to his dining room where a simple plate of scrambled eggs, toast, and a glass of orange juice waited for me.

  Sure I would be sick trying to eat, to my surprise I rediscovered my hunger and devoured the food, not sparing a breath to talk.

  “I’m still hungry,” I said when I’d finished.

  “You can have more food later. I don’t think it’s a good idea to eat too much quickly.”

  While he cleared up, I sprawled on his lounge. I flicked on his TV and watched one of the twenty-four hour news stations, though mostly apathetic about what had been happening during my absence.

  He sat next to me and turned my head towards him, frowning again. “Your face is so gaunt.” He leaned down to touch his lips on mine. I snuggled up to him as we watched the news. “What happened there?”

  I sighed. “It was barbaric. They exercised us hard all day, and some of the ladies there were my mother’s age. And they severely rationed our food. By the end, my rations had been cut in half as a punishment.”

  “For doing what?”

  “For not allowing myself to be broken by them.”

  “I’m very proud of you.” He kissed the top of my he
ad.

  That meant a lot to me. “They belittled us and bullied us. Soon, we were all too tired and hungry to even argue with them. The Assistant took a particular dislike to me. She made my life hell.”

  “Really?” he said mildly. “I might pay them a visit.” And though that sounded innocuous enough, I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes if he did.

  “I planned an escape.”

  He laughed. “Of course you did. I wouldn’t expect anything less of you.”

  “I thought I’d worked out all the details. We were going to scale the fence and walk until we found the nearest phone. Then I was going to ring here and ask someone to come and pick us all up.”

  “How many of you were there?”

  “There were eight of us. I don’t know how you manage so many men. Dealing with eight women exhausted me and stretched my patience to its limit.”

  “I’m a natural manager,” he smiled. “But even I wouldn’t want to organise eight women.”

  I yawned, my stomach growling. “I don’t blame you.”

  “Why didn’t you just drive home?”

  “They confiscated our car keys, which reminds me that you need to send a bunch of men there to retrieve everyone’s car. I’ll give you a list of their names.”

  “I will. You said you were going to ring someone here, but you didn’t.”

  “The phone we found was out of order. And I guess things just got worse after that.”

  “Never mind. You’re home now. How did you get home anyway?”

  Oh boy. I was hoping he wouldn’t ask that. “I didn’t want to speak to Clive and I didn’t know who else would be here, so I rang Farrell.”

  I felt him stiffen. “You should have rung me.”

  “I didn’t know you were home, otherwise I would have.”

  “I will thank him later,” he said neutrally. “It seems to be something I’m doing a lot lately.”

  “Maybe you should be here more.”

  He avoided responding to that. “I have to work now. When you’re very hungry again, I’ve left you a sandwich in the refrigerator.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I don’t want you thinking about work for a few days. Take some time to recover, regain your strength, and to rehydrate. “When I think you’re ready to start working again, I have a nice little assignment coming up. It would be perfect for you.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’ll tell you later. But I’ll think you’ll enjoy it.”

  Right, I thought, mentally rolling my eyes. I’d heard that before and usually I hadn’t enjoyed the job at all. But I would take advantage of the unexpected leisure time and not think about work.

  I sat around his flat in my pyjamas, drinking water and watching daytime TV, not very motivated to do much else. I was munching on the sandwich when his front door clicked open and Niq came in.

  I abandoned my half-eaten sandwich to rush to him, hugging him tightly. “I missed you so much, sweetie.”

  “I thought you were never coming home again.” He squeezed my waist and felt my ribs. “It looks like you only brought half of you back.”

  I laughed and released him, returning to my sandwich. He joined me on the lounge and caught me up on everything that had been going on at home since I’d been gone. When I asked, he assured me he’d been devotedly attending to his school work, making me more than a little sceptical. After ten minutes of continual talking – quite a talent he had – he stopped to take a breath.

  “Tell me what happened to you?”

  “I don’t really want to talk about it right now, sweetie. Maybe in a couple of days. It was pretty awful and I need to come to terms with that.”

  “Okay,” he said easily, and that was the thing I loved about teenagers. They didn’t prod and pry into your life like adults did.

  I finished my sandwich and he raided Heller’s fridge for food.

  “Look what I found hidden at the back,” he smiled, tossing me something small.

  I fumbled and dropped it, bending over to retrieve it. It was a chocolate bar. I raised my eyebrows. “For Heller?”

  He snorted. “I doubt it. I think he’d hidden it as a treat for you.”

  “Aw.” Warmth flooded through me at the small gesture. “That’s so sweet of him.” I opened it and started eating.

  “Shouldn’t you put it back and pretend you didn’t see it?”

  “Nah,” I said, my mouth full of chocolate and peanuts. “If I eat it, he’ll have to buy me another one.”

  He gave that some consideration as he bit into an apple. “Makes sense to me.”

  We watched some mildly amusing talk show and chatted inconsequentially.

  “Tilly, I guess I understand you not wanting to talk about what happened. It took me a while to tell you about my past.”

  “Niq, speaking of that, you never told me what happened that day when you rang and I went to pick you up, but was taken by Kirnin’s men before I could. I wanted to ask, but I honestly thought you’d tell me by now. I thought we were close, sweetie.”

  He suddenly found something fascinating about the floor. “I was too embarrassed to tell anyone. I only told Daniel about a month ago.”

  “You told Heller straight away though, didn’t you?”

  He looked up. “Course I did! I can’t keep things from Heller. Look what happens when I do.”

  “So what did happen?”

  His face assumed an expression of misery. “I went to meet that girl, even though I wasn’t supposed to. But she didn’t turn up. Instead, a couple of bigger, older boys did. They pushed me around and stole my wallet and phone.”

  “Oh, Niq.” I held his hand and pressed it in sympathy. “That’s terrible.”

  “I don’t think she ever meant to turn up. I’ve deleted her as a friend everywhere. I never want to speak to her again.” He looked up with his big eyes. “You were right, Tilly. You can’t trust anyone on the internet. You can’t trust anyone in life except the people in this building.”

  “That’s not true. I don’t want you to think that way. There are lots of lovely people in the world and there are some scumbags who’ll take advantage of anyone. As you get older, you’ll learn to tell them apart.” I hoped that happened, because I wasn’t confident I’d reached that stage yet. “One day a sweet and genuine girl will come into your life.”

  “Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced. I couldn’t blame him. Nothing in his life so far had been good, apart from Heller ‘kidnapping’ him and bringing him here to join his family.

  He jumped up to rummage through Heller’s fridge again.

  “You’re not still hungry?”

  “I’m hoping I might find another chocolate bar hidden away in here.”

  “Good luck.”

  He returned to the lounge empty-handed and disappointed. “He must think you’re pretty special. He wouldn’t buy me chocolate.”

  I smiled. “He knows what makes me happy.”

  “It would make me happy too.” We watched TV some more. “This show’s boring,” he announced.

  “It’s okay.”

  “You’d watch anything.”

  “That’s true. Even the horrible movies you and Danny love.” I leaned over to tickle him and he squirmed against me.

  “Stop it!” He suddenly grinned at me. “I heard you slapped Clive in front of everyone.”

  “I did, and though he deserved it, I shouldn’t have done it,” I lied. “He’s my supervisor and I should have more respect.” I had to at least try to set a good example.

  “Heller was really angry with him. The guys could hear him yelling even though he shut Clive’s door. He’s not going to be happy about that. Heller never gets angry with him.”

  “I know. I’m dreading going back downstairs again. Luckily Heller’s given me a few days off. Hopefully Clive is over it by then.” Fingers crossed.

  “You should visit Daniel. He’s dying to see you, but doesn’t want to come up because Heller hasn’t
said it’s okay.” He grinned again. “I didn’t let that stop me.”

  “You sure didn’t.” I messed up his hair. He pushed me away and jumped up, protesting.

  “If you’re going to ruin my hair, I’m leaving. It took me ages to get it this perfect this morning.”

  I stretched out my legs. “Tell Danny I’ll be down there soon.”

  I wasn’t in any hurry, and was slow about returning to my flat to eat again and shower. My jeans, which had been a little snug last time I’d worn them, swum on me. I needed a belt to hold them up.

  It had been a long time since I’d officially been allowed into the main office, so it made me happy to walk through the door knowing I wasn’t going to get my butt kicked out again.

  “Danny,” I said simply when I saw him.

  “Tilly.” He jumped up and we hugged, not needing to say a word. He was my darling, the only man I could count on in this place not to be overwhelmed with his own alpha-ness to the detriment of everything else.

  “You’re so skinny. I guess I can’t make wisecracks about your butt anymore?”

  “Sorry to spoil your fun,” I said, tweaking his nose. “I’m sure I’ll put it all back on again.”

  I sat down at my old desk, tutting at the sickly state of the pot plant sitting on it. “Do you think I’ll be using this again, or will I just be hanging out with the man mountains downstairs from now on?”

  He shrugged. “Heller hasn’t used it for anything else since you were banished, so it’s free. I don’t think he wants you hanging around with those other guys too much.”

  I turned on the computer and fired up my email, groaning when I saw the hundreds of messages waiting for me. “I bet most of these are junk mail.”

  Not many of the emails interested me, except one from Dixie. She’d attached a photo and her message was a simple: Good times! Dreading opening it, and making sure my monitor was carefully angled away from Daniel, I took the plunge.

  The picture surprised me in a million different ways. Instead of a nude pic of her latest conquest, it was a photo of her and a guy, fully clothed and out in the sunshine, their arms around each, both smiling. Most unexpected. I peered at the guy, fairly sure he was the one with whom she was occupied the last time I’d seen her when she’d pushed me out of her flat. But that was ages ago, I thought. He should have been history by now. I tried to ring her, but was diverted to voice mail. I hung up without leaving a message.