“Good,” I said, feigning confidence. “We have a captain.”
We crossed the beach. A nervous energy sizzled through the air. The slaves weren’t used to such freedom. I wasn’t used to anyone trusting me for anything.
The women trudged through the water to reach the rope ladder. I directed them up, warning them about the glass in the cabin. The woman who was going to drive the boat went up last. I looked back at Tyler, a dark lump on the sand, trying to figure out how to get him up on the boat.
The smallest splash was my only warning, as slight as a fish swishing at the surface. But it wasn’t a fish. Not the hand clamped on my mouth, trapping my scream and blocking my air. Not the press of a cold metal barrel on my temple.
“Miss me?” Leo murmured beside my ear. I shuddered from the chill.
He pushed me through the ankle-deep water until we reached the beach. But when there was only a dark spot where Tyler’s body had been. I glanced around wildly and found him leaning against a tree at the edge of the beach. He looked casual, when he shouldn’t even have been able to stand. “Let her go, Leo.”
“Don’t come near us,” Leo spat.
Tyler couldn’t come near us at all, not with a gun pressed to my head. His hands were up, and words were coming out of his mouth, words about deals and staying calm and just take it easy, take a breath.
“You think I’m angry?” Leo asked. “I’m not angry. This is perfect. You and your little whore here did all the work for me, rounding up the slaves. Now all I have to do is ride away with them.”
I flicked a glance over the boat. Several pairs of white eyes blinked at us from the shadows. It wouldn’t be hard to figure out the situation here, even if they couldn’t hear our words. They’d know their lives were at stake.
“Just think about it for a minute,” Tyler said. “Ten slaves, that’s a lot to handle. And there’s just one of you. You need another pair of hands. I just want to help.”
“Fuck that,” Leo spat. “You want a cut of the pie. I’m sick and tired of sharing.”
“No, man. Just want to help, that’s all. I want to see this deal go right.”
“Yeah, yeah, like this last deal worked out so great for me, with you and Carlos all cozy, and me in the hallway, babysitting the whore?”
“No, I’m trying to work something out here. That’s all.”
“Work something out?” Leo was shouting and shaking with what I recognized as fear. “We’ve got a boatload of fucking girls, and the cops are on their way.”
“Calm down. Just calm down. I can talk to them.”
“Fucking dirty cops—can’t trust them! I think you and your cop friends want my girls, then you’ll make me take the fall.”
I didn’t get to hear Tyler’s response to that, because a rumble came from the boat as it came alive. In slow motion it shuddered in the water and turned out to sea with all the slaves.
“What the fuck just happened?” Leo asked incredulously.
“They were untied,” I whispered, thinking that they’d signed our death sentence, thinking I was glad they were safe after all. I had done it. I had helped.
But then Leo wasn’t behind me anymore. Tyler had him on the ground where they grappled to be on top. The gun glittered in a wide arc, reflecting gray moonlight at me, and landed a few yards from them. I went to grab it, but Leo and Tyler were in constant motion, flinging sand, and it was impossible to see. They rolled into the shallow water, but the moonlight was too little to judge Tyler’s life by.
I held the gun with shaking hands, trying to get a shot. A hard grip grabbed my forearm, and I froze. Oh God, I hadn’t noticed anyone sneaking up behind me. The cops? They’d arrest us all.
But it was worse than that.
“Mia.” Carlos chuckled. “You little whore, always causing trouble.”
Jesus, he almost sounded proud. I was definitely going to die. His thumb pressed a spot on my arm, and next thing I knew, my arm hung limply at my side and the gun was in his hands.
Bang.
Water shot out from the fighting figures, and one man slumped into the water. In gasping horror, I watched Tyler slowly stand up.
“Tyler,” I cried.
“It’s okay,” he said to me, keeping his eyes trained on Carlos and his hands raised. But I knew it wasn’t. He was about to die, about to be shot before my eyes. Desperate, I yanked Carlos’s arm and twisted around until the barrel of the gun pointed in my stomach.
“Run,” I called to Tyler, staring into Carlos’s surprised eyes.
I heard the string of curse words he emitted that said he definitely was not running. Damn him.
Carlos sneered at me. “You actually want this asshole? The guy who tried to buy you, like you were a thing?”
That would sound bad to most people, I knew, but for Carlos it was pretty much the status quo. So actually, I didn’t understand the big deal. Carlos must have read that in my eyes because he said, “I didn’t buy you. I made you.”
Carlos peered into my eyes, as if he were really seeing me. But even more disconcerting was the fact that I could see him like this, just a man. This must be how those slaves had looked at Tyler, how I looked at Carlos now. He was just a man, and a flawed one at that.
Then, just as quickly, the moment was over and he was back to his cold self. He pushed me, and I stumbled back into the water and into Tyler’s arms. I thought we’d die like that, in each other’s arms, like a tragedy fit for the stage. Tyler pushed me behind him.
“Go ahead and take her,” Carlos said carelessly. “Consider her a gift, though I can’t say if she’s worth much.”
He turned and walked away. I stared from around Tyler, waiting for the punchline. Like Carlos would turn around and shoot us, laughing to himself about the poor saps who believed him for a second. Even after he disappeared into the woods, I blinked, unable to believe that I was free.
“Is he…is he serious?” I said.
“I think so,” Tyler said, his voice thin and raspy. “Good. That’s good.”
Then he fell into the water, unable to even put his hands up to block his fall before he passed out. I turned him over so that at least his face was out of the water and dragged him onto the shore. Only then did I notice the dark stain at the front of his shirt. I lifted the hem and recognized the gash of a knife, similar to the one I had only this one wasn’t for show. It was jagged and deep. He must have gotten it fighting with Leo.
I realized I was chanting, Oh God, Oh God, almost like a prayer.
“Shh,” I heard. Tyler was looking at me through slitted eyes. “It will be okay. Go find Zachary.”
“I can’t leave you.” I felt sure that if I left him, even to get help, he’d be dead before I returned.
“I have to tell you—”
“No, you don’t have to explain.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“I should have sent you away at the beginning.” His voice was threaded with pain, but underlaid with steel. He was using up all his words, all his strength, just for this. “I should have…I never should have walked away in the first place. I came back. I just had to get my mom out of here. It took me awhile to work it out, a couple of months, but when I came back, you were gone.”
My breath left me in a soundless whoosh of air.
“I convinced myself that you’d gotten away safe, but you never did, did you? You’ve never been safe.”
I couldn’t answer.
“And then when I found you, Jesus. I was horrified, but at the same time, I couldn’t let you go.”
“God, Tyler.”
“Go—” The word caught in his throat as he struggled to control the swath of pain that flitted across his face. His breath was coming faster, less even. “Be safe,” he said, like a farewell.
“No,” I half-shouted, half-sobbed.
Then the shadows of the beach splintered into the shapes of men. The cops ran at me, terrifyingly large. I didn’t care that they’d arrest him or me, as long as they
saved his life. “Please,” I begged them as they knelt at his side. “Please help him.”
Zachary was pulling me away from him. I fought him, but I was getting weaker, barely able to pull away, barely able to stand. The last dregs of strength I’d been using had finally failed me.
I looked up into Zachary’s kind eyes. “Help him.”
“We will. Just stay awake. Stay with me.”
And maybe that’s how I knew I was really released from Carlos’s hold, that I was really free, because for the first time in a long time, I was disobedient. I fell into a deep slumber.
Chapter Thirteen
“Don’t scratch them,” Tyler admonished. Healing wounds itched, which meant that three days later, I was unbearably itchy, all over my body.
I gave him a look that told him exactly what I thought of him giving me advice when he was the one who insisted on visiting me in the middle of the night. He was on complete bed rest, unlike me, who was technically allowed to get up and move around at will. But he’d shown up tonight, almost sheepish.
“I feel fine,” he protested at my accusing look. “Besides, I needed to talk to you.”
“You already explained everything.” Most of it on the beach. Then the cops had explained the rest when I’d woken up, about how Tyler hadn’t been an official informant, but he’d sent them information anyway. About how Tyler had been rescuing the women when I’d pulled my Xena Warrior Princess stunt and nearly killed the man.
“Not everything.” He sat down on the white metal chair beside my hospital bed. Then he glanced back up. “You see, I just went in for you. I was only going to convince you to come with me and get you out of there.” He shook his head, bemused, disgusted, resigned. “But along the way, I got caught up in the cause. Zachary’s cause. Your cause. Freeing those women.”
He reached for my hand, and I let him take it.
“My mother was a whore,” he said tightly. His shame arced between us through our clasped hands, another bond between us.
“Yeah,” he said, and paused. “I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t have walked away and leave these women here, even if it meant not saving you.”
I didn’t know what he was waiting for. “It’s okay,” I tried. “I understand.”
“It’s not okay,” he bit out. “You almost died for that.”
“Almost died to save those women? It would have been worth it. I’m not—”
“Don’t say it,” he interrupted savagely. “Don’t say any of that. You’re beautiful, you’re smart. You’re alive.”
“Okay,” I agreed, not really meaning it.
He rested his forehead on the back of my hand. “What can I do to prove it to you?”
I shook my head, though he couldn’t see me. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does, but we don’t have to solve this tonight. Tomorrow you’re getting discharged and so am I. I’d like it if you came and stayed with me, but if you want to get your own place…”
He went on for a few minutes, talking about plans that I’d never need. Then he left. I didn’t think he fully trusted me, but he knew where I was at least, and he’d probably be back first thing in the morning.
I rattled in the frail hospital bed, restless for comfort that would be a long time coming. A whisper from the door snapped my attention away from my study of the ceiling tiles. The sky blue privacy curtain blocked my view, but I saw bare feet, too small to be Tyler’s, make their way from the door and then pause.
“Who is it?” I whispered.
The metal rings rattled as the curtain was pushed aside. Stacey stood in the dim light from the moon and the instruments, swathed in a hospital-issue blanket.
“Do you mind?” she asked diffidently.
“No, come in.” I waved her to the sofa and joined her there. Both of us wore hospital gowns, and huddled there while everyone around us slept, it felt like what I’d imagined a sleepover would be. Like having a best friend or a sister. I didn’t know her, not even her last name, but I’d almost died with her.
“Have you…talked to anyone? From home?”
“Yeah.” She pulled at a loose thread on the uneven gown stitching. “My husband is on his way from Idaho.”
I tried to hide my surprise. Married. Jesus.
She gave me a small smile. “I don’t know how that’s going to work. I was in China for my job, a six month contract. Never made it past two weeks before I was taken.” She fingered her blonde curls. “I guess I stood out there.”
How ironic that they’d brought her back, almost home but miles away. The words of comfort died on my tongue: it will be okay or he’ll understand. I barely knew what “okay” looked like, and how the hell could he understand?
“So that’s my story,” she said, business-like. “What about you?”
I lowered my eyes in shame. “I wasn’t like you. I was with Carlos.”
“Carlos?”
“You know. Middle aged guy. Hispanic. In-charge. Always dressed nice.” Compared to the other gangbangers, he stood out like a sore thumb. That was how he liked it.
She shook her head. “There were some Chinese guys who dressed well at the beginning, before we were shipped. But once we landed here, all we saw were the thugs who handled us. Well, and Tyler.”
I looked up. “You know him?”
Her eyes softened. “Of course. He was always stepping in, telling them not to mess up the merchandise. Slipping extra food in our rations. I actually felt bad about hurting him, but I didn’t know he was helping us escape.”
She stared at the dark glass of the window, which only reflected the outline of the hospital room back at us, as her words taunted me with understanding. She hadn’t ever seen Carlos there. I knew he hadn’t spent a lot of time there. After all, he had been with me. But it seemed strange that he wouldn’t visit at all, to check on his possessions, to train the girls, to make them suffer. Apparently I was the only girl to feel the bite of his belt.
Carlos gave me to Tyler. Not that I considered that any kind of binding agreement, but what did it mean? If I’d thought about it before all this, I would have said Carlos would kill me when he was finished with me. Yet he didn’t. He gave me to a man who betrayed him.
We both should have died, but instead we lived, paired by a psychopathic matchmaker. Maybe it was just another mind fuck, getting to pull the strings on the puppets that were Tyler and I. But what kind of sadist orchestrated a happy ending?
“You’re not going back to him are you?” Stacey asked, pulling me from my musings.
I laughed at myself, my gaze flicking over to the packed suitcase that had mysteriously arrived in my hospital room the day I woke up, along with two thousand dollars in cash. Blood money. “I got dumped, actually.”
“Lucky girl,” she said wryly.
No, luck had never done anything for me, but Carlos had given me that much. He had always taken care of me. Maybe he’d done plenty wrong, taking advantage of a homeless, underage girl, binding her to him through fear and shame, and causing her endless pain. But how could I forget that he had also saved me, that he protected me? He cared for me. The realization was like a final lash of his belt.
“Are you okay?” Stacey looked concerned.
“I’m fine,” I assured her. “I think it’s time to move on. Maybe I’m finally ready.”
“Yeah? Well, don’t leave me hanging. Tell me the secret.”
“You don’t want to follow in my footsteps. Trust me.”
She smiled, and this time it touched her eyes. “You’re going to be just fine.”
She gave her email address to me, saying to keep in touch. I didn’t have an email address, not having been allowed much computer time with Carlos. I accepted it with no intention of ever contacting her again, but I slipped the paper into my bag just in case. Inside the luggage, I found jeans and a conservative t-shirt that I could have sworn I hadn’t owned before.
I poked my head out of the hospital room, half expecting a policeman o
r a militant nurse to berate me. But I was an adult, and I was not under arrest. My body was free, so why was it so hard for my mind to accept? A few figures shuffled through the halls, distracted doctors or blank-faced patients, but no one noticed me. I straightened my shoulders and rolled my luggage through the hallways, looking for all the world like a confident, normal woman.
Somewhere above me, in this very hospital, Tyler lay recovering from his stab wounds. The wound I’d given him. The wounds he’d gotten while trying to save me, to protect me. If I were a good woman, I would be in this room when he came for me. A good woman would nurture him, could love him. But I didn’t know how to love, and the only thing I knew how to nurture was a cock to orgasm, repeatedly. I had nothing to offer Tyler, nothing he couldn’t get from any corner girl. My pride wouldn’t allow me to crawl to him like some stray puppy that Carlos had cast off.
I had survived my life with Carlos in a cocoon of pathetic gratefulness. I’d always found something to be grateful for, even under the whistle of a belt or within the confines of a cage. Yet now that I had everything, I couldn’t find any thanks inside me at all. I was empty.
When the sliding doors opened, the smell of damp city air and smoke hit me in the face. I’d been a whore before I’d ever been a woman. Never safe, but always owned. I stepped into the fog, a free woman. I could do anything I wanted, but I would be alone.
I could go anywhere, but I had nowhere to go.
Chapter Fourteen
The house was smaller than I remembered. The yard, the neighborhood—everything was smaller. It was also dirtier and more run-down, though I didn’t know if that was also the result of faulty memory or whether time had worked its ruinous magic.
No car sat in front of the house. Weeds had eaten up any grass from the yard. The door sat slightly unhinged. None of these things meant for sure that no one lived here. But a hush enveloped the house like a fog, probably warning away even the most desperate of slum-dwellers or delinquents.
