by Barbra Novac
“You are stupid now. The person who told you I was going to betray you is lying.”
Don stood up to walk over and hit her again, and Joe stopped him. “No, no, I don't want her knocked out again; she can't take your punches.” Joe walked toward Marianne.
He stood in front of her so that his dick was at the height of her face, a position that no doubt made him feel that he had a great deal of power over her. He looked down his nose at her. She forced her head up. It was better than being face-to-face with his dick, even though he was clothed.
“But you see, little one, that's where you're wrong.” He leered. “You've been the stupid one. You have let yourself get close to my informant. He's been telling me all along what you've been doing and who you really are.”
Marianne's mind traveled fast. Informant? Who in her world could be informing to Joe behind her back?
At this point, he bent down to face her. “And I must say. What a little firebrand you are. I had no idea you were such a hot slut, otherwise I would never have let you go. How come you weren't so hot when you were with me?”
A sickness crept into Marianne's belly. Where did he get this detail about my sex life? It could be bait. She should stay silent and not bite. But why? He was going to kill her anyway. However, perhaps there was a chance that she might live.
Who could've possibly told him about her sex life?
There was only one person who could have told him. A person who was close to him, a confidant from the first day she met him. There was only one person. Marianne didn't want to accept that.
“I see the difficulty in your face. I know what you are asking yourself. How could your judgment have gotten so bad? How did you not see this earlier?” Joe moved away from her. He had his back to her so Marianne felt that she could relax into her confusion for just a moment. All she could think of was to get out. She had to get out of this situation so that she could ask Peter.
By that stage, Joe had walked impressively across the room, and turned dramatically again to face her. Jimmy stood to his left and Don, although seated, stared, impassively menacing, on his right. Joe knew he was in control of the situation and that he had all the power. There was more to it, though, more even than that. He had power because he was getting rid of her. Not only did she have the means to finger him in a courtroom, but also there was the emotional tie. He was going to get rid of this emotional tie. She could see it in his face, in his bravado.
“You didn't see it though,” Joe went on. “To think, those years I thought you were so smart. There were even times when I hated you because I felt that you were superior to me. But in the end, you're just another slut, another stupid little whore who wants to be beaten up by her fuck.”
Marianne felt very ill now. The sickness rose up in her as she started to realize where his mocking headed. Somehow, Joe knew all about her BDSM antics. Someone close to him and close to her had told him.
“You like to go to parties and watch women being spanked and men being fucked. Huh? Is that what you're really all about?”
Jesus. Marianne dreaded the inevitable information she'd avoided since her first night with Peter.
“You thought you were so clever making a deal with me. Then in doing so, you fell in with the devil himself. Yes, tonight you find out, Marianne, that I have a partner. You already know him intimately. He has seen a side of you that I never knew existed, and I must say I'm jealous. I would have treated you far more roughly if I knew that it would make your pussy so wet.”
Marianne felt the bile rise in her belly as she realized she'd been a total fool. As the knowledge crept over her, she started to shake and sweat. Everything that she'd built her hopes and dreams on disappeared in front of her, crumbling over the foundations of her complete foolishness. She knew whom he must have been talking about, but she couldn't say the name. Not even to herself.
Marianne remembered the note in his pocket the first time they'd been together, the note that Joe sent about keeping her close.
Joe was on a roll, she could tell. He enjoyed this a great deal.
“The most amazing thing of all is that your instincts were telling you not to trust. People around you were telling you not to trust. But still you fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.” Joe paused for effect. “I had always been able to do things under your nose that you pretended to ignore. But this brilliance took real genius. He took advantage of you perfectly in ways I never did.”
“Stop! I don't want to know. Stop talking about it.”
A smile spread across Joe's face. “You're so stupid after all. To think, I really loved you once. You even think that now you have a say in all of this, in what happens to you, or in front of you. Not any more. Your purity has no more power over me because it's all gone.”
Horror stole its cold hand over Marianne's heart as she realized her death alone wouldn't satisfy Joe. Either with his words or in some other way, he'd torture her. Joe needed to build up the hate and malice in order to prepare himself for her death.
Marianne fought to find some way through this. Death called to her soul, causing her to panic. Frantic thoughts of getting her way out of this whirred around her mind.
“All of this is because I left you? It's out of character for a woman to get under your skin this way. Don't you think I am replaceable?”
Joe smiled. “Your reverse psychology isn't going to work on me. Everyone is replaceable, and now you are no different.” His face softened. “But you were irreplaceable. Until I received crucial information, I did think that you were different. I did see you as something else. But now that you have proven to be just another person who could turn on me at a moment's notice, I have no use for you.”
“I don't know what you're talking about. I never said anything to anyone about betraying you.”
“You'd better stop saying that. Soon I will get tired of telling Don to stop hitting you. The thing is, you pissed someone off yesterday, by thinking you could treat him anyway you liked. And now he has turned on you, and you have run out of chances.”
Marianne dreaded hearing his name. She just didn't want to know. If she could avoid it, she would.
As if reading her mind, Joe said, “He'll be here soon, and you can ask him yourself. You two have been so cozy and intimate lately you'll probably still be stupid enough to feel safe when he is with you.”
“I don't want to see him.” Marianne felt weak. If Peter walked through that door now, she knew that she would just burst into tears like a hopeless woman, and she would not be any use to herself or to anyone else. She needed to avoid that moment until she could escape and get away.
Her brain started to play tricks on her in the seconds that she had. She desperately tried to argue to herself that Peter wasn't the partner. She imagined he set Joe and Don up or that he would outsmart them in a crucial way. However, she couldn't ignore the truth she'd been dreading for days. She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes.
“What you want is irrelevant, and what he wants goes,” said Joe with a shrug. “He is my partner after all.” Joe looked her up and down in the chair. “He liked you right away, you know, as soon as he saw you. But then everybody does, don't they?”
Just at that moment, someone knocked at the door. Joe opened it to see Gerry, one of the other bouncers.
“There's trouble, Boss.”
Joe stepped toward Gerry, and they fell into a deep conversation together outside in the hallway. At various intervals Joe glanced back in the direction of Marianne and then rapidly back to Gerry, then toward something beyond both of them. The men, excitedly distracted, talked furtively.
Soon Joe stepped back into the room and called Don and Jimmy to his side. He spoke, gruff and fast, to both of them. The men were agitated, excitable. Something distracted them away from focus on her. Joe sent Jimmy and Don away and then turned back into the room. Marianne and Joe alone in the room carried different meaning now. She looked at the man she shared a bed with so many lifetimes ago.
Joe moved toward her and placed his hand over her mouth to keep her silenced. His touch forced the tears out of her eyes, and she could smell his familiar tobacco smell as he kneeled beside her.
“You were going to testify against me, were you? You, who fucked me with the care and passion of a woman in love. You, whom I rescued and set free. You would run to the law, have me in a jail cell, buggered, and beat up every night. Well, before I kill you, I want you to see properly what it is that the world fears about me. You will come with me to the beach. You will stand with the salt spray in your face, and you will bear witness to their faces and hear their screams as we haul the survivors in. You know what it is I am going to show you, don't you?”
The blood drained from Marianne's face as she realized that she'd be there when the boats came in. Then they would need to get rid of her. She tried to speak, but the callused hand gripping her wouldn't let her.
Joe stood and threw open a door at the back of the storeroom. The heavy, black night beckoned from outside; there must have been clouds to hide the moon. Still she could see a truck with its roller door up, the space inside gaping in the blackness.
Joe came back and lifted her from the chair. As he pushed her from behind, he spoke quietly but firmly into her ear.
“You think you are not afraid of me, but tonight you will stare fear in the face, and you will realize who I am and what future you laid out for yourself when you decided to betray me.”
Marianne said nothing, but tried to catch her breath and keep her footing against the pushing from behind. Approaching the vehicle, Don appeared, picked her up like a sack of potatoes and threw her into the back of the truck. Immediately they pulled the shutter down, and Marianne, with her face smashed against the floor of the truck, lay alone in the blackness.
Chapter Sixteen
The silence of the journey contrasted with the talk and noise from the club. Compared with that moment, she welcomed wrestling with stability in the back of the truck. Lucid again, Marianne noticed they had few provisions, so she decided they weren't traveling far. The bays near the Cross made sense anyway.
The rough handling had bruised and shaken her so much that she felt emotionally exhausted. Welcoming the break, she let the truck and the events of the night jostle her back and forth. Wariness had given way to weariness, and her exhausted apathy overrode even her desire to self protect.
Alone, fortunately, muffled talk reached her still from the cabin. The conversational tone still revealed an immoderate thrill, even though she couldn't catch every word. She guessed this must be something of an adventure for them. Not to mention the thrill of having her along to terrorize and torture. Marianne longed for sleep and forgetfulness. Without a watch, she couldn't tell the time, but knew it had to be late. She couldn't remember an occasion of peace and ease in her life, and her body craved rest. Slipping into a self-indulgent pity, she descended into the realization that no white knight had come to her rescue and none were coming. Her loneliness lay heavy at the back of her mind, persistently knocking at her consciousness, refusing to accept the door used to lock it out. She still didn't dare think about Peter. Her solitude said it all. How she got there and who betrayed her to get her there remained immaterial points, irrelevant to the way the situation played itself out.
At length, she became emotionally comatose, fatigued with her situation and life in general. The pain of her injury throbbed and combined with the aching numbness in her wrists and ankles, becoming the only indicator to her that she must be alive. The voices had evolved into a distant murmur as if walls of time, not just the truck, stood between them. Darkness penetrated her with vaporous fingers, clutching at all her survival instincts and dismissing any concern for what happened to her. Without a care, she allowed herself to droop into the blackness.
She noticed the stillness of the truck first. A cold wrapped itself around her arms and legs and crept into her lungs. The cool felt and tasted salty. Exhausted still, she opened her eyes to see the roller door of the truck open. She heard the crashing of waves against the shore. Consciousness invaded her peace, then mutated into horror as she recognized the sounds, tastes, and smells of the beach. They'd arrived.
Alone, as far as she could tell, Marianne thought only of escape. As she tried to move, the pain in her ankles woke her with a jolt. The men left her alone because they knew she couldn't go anywhere with her ankles bound. Soundlessly, she wriggled her way to the door of the truck, bearing any discomfort so that she could see if a guard watched over her. No one, and for a brief moment, it looked like freedom was hers. Wrestling with the rope around her ankles, she listened hard for sounds to indicate any action or movement. Hearing nothing, she assumed them all on the beach. The absence of chatter made for an eerie sinister feel to the night.
Working the knots on her ankles proved difficult. They'd not tied her well, however, since she was unconscious when they left. As Marianne floundered in the dark with the ropes, she kept her ears alert, waiting for footsteps or some sign that the men were nearby. None came, and she got her feet out of their restraints successfully, buoyant with the surge of relief that she might free herself. Noiselessly, Marianne rose up and moved circumspectly across to the wall of the truck. She pulled herself against it, more for security than to avoid exposure, and then gazed slowly out into the bush landscape first, to see if she had escaped detection.
Marianne knew as soon as she peered out of the truck that they were at Parsley Bay. She recognized the ocean pool and the rocks across the bay. Joe had brought her to Parsley Bay for years to swim and to enjoy the beautiful beach, but this visit held none of the pleasures of those early days. The walkway to her left seemed too far away as she looked around the edge of the truck. The bush lands on the edge of the bay surrounded the truck as they stretched out toward Sow and Pigs Reef. They must be parked at a secret point to pick up their illegal cargo.
Marianne then became aware that the open truck pointed directly at the ocean, and the three men stood at the shore. She sat down immediately, cursing herself for how easy she might have been spotted. Standing, the men had a clear sight through to the back of the truck, but sitting, they couldn't detect her through the heavy undergrowth.
Their piercing silence made them menacing, contrasting with their vibrancy in the truck. Their manner wasn't excited or brash any more, stealthily poised toward whatever they looked for in the deep. Marianne grew tenser, seeing the men so watchful, gazing into a black ocean. It made the scene before her even more dreadful.
Soon she saw a small pinprick of light coming out of the darkness. It flashed once, flashed twice, and then flashed again. It became apparent that Don had a torch as well and signaled back into the expanse. Straining through the shrubs into the dark of the ocean, she tried to see what she could, but saw nothing out there but the pinpricks of light, small glowing specks of radiation in a contaminated sea.
Marianne didn't want to wait another second. The crucial moment arrived to take advantage of their distraction. She slipped her feet forward with her hands behind her on the floor of the truck for support. She landed softly into the earth and felt the shrubs and bracken beneath her sneakers. Gingerly, she turned her back to the activities on the shore and made her way through the woods as fast and as quietly as she could.
She walked for a few meters through the thick Australian bush that lined the shore. Then she started to run. Trying to get under shrubbery and dodge low branches, she ran fast. She felt, rather than saw, the shore behind her from unfamiliar bush land. She knew this piece of land to be small; the run to safety must be short. No water or men in view, but the sounds of the ocean rang true in her ears. No birds, but waves crashing and a shore wind rustling through the trees around her.
However, the darkness and the woods deceived her, and soon Marianne found herself with the ocean in front of her. Somehow, in the black of the night, she had come full circle. She had run herself into a layer of bushes sitting against the ocean's fringe.
Panting heavily, Marianne felt a deep panic set in. She couldn't get her bearings. She froze; she had seriously let herself down. The fear made her stupid, and she berated herself for her foolishness.
While motionless and desperately trying to orient herself, she became aware that to her right, the men still stood on the shore. Now voices came from the ocean. The sounds that she heard rising out of the dark chilled her directly through to her spine. Appalling moans floated in with the tide. She heard Joe's voice calling gently from the shore to hush them up, but still the sounds of people moaning in agony rang in the air, unmistakably tragic. It sent icy currents to Marianne's heart. In the pitchy black of the night, she could see nothing, but she could hear the cries of the people who had risked everything to come here.
Marianne struggled to get her wits about her. Part of her listened for the sounds of the boat coming in from the shore, and part of her waited for the chance to escape into the bush behind her. Indecision flooded through her as the combination of exhaustion and sleep deprivation overtook her decision-making abilities. Tired, emotionally drained, and the feeling, again, that she didn't care what happened to her, started to sink in.
It must have happened in a split second, but played out like slow motion. A hand landed hard on her mouth, gripping her head, and pulling her back off balance. For a moment, Marianne couldn't breathe. She fell into a familiar body as an arm came around to hold her tight. He didn't say a word, but she knew it was Jimmy. They'd spotted her from the beach. Wriggling in an almost half-hearted fashion, Marianne knew that she had ruined her chance of escape.
Jimmy dragged her backwards as she tripped, scrubby bushes scratching at her ankles and through her jeans. He did not have to drag her far. The car she'd not noticed before waited near the truck. Holding her tight, Jimmy grabbed an oily rag and stuffed it into Marianne's mouth, and tied another around her head to hold the rag in place. She almost passed out from the fuel fumes alone. Jimmy said nothing. He simply busied himself tying her up again.
