by Maree Dry
One of those warm hands moved down and cupped her left buttock. Squeezed. She jumped and slapped at his hand. “Get off me, you drug-crazed oaf.” She should try to stay calm and keep him from erupting but she couldn’t meekly allow him to feel her up.
He shook her. “Still.”
“Get off me asshole.”
“Human, you belong to me.”
“No I don’t. I told you years ago, I’ll never belong to you and I meant it.”
Her parents had urged her to accept his ring in hopes it would keep her safe and assure her place in the family. After what she’d seen in that warehouse, she’d run and she would run again the moment they got out of this hellhole.
“I will keep you safe and make sure you eat enough,” he said seriously.
“I don’t need you to make sure what I eat.”
She couldn’t believe this crazy conversation. They were trapped in a basement and he would probably tear off her limbs or worse or the reverend would torture and kill them and he worried about what she would eat.
“You will not try to escape or argue with me.” He still sounded so serious and reasonable. Had he forgotten what she was like while she had been away?
“You keep hoping for that, John, and let me know how it happens for you.”
He scowled down at her. “And you will not look at the other warriors when they have bathed.”
“What does that mean? Oh, never mind?” Warriors bathing? Yep, crazy as a hatter.
Every inch of her body was pressed up against every muscled inch of him with no hope of escape. Her father always said she had more guts than sense, but in this instance, she needed to back down. Use his strength to get them out of there. If she had to, she’d shoot him in the head once they were free. A headshot was the only way to kill someone on Superman Crack. She could do it. His eyes followed her hand as she lifted it and bit her thumbnail.
She could.
“All right, say I agree to be yours?” She almost gagged at the thought, which didn’t help her stomach to settle with the terrible stench in the basement. “What happens next?”
It was weird. He didn’t look away from her, but she had the sense he hid something from her. “We have to wait here for a little while and then we will leave.”
“Just like that.” She snapped her fingers.
He looked at her fingers almost curiously. “Yes.”
“How exactly will we get out? Oh, no.”
She bit her lip until it stung and prayed she was wrong. As much as she wanted to get out of this place she didn’t want more enforcers on their way here. That had to be why he was so calm. He thought help was on the way.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he looked around the cell, cocked his head in that strange predatory way he had, and flipped the thin mattress over. Curling his lip back from his teeth, the way extinct tigers used to expose their incisors, he threw it through the bars. It landed with a soft plop and dust rose from it. Julia shuddered when some critters scurried away from it, scratching over the cement floor.
She looked around for a place to sit that wasn’t disgusting but the floor was too awful to even look at closely and there were no chairs. “This place is a sty. If the reverend or Raiders don’t get us, we’ll probably die of some illness or get bitten by fleas and ticks and who knows what else?”
Taking off his jacket he spread it over the dirty floor. “Sit.”
“Why so chivalrous all of a sudden?”
Whatever crack he was on certainly changed his personality. None of his actions fit the man she used to know. The John she knew in Denver would never sacrifice his jacket to give her a clean place to sit. He’d tried to claim her before but in a brutish almost casual way. Now he focused on her all the time, emotions boiling in his smoldering eyes. Still, she didn’t get the overwhelming feeling of evil that she used to get around him.
“You said we have to wait here. What are we waiting for?”
She sat down gingerly and clasped her arms around her knees. She would’ve liked to brace her back against the wall, but some oily sludge and other unidentifiable objects coated it in a greasy film. He crouched opposite her and she refused to admit that his large presence comforted her. Her creepometer was off the scale but more from her memories of him than his actual presence.
“We need to wait here. That is all you need to know.”
“Couldn’t you break us out of here? Then we can wait outside. This place is nauseating.”
She pressed her hand against her nose but it didn’t keep the stench out. If she could convince that drug-addled mind it would be a good idea to escape and not wait for this mysterious person to arrive, she might be able to get away from him.
“The man I am seeking will come here,” he said.
“So I guess we wait.” Julia traced a finger over her jean clad knee and braced herself to ask the question. “John, what happened to you? Is it drugs?”
“Nothing happened to me,” he said as if she had asked if the sun was shining outside.
“You are different, before you would never have protected me.”
She looked at the other cages and shuddered. Moans echoed eerily through the basement but none of the other captives made eye contact. He narrowed his eyes on a cage in the darkest corner. She peered at it but could only vaguely make out a man’s form.
Julia looked at the children in the cages opposite them and closer to the door.
“They’re so thin. The reverend must have kept them here for a while.” He didn’t answer, just stared at her with that unblinking gaze.
“It doesn’t make sense. Why would he keep them and not sell them?”
“He is waiting for payment. The people who ordered them will not agree to his price,” John said with frightening calm.
“I’m going to be sick.”
“The smell will only make you sicker,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Don’t you feel anything for these people, some sympathy?”
This was the John she remembered--the man without compassion or mercy for those weaker than him.
“No.”
“How can you even admit it? When we escape, we are helping them.” She’d find a way to get everyone out and safe and away from here.
“We will have to move fast when we go. They will hinder us.” No emotion in his voice.
“I don’t care. We will help them.”
“No we won’t,” he said.
“I really want to hurt you,” she snarled at him and could have screamed when he didn’t react.
It felt as if they sat like that for hours. But according to her watch, only an hour passed.
“I wonder if they feed everyone once a day or something.”
“You are hungry?”
She shuddered at the thought of eating anything in this stinking place. “No, I was just thinking if they bring food, then you can break the bars, overpower them, and we can let everyone out and escape.”
“No, we will wait here.”
She tapped her foot on the grimy cement floor and glared at him. “I thought nothing could be worse than being haunted by a demon but being trapped in here with you is fast changing my mind.”
“You saw a demon?” he asked, his voice carefully neutral.
She was too fed up, scared, and tired to care that he would probably think her crazy. “Well, he said he wasn’t a demon but he had something on his head that looked like a horn.” She shivered. “Those eyes.”
“What about his eyes?” he asked.
“They were the strangest black, so dark it was almost like looking into a mirror but, instead of my own reflection, I saw endless pools of oily black.” She blushed at how dramatic she sounded.
She’d wanted to tell someone about the demon that haunted her and who better than someone that was crazy himself? Someone who would either die from the drug he took or be killed by the reverend.
“And you think him a demon because of his eyes?” He looked down at her and seemed to care
fully think it over. “Maybe he was something else.”
“Maybe he’s not a demon like we think of demons,” Julia speculated. “He might be a different species. Except there was no way a different species could exist on Earth without being discovered.”
He looked away from her, glancing briefly at the cell farther down in the dark corner. “Maybe it was a being from another planet,” he said.
Up to now, she’d seen him ready to kill and expressionless, yet now some emotion roiled off him.
“An alien? I don’t think so. Why would he come to my house? No I think I’m going with demon.”
“You will not go with a demon,” he said, so serious she had to bite her lip not to laugh.
The drugs had really damaged his brain, and how sad that it was a great improvement.
“What else could it be? I looked it up on the TC and everything points to the fact that I’m haunted by a demon.” She scowled at him. “Although the salt didn’t keep him out.” She gagged. “And the stench in this place is making my stomach turn.”
He cocked his head in a strange motion. “Salt?”
Something tugged at her memory again.
“They said on the TC to sprinkle salt in the doorway and windows and a demon wouldn’t be able to enter.” Saying it out loud made her sound as crazy as him.
“Did this demon frighten you?”
“You have no idea.”
The way that demon appeared and disappeared freaked her out more than anything else. How was she supposed to fight a being who could disappear? Not to mention the fact that he moved so fast she couldn’t shoot him.
“Did you think him ugly?”
What a strange question. And why assume it was a he? An elusive thought lingered just out of her grasp. “He looked like drawings of some of the demons on the TC.”
“Maybe he just wanted to talk to you,” he said.
“Maybe,” she agreed, not wanting to talk about it anymore.
Between demons, the reverend, and her family she had more than enough on her plate. She searched for another subject.
“Do you know where my friend Sarah is? She’s a little shorter than me and very fine boned, with long golden-blonde hair.”
“I do not know where your friend is.”
“Would you tell me if you knew?”
“Yes, I would find her and bring her to you,” he said in a wooden, monotone voice that did not convince her of his intent.
Julia didn’t know what to say. He was like a totally different person. “Did the family send you after me?” Maybe he found her on his own, or by accident.
“No.”
“Then what are you doing in town?”
“I am on a mission.”
“Why would the reverend detain you? They know who you work for?” she asked. “Wait! Did you branch out on your own?” Wouldn’t it be just her rotten luck if he’d chosen this town to hide from the family?
“No, I do not have the dead wish.”
“Why do you talk like a foreigner sometimes?”
Must be the drugs starting to affect his brain. She suppressed the pity that was stirring. He was a monster. Even if he changed now, she’d seen him do unforgivable things in the past. For now, she’d use him to get out of here but afterward, she’d make a faster getaway than the space ranger on cannibal planet.
“I do not speak like a foreigner.”
Yep, loony tunes. “All right, but I still think it’s strange that the reverend would dare treat you like this.”
“The reverend is a very arrogant man. He thinks his contacts among the Raiders will protect him.”
“Does he know who I am?”
If she managed to escape this place, she would have to disappear anyway but it would help if the reverend didn’t contact her family and tell them about her.
“No.”
That was reassuring. “I might have signed my own death warrant with my stupidity earlier. Why can’t I learn to keep my mouth shut?”
If the reverend followed up on her knowledge of the Benzoni family in Denver, it was all over.
“You do not need to fear the reverend.”
For a moment she could have sworn his eyes shot red sparks at her. She blinked and the illusion disappeared.
“So you didn’t come here for me.”
Even if he denied it, how could she take his word on anything? He was the thug the family sent in to beat up helpless old people who couldn’t or wouldn’t pay their extortion credits.
“Yes.”
“What does that mean? Did you come to take me back or not?”
“No.”
Julia pressed her nails into her jeans-clad knees. “Please make sense. Did you come for me or not?”
The drug’s grip on him had to be escalating. Soon, it would be very dangerous to be in his vicinity. If it wasn’t already.
“I came for you but not to take you back to anyone else.”
She relaxed her hands and leaned her head against her knees. “Why do you want to speak to the man coming here?”
“My leader instructed me.”
“Uncle Jacob?”
Jacob was her mother’s cousin but because he was so much older and much higher in the hierarchy they all called him Uncle Jacob.
“No, Zacar.”
“You switched sides? But you just said you didn’t--” She threw up her hands. “Oh never mind. Uncle Jacob will have you panga’d. Actually, from what I remember, you were one of his favorites. He might panga you himself.”
“I do not know this Jacob.”
Ooookkaaay, memory problems, too. “Who is your leader?” she asked.
John must have switched sides. Maybe to Chicago, or Boston--that bunch liked their titles.
“Zacar,” he said.
She waited for him to elaborate but he simply crouched there, staring at her, his eyes unblinking. Julia looked pointedly at the bars. “The moment you get your answers, we’ll just walk out of here?”
“Yes.”
“So why did you change sides to work for this Zacar? Is he with one of the Chicago Corporations?”
“I have always worked for Zacar.”
She lowered her head onto her knees again. Did that mean he had been a plant when she knew him before? Nothing he said made sense. She wanted out of here. A terrible stench hung around the cell. It kept bile rising in her throat. The moans of the other captives were a constant torture, refusing to fade into the background.
She brushed at her legs. “All kinds of things with too many legs are crawling on me.”
He came and sat next to her, placed his arm around her shoulders. She smelled ground coffee and spice. She sagged from the weight around her shoulders and his hold lifted a bit. Julia snuggled into his comforting heat. She’d hate him tomorrow, get away from him. For now, she just wanted to feel safe. She pressed back slightly into the arm around her shoulders, trying to figure out what it was she felt. Instead of just a solid arm, something like very small tubes pressed into her skin and for a moment she feared he was shooting up, somehow, with some kind of contraption. Then she realized they were raised veins pulsing very faintly against her.
“I will keep you safe, even from insects.”
“Thank you,” she said absently, still wondering how his veins could be enlarged like that from the drugs without exploding.
They sat in silence for a while.
“We have to help the others.” She looked to the cage across from them where a small child, no more than ten years old, lay eerily still. “I won’t leave the children behind.”
He didn’t answer. She got up on her knees and grabbed his thick bicep. “Please, John, we cannot leave children here. I would never be able to live with my conscience.”
“I will think on this.”
She couldn’t detect any concern or compassion for these people in his voice. Given his profession, it shouldn’t distress her as much as it did. Her own father was an enforcer and she had seen firsthand the atro
cities he committed.
They were quiet for a while.
“Do you like children?” he asked her and though he studied his boots she could see the tension in his shoulders.
“I love them. One day I plan to have five.”
He stiffened. “I heard Earth women do not want many children.”
Earth women? “I do. I want an ordinary husband who has an ordinary job that comes home to me and our children every night.”
Never did she want to be involved with the kind of people she escaped from. Her husband would be decent and hardworking. Not some thug who thought nothing of selling people and using dangerous drugs. Who killed on command.
“You will be a good breeder to your man,” he said, sounding strangely hollow.
It was almost as if her dream of having a family saddened him. Julia shook off that strange impression. She couldn’t afford to forget that he was a monster. One who called women breeders.
Julia tugged at her blouse plastered against her skin. “Why aren’t you sweating? Aren’t you hot?”
“No.”
Was that another effect of the drugs?
“Are you cold?”
She realized she shook so hard, the fabric of the jacket rustled under her. “No.”
“I will warm you.”
With that eerie speed, he moved and picked her up. She found herself settled on his lap before she could think to protest. His heat surrounded her. In this stuffy place, she would’ve thought it would be overly hot and uncomfortable to be this close to him. Instead, the warmth radiating from him comforted her. How was this possible? He used to make her stomach turn and now she had to resist the urge to press closer to him. He smelled good among all the unpleasant odors of the basement. She must never forget what a monster he was. His unfeeling attitude toward the other prisoners showed more than anything what he was.
“We have to get out of here.” Before she convinced herself he was one of the good guys.
“Soon.”
She moved and blushed when his thigh muscles rippled under her. He either used steroids or worked out every hour of every day. She placed a hand on his knee to brace her and frowned. He wore black cotton pants but she didn’t feel cotton under her hands. Even his hands felt different from what they looked. When he’d lifted her, the texture of his palms had been hard, leathery. He made her shy and it infuriated her. How could her stupid body like such a man?
