Prisoner

by Annika Martin

There are too many of them. Some of my fear for Grayson gets pushed aside to make room for fear for myself. “I need this car,” I say.

  “Follow them in. Go!” The guy points with a gun. Going in seems only slightly better than staying out on the dark street or fighting for the car, so I follow Stone and the blond man. The car pulls out behind me and heads farther back, where they must be parking it.

  “How long ago?” Stone barks as I follow them through the gap in the gate.

  “A little over two hours?”

  “Jesus!”

  “He didn’t want to go to a hospital.”

  “Fucking goddamn,” he growls.

  I follow them around the side, trying not to trip over the chunks of rubble, architectural detailing that fell off the place. We head through some thick ivy, and somebody pulls aside a wood board and pushes open a door made of wrought iron.

  Everything’s dark. Somebody replaces the board behind me, and flashlights flick on. I catch glimpses of torn wallpaper, muscled forearms, guns, thick necks, scuffed boots as we move through. Chains clank nearby.

  “You couldn’t’ve called us?” Stone seethes with danger and darkness.

  “No,” I snap. “What with the fleeing and not knowing your number and him delirious. No.”

  Three of them work together to carry him across the dark space. Somebody opens a door. I follow them into a brighter, more lived-in-looking space.

  These guys are maybe around Grayson’s age, if not older. They’re a breed apart from guys I know in regular life. Like battle-worn barbarians or something. There’s a soldierly quality to them. Medieval. Cavemen, even, like Grayson, but they handle Grayson with absolute strength and care. I find myself feeling grateful to them for that.

  The blond slides a set of bars aside and leads us up some stairs. We go up two flights. I cringe at the way they must be jostling Grayson’s wound. Not like I can object.

  We get into a large room lit dimly by a lamp in the corner. This space is nicer, with marble and intact woodwork. It’s almost cozy, with furniture and rugs. Then I see something flash on the far side, and I catch sight of a row of automatic weaponry. Okay, almost cozy. There’s a sink to one side—the metal looks shiny and polished. Is it possible they have functioning plumbing in here? Though apparently they have functioning electricity, because in the far corner I see an array of computers and other electronics, glowing with the neon blues and greens of technology, incongruous in the vintage space. They’ve invaded this place, but they share it with the past.

  Guys are pulling down shades and blocking off windows. Three guys set Grayson onto a table. The blond brings over a pair of utility lights, the kind in little cages, and clamps them to something on the ceiling, trailing cords like tails. Like workmen use. I catch a flash of white on his forearm. The scarification mark that Grayson had. And none of them have tattoos, just like Grayson.

  He adjusts the lights to hit Grayson’s still form like a spotlight, making his face half-blinding, half-shadowed.

  “Buddy.” Stone pats his cheek. “Grayson. Hey.” He grabs Grayson’s non-shot shoulder, shaking him.

  Grayson mumbles.

  “Once?” the blond one asks. “Shot once?” he barks.

  “I think,” I say. “It happened fast. It was one of the governor’s guys—that’s what Grayson was saying. When he was still making sense.”

  The blond’s expression goes dark and his nostrils flare, like he’s sucking in a breath of hate, like he wants to kill somebody with his bare hands, which he could easily do, judging from the size of them. Then he kneels next to Stone and touches Grayson’s forehead, and it’s the tenderest thing I’ve ever seen. “Nate’s coming, Gray. Okay?” he says. “Hey!” He gently slaps Grayson’s cheek, rousing him.

  I’m relieved to see Grayson react. Still conscious, barely. I look around, hugging myself. Things are worn and simple but clean. It’s surreal, this nice place in the midst of an urban war zone.

  Like a home for a lost tribe of guys.

  Stone and the blond are attending to Grayson, cleaning his wound. He calls the blond Calder, and they seem to know what they’re doing. I don’t want to leave him, but I’m starting to get scared. After all, Stone wants me dead—I can hardly forget what he said at the parking lot, and Grayson’s not exactly in a position to help me now. And he knows where to find me. If I can get back.

  “He feels cold,” Stone barks, and somebody goes off, presumably to find another blanket.

  It’s been a while since they called Nate, to get him in the air. Does he have a helicopter? Do veterinarians do that?

  “Where’s the car?” I ask.

  “Hidden,” Calder says.

  I move quietly back the way we came. I don’t like the idea of going out into that scary, dark neighborhood, but I figure coming across people who might kill me is better than being with somebody who clearly wants me dead. I have the gun, but something tells me it takes more than a scared girl and a gun to outrun this group.

  Calder rubs his hands over his blond hair and looks at me. I stop moving and try to look innocent and not like I’m sneaking out. A tall guy comes in and tucks a blanket around Grayson.

  I edge toward the stairs, planning to break for it. Then Stone spins around and asks me what the guy looked like. What the gun looked like. I tell him.

  Calder pulls him aside and talks to him in low tones. He’s distracted. I eye the exit. Is now my chance?

  Stone gives me a dark look. My heart pounds in visceral alarm. “Going somewhere?”

  “I need to use the bathroom,” I say, aiming for casual. “Where is it? If you just tell me…”

  Stone and Calder exchange glances.

  “I’ll show you.” Stone stalks over and pushes me deeper into the interior, down a hall, and into a little windowless bathroom lined with old-fashioned tile that gleams in the low light. And he stays out there—I can tell by the shadow his boots make under the door. He thinks I’m going to run for it. I’ve seen him. And now I’ve seen the blond—Calder. And the two other guys. I know the Bradford Hotel, their safe house. They won’t let me live.

  Well, my question about plumbing is answered. I splash water on my face and drink a little from the faucet.

  Stone doesn’t even bother stepping aside when I emerge from the bathroom. He blocks my way, hand out. “Gun.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Give it or I’ll take it.”

  “It’s mine.”

  He grabs my wrists and spins me around, pushing me face-first against the wall like a cop would.

  “Hey!” I shout. Is he going to kill me now? My pulse pounds. I’m shaking inside, but I’m mad too. “If it’s me talking you’re worried about, look, I brought Grayson here. I’ve aided and abetted a fugitive every bit as much as you did. I probably broke even more laws than you did. You don’t have to worry about me, okay? Your secret is safe with me—I swear it.”

  My voice sounds high. Frightened.

  He practically rips the gun out of my waistband. “Sorry, but you are a threat. You can’t help it.”

  “What?”

  “You can’t help it,” he repeats. He has both wrists in one hand behind my back, and I feel something hard press against the back of my head. “We’re going on a little walk.”

  I try to pull away, but he’s ready. He has me. “No! I saved his life! Grayson wants to keep me alive!”

  “That’s why I have to kill you,” he mutters.

  I pull and pull, but he’s strong as a rock. Tears fill my eyes. “I saved his life!”

  He leans closer to my ear. “How did he get shot?”

  “The governor’s guy was going to shoot me, and Grayson tried to stop him. He didn’t want me shot. He wants me alive!”

  “Exactly. If it wasn’t for you, he wouldn’t be on that table half-dead.”

  My heart sinks. I have no defense for that. If it weren’t for me, if I hadn’t been there, Grayson wouldn’t have been shot.

  “You’r
e a threat. You make him weak, and therefore you make all of us weak. I don’t want to kill you. I don’t kill for fun. But you’ve got him fucked in the head.” He jerks me away from the wall and pulls me toward a dark stairwell.

  “No!” I kick him and try to pull away from him. “No!” Nothing I do gets me away from him. He’s done this before. “Grayson wants me alive.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he’ll thank me later.”

  Will he?

  When I think about dying, I think about not seeing Grayson anymore. Like I’ve just crossed a border into a country that’s somehow magical and dark and amazing, and I don’t want to miss it now. I don’t want to lose my connection to Grayson.

  “We’re together. I’m his.” I don’t realize the truth of it until I actually say it aloud. I’m his. And that makes him mine too, and it’s messed up and beautiful. “I’m his and he’s mine.”

  “No, honey,” Stone growls into my ear. “He belongs to us. We’re his crew. Not you. Just because he fucked you, that doesn’t make you his.” He drags me down some stairs and into this side building. A parking area, I realize. It’s dim, and I can make out maybe a dozen cars, most covered in shrouds of some sort. I wonder if the car I brought is down here. Even if it is, I don’t have the key anymore.

  Plus Stone is holding me in an unbreakable grip.

  The only weapon I have left is my voice. I look around, desperate to stall him. I recognize one of the emblems on the beige cloth-like cover on a car. It’s a little shield. I don’t even remember what the car is called, but I know it’s expensive. The kind of car these guys shouldn’t be able to afford.

  “Is that yours?” I gasp out.

  Stone stills. “Don’t drag this out.”

  “What is this place?” They all look expensive. Different shapes, some like tiny coupes, low to the ground. Others massive and boxy. And all I can think is: keep him talking. Anything to keep him from putting a bullet in my brain. “Do you sell them?”

  He snorts. “They’re ours. Like this place is ours. Everything you see.”

  “But you don’t drive them.” The tires that peek from underneath the covers are gleaming black with deep treads. Unused.

  “We can’t drive them. They’d attract too much attention.”

  “So why do you buy them?”

  “To have them,” he snaps. Then his voice softens. “It’s not going to work, honey. Stalling.”

  A tear drips down my cheek. “I can be like that, for Grayson. Something to keep.”

  Maybe it’s pathetic to compare myself to a car. When you’re faced with death, dignity doesn’t mean much.

  He shakes his head. Sighs. He raises his weapon, and I try to twist away. I should’ve sped off. Should have driven off when I had the chance. “He saved my life! He doesn’t want me dead.”

  “Wait,” says a cold voice. Calder appears. He looks like he’s going into battle—a vicious Viking. “You can’t.”

  “She’s a hostage,” Stone says. I kick at Stone, but he keeps me off somehow. “We don’t keep hostages.”

  Calder’s expression is impassive. “Nate wants her to assist.”

  “He’s here?”

  “Yeah. And he was asking about…” Calder tips his head toward me.

  “I’ll fucking assist,” Stone says.

  “Your fingers are too big. So are mine. He says the bullet was a dummy; it’s all over in there. He needs little fingers. Fine work.”

  Stone swears.

  “Will he be okay?” I ask.

  “Shut up,” Stone barks.

  “Let’s go,” Calder says. “He wants her scrubbed up. We’ll kill her after.”

  Stone simply reverses course, dragging me back up the stairs.

  I try to pull away. “Fuck you. I’ll help, okay? Let go of me.”

  He lets me go and points a gun at my head. “If he dies, you die. Slow.”

  “Fuck you,” I say. I’ll die anyway. His little demonstration in the parking garage proves that much.

  I reach the brightly lit main room, heart pounding. They’ve ripped Grayson’s shirt off; his whole chest is dark with blood, some of it shiny and sticky. A lanky black man is rigging another utility light to a chandelier, and when he flips it on, you can see how pale Grayson is.

  “Is he going to be okay?” I ask.

  “We’ll see,” the man says, and I recognize the voice—it’s Nate. “You drunk or anything? Squeamish? Too upset?” he asks.

  I look down at Grayson. His eyes are half-open like he’s fighting to stay conscious. “I’m okay. I can do this.”

  “If he dies, you’re fucked,” Stone says from behind me.

  “Shut up,” Nate barks at Stone. He turns back to me. “Are you good to help? I’m serious. If you’re too emotional, you’re no use to me.”

  “I’m good,” I say, wiping my tears. “Just worried.”

  Stone snorts like he doesn’t believe me.

  “Hey, back off. I need her focused here. You can handle blood, right?”

  Stone only crowds me closer. “Don’t fuck this up.”

  I turn to him, pissed and torn up and scared for Grayson, like all the worry of the last hours is folding over on top of me. “You don’t know me. You have no fucking idea about any of this.”

  “No, you have no fucking idea.”

  Asshole.

  I leave him standing there. Out at the table under the circle of light, Nate has me snap on gloves and hold a clamp over a vein. I assist him, amazed my hands aren’t shaking; I feel shaky inside, or maybe just inside my head. I breathe and focus, following his orders, grateful for a childhood spent patching up my mother after she got beat by her latest dealer. I’m not spooked by violence or blood or even needles. Calder is stationed across from us with a stack of super-absorbent pads; his job is to soak up blood as needed, which seems too often.

  “He gonna live?” Stone asks.

  Nate doesn’t answer. His long, slim fingers move with speed and confidence, and he skirts around the issue with facts: “He’s lost a lot of blood. Nothing vital was hit. The next five hours will tell.” I get the feeling that his manner with Stone is the result of experience, as if there might have been a time in the past when he’d given a rosy prognosis only to have things go bad. Stone’s a guard dog on steroids, loyal and vicious, white teeth snapping, ready to lash out.

  The operation is terrifying and bloody. Nate has me depress bits of tissue inside Grayson’s wound while he removes fragments of bullet, one after another, using some sort of a magnet, pausing to make tiny stitches—battlefield sutures, he calls them. I can see why he needs my small fingers—not only can I do more pinpointed tasks, but I don’t block his view.

  He makes Stone hold a pad to the wound while he takes a stretch break. I rip off a glove and lay my hand over Grayson’s rough, stubbly cheek. He’s completely out. I need him to wake up, to be okay. I want to hear his voice. God, I don’t know how I got to this place, needing Grayson like this. Not just to keep me alive and safe from the guys—though yeah, there is that—but needing to be enclosed by him, needing him with me in the world.

  Needing him in my world.

  One of the guys appears with a bag of blood. Nate tells him to hang it from the ceiling, and everything starts up again.

  The operation goes on for an hour, then two. Grayson is out cold from whatever Nate gave him. Eyes closed, mouth slightly open. At least he can’t feel pain.

  Good job, Nate says now and then. Perfect. Right there…over…yeah, good. Suddenly Nate’s closing him up. Grayson’s signs are good, Nate tells me. His shoulder’s messy, that’s all. That’s how he says it—messy.

  The operation is over. And with it, their incentive for keeping me alive.

  “When will he wake up?”

  “Not for a while, hopefully,” Nate says. “We want him to sleep.”

  Relief is short-lived. I have to save myself. Desperate plans run through my mind. Like taking somebody hostage with a scalpel.

>   I sneak a peek at the watch Nate put on a nearby stool, and see that it’s three in the morning.

  “Come on.” Nate has me help him with a final suture. Stone, who has been keeping watch from a nearby chair, stands by the table. Calder comes to join them. Nate is explaining next steps. They need to get him resting. Keep him on his back. Check his temperature at intervals.

  They don’t notice when I back away. I turn and run for it, making for the stairs. Footsteps behind me. Huge hands grab me.

  “Oh no you don’t.” Stone.

  An arm comes around my neck, choking me, pulling me back around.

  Nate walks up. “Lay the fuck off,” he says, peeling off bloody latex gloves. “I may still need her. He’s not out of the woods.”

  “Stupid to keep her around,” Stone growls. “She’s seen us.”

  “My priority is Grayson lasting the night,” Nate says. “I need her around if I need to go back in.”

  The arm loosens and lets me go. I wobble for a second before I can stand. I can’t read Nate or even catch his gaze—I don’t know if he doesn’t want me killed, or if it really is just all about Grayson. Either way, I’ll take it.

  The three of them slide Grayson onto some sort of wheeled table and bring him down a hallway and into a room that’s lit only by the moon coming in the high windows. One of the guys pulls down a thick blind, totally covering the window, and Calder switches on a lamp. It’s an old hotel room, by the looks of it, with a little bed and a desk. A small pile of books sits on the floor next to the bed. The sweet computer setup is a total anomaly. I’ve never seen anything like this place.

  For these guys, it’s clearly home.

  They ease Grayson onto the bed.

  From the outside, the window coverings block out the light completely. You would never guess somebody lives here from the way it looks outside, the way it looked when I arrived. Stone, Calder, Nate, and a few other guys go in and out. There seem to be seven of them, all heavily armed, all with that same feral vibe, like a lost tribe. They all have that white scar tattoo and no regular tattoos, except for one guy, who is covered in them.

  Now that Nate’s gone out of healing mode, it’s pretty clear he’s one of them. They seem so connected, and for the first time I wonder if every single one of these guys go back to that basement. The moment I think it, I know it’s true, deep in my gut. They’re not like other men. This is a different breed of guy, raised in a different way. A horrifying way.