by Bera, Ilia
The men lead me to the hotel’s backdoor. I could run. There are only one hundred meters between the highway and me and I can hear the rush hour traffic. I can hear the busses making their stops, the trucks rattling and coughing over potholes, cars splashing through polluted puddles. Someone would stop for me. Someone would help me. I just need to make it one hundred meters.
The hand around my arm tightens, as if I had been thinking aloud. The men blindfold me and stuff me into a black SUV.
The blindfold is damp, as if its previous owner had been crying. Crying doesn’t help anything, I know from experience. If anything, crying will make gangsters deal with you quicker. I try to ask where they’re taking me, but the only noise I make is incoherent mumbling.
The men laugh and the car pulls away. Think, Olivia. I try to pull my hands out from my cuffs, hoping they might have shrunk overnight from starvation and dehydration. They didn’t. My hands remain locked together.
“It’s a long drive, sweetheart. I suggest you take it easy.”
I catch myself from falling to my side as the car turns off the highway. The road is bumpy now. We’ve turned onto a dirt road. I try once more to speak through my gag—to try and convince the men to let me go. Again, I can only muster up some incoherent mumblings.
“Turn on the radio, will ya?” says one of the men in the SUV.
Frank Sinatra fills the car, drowning my mumbling out. I take a deep breath in through my nose. I can’t speak, see, or move. It’s for the best.
Olivia’s Survival Guide, tip # 92: always stay relaxed and absorb any and all information. Pay particular attention to the little things that people say. Quirks, mannerisms—everything. The little things are especially useful in constructing convincing lies and constructing effective schemes. Good lying is key to survival.
“What does the boss want with this girl, anyway?”
“He didn’t say.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he wanted the girl.”
“That’s it?”
A plume of cigarette smoke drifts up my nostrils. The smell is strangely off-putting, and doesn’t smell like regular cigarette smoke. It’s a chemical smell, like the menthol cream my dad used to rub under my nose when I was stuffed up.
The man inhales and then says, “That’s it, kid. He wants Olivia Marie Cross alive. When the boss tells me to do something, I don’t ask questions.” His voice has a funny nasality to it.
“She’s doesn’t look like a gypsy.”
“She’s not. If she was a gypsy, the gypsies wouldn’t have sold her to us, the stubborn pricks that they are,” says the nasally fellow.
I knew it. Freddie sold me to Pesconi. The prick. I should have listened to my gut. I should never have told him where his stupid territs were. He played me. The asshole made me think there was an ounce of decency in his slithering body.
I can’t decide what makes me sicker: knowing I’m on my way to my deathbed, or knowing that I almost slept with that gypsy-wannabe piece of shit—knowing that he’s out there somewhere, laughing his ass off.
“I’m not sad to be leaving this dump, I’ll tell you that much,” the nasally man says. “Couldn’t even find a whore younger than fifty. I ain’t shitting you.”
The men erupt into laughter.
“Jesus Christ, Eddie,” says one of the men.
“What? It’s a shame, too. I was really looking forward to some action. How often are we in human cities? Therian girls are too tough, too bossy; they’re always fighting back. Human girls ain’t like that. You can throw ‘em around and do what you want with ‘em.”
What is he talking about? Human girls? Therian girls? When Freddie said it, I thought it was just his ego. I’m realizing now that they’re probably code words. Humans must be civilians. Therians must be members of Pesconi’s gang. It doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as Crips or Bloods.
The men weren’t lying; it is a long trip. After what feels like six or seven hours, I’m taken out of the SUV and put into a different vehicle, this one much higher off the ground. A nearby horse nickers and another neighs. Horses? Where the hell am I? All I know is, I’m far from home.
My new captors spend a few minutes stretching and chatting with another group of men before boarding the vehicle.
With a pattering of hooves we start to move. I’m in a horse-drawn carriage. The rugged trail makes me wish we were still in the off-roading SUV. Some of the bumps in the trail are so dramatic; I bounce a whole inch off of my seat.
“A few more hours still,” a man says to me.
The rattling, swaying, and bumping continues for at least a few hours, complete with nausea, boredom, and crippling anxiety—not to mention the shockingly frequent smell of horse shit. When we finally arrive at our destination, it’s night—no light seeps through my blindfold.
A man helps me out of the carriage, and then helps me stand upright while my muscles remember how to work, and the dizzying nausea passes enough that I can stand on my own. For once, the cool rain feels nice as it runs down my face, washing away all of the anxious sweat and the dirt kicked up by the horses.
“Where’s the boss?”
“He’s out ‘till the morning.”
“What should we do with the girl?”
“Bring her down to holding.” All of the voices are male, unfamiliar, with similar thick accents.
“C’mon.” Someone tugs on my arm. He has to catch me, as I lose my balance, nearly fall onto my face.
The refreshing rain is short-lived. I’m taken inside, led down a series of hallways and doors, and pushed into a small cement space. It’s cold and the air is damp and smells old. Finally, the gag and blindfold are removed from my face. Two unfamiliar men stare at me.
I’m in a dark cell with rectangular iron bars, crudely made with uneven, harsh edges.
“We’ll come get you in the morning,” one man says.
“Don’t bother screaming. You’re three stories underground and there’s no one around here but us. Oh, and don’t try shifting either. Those bars are solid iron, and those cuffs aren’t ventice. Got it?” The man stares at me, waiting for a confirmation. Ventice? Shifting? I don’t know what he’s talking about. Probably more code words they think I know.
They must think I’m part of some rival gang. Pesconi must think that, when I stole his wife’s clothes from the hotel room, I was acting on behalf of some rival gang. That’s why they don’t kill me—they want to interrogate me. They think I have information.
“Got it,” I say. My voice is raspy, unfamiliar even to me.
“Good.”
The men close the cell door, which scrapes a deafening screech against the cement floor. They lock the cell door with a thick steel padlock and turn to leave.
“Wait,” I say.
They both stop and stare at me. “What?”
“Can you take off my handcuffs?”
The men take a moment to laugh before leaving. Their echoing footsteps become fainter and fainter before vanishing completely. Three stories underground? Any building with three below ground levels is a big building, which means I’m probably in a big city.
The cell walls are cement. Across from the crude iron bars is another wall of cement. Even the ceiling is cement. Aside from the iron bars and a pipe that runs along the ceiling, there is only cement.
With my hands still cuffed at my back, I rattle the cell door, hoping the lock isn’t closed properly. Sadly, it is.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
PRISON
I wake up. As I try to sit up, my back screams out with a sharp ache. Whoever said sleeping on hard, flat ground is good for your back, is full of crap. It takes a minute to fight through the pain and straighten out my spine.
There is no indication of the time—no clock, no window, no chirping birds. Nothing. I call out, but receive no answer. How long had I slept? One hour? Two hours? I could have been out for three days.
I give each iron bar a firm shake. If
I could just move one bar out of the way, I could squeeze through. Nope. Each bar is immobile, planted firmly in place. Each bar extends well into the ceiling at the top and well into the floor at the bottom. Only the bars on the door aren’t formed into the cement, but even those touch the ground—and I don’t think I’m fitting through the inch gap between the door bars and the ceiling anytime soon. The iron has been formed into the cement. Even in prisons, bars are bolted down. Whoever made this makeshift cell had no intention of letting anyone escape.
I cut my finger on a sharp edge of one of the bars. “Ouch,” I say, and hear my voice echo back at me. The edge looks as though it was cut by an old, jagged handsaw. The whole cell looks as though some thick-skulled brute built it.
The cement is rough and lumpy, bars are uneven, and the barred door has no frame—just two long pieces of scrap iron, horizontally welded across six vertical bars. The welding was done from the inside of the cell, as if some dumb prisoner built the door himself, dug his own grave.
More time passes—how much, I’m not sure. At least a few more hours.
How can I escape? If I had my purse, I could pick the lock—but I don’t have my purse. I don’t have anything, unless you can count my clothes and the pipe along the ceiling. My clothes are useless. The only imaginable use of my shoes are the thin hobnails in the soles. But even those are too short to pick a lock. Maybe the lock on my handcuffs, but I can’t get the hobnails out with my handcuffs on.
There is a small metal bracket on the pipe; two metallic semi-circles joined on either side by a small screw. If I can get my handcuffs off, I could use a hobnail to loosen the bracket screws. Then, I could… slightly hinder the basement’s chance of passing a safety inspection. Who am I kidding? I’ve got nothing. I’m screwed.
I hear footsteps descending the nearby staircase.
“She’s in the third cell,” a voice says.
Four men emerge, all dressed in long black coats. One of them is Carmine Pesconi. A faint spell makes my legs weak. He stops, looks me up and down, and then shakes his head. I can’t look at his face for long before I’m overwhelmed by the desire to look away. I stare at his feet.
“Here she is. This is her, right?” one man asks.
“This is her,” says Carmine in his low, growling voice.
“What do you want us to do with her?”
“Leave her here.”
“Want us to take her out? Rough her up?”
“Just leave her here,” Carmine says. He doesn’t look away from me, not even to address his men. He never looks away from my eyes, never moves, never blinks.
The men look around and await further instruction but Carmine is busy, staring into my soul. How can I get out of this situation? What lies can I make? What do I know about Carmine? I know he’s got a violent temper and he’s brutally unsympathetic. I know he’s got a beef with the gypsies. I know his wife is a smoker, and he… drinks water. Nothing sticks out as useful right now.
“Give me the key,” Carmine says.
One of the men pulls a key off of a ring.
“Go and wait for me upstairs,” Carmine says. When his men hesitate, Carmine finally breaks his long glare to scold them. “Well?” he says.
Their pupils dilate and they scurry back to the stairs. Carmine waits for their footsteps to silence before turning back to me. My head is spinning. Think, Olivia, think… He sticks the key into the lock.
Carmine speaks but I can’t hear him over my heart as it crashes repeatedly into my ribcage. “Well?” he says.
I part my dry lips and stutter. “Huh?” I manage to say.
He slips into the cell. By the time my brain considers making a dash, the cell door is closed and locked. I’m locked in a cell with Carmine Pesconi. “You thought you could get away with stealing from my family?”
Again, I try to speak but only stutter. This cell is where I’m going to die. The only question is, will my skull be crushed against the cement floor, or will he use the iron bars to saw me in half.
“Answer the fucking question,” he says.
“I’m sorry,” I say. It’s all I can think to say. What a useless thing to say. Gangsters aren’t sympathetic.
He scoffs without smiling, without even the mere suggestion of a smile. “Not good enough.” He uses his thumb to crack each of his fingers, one at a time, as he takes a step towards me. “Who do you work for?”
“What?” I say it to buy myself some time.
The back of his hand slaps my face. The force of the blow knocks me to my feet. I didn’t buy myself any time. He’s not in the business of selling time. Blood runs down my chin; the ring on his finger cut my lip. “I don’t like to repeat myself. I suggest you remember that.”
“I—I don’t work for anyone.”
“Bullshit. Get off the floor.” Every part of me, except for my gaze, leaves the floor. “The gypsies ratted you out, so you aren’t with the gypsies. You’re hanging around Ilium, so I doubt you’re with the Guard, and you don’t look like a Rebel to me. So, who are you working for?” He speaks slowly, clearly, still growling through his teeth.
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” How do you convince someone you’re really telling the truth? That’s not my area of expertise—I’ve never told the truth.
He takes a moment to crack each of his fingers again.
After a few long seconds of silence he says, “Talk.”
“What?”
He slaps my face with the back of his hand again. Again, I fall to the floor.
“This isn’t a game. Answer my questions. Your life depends on it.”
I remain on the floor, cold and frozen. Carmine stares at me, waiting for my ‘honest’ answer, but I honestly can’t even remember the question. Even lying is out of the question; I have nothing to lie about, because I don’t know what he’s talking about.
“Last chance,” he says, unmoved. He hasn’t blinked since stepping into the cell. He cracks all of his fingers again and takes a step forward.
“What are you doing?” I ask, scooting my body back towards a corner.
Towering over me, he stops.
“Who are you working with?” I can barely hear him speaking over the high-pitched squealing in my ears. I can barely see him through the glossy tears in my eyes.
A word comes to me. It’s a gamble, but I have no other choice. “I’m with the Lemurians,” I say.
His eyes narrow and his brow tilts on its side. “Is that some kind of fucking joke?” I don’t know—is it? I don’t know who the Lemurians are. Maybe he’s a Lemurians. Maybe I just told him I was part of his own gang.
“I—I don’t know what you want me to say.”
A sharp, three-inch blade flicks out from his hand. “This is the deal. Tell me who you’re working for and I’ll slit your throat. You’ll be dead in thirty seconds.” How can I say no to that deal? “Don’t tell me and I make this as painful as possible, and I will make it take as long as possible. I will make you wish you told me. Either way, I’m going to kill you.” His eyes are void of emotion. If he’s bluffing, he’s got a bright future playing poker.
The ringing in my head is deafening now; I’m surprised Carmine can’t hear it, too. I try to speak but can’t. Not only are my lips dry, but also my mouth is dry, and so is my throat. Pushing out a sentence is painful, each word scrapes against my throat. “I needed money. I needed something to sell. I stole from you—and I’m sorry. I’ll pay you back—I’ll give you everything.”
“You’re fucking lying to me,” he says. “And I don’t like it when people lie to me. Especially dumb little cunts, like you.”
I push myself back until I hit the wall. As I try to stand up, he says, “Stay on the floor.” His words carry a blunt punch that my body does not hesitate to obey.
With his blade still clenched in one hand, he reached down for his belt. At first I think, is he going to hit me with his belt? Then, a cold jolt runs down my spine. I’ll be lucky if his plan is
only to hit me with his belt.
“What are you doing?” I ask. I force a breath—when I stop thinking about breathing, I stop breathing.
He doesn’t reply. He pulls away his belt and drops it onto the floor. Its loud clunk echoes and reverberates through the deep cement basement. He takes a step forward, towering over me once again. There is no time left to think.
