by Sarah Sorana
The man who had been torturing me slapped Lupe.
I was frozen with terror.
Hit him, I told myself. Hit him back. There are three of you, and he’s panting. He’s tired or hurt. You can do this.
I couldn’t.
I was too afraid.
He struck Catalina full on the face, and she dropped to her knees, sobbing, blood trickling from her split lip.
She looked up at him and said something pleading in Spanish, flinching when he raised his hand to her again.
Lupe backed up a few steps, and el Jefe grabbed her by the hair and flung her to the floor.
I cried out, but I was still stuck to the floor, as surely as if I’d been encased in concrete or frozen in ice.
I was the only one standing now.
He wasn’t that much taller than me or Catalina, but we were paralyzed before him. Something about his icy eyes drained us of our courage and defiance.
Fortunately, it wasn’t only up to us.
------------------------------------------------------------
The door on the other side of the desk burst open and slammed against the door, breaking the spell.
Catalina flung herself over Lupe and I flung myself at el Jefe, yanking at his hair and scratching at his eyes, yowling and fighting like an angry cat.
He tossed me aside with one sweep of his sinewy arm. It was like taking an iron bar to the gut, and I hit the wall, winded.
I’d only gotten one good scratch in, barely ruffled his hair.
It all happened so quickly, I wasn’t sure which of the men hit el Jefe with the butt of their shotgun, but he dropped like a stone.
I leaned on the wall, clutching my belly and gasping as the three bikers grinned at us like a little pack of avenging angels, all leather and long hair and feral smiles.
“Thanks for distracting him, sweetheart,” Merle said. He was the youngest, the tallest, standing in between two bruisers - one with a black eye more spectacular than Merle’s own had been when we met, one with blood dripping from his nose.
I swallowed.
His eyes flicked to the girls on the floor and he reached out a hand to help them up.
They stood without his help, Catalina wary, Lupe flat-out scared.
Merle smiled at Lupe, but his face was hard as he eyed Catalina.
“What should I do with you?” he asked. “You turned her in, didn’t you?”
Catalina’s chin rose proudly. She didn’t say anything.
“Please,” Lupe said. “She hates el Jefe. She does. She only works with him because she’s afraid. If you let us go we’ll go back to Mexico and we’ll leave you alone. Please.”
Merle turned to Bloody Nose.
“Take the girls back to our place. Don’t hurt them. Anyone lays a finger on them, I’ll fucking have their balls. If the older one tries to go anywhere, though, tie her the hell up and keep the little one away from her.”
He turned back to me.
“Megan,” he said, relief all over his face.
He reached out a hand to me and let it drop.
"I'm so sorry," he said. "I'm so fucking sorry."
I just stared at him.
"This never would have happened to you if you hadn't met me," he continued.
I shrugged. I was still wearing the dress I'd stolen from the brothel. I didn't know if I could say anything else, anything at all.
I'd dreamed of him sweeping in to rescue me, but fuck, he was right. I was so angry at him.
Before I'd met him, I was just a teenage girl worried about prom.
Now I'd been kidnapped and tortured.
Merle was hot, and funny, and kind, and I loved being around him... but he wasn't worth this. I was so numb. I just kept staring at him.
I swallowed.
"I got out," I said, lamely.
Catalina snorted.
"If el Jefe weren't distracted by the raid, you wouldn't have made it to the end of the hallway," she said. "You'd have been tossed back in there to starve for a few days. Don't act like you weren't lucky as hell."
Merle turned to Bloody Nose.
"I thought I told you to get them out of here," he said.
"Come on, girls," the giant man rumbled.
He took each of them by the upper arm, gently, and led them away. Catalina shook his hand off of her, but Lupe allowed herself to be steered carefully around the desk.
As they left the room, I saw Catalina shoot a worried glance at her sister.
I didn't know what to make of her. Was she the scared victim her sister thought, or the conspirator Merle clearly assumed her to be?
Would she have led me to freedom, or straight back to el Jefe?
I was sort of glad I'd never know.
Merle turned to Black Eye.
"Take over here," he said, tersely. "Make sure he," he prodded el Jefe with his toe, "and the rest of his gang understand that you don't fucking touch women or children. They're not part of the business."
The giant of a man nodded.
"Taking her back?" he asked.
Merle nodded.
"Are you ready to get out of here?" he asked.
"Past," I whispered.
I still didn't move. Now that I wasn't immediately under the threat of el Jefe, now that I wasn't concentrating every fiber of my being on willing myself to keep moving, to escape, to get out of his hellhole, I was frozen.
He reached out and took my hand. He still felt warm and alive, and when he squeezed my fingers, I thought about smiling.
"Let's go," he said, softly, looking into my eyes. "Come with me, okay? Don't look around. Just look at me. I'm gonna take you out of here, follow me and look at my jacket."
I nodded.
"Can you stand up?" he asked.
I nodded, and pushed away from the wall.
"Good girl," he murmured.
He let go of my hand and turned away, looking over his shoulder.
"Follow me," he said. "Just look at my patches. They're awesome, aren't they?"
I nodded.
He started walking slowly, telling me about how he'd gotten different patches and bars on his leather jacket.
I did as he said and kept looking at the jacket.
Once, I looked away as we were in a hallway.
I saw a figure slumped over a chair. There was a shiny dark pool underneath it, gleaming wetly.
"Look at my jacket," Merle repeated. "Look at me. Keep walking."
I hadn't realize I'd stopped.
I listened to Merle and I kept walking as he led me out of the club that had become a warzone. I couldn't tell if it had gone silent or if I'd just stopped listening to anything but Merle's voice.
Finally, Merle stopped. He turned, and I blinked.
He took my hand again, and brushed my hair away from my eyes with his other hand.
“I’ve got you,” he said, softly. “We’re going outside now, and we’re getting in the car, and you’ll never fucking come back here as long as you live.”
I nodded.
“That okay?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I want you to be careful,” he said.
I didn’t understand why until he opened the door. It was so bright. I hadn’t really seen the sun in days, and the noon light beat down on me.
I followed Merle to the car, my eyes streaming with tears from the shock of the glare.
Finally buckled into the shotgun seat, I had no idea where we were going. I didn’t care. I pulled my feet up onto the seat and basked in the light like a lizard as we peeled out of the parking lot and headed away.
With every mile, I started to cry harder. Soon, I was sobbing, great, heaving silent gasps.
Merle took a hand off the wheel to stroke my hair.
A gentle touch, a sign of affection, was harder to take, and I could no longer even pretend to cry quietly.
He handed me one of the red-checked handkerchiefs that he seemed to always have, and I clutched it as the trees r
olled past.
------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, he pulled onto an unmarked dirt road and it didn’t take long to get to a large clearing.
“Home sweet home,” Merle said.
I’d caught a glimpse of the cartel’s headquarters through my streaming eyes, it was all concrete and neon and barbed wire.
This looked more like…
“A summer camp?” I asked, incredulously.
Merle grinned.
“Yeah,” he said. “It was super cheap, and had plenty of space to spread out.”
There were a few old gazebos that kids probably used to make lanyards for Arts and Crafts in, that now seemed to be storage for who-knew-what, covered with tarps bungee cords.
A huge metal garage with a few of the bay doors open dominated the scene, looking like an airplane hangar or mechanic’s shop transported accidentally into a wilderness idyl.
The swimming pool still looked, well, like a swimming pool. There were even deck chairs and pool noodles scattered around, the bright colors and cheerful domesticity striking me as completely surreal.
“Oh,” I said.
It was all too much, after so much time in a cell.
I swallowed.
“How long?” I asked, turning to Merle.
He sighed.
“Nine days,” he said.
I nodded, slowly.
“My parents must be freaking out,” I said.
He looked away.
“Merle?” I asked. “Are my parents okay?”
“Yeah!” he said immediately. “They’re fine. They’re… they’re mad. They’re really angry.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “They’ve called the cops, right?”
“Um,” he said. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.”
I planted my bare feet in the gravel. “No way,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the fuck is going on.”
At that point, my body betrayed me. After three or four meals in, apparently, nine days, as the adrenaline faded, so did my ability to stand.
Merle caught me.
“Easy, honey,” he said. “Easy. Let’s just get you inside.”
“Fuck you,” I grumbled.
He laughed as he picked me up and swung me over his shoulder. I ended up face-to-ass with him. It was an excellent ass, but that didn’t make it a comfortable way to be carried.
“Quit squirming,” he grunted. “I’ll put you down in a minute.”
“Why aren’t we going in there?” I asked, waving vaguely at the largest building.
He ignored me.
He didn’t carry me that much further, stopping and grabbing both of my legs with one hand while he opened a door with the other. I heard him drop his keys and cuss, but he left them until he dumped me on a bed.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” he said. “Don’t fucking touch anything.”
He picked up a quilt from the end of the bed, shook it open, and tossed it over me. It wasn’t until I automatically wrapped it around myself that I realized that my teeth were chattering.
Merle left, scooping up his keys and leaving the door open wide.
I sat there, shivering, staring at the sunlight, drinking in the view.
The biker who rescued me came back in and started to shut the door behind him.
“No!” I cried, trying to leap off the bed and stop him and only managing an awkward lunge. “No! Leave it open. Please.”
“Okay,” he said. “Yeah. No worries. Door’s open.”
I sat back, breathing hard, hugging my knees to my chest, wrapped in the quilt - Merle’s quilt, I realized. Merle’s bed. Merle’s room.
He sat down beside me, not touching, but close enough that I could feel the warmth of his body.
I turned to him like a sunflower.
“Here,” he said. “Brought you a cup of chicken soup.”
He handed me a mug that smelled achingly familiar. It was hot and bland and tasted like every other canned chicken soup I’d been given when I was sick.
I missed my mother.
I started to cry again, quietly this time, just weeping absently as I sipped the soup.
Merle didn’t talk. He didn’t ask me questions. He just sat there with me as I cried and drank my soup and tried to get warm. When I finished, he silently handed me a can of Coke, unopened and cold.
“Thought this might make you feel a little better,” he said. “Don’t drink the whole thing or you’ll just get sick.”
I nodded.
We sat there for an hour, me sipping at the Coke and leaning on Merle, enjoying his warmth, staring hungrily at the sun and the sky.
I finally started to look around.
The room was clean, and fairly tidy, but full of stuff. I saw a pile of greasy engine parts, and a few spic-and-span ones. There was a minifridge and a laptop, a pile of folded laundry - all the normal detritus of living.
Plus, well, the engine parts.
I suppose that that was normal detritus if you worked on motorcycles, though, and Merle had already told me that he did some legit work as a mechanic and repaired his own ride.
There were two white doors, one open to show a hallway, one closed. I looked quickly away from both and focused on the one leading outside.
“Thanks,” I whispered.
I handed him back the half-full can.
“Did it help any?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I feel a little more human,” I said. “You wanna tell me what the fuck is going on now?”
I kept leaning on him.
“The cops… have not been called,” he began. “The assholes who took you used your phone to text your parents that you were tired of their bullshit rules and weren’t coming back. They checked the logs and found a series of texts between you and me from a few weeks ago about how you were going to run away with me.”
I sat up straight.
“We hadn’t even met,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “You’re eighteen, though, and so, legally, you’re an adult. Apparently they called the cops and the cops said they couldn’t do anything. You’re not legally required to be anywhere.”
I blinked.
“So, my parents think I’m just… mad at them?” I asked.
“I showed up at your door and they about ripped me a new one,” he said. “I got the whole story from them and figured out where you were by asking around a little.”
I slumped back against his shoulder.
“They must be so angry,” I said. “I’m probably failing all of my classes. Fuck.”
“Do you want me to take you home now?” he asked.
I hesitated, and shook my head.
“Nothing you can do about it right now,” he said. “Just get some rest.”
I nodded.
“Can I ask…” he began, softly. “What happened? What did they do to you?”
“Are you asking if they, uh, if they raped me?” I asked, trying to sound more casual than I felt.
“Yeah,” he said. I could feel the tension, the anger, radiating from him.
“No,” I said. “I think they would have in another day or two.”
He nodded.
When he turned to face me, his shadowy, stubbly face, was drawn.
“I’m so glad they didn’t,” he said. “The thought of them touching you…”
He grimaced.
I reached out and stroked his cheek, surprising a smile out of him.
I looked down at myself, in my stolen club dress and, well, nothing else. The skirt was so far up my thighs, I’m pretty sure if Merle had looked he could have seen everything I had.
“Merle?” I said softly, looking down at myself.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“I’m so gross. Like, super disgusting. Do you have a shower? Can I maybe stay there forever?”
