by Holly Hart
And put like that, I knew what I had to do. I charged forward, gazelle-like. Reserves of energy I didn't know I had filled my legs with a spring I didn't know existed, at exactly the time that Ellie's began to fail her. I hope I can convince you this is for your own good… I thought, wincing as I imagined how I was going to explain myself. Not easily.
And then I tackled her against the wall, shielding her body as we fell, legs entangled, to the ground.
17
Ellie
You need to get out of here.
As I came to, my subconscious screamed a single, frantic command at me. Run. Easier said than done. My eyes flickered open, and my hand automatically jumped to my head, searching for the crack I knew had to be there. But there was nothing, not even a tiny trickle of blood from where my head had bounced off the concrete pillar.
If anything, I'd fainted more than passed out, long enough for Roman to bundle me up and stuff me into a car. The old vehicle's engine coughed and spluttered as it raced down Alexandria's potholed streets, bouncing off rocks and sending errant stones skipping away at speed.
Roman. My blood ran cold. My brain was operating through a thick fog – all the exertion of the past few minutes catching up to me after months of laying on my back. My head dropped, and I looked down at my hands. My eyebrows danced with surprise. I'd expected them to be bound. My eyes darted from side to side, filling in the blanks. Roman, my kidnapper, was in the driver's seat. Either side trees and houses and office buildings blurred into one as we sped past. I glanced at the door handle, careful to act as if I was still coming around, yet methodically calculating my options. My good intentions counted for nothing, though. Apparently Roman could read me like a book.
"It's locked," Roman grunted, eyes scanning left and right in an unceasing, well-practiced drill. His voice rang with a soldier's natural authority, and I could tell he was being truthful. We blasted through intersections, narrowly dodging oncoming traffic again and again until I had to close my eyes to block out the fear. In the darkness my heart beat so hard I could hear the blood rushing in my ears. "And believe me, you wouldn't want to jump anyway. It's not like the movies. You can't just duck and roll and be alright…"
"Just let me go…" I begged, shuddering at the sound of my own voice – the way it came out in a whimper, not a roar. "I won't tell anyone, I promise. I don't care about any of this, not anymore. I just need to find my –."
My what? I didn't even know, and the thought ate me up inside. My son? My daughter? I didn't have anything to go on. Not a single lead, not a clue.
"I know," Roman replied, his voice raw. It was so unexpected, so out of place that for a second I forgot my own troubles and stared at him open mouthed. It sounded like he was hurting too, but for the life of me I couldn't understand why that would be the case. For a second the curious side of me wanted to ask why, to ask what the hell he was talking about, but then I remembered where I was and why I was there.
Nice guys don't kidnap nice girls.
It was the kind of slogan that could be printed out and slapped on a coffee cup, or a t-shirt. I grinned in spite of myself, and felt a tiny fragment of the stress I was under wash away. I decided to risk it, to throw caution to the wind. I had nothing to lose anyway – as far as worst-case scenarios go, this one ranked pretty highly. Appealing to his conscience hadn't worked, but maybe pissing him off would…
It was a high risk strategy, anyway. "I don't know what happened to you," I said, my voice firm and unwavering this time. "Who hurt you, or why. But this isn't right. You can't just go around kidnapping people, and throwing them against walls. Seriously, nice guys don't just go around kidnapping people!"
He looked at me, his icy, entrancing eyes wide with hurt. An irrational pang of anxiety-laden guilt ripped through me, but I shook it off. Still, something lingered in its place. I didn't know what it was, but my brain wasn't telling me to be scared. That primal core, deep down in the gray matter, the part that tells us not to touch hot things, and to run away when the bushes start rustling – it wasn't telling me to run, not anymore. It was angry, and grieving, and hurt, but the one thing it wasn't was scared – not of Roman, anyway.
"You don't need to be scared of me," he began, his accident betraying the slightest hint of his Russian origins. "No," he said, cutting himself off. "You do. You're right, you should be. Maybe I am a bad person. I've done terrible things," he said, spinning the wheel with one hand and overtaking a gray Chevy. "But believe me, I'm not going to hurt you. That's the last thing I want to happen. Why do you think I took you, saved you in the first place?"
I stared at him, meeting his gaze bravely, unflinchingly. "I don't know," I challenged. "Why?"
18
Roman
I didn't answer. Not at first. Not for a long time. Not until I parked the car in a dark, fenced-off alleyway, tossed a mildewed blue tarpaulin over it and indicated for Ellie to follow me back into the safe house. My home. The only place that linked me to this city, a house without possessions, a house without memories, the closest thing to a home that I'd ever had, and simultaneously the furthest away.
She didn't resist. Her eyes followed me, wary as a beaten dog. I couldn't blame her. I wouldn't trust me, either. Besides, it wasn't like she had a whole lot of choice. This deep in the industrial district, nobody would hear her scream. Not that I had any plans of doing anything to hurt her. I'd seen enough pain and caused enough suffering to last a lifetime, and to know that if I keep doing it, my soul will burn, if my mind doesn't fracture first. I pulled up a section of chain-link fencing, just high enough to duck underneath, and waved my hand. Ellie passed through, and I couldn't keep my eyes off her perky ass –.
Not now, I thought, shaking my head in disgust at myself. Not while I needed to convince her that I wasn't the worst person who'd ever walked the earth, not while her life hinged on whether or not she accepted my help. Not while our child's future was on the line…
I gulped, the enormity of my task becoming ever more apparent, and ever more unmanageable. I had no idea how I was going to break the news to her, or how she would take it. I couldn't imagine it going well. After all, I'd misled her, lied to her, lived a lie even as I saved her life.
Baby steps…
I almost snorted with laughter at my brain's entirely accidental, and entirely inappropriate pun. I covered my humor up as best I could, forcing a steely calm over my facial muscles.
I gestured at the couch, but Ellie declined my offer as politely as anyone could, with a single, negative shake of the head. I shrugged. Fair enough. The fact that she was listening to me in the first place was more than I had expected, and more than I deserved, especially after tackling her against a concrete pillar.
I suspected that if she found it in her heart to forgive me, I'd be living that one down for a long time. But thoughts like that were skipping way ahead of myself. I slumped back onto the forgiving piece of furniture and kneaded my eyelids, trying to figure out how to put into words what I knew I needed to say. I had to give the most convincing speech of my life, but the truth was, I knew I was no wordsmith. Words, with all their double, forked meanings and unanticipated ways of biting you in the ass – they aren't my thing. I'm a man of action, not persuasion.
Shut up and say something!
"I have a brother," I said. "Had a brother, I should say. It's still hard, even now. I wake up sometimes and the first thing I think of is telling him what happened in my dream." Ellie didn't say a word, stayed perfectly still, staring at me. I thought I saw her eyes soften, if only a fraction, but perhaps I imagined it. Perhaps I was just seeing what I wanted to see. A man in my line of work has to be like a rock, buffeted every day by guilt and conscience and fear of judgment in the after.
But for a long time, it was easy to shut all of that out. Easy to ignore it, to hide from it, to drink and smoke and fuck the guilt away. Maybe there comes a time when that doesn't work anymore. Maybe I had reached my line in the sand. Or maybe I'd neede
d someone to draw that line for me.
Maybe that person was Ellie.
I carried on, fighting back hot, angry tears that were threatening to prickle the corners of my eyes. "We were the same age. Same height. Same eye color. Same everything. We did everything together. My mother died, and my father," I spat the word out, "died to me. He was an animal. No, not even an animal, because animals aren't cruel, they just hunt to survive." A bit like myself.
"What happened?" Ellie asked, her voice barely audible.
I'd never told anyone any of this before. Not the disinterested state social workers back in Russia, who only cared enough to pick up their paycheck. Not since the death of my brother, and never to a lover. But that's not what Ellie was to me. Not now, anyway. She was more, and less all at once. The words began to spill out, heedless of the dam that had held them back for so many years.
"He was an angry man before mama died. But he kept a lid on things, drank himself to sleep in an armchair every night. He didn't work. Of course he didn't work. But she kept him quiet. Of course, everything changed when she passed."
I paused, a succession of painful memories flashing across the backs of my eyelids. Mama kissing us to sleep at night. Taking us to school. Letting us help pack lunches. And darker ones, too. Taking a punch to the gut one night for standing up to her husband. Cowering in fear as he drained another handle of vodka. The bumps and thumps on the other side of our locked bedroom door…
"He fell in with a dangerous crowd. The kind of crowd that doesn't need you to turn up at eight every morning to do a day's hard work. The kind of crowd that doesn't care when you turn up to work nursing a two bottle hangover. The kind of crowd that doesn't care that you beat your wife… Organized crime."
"Didn't you do the same?" Ellie's question hung in the air between us, pregnant with meaning.
I couldn't deny it. I nodded. Once, slowly. "You're right. Back then, I didn't know what else I could do. The one thing dad taught me," I laughed, the harsh sound seeming to make Ellie's features wince. "Was how to fight. How to hurt. How to kill… Oh, I learned that lesson very well. But I always swore I'd never have kids. Swore that I couldn't bring them into this world. Swore that I wouldn't ever put myself into a situation where my problems could hurt anyone who didn't deserve it."
I stared at Ellie's face, desperately searching for the slightest hint of understanding. I was struggling to find the words for what I needed to tell her. I wanted her to figure out what I was saying without actually having to articulate it.
"He beat us. Made us fight each other for scraps of food, Tim and me. We worked together, most of the time. But sometimes, when we hadn't eaten for days, it's hard to do that, to trust. When there's a scrap of food, and you know it's all you'll eat that day…" I squeezed my eyes shut, reliving every moment. "Hunger makes you do terrible things."
The implication hung between us, heavy with guilt and blame. I let myself wallow in the darkness, believing with every fiber of my being that Ellie must. I didn't deserve her, didn't deserve life, for that matter.
I didn't dare open my eyes. In fact, I kept them squeezed as tightly shut as I could manage. I ran my hand through my hair, brushing my forehead first, and I noticed with surprise that every crease and line on my face had disappeared, the intensity of holding back a wave of emotion that I hadn't allowed myself to confront for years smoothing it until it was as calm as the glassy surface of a lake.
Ellie asked the question that must have been dancing on her lips, the question that I'd been willing her to ask. She said it softly, reserving all judgment, her voice as sweet as a summer's breeze. But it was a question that needed asking, because the truth was, nothing I'd said made the slightest bit of difference to her life, or changed any of what I had done. Not yet.
Except the truth was, my past had everything to do with her future. Her child's future. Our child's future.
"Why," her voice broke, and I heard the sound of footsteps gently padding across the carpet. "Are you telling me this?"
Ellie took my hand in hers, and I opened my eyes, feeling a hundred pounds of tension streaming out of my body. She knew. I could tell she knew what I was saying, even if it was deep down, in some secret, hidden compartment of her brain.
She knew.
19
Ellie
A sinking feeling, and not, all at the same time. Like a boat taking on water and throwing it out the other side. My stomach was all at sea, a thousand butterflies floating on nervous thermals. "What are you talking about, Roman?" I asked. "Tell me straight."
He pulled me down onto the couch next to him, soft and gentle, but firm all at once. I collapsed onto it, and resisting, every muscle weaker than it had been at any point during my long spell in hospital. He didn't speak, not for a long time, and every second he waited the tension inside me ramped up another notch, and another, and another. My body was in a strange Neverland, in which every muscle and every limb was powerless to resist, empty of energy and devoid of movement except my chest, which was tight and tiny with tension. I wanted to scream out, and to demand answers on my schedule, not his.
But I didn't do any of that. I felt more powerless than ever before. Roman's head sank into one of his huge hands, but it only lingered there for a second as he composed himself, before it re-emerged. He wore a pained expression on his face as he spoke, pinched with nervousness. "You don't recognize me at all?"
The question hit me like a punch in the gut. Something I felt that I knew a lot about…
It tossed me into a muddy pit of emotion, and I wallowed in its depths, struggling to claw my way out. Its plain simplicity added to its impact, and built upon it. The question called into question everything that I had known to be true – little enough, as everything was since my accident. I was scared to blink, or to close my eyes lest memories that I didn't want revealed pulled themselves to the surface. Who am I? And more importantly: who was I?
"What are you talking about, Roman." I said, repeating his name. It felt meaningful, something to hang on to. After all, if I was saying it like that, it was almost as though I'd only just met him. Which was true. Wasn't it?
He stared at me, and his icy eyes glistened with a hundred colors, flecks of amber and gold and silver and ivy – a sea of hurt. An ocean. I close my eyes, just to escape before I drowned in it. And the second I did, I was assailed by a vicious attack. Not physical, not from Roman, but worse, far more cutting and impossible to evade: memory.
A man in a hockey jersey. No, more than one. Clustering around me. I'm hurting already, but the reason escaped me. I'm in a bar, it's a place I've been before. I won't come back. They are pressing against me, hemming me in, and no one's doing a damn thing about it. I look around, trying to catch someone's eye, but no one will look at me. They're staring into their half empty glasses of beer, or else playing a game of darts. Too intently. They know what's going on, but none of them is man enough to step in. Nor am I. Any scrap of courage I ever had seems to have drained out of my thighs and down through the barstool. Why don't I just get up? I scream at the dream me, but nothing happens. I can't affect it.
The guy in the hockey jersey caresses me, and I close my eyes just hoping that everything will go away. It's happening again. Wait? What does that mean, again? No – that's another river of emotion that I know just by sensing it that I can't handle. Not now. No one's helping me. Wait. There is.
Just one.
I feel safe.
I gasped audibly as my eyes flickered open. "You."
Roman nodded. "Yes. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I didn't know, not all of it. Not the truth. But I think you knew it the whole time."
I closed my eyes again, searching for an escape, any escape from the crushing weight of truth that was beginning to press down upon my shoulders. "No, no, it can't be true." But even as I said it, I knew that it made sense. I remembered half-snatched fragments of dreams, a vague feeling that I'd met this man before, that I understood why I felt safe by his side eve
n when all sense screamed the opposite. And the way he looked at me. It was honest, caring – and all too much.
"I'm sorry," he repeated. His voice was apologetic and hurt all at the same time. I guessed that perhaps he had harbored some vague hope that everything would turn out all right, that I would jump into his arms and tell him that everything would be okay, that I loved him, and that now we'd found each other, nothing would ever tear us apart.
But life's not like the movies.
"You're, you're…" I stammered, struggling to get the words out. He nodded.
"The father."
My ears rang, suffering under an almost physical assault. It was like someone had taken a hammer to a huge brass bell and held my head to it. I was off-balance, and I would have collapsed without the couch underneath me. Roman put his arms around my body and pulled me to his side, but he held me gingerly, clearly worried about whether he was doing the right thing. I couldn't blame him. I didn't know either. It felt nice, warm, and safe. But I couldn't tear my mind away from the truth of the deceit, nor the fact that he had lied to me. Roman was my kidnapper, my lover, it now seemed, and the father of my baby.
"Tell me everything," I said, pulling away. It was too much to bear, especially in his strong embrace. Escaping his strong warmth was unpleasant, like pulling away the duvet on a cold, wintry day, but it needed to be done. I couldn't trust myself to make the right decision without it. And like it or not, we were bound together by something stronger than love. We shared a child.
He started speaking without so much as a second's hesitation. It wasn't a practiced speech, more a recitation of a million buried thoughts and feelings spewing out in one volcanic eruption. It felt honest, true and from the heart. The choice I needed to make was whether it excused any of what he had done.
