by Jocelyn Han
“Will do.”
“So where are you now?” Lana wanted to know when Tori was on the phone again.
“We’re in Croatia. As soon as we woke up, we asked Captain Blanco to drop us off in Split. Alen’s contacted a few of his old friends.”
“What? You mean the, uhm, less-than-correct people he used to work with?”
Tori sighed. “Yeah. Some of them might know more about Bruce’s hideout on Earth. Of course, the authorities are clueless. This is the only way we can find out where you are.”
Lana bit back some tears. “Please, get me out,” she pleaded in a trembling voice. “It’s not looking good. For all I know he wants to keep me here for the rest of my life. Or my dad’s life, at least. He’s using me to blackmail him.”
“Has he hurt you?”
“No. But he keeps threatening me.”
“Try to keep a low profile. If you don’t do anything wrong, he won’t have a reason to mistreat you.”
At that instant, Lana heard someone climbing the stairs. “Gotta go,” she hissed in a panic. “Someone’s coming.”
She’d just wedged the tiny phone between the mattress and the headboard when the door swung open. “Bruce wants you downstairs,” John announced, the familiar predatory grin on his face. “Come on.”
“What for?” she inquired, as John clasped his hand around her shoulder.
“To keep an eye on you.” He smiled callously. “We don’t want you hiding in your room upstairs all the time. God knows what you’re doing in there.”
Lana tried to keep a straight face, but her mind was instantly in turmoil. Had they somehow found out what she was doing? Was John supposed to bring her to the living room so he could head back upstairs and search her room? If so, there was nothing she could do to stop him. At least she’d managed to switch off the phone before hiding it, so if John was somehow able to track electronic devices, he’d have a hard time finding it without any kind of battery activity.
When Lana entered the living room, she saw a pair of new faces. Bruce and Chester were standing by the window, flanked by two wrestler-type Japanese guys who looked like they were brothers.
“You called for me?” she addressed Bruce, trying to sound as compliant as she could.
He nodded. “You’re on cooking duty.”
She blinked at him. “Excuse me?”
“Gotta earn your keep. You’re not in some kind of fancy hotel.”
“What the...” Lana clenched her fists. “That’s not fair. I didn’t ask to be brought here. You tell me I’ll be your prisoner for as long as you think you can use me, and now you want me to be some kind of kitchen slave?!” Maybe it wasn’t smart to get worked up, but all of a sudden, she couldn’t take it anymore. This man was crazy – and she wouldn’t hesitate making that absolutely clear to him.
She froze, though, when Bruce’s face contorted with anger. He bridged the distance between them in three long strides and seized her arm, pulling her so close she didn’t dare breathe. “That’s exactly what your father tells all those poor sods trapped in his mines with no way out,” he hissed, his face inches from hers. “So don’t talk to me about how unfair your life is.”
Tears of pain pooled in her eyes. “Let go of me,” she yelped.
His hand gripped her upper arm even tighter. “Why should I?”
“Because it’s not my fault,” Lana whispered. “I didn’t ruin the lives of those people you keep talking about. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Please...”
He relaxed his fingers just a little bit, staring at her as if lost in thought.
“Please stop hurting me,” she finished helplessly.
Bruce exhaled slowly, taking a step back as his hand slipped off her arm. “I want you in the kitchen,” he said, his voice shaking slightly. “And I don’t want to hear a single complaint out of your mouth again.”
Lana scurried off to the kitchen, tail between her legs. “Way to go, girl,” she scolded herself. This was exactly the kind of behavior she needed to avoid displaying if she wanted to keep a low profile and not provoke Bruce. What part of ‘he killed people’ didn’t she get in Alen’s warning? She really had to learn how to pick her battles. Surviving this ordeal should be her key concern, and mouthing off to her abductor wouldn’t help with that.
Hot tears streamed down her cheeks as she yanked the fridge open. There were tomatoes, onions, beef and mushrooms. She didn’t excel at making pasta sauce, but she’d give it her best shot. Since this would be the first time she had to cook for people who’d probably beat her up if her food sucked, it might give her that little bit of extra, much-needed inspiration, she mused bitterly. After putting a pot of water on the stove to boil the macaroni, Lana grabbed a knife from the drawer and started cutting up the onions, still crying quietly.
When a tall figure loomed in the doorframe, she tensed up. A furtive glance in that direction told her it was him. Bruce was standing there, silently watching her. Her fingers slipped on the knife when she slashed another onion in two, and she cursed under her breath. What was he doing there? Was he making sure she wouldn’t poison the food with bleach?
When he took a few steps into the kitchen, Lana held her breath and tried to stop sobbing.
“Are you crying?” he said, his dark, rough voice somehow less menacing than before.
“No,” she replied without looking up, concentrating on the cutting board in front of her.
“No?”
She wouldn’t grant him the satisfaction of knowing he’d broken her a little bit. “I’m cutting onions,” Lana stated stiffly.
Bruce took a deep breath, then let the air escape from his lungs as he impatiently stalked over to her and shoved her out of the way. “I’ll cut them. You fry the meat.” When she looked up at him uncertainly, he narrowed his eyes at her. “I’ll wield the sharp knife. I like you better holding a wooden spoon.”
“Obviously,” she murmured.
They worked next to each other, not speaking another word, while Lana racked her brain for an explanation as to why he’d showed up in the kitchen. He made it seem as though he didn’t trust her with lethal kitchen utensils, but it didn’t feel like he was just checking up on her. It almost felt like he was trying to extend his hand in reconciliation after losing his temper before.
“Thanks,” she whispered when he dumped the onion rings into the frying pan on top of the sizzling meat and tomato cubes. “I’ll take it from here.”
“What time will the food be ready?” Bruce inquired.
“I don’t know. What time is it now?” Lana cast a quick glance out the kitchen window. It was still light outside.
“Five,” he replied. “The sun won’t set for another three hours, in case you’re wondering.”
Her heart fluttered nervously. “W-why would I be wondering about that?” she stuttered.
He smirked. “Oh, come on. I’m not stupid. You must be dying to find out where this place is.”
She blinked at him owlishly, trying to string a coherent sentence together to deny his accusation, but she came up empty. “Thanks for telling me,” she finally replied a bit sourly.
“Well.” He shrugged. “Who are you gonna tell, right?”
Lana exhaled shakily. “Right.” She couldn’t help feeling Bruce was taking her for a ride. It seemed like he knew she had some way of contacting people with this info. “Nobody,” she emphasized glumly.
Bruce smiled faintly. “I was half-expecting you to invite me to some stargazing in the garden this evening, actually,” he went on. “Sadly, I would have had to decline your invitation.”
She bit her lip. “Oh?”
“You see, we have a dome-shaped force field installed around the house. Blocks all the light going out and coming in. We turn it on at night so nobody can see the mansion from the sky. There are a lot of law enforcers continuously looking for me, you know. Especially now.” He chuckled when her face fell almost imperceptibly. “Plus, I don’t think I could
entirely trust myself taking a starlit walk with a hot-blooded girl like you,” he added more softly.
A shiver ran down her spine.
“You’re burning the meat,” Bruce pointed out before turning on his heels and exiting the kitchen.
“Shit. Right,” Lana fumbled, rushing over to the stove to save dinner and focus on something else than her alarming fascination for this man. Her plan to keep quiet as a mouse and obey Bruce’s every command had failed epically. Somehow, she couldn’t help wanting to interact with him – which was stupid and possibly lethal in the long run.
“Papa,” she whispered almost inaudibly. “Pomogi mne. Help me, please.”
6.
By the time Svetlana was done cooking all the food and setting the table, it was almost six. Or at least, that was her best estimate – clocks were notably absent in the Randall mansion. The only way she’d be able to tell the time now was by looking at her smart phone. Thank God the thing contained a minuscule atomic clock.
“That smells good,” one of the intimidating Japanese men said as he approached the table.
“Thanks.” Lana shot him a hesitant smile. “You like pasta?”
John popped up next to her and possessively brushed his hand down her back. “Stop flirting with the Sushi Squad, princess,” he grumbled. “I saw you first.”
The loathing she felt at his remark was too much to put into words, so Lana just twisted away from him and shot him a silent death glare.
“Oh, you want to fight me?” John snickered unpleasantly. “That’s all right. I like my women feisty.” He leaned closer and whispered in her ear: “Gets me really hot. And hard.”
“Let’s just eat,” Chester interrupted his colleague’s little rape speech. “I’m hungry.” He moved between Lana and John to grab a plate, shooting his fellow hacker a reproachful but slightly nervous look. It was obvious he wasn’t feeling completely at ease standing up for her. If Bruce was the alpha of the pack, John was the beta, and Chester was probably dangling somewhere in the lowest level of the hierarchy. Thinking of what would inevitably happen if Chester wasn’t around made her stomach twist with fear. Suddenly, she felt completely sick and terrified.
Lana shuffled backward on trembling legs and watched the men at the dinner table scooping their plates full of macaroni. Bruce stepped up to the table, then caught her gaze and held it for a few seconds before putting his plate down and strolling over to her. “You’re not eating?” he said.
“No,” she replied desolately.
He looked down on her with a hint of impatience. “This is not some kind of hunger strike, is it?”
“No.” Lana bit her lip. “It’s just that – John, he said...” She couldn’t finish, suddenly too scared of what Bruce’s reaction would be. John was one of his cronies. Bruce probably didn’t give a shit whether he molested her. All he cared about was whether she’d live long enough for him to use her as a way to control her dad.
Bruce narrowed his eyes. “He’s harassing you,” he concluded.
“Yes.” Lana nodded nervously, her eyes looking up at him in a silent plea. She couldn’t bring herself to beg for his help. What if he laughed in her face?
“John.” Bruce raised his voice, beckoning the dark-haired rebel. “Come over here for a second, will you?”
John turned around, a frown on his face, paling somewhat when he saw who Bruce was standing next to. “What’s up?” he replied with studied nonchalance, his gaze volleying between his boss and the girl he’d just terrorized.
“You tell me,” Bruce said, his voice taking on an edge of steel. Lana blinked when she glanced at his face. She couldn’t believe the look he shot at John – if she ever thought Bruce had given her his most violent and menacing stare, it was now time to reconsider. John practically shriveled away under Bruce’s withering gaze as he stood in front of them.
“Nothing’s up,” John mumbled, evasively shifting his eyes to a painting on the wall.
“Look at me,” Bruce ordered him in a deadly tone of voice.
John reluctantly met his icy glare, flinching when his boss took a step closer to him.
“You make sure it stays that way,” Bruce said quietly, his eyes never leaving John’s face.
“Sure thing.” John whipped around, clearly trying not to run as he went back to the table.
When Bruce turned toward her, Lana was lost for words, staring up at her captor-suddenly-turned-savior completely flummoxed. Shouldn’t she thank him?
“Don’t look at me that way,” he said gruffly.
“Like – like what?”
Bruce shot her a dark stare. “Like I’m some kind of hero. Trust me, I’m not.”
“I already told you I don’t trust you,” Lana said softly, attempting to lighten the mood.
He nodded curtly. “Good.” Pointing at the table, he added: “Now eat.”
Almost tripping over her own feet, Lana hurried over to the table to sit down on a chair furthest away from John, which happened to be next to the ‘Sushi Squad’.
“So you’re Svetlana Ivanova?” the oldest of the two said, shooting her a curious look.
Lana shrugged. “Last time I checked.”
The Jap chuckled. “My name’s Hikaru. And that’s Shou, my ugly baby brother.”
“Hey,” Shou protested, glowering at his brother. His gaze then landed on Lana. “You look a lot like your mother,” he commented. “You talk like her, too.”
Lana almost choked on her bite of macaroni. “You knew my mom?”
“A little bit,” Shou mumbled.
The bottom dropped out of her stomach. “Why? How?”
“This conversation is over,” Hikaru interjected. “I don’t think Bruce wants us to talk about that.”
“That’s right,” Bruce rumbled from across the table. “He doesn’t.”
Shou looked down, suddenly intent on shoveling as much pasta on his spoon as he could. “Sorry, oyabun,” he mumbled. “Won’t happen again.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Seriously – what the hell was going on here? Lana’s eyes darted from Bruce to Shou to Hikaru and back. It was clear Bruce hated her father, but he respected her mother – in fact, his employees seemed to know her too. She couldn’t wait for that video call with her dad.
After dinner, Lana wanted to flee to her room and be alone for a while, but Bruce wouldn’t allow it.
“You stay here until we take you to the comm room,” he told here, gesturing at the couch in the middle of the living room.
Lana sat down obediently. “What am I supposed to do?” she asked, being careful not to sound too whiny. Bruce seemed to get rather volatile whenever she was displaying typical ‘little-rich-girl’ behavior.
“Go read a book,” he replied, tipping his head at the giant bookcase near the patio doors.
“Can I?” Lana gazed at the shelves in awe. “Aren’t they, like, ancient? And valuable?”
Bruce shrugged. “There’s no value in books that can’t be enjoyed.”
“True.” She scrambled to her feet again to do as she was told and check out his collection of old paper books. Surprisingly enough, the top shelf seemed to contain lots of poetry. A poem-reading pirate? Whatever next? Or maybe they belonged to Chester. He struck her more as the verse-loving type. His presence in the Randall mansion actually threw her for a loop – apart from being good at breaking into computer systems, Chester came across as relatively harmless.
When Lana made her way back to the couch, Bruce looked up from the pad he was typing away on, sitting in an easy chair close to the TV. “What did you pick?” he asked unexpectedly.
“Uhm – this.” Lana held up the little book that had piqued her interest. It was called Leaves of Grass by a poet called Walt Whitman.
Bruce smiled. For the first time ever, it felt like his smile was entirely genuine. “You know him?”
“No, but it looks interesting.”
He got a faraway look in his eyes. “I celebrate mysel
f, and what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you,” he quoted. “First few lines.”
So it was his book, then. “That’s beautiful,” Lana said, cracking the book open carefully. Yellowed, brittle pages stared back at her. “You know the poems by heart?”
“Some of them. The ones that touched my heart when I still had one.”
His remark made him sound so strangely vulnerable and inapproachable at the same time that she didn’t know what to say. Instead of speaking, she sank into the cushions and held the book in her lap, furtively glancing at the giant man who claimed he no longer had a heart. Lana tried to focus on the words on the page as Chester, John, Shou, and Hikaru joined the two of them in the living room, all of them absorbed in some form of communication on their pads. At some point, Chester turned on the TV to watch the news. It wasn’t a local channel – the events in the bulletin were from all over the globe. No way to find out anything new about her location, unfortunately.
“Plague outbreak strikes Oceanian countryside,” the newscaster declared in a dry voice. “Thousands of casualties as Japanese authorities rush to have everyone inoculated.”
“Everyone?” Hikaru muttered under his breath. “Even the unemployed drifters? Fat chance.”
Shifting uncomfortably, Lana attempted to block out the story on the news. She was aware Earth wasn’t paradise – it was a harsh environment for most people. It was difficult even for those Elitists residing in old capitals instead of new colonies in the solar system. However, Earth was beautiful in that it was the only place that stirred truly strong emotions of longing in her. She didn’t know what it was, exactly, that she longed for. Being on Earth was like reading poetry – it made her heart ache, and she didn’t know why.
Her eyes skimmed the lines on the page in front of her. “You shall possess the good of the Earth and sun,” she whispered very quietly. “You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.” Inadvertently, her gaze drifted to Bruce once more, who was talking to John. His sharp features and dark-blond hair peppered with strands of gold didn’t look so intimidating if she ignored his enormous, athletic body and menacing, gray eyes – eyes that looked tortured sometimes, blazing up whenever he clenched his fists or grabbed her by the arm to instill fear in her.
