by Amber Stuart
Lottie flinched but didn’t back out of the room. “That’s gotta hurt,” she mumbled.
Abram spit the wad out of his mouth and exhaled heavily. “Ya think?”
Apparently, they hadn’t cured his grating attitude.
“Judge McGrath came to see me.” Abram’s eyebrows rose, a look of pleasant surprise on his raw and bleeding face. Maybe he thought rescue was coming, or that Lottie – and if he was lucky, the rest of us – would suffer some sort of retribution for what had happened to him. He was going to be really disappointed. “He doesn’t think I’m salvageable.”
“I could’ve told you that.” Apparently, Abram Mirowski had also grown a new set of balls overnight.
“So what’s going to happen now?” Lottie asked. She didn’t seem bothered by Abram’s sudden moxie.
“Lydia will need to move on. For her own good.” I started wondering if they had been ignoring him too much; he was far too cocky.
“She doesn’t want to. She won’t leave me,” Lottie insisted.
“It won’t matter.” Not only cocky, but he seemed like he was enjoying this, like he knew this was killing her, and he was glad that it was.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Lottie asked. She was getting nervous now.
Abram tried to squirm but he was bound too tightly. “I’m sure he told you. I don’t know what any of this has to do with me.”
I was losing my patience. “If he had told her, she wouldn’t have asked you the fucking question. Now answer her.”
“It’s not up to me. I don’t know what will happen.”
A lie.
“Lottie, step out.”
Lottie looked at me, her eyes wide, her lips as pale as the rose she had given Mark. “No,” she said quietly, “I want to stay.”
“Lottie, go.” I said more firmly.
She hesitated, but finally walked out, closing the door noiselessly behind her. We listened as she walked back toward the living room, turning the television on, although we both knew she wasn’t watching it.
Eric stuffed the wad of now chewed-up cotton cloth back in Abram’s mouth.
And then I found out what Mark and Eric had been doing to the man who wanted Lottie dead.
No sane person likes torturing people. But the human brain can get used to a lot of shit, even shit that we once thought we could never do. Sometimes, maybe, we lie to ourselves about why we’re doing what we’re doing so we don’t lose our fucking minds – I’d been in that situation before. But looking down at Abram Mirowski’s deeply tracked, bruised and broken skin, I didn’t feel any remorse at all.
There are these sharp, thin, flat metal rods that can be pushed right below the surface of the skin, breaking capillaries, separating fat deposits, occasionally, if someone wasn’t careful, severing tendons. If somebody really fucked up, he could severe a major artery and the person would bleed to death. A site had to be chosen carefully, then, to avoid that mistake, and even though they were only about four inches long, having one slowly driven under your skin was a brutal kind of torture, especially since it would be repeated all over the body. It makes a ghastly noise and it’s a sickening thing to watch; I had only seen it done once, and at the time, I had hoped to never see it again. And now, I was going to do it.
When I was in school, I learned about the Milgram Experiment; I thought it was a pretty shitty explanation for even shittier behavior. By the time I was twenty-seven years old, I was convinced I had been right. It wasn’t that people tended to defer to authority as much as people have an ability to turn off this moral code they only think defines them. I don’t think I’m a bad person. I know Eric isn’t. But if anyone else had been in that room with us that night, I also know they wouldn’t agree with me. I had accepted that a long time ago. Moralism had long since become an ambiguous and fluid concept for me.
By the time we were finished, Abram Mirowski was much more willing to talk to us. We made sure his clothes covered all of the track marks, the open oozing sores, the bruising blistered skin.
We let Lottie back in the room. She was pale, shaking, but still committed to doing this not only for herself but for Lydia; she had paid for her freedom. She had risked everything for the chance to decide her own fate, for Lydia to have that same opportunity. We all knew Lydia would never be able to stand up for herself the way Lottie could, and Lottie, more than anyone, felt that she had to do this for them both. Plus, she had been given a second chance with me – a second life to finish all of the dreams we had built for ourselves in those eight years together. She wasn’t going to lose it again.
Lottie asked him again what he had meant when he said Lydia wouldn’t have a choice.
“She knows too much…” he started, his voice shaky and coarse, but Eric’s phone interrupted him. Eric and I both knew from the ringtone it was Mark.
Eric stepped out of the room to answer it. Lottie and I watched the empty doorway for a few seconds before we heard him speaking. He was choosing his words carefully, and saying as few as possible. I allowed myself a brief spark of hope that this wasn’t about Lydia; if it were, then Lottie would have to find out anyway and he wouldn’t need to be discreet.
I heard him coming down the hallway and by the sounds of his footsteps, that hope disappeared just as quickly as it had risen. I grabbed Lottie’s arm and moved her away from the door. Eric stormed back into the room, right up to Abram, and hit him across his right cheekbone. Blood splattered across the room, mixed with the identifiable sounds of bones crushing beneath the force of Eric’s blow. Lottie’s hands instinctively shot up to her mouth to suppress the scream she knew was trying to escape.
“Where is she?” Eric demanded. His voice was so cold and chilling even I would have talked. Considering he was my best friend and I know if given the choice between killing me or killing himself, he would have chosen himself, it was easy to forget Eric could be one scary son of a bitch when he wanted to be.
Abram moaned, unable to stop the blood from gushing into his mouth, and tried to spit it away.
Eric moved to hit him again, but I stopped him. “Eric, what the fuck is going on?”
Eric looked at me and I noticed then that he was trying to avoid Lottie’s gaze. He wouldn’t meet her eyes even though she was standing right next to me, even though we both knew this had to be about Lydia now. He was afraid to tell her.
“Mark can’t find her. Her car’s still in the parking lot, but none of the other employees have seen her for over an hour. Lydia has disappeared.”
Chapter 15
Lottie still wouldn’t talk to me. She wasn’t mad, she didn’t blame me or Eric or Mark, but whatever was going through her mind was locked in there, in a Hell of her own. We were sitting on my bed, waiting for Eric and Mark to come back. I knew it would take a while. I felt a little guilty that they were shouldering so much of the work for me, doing so much for me and I couldn’t understand why. Eric, yes, but Mark? Maybe he hadn’t intended on becoming so involved but then he had met Lydia.
Daniel was still adamant that we do more, learn more, track down more of these people so that we knew each one that lived in this country and where and for how long and how they were getting here and how we could prevent anymore from coming if someone somewhere in that great mysterious universe I worked in decided enough is enough. I had been stalling him.
Daniel hadn’t met Lottie – not this Lottie – or Lydia. He didn’t know how these women represented everything I always tried so hard to find in this world; those precious few people who loved unconditionally, who believed in the decency of others, who would never abandon someone in need. I wasn’t willing to assume everyone else was like Jackson or Abram or Judge Willis McGrath. Surely, most of them were just normal people, but maybe some of them were as beautiful and moral as Lydia and Lottie. Or maybe my love for Lottie clouded my judgment but I was pretty sure I was at least right about Lydia. And now she was missing.
We sat quietly for
a long time; I had tried talking to her before but she wouldn’t or couldn’t talk to me. She was lost in this nightmare, this Hell I understood so well. My voice, my words, may not penetrate that deeply anyway. So I sat with her in silence as we waited, as the clock slowly ticked off the seconds then minutes then hours.
Eric was getting whatever information he could from Abram with the assumption he may know where Lydia had been taken, if she were even still alive. Mark was still at the bookstore, talking to coworkers, looking around, hoping to stumble across anything that may be useful. He had planned on joining Eric when he was through there, so we had a long time to wait.
Over three hours had passed before Lottie finally spoke. “Do you think she’s dead?” she asked. She was staring straight ahead but her hand gripped mine tighter, anticipating my response. She knew I wouldn’t lie to her.
“No,” I said. And I wasn’t lying to her. “I think they want you dead, and they are trying to use Lydia to get to you. But I think we need to find her soon.”
Lottie nodded. “That’s what I was thinking too.” She bit her lower lip. “What’s taking them so long?”
How do you answer a question that you desperately don’t want to answer? Maybe most people learn that as a child. They learn what it’s like to be grilled by their parents, to be scolded by them, to be grounded. So they develop aversion techniques, ways to avoid painful truths even when talking to those they love.
My mother never grilled me or scolded me or grounded me because she never talked to me. I was a forgotten pest living in the same apartment, an unwanted houseguest that she largely ignored. I had survived infancy. Surely, at some point, she had cared enough to keep me alive. But I couldn’t remember that far back. I didn’t know if she was an addict then, if she disappeared for days, if she pushed me away if I got too close.
In one of my earliest memories, I must have been about three, I had fallen over, tripped over God knows what, and I was bleeding. My hand was bleeding. The blood scared me, and my hand hurt. I wanted my mother. I went to her, lying on the sofa, half asleep, and reached out to her, showing her the blood on my hand. I didn’t deserve her opened eyes. She pushed me away, and I fell down again; she told me not to get blood on her and to let her sleep. My mother would not be comforting me.
So I could not lie to the people I loved. I could not lie to Eric, and I certainly couldn’t lie to Lottie. But telling her what was taking Eric and Mark so long to come home? I couldn’t traumatize her either. I thought of half-truths.
“You met Abram. He’s not exactly forthcoming. It’s just going to take some time.”
“Lydia doesn’t have time.”
She was right, but what else could we do? “She has some. Nobody’s contacted you yet; they’re not ready.”
“What does that even mean?” Lottie finally looked at me. Her eyes were so full of faith that I had all of the answers, that I could be Lydia’s savior, that I could be hers too.
“It could mean a lot of different things. This may have been a last minute decision and they’re trying to figure things out as they go or they may be traveling still. And by now, I’m sure they’ve pieced together that Jackson’s death and Abram’s disappearance are related, that those most involved with trying to kill you are in danger.”
Lottie leaned against me, and when she spoke again, I could hear the weight of the agony she was carrying within her. “I did this to protect her. I came here to save her.”
“I know.”
I wanted to promise her we would save her now, but I couldn’t make a promise to Lottie if I didn’t know if I could keep it. But she would have never asked me to make that promise anyway.
Instead, she put both of her hands around mine and brought it to her lips. “I don’t regret it, Dietrich. I would do it again. I know this isn’t my fault. I didn’t choose this and I didn’t do this to Lydia, and I would do it again because of you and I’m afraid that makes me a horrible person.”
“Lottie,” I lifted her chin so that she would look at me, “you have the most beautiful soul of anyone I’ve ever known. Both before and now. I can’t speak for Lydia, but I know that I would be really pissed off if you went through the rest of your life feeling guilty because something happened to me and you still allowed yourself to be happy.”
Lottie raised an eyebrow at me. I had heard myself say it, so I knew I was about to be chastised. “You mean like you allowed yourself to be happy without me?”
“That’s different.” She had suffered those two years apart just as much as I had; she knew that it could never be the same as losing anyone else.
“Yes, but…”
The sound of a key in the front door stopped her and she jumped off the bed. Eric and Mark were back. She beat me out to the living room.
“Well?” she asked. She sounded like she was hoping they had found her wandering lost in the shopping center instead of getting some lead on what to do now.
Eric sat down on the futon but Mark was too agitated to sit. He paced. He opened cupboards in the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water that he never drank. He played furniture ninja some more and moved things around. So Eric spoke for both of them.
“We’ve got some coworkers in town; they’re at the house now taking care of things.” I glanced over at Lottie. If she understood what Eric meant by that, she didn’t show it. “You’re gonna have to call Daniel. He’s… well, we’ll find Lydia first, but things have got to start moving.”
Goddamn it. I needed their help, so there was nothing I could do but agree.
“Abram seemed to think there were a few places they might be going, but he didn’t think they’d go too far since they want Lottie. So we’ve been checking along the I-10 corridor and we think we know where they might have gone.”
Lottie’s posture stiffened, but her body was still trembling beside me.
“Where?” I asked.
“Lake Charles.”
Two hours away, situated between Houston and Baton Rouge. They knew Lottie and I had lived in Houston; they knew where we were now. Why choose to enclose themselves like this? It was suicidal. I pointed this out to Eric, and he nodded along with me.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Something’s weird about this. It’s like they’re trying to set us up.”
“But how? Is there anything special about Lake Charles?” I had been through there so many times; I couldn’t think of anything even memorable about Lake Charles.
Eric was shaking his head, about to tell me no, but Lottie stopped him. “There’s an opening there. At one of the hospitals. It’s hardly ever used anymore, but it’s still there.”
Even Mark stopped pacing and stared at her. “Which hospital?” he asked.
“St. Elizabeth’s.”
“Why would they want us to go there?” At least Mark was being useful again.
Lottie shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing would happen to Lydia or anyone else. To humans, it’s just a room. It’s harmless.”
“Unless you’re dead and someone had just come through.” I don’t even know why I said it. It was one of those thoughts that escaped too quickly, but everyone stopped moving, watching me.
“Holy shit.” I realized it wasn’t such a crazy idea after all. “They’re planning on reusing your bodies.”
“No,” Mark exclaimed, “no fucking way.”
Lottie wouldn’t offer him the reassurance he wanted.
“So what do we do?” Eric asked.
“We go to Lake Charles and get her, that’s what we do,” Mark insisted.
“Mark,” I started, but I wasn’t sure I had any right to tell him he was more of a liability to us right now than an asset; after all, I had chased my dead fiancée through Houston streets then across state lines, not hesitating to use federal resources when I suspected I might lose her again. No, I definitely needed to keep my mouth shut.
Eric, however, had more of a moral high ground to stand on.<
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“Mark,” Eric was friendly but authoritative. Of the three of us, he had the most seniority. “Someone needs to stay here with Lottie, keep her safe.”
Mark’s forehead crinkled.
“Dietrich will do that.”
Eric shook his head. “I need Dietrich with me. It’s not personal; we work best together. Everybody knows that.”
“Eric, you can’t not let me go. There are half a dozen guys in town; let one of them stay…”
Eric wouldn’t let him finish. “I’m not leaving Lottie with a stranger. Don’t forget she’s been one of my best friends for almost a decade. I am trusting you with something I would trust very few people with.”
I knew Mark would have a hard time arguing with that. Lottie had moved even closer to me, taking my hand again. I don’t think she had expected me to leave. Mark had noticed what she’d done though.
“Ok,” he finally said. “Don’t worry, Dietrich. She’ll be fine.”
I offered him a small smile. “I know she will be.”
Actually, I wanted to stay with her myself; I never wanted to leave her again, but I wouldn’t let Eric risk his life for us without me right alongside him.
“Dietrich,” Lottie’s voice was small. “Can I talk to you?”
She pulled on my hand and I followed her back to my bedroom where she closed the door behind her. She stood close to me, staring so intently into my eyes I started to doubt if I could bring myself to go after all. But when she spoke, it was only to give me a simple command. “Don’t. Die.”
I bit off the smartass comment that almost leaked out; Lottie usually appreciated my sarcasm. But telling her not dying was usually one of my foremost goals didn’t seem like a good idea at the moment.
“Lottie,” I pushed a renegade strand of wavy brown hair back behind her ear, “do you remember anything after the accident? I mean… a light, a tunnel, gates…”
Why the hell was I asking her about Heaven now?
“No, I don’t even remember the accident. I remember leaving the apartment to go shopping with Jamie, then waking up in that bedroom in Waco. I only knew I had died because I remember seeing my funeral. I remember you…”
