Stockholm Syndrome

by Melissa Yi

  My face reddened, not just because Tucker was telling me I was his boo, but because my race is the first thing French people comment on. It’s front and centre for them. It’s almost like I’m not even human. First they have to pin my ethnicity. Then they might ask what my name is. Mme. Bérubé is 84 years old, so I’ll give her a pass on that, but it’s not my favourite thing.

  Bastard turned away from Tucker’s hand and swung the gun back toward me. “Cute story. Take off your fucking clothes.”

  “I hear you,” I said, trying to sound coy instead of horrified. Tucker was telling me and Bastard that he loved me. That I was his destiny. And Bastard was saying, Fuck me or I’ll shoot you.

  I had three choices here.

  I could move toward the door and, at the last second, bolt. But that would probably buy a bullet for me and trap Tucker in the room with him, still.

  I could try and beg off with that shower, but I didn’t want him to join me. Time was running out before the cavalry supposedly carried Casey into our dungeon, but I wasn’t holding my breath on that score.

  Or I could move him toward the bed and see if he’d let Tucker go.

  “I’m a little shy,” I said.

  Bastard grinned, twisting the burqa several times around his fist, so tight that it pulled across my back and made me hold my breath for a second. “It’s just us guys here.”

  Yes. And how was that supposed to be reassuring? But I smiled with as much sweetness as I could dredge out of my soul. “That’s kind of the problem. What if we played strip poker? Then it would be more of a game.”

  Bastard eyed me. His hand relaxed slightly. I smiled back at him as best I could, showing my teeth.

  Finally, he said, “We don’t have any cards.”

  “No, but we have music. We could play songs, and if you can’t name the song and artist, you have to take off a piece of clothing. You want to get naked anyway, right?”

  He released the burqa. I breathed a little easier. He said, “I like the way you think. But no. It’ll take too long. I want a quickie before Casey gets here. So take off your fucking clothes, or I’ll rip ’em off.” He grinned so widely, I knew that he’d like the excuse. “Forget the music. Forget the games. Just show me your ass.”

  I heard chivalry was dead. But where’s the cavalry when you need it?

  “Don’t do it, Hope,” said Tucker.

  “Who asked you, Blondie?” said Bastard, but in a lazy way. He was trying to check out my ass, even though I was facing him, in a burqa.

  “Hope, it’s not worth it. You don’t have to go through this.”

  “I don’t want you to die,” I said to Tucker, but I was locking eyes with Bastard.

  Bastard answered first. “No one has to die. You just have to show me your stuff and get me off. What’s so hard about that?”

  I swallowed some bile.

  “I’d rather die,” said Tucker, and something in his tone of voice chilled me.

  My body went rigid. It would be just like him to attack Bastard with his bare hands.

  Bare hands.

  Weapon. We needed a weapon. Preferably several.

  Ones that would frighten him more than his gun.

  “Yeah? Well, if you don’t shut up, Blondie, you’ll get your wish. So shut the fuck up.”

  I said, “Tucker, I’d rather do this than have you die. Trust me on this.” I prayed that he’d understand that I was formulating a plan.

  Tucker shut up, so maybe he read my mind, but more likely, he was just watching me, waiting for the best instant to attack Bastard like a rabid Rottweiler.

  I said, “Why don’t we make ourselves comfortable?” I migrated toward the bed and patted it, trying to look alluring and empty-headed. “You’re so tall. Like, a foot taller than me. I’d feel better if you lay down.”

  He pursed his lips, thinking it over.

  “I’m shy,” I said. Which is true. When in doubt, speak the truth. I’ve only gotten naked with two guys in my life, plus tangled with Tucker a time or two. It wasn’t like I got naked every day for every man.

  “Just close your eyes,” said Bastard.

  I couldn’t see how that would help.

  I licked my lips, which he couldn’t see under the burqa, or maybe he could, because his eyes zoomed in south of my nose. I belatedly remembered that he was lusting after a blow job from me and mentally reminded myself, No. More. Lip. Movements.

  “It would help if you took off your clothes, too,” I said.

  Tucker made a choking noise.

  Tucker, I’ve got this, I tried to tell him telepathically.

  Bastard snorted. “I ain’t falling for that.”

  Dang. I persisted. “Even just, like, your sock.”

  “How would that help you?”

  I sat on the bed and shrugged, glancing up at him from underneath my eyelashes again. My friend Ginger once told me about a study that guys find you more irresistible when you’re smaller than them, and they like the eyelashes thing. To me, it seems somewhat drag queen-y, but if it works, it works. “I’m feeling outnumbered.”

  “You are outnumbered, baby. Outnumbered and outgunned.”

  I pouted and dropped to my knees on the floor, lowering my eyes so I could reach for the instruments I’d used on Manouchka and then kicked under the bed. All I needed was one within reach.

  I prayed for the scissors.

  Bastard waved his gun, but he was more interested in bragging. “I like you on your knees like that, though. If you’re good, I’ll let you stay right there. In position, you know what I’m saying?”

  Yes. You’re a dipshit. But what I actually said was, “I’m scared.” My hand didn’t feel any metal, even though I’d spotted a silver flash out of the corner of my eye. Had the burqa fooled me? Had the instruments tumbled out of reach?

  “Don’t be, honey. I know what I’m doing. You just need a real man to take you in hand.”

  “Do you think you could—you know, while I’m getting undressed—” And dislocating my shoulder, fumbling around on this filthy floor behind my back...

  Bastard loomed forward just as I laid my hand on one of the cool metal instrument handles. I froze, but he was staring into my eyes, for once, so I slid the instrument up the sleeve of my burqa. It would be my secret weapon, like the cyanide capsule that spies kept pouched in their cheeks.

  I only wished for better ergonomics. The instrument was so long and thin, my fingers were damp, and the burqa material provided covering but also hampered my dexterity. If the metal clanked down on the floor, Bastard would spot it, pump my brain full of lead, and execute Tucker for good measure.

  I was clinging to the instrument with one hand hyperflexed and nestled inside my sleeve, wondering what kind of blood and amniotic fluid was rubbing against the skin of my forearm, while trying to baby-talk a murderer. “Could you, you know...”

  “You know what, darling.”

  I tried to force a blush. I’m always turning red in the most useless of situations, but of course, couldn’t dredge up a decent heat now. The burqa would hide it anyway. “I just really want you to get naked, too.”

  He threw his head back and crowed, “What? You asking me to get naked with you?”

  I shrugged and nodded, avoiding his eyes.

  “Ask me louder, bitch.”

  “I—” I glanced at Tucker fast, trying to make sure that he understood, but his brown eyes blazed back at me, mute with fury, which shut me up completely. I shook my head.

  Bastard swung around to look at Tucker. “Hey, Blondie, I almost forgot about you. Your girlfriend’s begging me to fuck her. How’d you feel about that?”

  I shook my head. I never said that. But of course, he heard what he wanted to.

  “Well, darling, I’d love to stick my cock in you, but you’ve got to ask a little louder. What’s that you want?”

  I shook my head, but he grabbed my hair in his fist and twisted.

  Even shielded by the burqa material, my newly-g
rown hair served as a winch. I gasped. He laughed.

  “Get out of that potato sack, open your mouth, and beg me. We’ll use that bed later. If you’re good enough for a second round. Now I’m going to count to three. One.”

  So many problems here. I clutched the instrument in my right hand.

  “Two.”

  I grabbed the end of my burqa and ripped it upward. Of course, it got tangled on my shoulders, especially since I only used one hand. That was kind of on purpose, so that I couldn’t get naked, and it would look accidental. But it was also dangerous, because now I couldn’t see anything except the black cloth enfolding my head.

  Like a blindfold.

  No, like an executioner’s hood.

  “Stupid bitch.” Bastard chuckled, and then he stepped forward. I knew it was him, because he moved from a foot away to within sniffing distance, and his fingers were none too gentle as he grabbed my breasts. “These aren’t half bad, though. Kind of small, but you get what you pay for, right?”

  I bleated in distress and rage while his blunt fingers pinched my right nipple. Maybe I should have sounded more interested, but I wasn’t that good an actress.

  He cackled and grabbed my other breast. “I heard the small ones are more sensitive, though. That right? You feeling this? That good for you, whore?”

  I managed to lift the burqa above my head just enough to see him fumble for his pants with his left hand while he hung on to the gun with his right.

  And then a blur as something smashed into his knees.

  No, not something. Someone. Tucker.

  My man, Tucker, tackled the bad guy, slammed into his knees, knocking him to the ground.

  The gun blasted.

  My ears thundered.

  I smelled blood.

  One of the guys grunted in pain.

  I didn’t know what was happening, except that Tucker was in danger. I threw the burqa off my head, not caring if Bastard saw the instrument now.

  I had to save my man. That was the important part.

  Bastard threw himself on Tucker, pinning him to the ground, and lifted the gun up one more time.

  I thrust the forceps at Bastard’s eye.

  CHAPTER 42

  He flinched, twisting his head to the side, but I dug my left nails into his scalp while I aimed to skewer his eyeball on the forceps.

  Eyes are sacred to me. I wear glasses. I’ve been worried about going blind since I was five years old. But in this case, I was willing to scar. Maim. Kill. Anything I had to do.

  If he couldn’t see, he couldn’t shoot us.

  Bastard wrenched his head to the right and then left, breaking my grip. I missed his eyeball. The Kelly forceps bounced off his nose hard enough to fracture it. Blood bloomed out of the wound.

  Bastard screeched, but I just reared back, determined to gouge his eye the next time.

  Except Tucker promptly rolled him onto the ground, trying to immobilize his gun hand.

  Tucker was still trying to protect me.

  Bastard hit him with the gun, clocking him on the side of the head and stunning him for a second.

  I lunged forward, but before I could stab Bastard, he wrestled Tucker underneath him with a rasp of triumph.

  I raised my weapon. I’d spear him through his open mouth before I let him shoot my man.

  In that instant, a bang exploded in my dampened ears.

  I thought it was his gun until I felt the walls and floor shake, and my peripheral vision registered a hole where the door used to be.

  Before I could turn my head toward it, a flash blinded me, like a safety light flooding the entire room.

  Even when I closed my eyelids, all I could see was white light.

  Bastard howled as a bunch of smoke invaded the room, followed by the sound of people shouting and the thunder and vibration of footsteps surrounding us.

  The cavalry had arrived.

  But I couldn’t be sure they’d immediately lock on to Bastard and prevent him from killing my man.

  I willed the light to fade out of my retinas. It seemed to take forever for my eyes to make out even a few shapes through the man-made smog, but with any luck, the smoke would make Bastard wheeze.

  Maybe it was an advantage that I’d grown up so near-sighted. I could use my ears to hunt Bastard better than he could find me or Tucker.

  Ideally, I’d take out both his eyes. Or at least abrade them so much that he couldn’t make us out while he writhed in agony.

  I prayed that Tucker would know enough to head for the doorway and escape while the cavalry and I took care of business.

  Not only did the smoke cloud the tiny room, it smelled terrible, too, like singed garbage. I held my breath and tried to prick up my ears. My hearing had definitely suffered multiple indignities today, and I couldn’t hear half as well as usual, but I still thought I could hear screaming. Or wheezing. Something high-pitched and Bastard-like that I could home in on.

  I spread my hands in front of me, feeling my way forward, and suddenly, I nearly stumbled into Bastard. On his knees. Coughing. Eyes closed and protecting his eyeballs, more’s the pity.

  Uniformed officers closed in on both of us, purposeful shapes through the fog, but not before I re-imagined the forceps like a bayonet and jabbed it straight at Bastard’s neck.

  I aimed for the carotid triangle, where the carotid artery and internal jugular vein lie relatively close to the surface. We’re trained to put IV lines and catheters in there, but now I was using my knowledge to kill.

  Except his skin was so thick, and the forceps were long enough that I didn’t have enough force. I’d have to use two hands, one to steady the tip while I rammed down perpendicular to the skin. Meanwhile, he shoved me so hard that I slipped backwards on the bloody floor.

  Bang. On my ass.

  Hard enough to jar my teeth and make me bite my tongue.

  About two feet away from Tucker. He was crawling toward me, but his breathing was horrible, frothy and wet-sounding, and I thought, No. No, no, no. He needs a chest tube, and I can’t put one in right now.

  “HELP!” I screamed at the shapes. “I need a chest tube!”

  I couldn’t take my eyes off Bastard, who was now levelling his gun at me, but in my peripheral vision, I could see the cavalry aiming at him.

  This was the most dangerous time, the time when most hostages got killed.

  Rescue time.

  Tucker was staring at me. I could make out the whites around his pupils. His chest heaved.

  I couldn’t hear what Tucker was saying, even though his lips moved. I thought the men around us were also yelling.

  Bastard pointed his gun at my head. He was so close that the barrel was only a few inches away from my nose. If the cavalry’s smoke hadn’t been so thick, I could actually have gazed inside my own instrument of death.

  An eye for an eye.

  It made perfect sense. I’d tried to take out his eye, and now he’d take mine. And my brain, and my heart.

  Tucker sprang upward and hung on to Bastard’s arm, dragging it down toward the floor. Toward himself.

  No.

  The gun fired.

  Bastard fell onto Tucker. Fresh blood spurted on the floor, mopped up by their bodies, before Bastard heaved himself on his feet and lifted his gun again—

  —and the room exploded in gunfire.

  Someone tackled me, knocking me off to the side. I still had a good grip on the Kelly forceps so I tried to stab him too, until a hand grabbed my wrist and managed to pin it by my side.

  I was screaming the entire time, but this time, I got out, “Tucker!”

  I smelled blood.

  He didn’t answer me.

  CHAPTER 43

  When I opened my eyes again, the smoke was starting to clear, and Bastard was an unmoving heap on the floor.

  He was dead.

  The cavalry had taken off part of his head. As in, the top of his head was missing and his face was pulp. His chest looked like raw meat, too.
>
  Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Still, I was afraid that he’d rise up like a malignant zombie and start shooting us again.

  Three officers surrounded his corpse while two more radioed for help.

  I screamed, “Where is Tucker? Where’s John Tucker?”

  Another officer looked up through the haze and said, “I’ve got him. He’s here.”

  “Is he alive?”

  I started to leap toward Tucker, the too-still shape at that officer’s feet.

  When I jabbed my hand toward him, I realized that I was still gripping the Kelly forceps.

  Which could actually help Tucker. When you’re putting in a chest tube, the Kelly forceps is a key instrument. You start with a scalpel to cut the skin, but when you dissect through the layers of muscle, you use the Kelly forceps to enlarge the hole, tunnelling through the chest wall until you pop through to the pleural cavity, where the lungs sit.

  If I could clean my hands and get a fresh instrument tray, I could start making the hole for a tube in Tucker’s chest.

  I didn’t need a tube. Maybe I could just use my finger to stent it open, like the boy with his finger in a dike again. The ribs squeeze your fingers, but I didn’t care about pain. Just him.

  “I’m coming, Tucker!”

  The officer beside me said, “Stay down!”

  “I’m a doctor!” I snapped at her, which should have been so obvious by now, I might have laughed, except another guy forced my head down to the ground. “Don’t look,” he said.

  That chilled me more than the tile floor against my cheek. “No.”

  “You’re in shock, Dr. Sze. We’re getting you out of here one at a time. Dr. Tucker has to go first,” said the woman.

  “Is he alive? Is he alive, God damn it?”

  Both officers hesitated.

  “Olivia,” I said to the female officer. I had no idea if she was the same person who’d lurked behind the intercom, but I tried to bond with her any way I could. “I’ve got to know.” My voice trembled. I swallowed, even though my mouth was desert-dry.

  “He’s alive,” she said.

  I sagged onto the floor with relief, but the way they were talking, they way they were acting...

  Don’t look.

  “He needs help, though. We’re moving him out of here. You did your job. Now let us do ours.”