Heroine Hearts

by Kirsty-Anne Still

  Diablo remains silent, but Santiago resumes his position above me. His body once more coming to cover me. I look up, feeling my environment beginning to swim together as everything beings to slip away and I start to relax.

  I find no reason to fight with the drug pulsating through my veins.

  “Now, I wanted to get a little something back for being so good to you,” Santiago says, twisting to face the man behind him. “Get outside,” he orders, the weight going completely from around my ankles, the hold on my upper body diminishes and I slump to the floor. “Isla,” Santiago whispers my name, the word sounding so foreign from him. “I always wanted you to fall one day... not for my personal amusement, but because I wanted this chance with you. You’re a real drug mule now, I get to see what our drugs can do.”

  I feel him move, he leaves his position of towering over me and he’s between my legs, pushing them further apart than ever. I feel the cold of the bars to my prison hit my leg and it reacts with the warmth of my limbs. My mind is so preoccupied with the sheer shock of the icy coldness against my shin that Santiago entering me is a brutal wake-up call. My sluggish mind takes a moment to realize what he’s doing, but quickly disgust builds upon me like filth. He rocks inside of me and I allow my head to loll to the side.

  If I can’t see him, I can imagine this away – or I can try.

  While another piece of me darkens, I remind myself that sinners deserve to be reprimanded.

  Even as Santiago’s fingers dig into my hips with bruising force, I know that the hollowness I’ve struggled to repress will take over when he’s done. My body rocks in time with his thrusts and as bitter tears start to fall down my face, I remind myself that this is well deserved. However, something about this violation feels so unreal. I may have been used by Joaquín’s associates in the past, but having Santiago inside me like this feels worse than ever.

  I may have been a toy to these men, but right now, Santiago’s greed to take advantage of my heroin high proves once more that I’m a pawn to be used. There’s no hope of this sentence ending unless I make it, but then where is Gabi’s retribution? Where is her chance to be heard beyond the grave?

  Javier’s only just heard half the truth, he deserves to hear everything that happened in the twenty months she survived. He needs to hear of our pacts, of our bond, of how we planned to die together before her time came too soon. He needs to hear that I knew about him long before I met him, before I knew who he may be. He needs to know that the man Gabi described to me as her hero was the man that made me trust in him, but only because I knew about him through Gabi.

  I knew him without knowing him. It must be why I was drawn to him.

  I need to know who he truly is to her. In all the stories we shared, I knew more about her family than the other girls I shared a room with but I never knew names, apart from one. Likewise, she knew about me. I knew of her past, of her hopes, of those she missed and of those she hated for putting her through hell.

  I need to know why he came for her before anyone else did.

  “Fuck,” Santiago grunts, thrusting into me more violently. The tautness of his voice tells me he’s nearly reaching his climax while I remain dry and physically turned off.

  And as his rhythm stills and he ejaculates into me, I stare ahead.

  I don’t react to him while inside I’m blackened. My mind doesn’t want to applaud him nor does it want to believe this rape even happened.

  So I remain insentient and turned off.

  “Throw her back in,” he orders, pulling out of me. He takes a moment to look down at me, leaning in closer. “Fun and games start at dawn, Eighteen. That’ll be a trial run, baby girl. Everyone will see what I’ve been planning for a long time.”

  My body’s lifted up then, Santiago’s words still resounding in my head slowly as he teases for the morning events, but I couldn’t care less what happens to me now.

  “She’s bleeding,” Diablo states as he starts to lower me into the corner.

  I feel the warmth of my own blood between my legs, but don’t make a move. I just remain silent and submissive. I’m through with this torture and every slow, labored breath I start to take, I wish it to be my final.

  “And?” Santiago asks, standing by the door. “She’s got a bag of heroin in her system, that stuffs the best pain killer that puta could get.”

  I stay still, staring ahead as Diablo leaves me on the floor, my dress still pulled up around my waist

  “Is she okay?” Diablo questions, backing out of the small space.

  “She’s fine,” Santiago says, slamming the cell door shut. “She’ll be like this until tonight, we’ll shoot her up one maybe two more times and then she’ll be good for the morning. She’ll be in full withdrawal come morning so much so she’ll be gagging for it.”

  I hear them start to move, Santiago’s ranting begins to disappear, but I wait until it’s quiet before I move. I start to curl up on my side the moment they leave, struggling to pull my sodden dress down around me as they leave me to my own devices.

  The dirt cements itself on my skin as the tears begin. I hate myself for what he’s done to me. I know I have no choice, I’m trapped, he holds all of the power, but the cold that sets in is one I’ll never thaw from. Not this time.

  What else did I expect? I’m a murderer. They all know it now, they’ll all use it against me.

  I’m quick to wipe my tears away, telling myself I’m finally being punished for what happened with Gabi. I wanted repentance, I knew my punishment wouldn’t be easy, I knew Santiago or Joaquín wouldn’t go gentle, but I never imagined this.

  And the worst part?

  It’s not even remotely over yet.

  The moment the sun begins to peak beyond the valley outside, I’ll be dragged before my boss and the worst will come.

  But for now, I’m left to lick my own wounds and wait for the withdrawal to set once the heroin burns from my blood and I’m left hollow, empty and begging for more.

  I’m a junkie – not by choice but by brute, unforgivable force.

  I never wanted to be this person. The girl who sits and feels the itch of their skin as they count down the minutes until they can get their next hit. I never wanted to be the girl with track lines up her arms. I didn’t want to allow insanity and addiction to take over me as I felt my body enter withdrawal.

  But as the heroin continues to hold me victim, I know I am.

  I feel myself become drowsier and I beg for sleep to take me. I can almost hear the slow thumps my heart beats with and the core of my body freezing over. I curl up tighter in the hope to warm up but as the night sets in, I know only more coldness will come.

  The movement of the shadows across the basement walls tells me that it’s been hours since anyone’s come near me. I’m creeping closer to the ultimate penalty for my crimes of passion. For some of the girls, this will be the first time they witness what happens to wrongdoers who aren’t granted death.

  By the time I’m taken to the main room, I’ll crave more of the drugs Santiago has forced upon me. Like an obsessed lover, I feel this intense need for another hit, something to rid myself of this exhaustion, a moment to ride that rush before I settle back into this reality.

  I just hope that he’ll grant me mercy and give me a dose before I’m put before Joaquín.

  Throughout my time here I’ve dabbled in heroin, but only when I’m allowed it. I craved it once, but this, what I’m dealing with right now, this is far worse. I would do anything for more of it, anything to allow it to make me forget this intense ebb inside me. The voices in my head, the ones that snarl and beg, are the ones I want to silence.

  If I give them what they want, then I’ll get some peace.

  I lay flat as far back in this small room as I can, waiting for Santiago to come back, and when the door opens, I hope it’s him and Diablo. With every visit, the itch becomes greater and I know soon he’ll get his way and I won’t fight.

  But as the light moves, I on
ly see one shadow. When a hooded figure stops in front of my prison, I wait with bated breath, wondering when they’ll strike a conversation or come in here to torture me some more.

  With his back to me, he starts to fall. He slumps against my prison as he sits beside the barred door. I don’t move. It’s as if every piece of energy has been drained from my system, stolen from me with each drug induced high I’m forced to have.

  They wanted me weak, they got me that way.

  Slowly hands come up to pull the hood off, and I try to make sense of the shapes through my distorted vision.

  “Gabi was my sister.”

  Javier, my mind whispers.

  He speaks, his tone quiet barely audible. “I came here to find her. That was my plan.”

  “JJ?” I ask incredulously, still remaining flat against the floor. “She used to call you JJ.”

  She never called him Javier. It was always JJ.

  He was JJ.

  My eyes water as memories flash to life, claiming me as their victim. I’m reminded of how Gabi used to speak of her big brother – her very own hero. She used to get this smile on her face whenever she spoke of him, like she knew he’d come for her.

  I can’t stop myself as the tears gather and unleash a fury of salty torrents from my eyes. I murdered more than just her that day and I see that now. The ripple effect of my deed is carrying out as I witness the aftermath of my own actions. No amount of explanation will take away from the fact that by killing Gabi, I stole her away from more than just myself.

  “She told you that?” he asks, his head turning to the side.

  “Yeah,” I murmur, my voice trembling. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  My sob takes over now and I’m left unable to speak anymore. It’s this that has him moving. He finally turns to face me, but I hate the moment he does. As his eyes lay upon my disheveled and pathetic body, the devastation that toys with his expression is crippling. My tears become thicker and faster. He begins to shake his head as he eyes trail across my entire body and as I move, his eyes fall on my legs, my dress hitched up enough to reveal finger marks bruised into my skin and dried blood on the inside of my thigh.

  “It’s nothing,” I say, twisting on the spot, so my legs fall the other way and I cover up, forcing myself more into my corner.

  “It’s nothing?” he asks, his words almost a bark at me. “Are you serious?”

  “It’s nothing that I don’t deserve,” I tell him, my voice barely audible. “I deserve everything that happens to me.”

  I watch Javier’s hands wrap around the bars – like Santiago’s did earlier, but while Santiago did it to cruelly ridicule me, Javier uses them to support himself. His head falls against the bars, his fingers going deathly white as he tries to even out his breathing.

  “Fuck!” He swears, taking one hand away to slam it against the bar in anger.

  I start to move, my movements slow and sluggish, stilted as I finally realize how tired I am. I use the wall to help me move, but I can’t stand him being angry about this, not when I know this is what I deserve.

  “What’s wrong?”

  His head snaps up with my innocent question.

  “Are you serious right about now?” he asks me, his eyes wide and boring into me. “You’re asking me what’s wrong...”

  “Yeah,” I say, gulping back against my dry throat. “You can’t be angry about this.”

  “I can’t?” he queries, his eyebrows shooting up, his eyes widening.

  “I deserve this,” I say, reiterating the words to make them real.

  “Come here,” he orders gently, ignoring my plea.

  I do as I’m told, moving toward him slowly. It’s as I get close enough, he reaches inside, placing a hand around my left wrist. He pulls my arm out and through the bars, forcing it to become outstretched and on show. His fingers begin to trail across the points which Santiago forced those needles into my veins, getting his immediate response to me on drugs. They left angry pinpricks across my skin, showing exactly where the high started.

  “It’s nothing,” I tell him once more, trying my hardest to get my hand back from him.

  He scoffs on that response, not letting me go. “What have they been forcing you to take?” He asks, his fingers falling away from the track marks.

  “Heroin,” I whisper, my eyes dropping in shame.

  “And you want some more?” he asks me, his eyes coming up to meet mine.

  I don’t speak, I just bite down on my lip.

  Javier’s face darkens once more, but he’s yet to let me go.

  “You do don’t you?”

  “It’s all I can think about,” I admit, shamefulness filters into my system, positioned right next to the deep rooted craving. “Just something to make me feel better.”

  “It won’t help,” he tells me, trying to make me face up to the facts.

  “It will... for a moment,” I admonish foolishly. I yank my arm away from him, moving a little further away from the bars. “It’ll help,” I say it more to appease my own fragile mentality, not to force Javier to believe me. “It will, Javier, it’ll make this all better.”

  And now he sees the girl who was presented to him on his first day. The girl with the slow burning addiction and the eager need for punishment in order to justice her every sin.

  I took everything that was dealt my way as a way of chastisement. My boss and his son had no idea they were helping a criminal get her penalty for being just as bad as everyone else.

  Now Javier sees it.

  He’s slowly seeing what Eighteen is really made of.

  He’s beginning to see that Isla no longer exists.

  She’s merely a figment of my imagination, a desire of who I once longed to be.

  “After this, you won’t ever want me. I did the right thing telling you about Gabi, even if unwittingly,” my admission doesn’t have me recoiling from him, instead I keep his gaze, making him realize the fact. “I deserve to finally be punished for what I’ve done, Javier.”

  “What is the party about?” he asks, his tone cautious.

  “No,” I say, starting to shake my head so vehemently at him as I move away. I curl up in the corner of my cell. “No, no, don’t make me tell you!”

  “Isla,” his voice penetrates my manic mantra.

  “No!” I bellow, opening my eyes to look at him. “I can’t tell you!”

  It’s out of fear I don’t speak. I don’t want to relay the very facts of what my punishment is because then it becomes real. If I tell him the sordid details of what Santiago will do to me in the morning, I know I’ll fear it more than I already am and I know that Javier will never look at me the same.

  Come the morning and I’ll be branded by the boss and his men.

  I’ll be claimed and marked and ruined.

  Every tiny piece of myself I’ve held onto will be ripped away from and I’ll never get them back. My shattered parts will become irreparable and I’m not prepared to relinquish my hold on the jagged edges of my sanity. The way they make me bleed tell me I’m still well and truly alive.

  After tomorrow, I’ll never have that.

  “You don’t deserve whatever it is they have planned,” he tells me, his tone so kind and gentle that I feel myself breaking more.

  “I do.”

  “You don’t,” he argues.

  His will to admonish my readiness to repent drives me insane. I never expected him to come to my side and find a moment to sit with me, but he has defied all odds and come here.

  He’s resumed his tenderness and given me the man I fell for, but I don’t deserve him.

  It’s as if he’s forgotten what I did and I feel this violent urge to remind him.

  “I killed her! I killed her! I killed her!” I scream, hoping my litany will anger him enough to leave. My breathing becomes more aggressive and hotter the more I scream the fact. “I killed her!”

  “You don’t have to remind me!”

  “I killed her! Why would you car
e?”

  He starts to rub hid hand around the back of his neck as if nervously.

  “You didn’t kill her,” he starts to say, his hand falling from his neck. “To be honest, I think you saved her.”

  What?

  I feel my every muscle lose power, almost like they’ve deflated on themselves. He thinks I saved her. The reaction I fall prey to shocks us both - I start to laugh. I begin to roar with laughter as my hysteria reaches a whole new high. It may have been the drug abuse or the sexual assault or the lack of food that is playing with my mind, but I can’t help but sit here and laugh like a lunatic.

  He thinks I saved her!

  “Isla,” he says, reaching through the bar to me. “Isla I’m serious here.”

  “I didn’t save her!” I say, my words screeching to life. “I fucking killed her, Javier! That’s a lifetime of her blood on my hands! I didn’t save anyone! I couldn’t save anyone... not really.”

  “Will you just listen?” he asks and I try to stow my hysteria for a moment. “Just hear me out.”

  He becomes patient, waiting for me to calm enough so he can speak and I’ll listen. While my laughter dies out in spats, my eyes water heavily as I wonder how he’s worked this ludicrous notion out.

  “I watch all of those girls upstairs and what they go through and how they’re manhandled, how I’ve had to manhandle them, and all I kept thinking about was Gabi being in that room with those men groping her and raping her and using her for whatever perverted need they had.” His eyes narrow on me, not with malice, but with that familiar tenderness. “You put a stop to that. She almost died in a horrific way. After hearing about what happened to Jenny after she didn’t pass all of those balloons, I realized that if you didn’t kill her then they would’ve, and I’d rather she be killed by the hands of someone who loved her than someone who would’ve ripped her to shreds while she died just to get what they wanted out of her.”

  “I still killed her,” I say, sobering up on his honest. “I still did that.”

  “But you didn’t do it maliciously,” he notes, his hand coming through the door to touch my hand as it lays on the floor, my body remaining slumped against the wall. “You did it from your heart.”