by BT Urruela
“Dammit. I told you not to slam that thing, it’s gonna fucking fall off one day,” one of the men yelled at another.
Dimitri nudged her forward. “Duck your head. I’m gonna guide you in.” He helped her onto a bench seat and climbed in beside her. As soon as the door closed, he gave her hand a quick squeeze. They exchanged no words, but the touch of his hand told her he was there. In the midst of the dark and the unknown, he was still there.
The driver’s side door opened and he scooted away a little. Annalise sat up and squared her shoulders. She heard several people climbing in, the rusted springs creaking, and doors were shut. Still, no one said a word as the van started up and drove away, gravel churning and grinding beneath the tires.
When the wheels met the smooth road, Dimitri moved in his seat. “You okay?” he asked, his voice softer but still professional.
“All things considered,” she answered with a smirk and shrugged. “But one of these guys needs a shower.”
Someone in the front busted out with a laugh, and she heard Dimitri’s laugh too.
“She’s got a snarky sense of humor, doesn’t she?” she heard the driver say and he laughed again. She heard a loud smack, and the same voice said, “That’s you, Charlie Boy!”
Charlie scoffed from the passenger seat. “Fuck you, dick! What’s with using my name?”
“Dude, she saw the tattoo on Samson and Robbie, she already fucking knows who we are,” Dimitri said. “Your name doesn’t change anything.”
“Well, fine then,” Charlie said in a huff. “Annalise, I do take showers, actually. Trigger, the guy driving, is a fucking liar. And Knuckles, the guy behind you, is the one who smells like dog shit. And if you didn’t know his name already, Dimitri, is the dude beside you who has been looking at your tits the whole drive.”
“Fuck you, Charlie! No, I wasn’t,” Dimitri said. “I wasn’t even the one who called your stinky ass out, man.” He leaned into her and said, “I was not looking at your … at you. He’s lying his ass off.”
“Okay, just so I’ve got this straight. Trigger’s the cowboy, Charlie is the bookworm, Knuckles needs a bath, and Dimitri is the pervert?” Annalise’s soft giggle was incredibly out of place in the aged van. “Thanks for looking after me, I guess.” She offered a little smile but the silence that followed was deafening in its awkwardness.
The van rolled on for several miles. At one point, it seemed like they got on the freeway. The sweat collected on her blindfold, on her back.
“I can’t fucking take this heat mixed with your stink, Charlie, I’m rolling down the window,” Trigger blurted into the stale air and she could hear the handle cranking as fresh air poured into the van.
Charlie was still grumbling under his breath as the van slowed and took an exit onto a clearly smaller, slower road. Before long, the van was winding around curves. Based on the absence of stop signs or red lights, Annalise reasoned they were heading into the countryside. A short time later, they turned sharply onto another gravel road. She heard a thwack from the front passenger side as she slung into Dimitri. The vehicle straightened up but she stayed close.
“Sonofabitch!” Trigger yelled. Dimitri and Charlie rolled with laughter.
“Sleep check,” Charlie replied with a chuckle.
“It wasn’t sleep. It was the fumes comin’ off you, man. I’m faintin’ over here,” Trigger responded, though he sounded like he was, in fact, dozing off, and with his southern drawl, he reminded Annalise of Forrest Gump.
Annalise giggled. She tried her best to pinch her lips together to keep it from escaping. Don’t piss them off. Still, the image of Tom Hanks in the front seat wearing leather and riding boots had her tickled.
“You too?” Trigger asked, and she could hear him turning around in his seat. “It’s bad, ain’t it?”
“You’ve got to put the past behind you before you can move on, Forrest,” Annalise answered softly, drawn out in perfect southern mamma twang. Blindfold on face deadpan.
All four men were silent. Oh shit.
Thirty seconds passed and they broke out into a torrent of laughter.
“Ha ha. That’s some funny shit right there. Run, Forrest!” Charlie cackled as they slowed to a stop. “I never put it together before, but you get a high and tight haircut, Trigger, and your ass could put Hanks to shame.”
“Yeah, real funny,” Trigger shot back, but still chuckling himself. “Annalise, I may sound like Forrest, but you oughta see Charlie’s face. Don’t look a day over twelve. Like he probably still lives in his mama’s basement.”
“Doesn’t he though?” Knuckles said, and he cracked up laughing.
“Come on, idiots. It’s time to go,” Dimitri said, and all the doors opened. He reached around her and took her hands, easing her out of the van and onto the dirt driveway. “Not too far now.”
He led her across the dirt to a set of steps that creaked as if the weather and termites had been to work. They moved up them slowly, and then across a porch, or what was once a porch, and every other step, Dimitri warned her about a hole or loose board.
“Welcome to Casa de la Shit Hole,” Trigger said as Dimitri led her into the house.
As soon as she stepped inside, the warm, dank air hit her and carried the smell of mildew and rot, combining with the same smell of sterile cleaning products as the other house to form something truly noxious. She imagined the roof must leak as she heard a drip, drip, drip and prayed there were no rodents sharing their accommodations, though she was smart enough to know better.
She walked cautiously, taking one careful step at a time, as Dimitri led her down a short hallway to another room.
“You need any help, Dimitri?” She heard Charlie call out down the hall from behind them.
“Yeah, can you get her comfortable? I’ve gotta meet up with the boss to go over some things.” Dimitri answered, opening a door and guiding her into a room with more light than the hallway.
“No problem, man,” Charlie responded, his voice getting closer.
Dimitri removed her blindfold and she blinked a few times to get used to the light. He smiled and said, “I’ll be back in a little bit. Promise. Charlie will get you situated and something to drink for now. I’ll have Trigger grab you something to eat.”
Annalise sat quietly, leaning against the radiator that was her new form of a cage. Dimitri had been gone for about an hour. Time moved slowly when she was all alone, chained to her thoughts. Was she just fooling herself with Dimitri? Was this all some kind of joke to him? He seemed so sincere but here she sat, chained up, while he planned to extort money from her father. Could she really believe anything he said?
He’s just fooling you. If he knew you, really knew you, he would be disgusted. Once he gets what he wants, you will be gone.
The doorknob turned and she whipped around to see the door open. Charlie was standing there, book in hand, reading glasses over his mask. “You doing okay in here?” he asked as he looked around, taking a quick survey of the room.
“What do you suppose the correct answer is for someone chained to a radiator?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
He laughed and started to leave.
“What are you reading?” Annalise called out. She didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts any more than she wanted to be locked in this house.
“Midnight’s Children,” he answered casually and took another step.
“By Salman Rushdie?” she asked quickly. “Wow.”
“Yeah.” He stopped and turned around. “Are you familiar with it?” He studied her, probably to see if she was just wasting time or if she was serious.
“I love that one. How far in are you?” she asked, being careful not to spoil anything.
“About halfway. I started it again last night. But we were kinda busy this morning,” he answered, nodding at her, and he walked back into the room. “Care if I sit?”
“Please do. Forgive me if I don’t get up or offer you anything.” She smirked as he
sat on the floor. “I first heard of him when we were assigned to read Shame for my literature class. Most of my class hated it or never even read it, but I fell in love. The way he mixes fantasy with reality to tell a story and deliver the difficult truth.” She sighed, shaking her head. “He gives voice to things people can’t talk about. I carried that book with me for a while.” Her voice trailed off as she got lost in the thought of it.
“I’ve read that one. It was given to me a long time ago.” Charlie’s forehead creased as the memories tried to overtake him. He shook his head, knowing it all too well. “‘Shame is the root of violence,’” he continued.
“‘It eats at you like a tiger, in the darkness,’” she added, “‘Devouring until nothing remains.’” Annalise stretched her legs and rolled her neck from side to side.
Annalise didn’t see it, but shame was eating at the young man across from her. Recruited by Dimitri, he was loyal, would always be loyal, but sitting there, taking in the hapless girl, he questioned if the club was what he really wanted … or needed. Images of his mother strung out on coke, her pale skin filthy and riddled with sores, crossed his brain. He tried to shake the images away.
“After that first book, I had to have more,” Annalise continued, filling the void that left Charlie speechless. “Midnight’s Children was the second one I read by him. It’s …” She stopped and took a breath, staring up at the ceiling. “It’s so powerful and rich, the words come off the page and create this amazing tapestry.” She turned back to Charlie. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to give anything away until you’ve read it.”
“Thank you. This isn’t my first time through it. I’m just halfway this time. His writing deeply encompasses political and cultural changes, almost like a coming-of-age story for India itself,” he replied thoughtfully. Charlie turned the book over in his hands, gazing at it lovingly. She could see now the cover was tattered. He straightened his glasses and tucked it away protectively. “Annalise, can I ask you something?”
“Depends what it is,” she answered cautiously.
“The night they took you from the theater, why were you trying to kill yourself?” Charlie asked bluntly.
“Wow.” Annalise was taken back by his boldness. She looked at the floor, her heart instantly raced when she thought of that night. “I guess my life was too much for me. Every time I left the stage, it was there, waiting. I was lonely and, I guess, ashamed. Eventually, death seemed to be my only escape.”
“Tiger in the darkness,” he whispered softly. He looked deep in thought, pensive.
“How old are you, Charlie?” Annalise asked, trying to gauge why such an intelligent young man was here.
“Twenty-one,” he answered.
“Why aren’t you in college?” she asked him, and noticed the nervous tic of his left hand. He tucked his hand under his leg, and looked around the room.
“It wasn’t in the cards for me.” He shrugged and then stood up. “I’m going to get water,” he announced, and took three steps before looking back. “Do you want some?”
“Sure, thank you,” she responded and watched him leave. There was something oddly familiar about Charlie. She couldn’t place it entirely.
Trigger was giving him hell in the next room and Charlie was dishing it back in his odd way, in that peculiar voice of his. He’d left the door open between the rooms. Not that it mattered as she was chained to the radiator but it was nice to hear other humans. The last thing Annalise wanted was to spend quiet hours in her own head.
Trigger was singing a stupid song about a man on a buffalo being chased by a mountain lion. The song was so dumb it was really funny. After a few minutes, she realized he was doing it to tease Charlie.
“Actually, Trigger, buffalo is a common misnomer for the American bison,” Charlie attempted to inform him.
“Well, hell. Man on an American bison just don’t roll off the tongue, now does it?” Trigger shot back and she could hear something clatter in the next room. They sounded like big kids, horsing around. Brothers. This whole group reminded her of a bunch of lost boys in some fucked-up Neverland.
Charlie returned with a couple bottles of water, his glasses on cockeyed and his mask half-twisted. He set the waters down and adjusted everything. His eyes reminded her of the forest in spring, green with flicks of brown and gold, like sunlight filtering through the trees. She’d seen eyes like that before.
“How did you end up here?” she asked him, watching the careful way he arranged the bottles and his book on the floor. Lining everything up neatly.
“Dimitri saved me,” he said flatly sitting back on the floor.
“He seems to be good at that,” Annalise responded, smiling. She missed him already. The thought that, in twenty-four hours, she would never see him again weighed heavy.
“For everyone but himself,” Charlie observed and handed her a bottle. “He’s been destroying himself for as long as I’ve known him. Blames himself for something. I’m not sure he even knows what for.”
She shifted so she could use both hands to open the bottle. “How did you meet him?”
He looked at her pensively for a moment and shifted uncomfortably. His left hand began working again.
“We met in a club I worked at just after I got out,” he answered quietly, looking off as if he could see it playing out in his mind. “There weren’t a lot of opportunities for a kid like me. Everyone just thought I was fucking weird. Dimitri never treated me that way.” Charlie was rocking back and forth slightly. “He treated me like just another one of the guys.”
Annalise sat watching him, unsure of what to say. Dimitri seemed to collect the broken and the damned. Was she just another one of his projects? It sure as hell didn’t feel that way when she was with him. “So, you guys became friends?”
“Sort of.” He chuckled and straightened his glasses that were slipping down his nose. “First, he got me fired.”
“What?” Annalise laughed. That, she wasn’t expecting.
“He came into the club, the owner was in deep to the Sinners. So, when Dimitri came to collect, he saw the club owner beating the shit out of me for reading on the job.” He looked down. His left hand moved like a dog after a bath. “I couldn’t fight back, you know. Fucking parole and all. Besides, no one else was going to give me a job. Sometimes you just have to eat the shit sandwich because there isn’t anything else. And he put his hands on me, and you know, I’m a little guy. Easy to push around.”
“I’m guessing Dimitri didn’t take to kindly to that.” Annalise began to see a pattern.
“No. He has a way of dealing with people. And a few things that really set him off.” Charlie laughed. “I never had anyone to stand up for me before. Not like that. By the time he and Knuckles got done, there wasn’t really a club left to work in, and its owner was left in a coma. Anyway, we started talking and he offered me a job. I’ve been with him ever since.”
“A job as a motorcycle gang man?” she asked, scrunching her face. “What kind of résumé do you need for something like that?”
Charlie laughed harder. “You’re funny. I think that’s one of the reasons he likes you so much.”
He likes you so much … The words struck her. She took a settling breath and couldn’t help smiling.
“They hired me as a stock boy,” he went on. “I was too young to do much else, and I certainly hadn’t earned their trust enough to be a prospect at that point. I know this club seems like the most vile thing you can imagine. I understand, we stole you and have you chained up in a godforsaken house. But we’re not all bad. Dimitri isn’t like them. If he was leading us …” His voice went quiet. When he looked back at her, she could see truth ringing like ripples in the green pools of his eyes. “He never would have let this happen, and I … I didn’t know it was you.”
Charlie got up abruptly and looked at her as if he saw a ghost. He reached the door before he paused and looked back. “I’m really sorry, Annalise. I’m sorry for all of this. You’re th
e last person I would ever want to hurt.” He turned and shut the door.
Annalise was left sitting alone, wondering what the hell had just happened. He was talking and seemed fine, then acted like he had been slapped in the face. Annalise leaned back against the radiator and reflected on their conversation. Charlie felt so familiar somehow, like she knew him, or did once. This whole ordeal felt like a strange dream, one she couldn’t wake up from. Or didn’t want to … The thought scared her. After tomorrow, one way or the other, she would never see Dimitri again.
Dimitri saved me. Charlie’s words played over in her mind. For all his hard exterior, Dimitri was a protector by nature. He punished those who deserved it, without mercy but at what cost. His affinity for the weak, the broken, weighed on him. The alcohol and the drugs. She began to understand his need for escape.
Annalise lay her head on the radiator and drifted to sleep. Her body and mind exhausted the dreams rolled like waves, a sea of mixed-up memories. Suddenly, she was back in Hawthorn, wandering the halls looking for something or someone. She knew it was there, but couldn’t remember what it was. She checked room after room. It had to be here? Before long, she was running panicked through the corridors. Fear gripped her and she began screaming until the guards came to haul her away. Only this time, all the guards looked like Robbie. She thrashed and fought until she woke herself up fighting the radiator.
When she calmed herself down, she had to laugh at herself. She hadn’t dreamt of Hawthorn in years. What in the world was her subconscious trying find in that Godforsaken place?
Seventeen
Victoria Hale paced back and forth across the deep carpet of her bedroom. The fire marshal was on the way over to speak with them about the fire. “What are we going to say?” she implored her husband, who was seated at his desk, rifling through papers. “They have to know there is no body by now. He’s gonna start asking questions. The police are going to get involved. What are we going to do?”
