by Penelope Sky
I’d had the exact feeling when I walked in. “Yeah…”
She went into her bedroom, probably looking at her clothes and the things she’d left behind. Then she came back to me, sentimental toward the past, emotional because of the furniture. She stood there and looked at me. “I can’t believe we’re here.”
“I know.”
She came to me and hugged me again, the only person in the world that I had who knew exactly how it felt to be a prisoner in a labor camp. She was the only person who understood the trial that had tested us both. She pulled away, tears dripping from her eyes down her cheeks. “How did you get away?”
“Him.”
Her eyes softened. “I can’t believe what he did for you.”
“Neither can I.”
She pulled away and looked at the open doorway. “Where is he?”
I’d been so focused on her that I forgot about him. I turned around, expecting to see him standing there, but he was gone. “I’m not sure.” I left the apartment and headed back to the street.
He stood on the sidewalk outside my apartment, indifferent to the raindrops that splashed on the bridge of his nose and dampened his hair. There was no one on the sidewalk because it was late at night. With his hands in his pockets, he stood there, looking up when he knew I was on the steps.
I knew why he didn’t follow me inside, based on the look on his face.
I joined him in the rain, my clothes and hair slowly starting to dampen. I looked into his face, looking at a man I didn’t understand. He was good, but he was bad. He was a hero…but he was also the villain.
He looked at me, his brown eyes staring into my face as if he knew this was the last time we would see each other.
“Thank you…so much.” I shook my head because I didn’t know what else to say, how to express my gratitude. My life had been returned to me, exactly as it had been before those men took us outside that bar—all because of him. “I…I don’t even know how to thank you for what you’ve done for me.”
With his hands in his pockets, he continued to stare at me, but he didn’t have anything to say.
I moved closer to him and wrapped my arms around him, hugging him harder than I ever had, immune to the falling rain around us, soaking into our clothes.
He didn’t hug me back right away. That took time. Then his arms wrapped around me, and he held me against his chest, his arms locked around me like they were the final cage that would ever contain me.
We stood there for a long time. My clothes were soaked. My makeup was ruined. My hair was flat like I’d stood under the falling water of the shower. But the cold and the rain weren’t enough to make me turn around and walk back inside.
He was the one to pull away first, to release his hold on my body and step back slightly, his brown eyes softer than they’d ever been before. His heart was bright in the look, the goodness shining through his eyes.
There was no future for us. We were two people from two different worlds, our lives crossing unexpectedly and for a brief time. He would go back to his underworld, and I would walk to my coffee shop every morning on the way to class. The scars were permanent, so I would always have a piece of him, always remember the man who saved my life. His scars would carry my ghost as well.
We would just be ghosts to each other…to these memories.
But that was how it had to be, because we were too different.
He pulled his touch away and gave me a slight nod. “Live well. Be happy.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, and my bottom lip quivered because those words hit me with unexpected pain. My hands were still on his arms because I wasn’t ready to let go yet, to release the only person who had ever taken care of me.
He pulled his hands back and walked off.
I watched him go, standing in the rain, unable to leave until he left first.
He got into the car.
The door shut.
The engine roared.
If he looked at me, it was impossible to tell, because the windows were tinted.
Then he drove away, the tires splashing through the puddles.
When he was gone, I finally turned back to my apartment…as a free woman.
23
Survivor’s Guilt
We returned to our lives.
We finished the laundry, bought groceries, cleaned the apartment, all the things we used to dread. There was a lot of rain in Paris. It was the second week of February, so I gathered I’d been gone for over six weeks. That wasn’t long, but at the time, it had seemed like a lifetime.
My purse and wallet had been stolen, but thankfully, my passport was in the apartment, so I was able to get cash out of the bank to pay rent so I wouldn’t be evicted, as well as get food on the table.
Melanie and I didn’t talk much, as if we weren’t ready to talk.
After a few days, we sat together at the kitchen island, drinking hot cups of coffee with a plate of pastries between us. We had access to all the food we could eat, but neither one of us was ever hungry, at least, not the way we used to be.
She sat with her chin down, her knuckles propped underneath. Her eyes were downcast, her fingers in the handle of the mug. It was gray and cloudy outside, and the rain never seemed to stop. It rained every single day, a constant sprinkle.
It was better than snow.
I cleared the lump in my throat. “You can talk to me…if you want to talk about it.” Not once had we talked about what the boss did to her. It just happened…and went unacknowledged. Honestly, I didn’t want to hear about it because it was just too painful to picture the person you loved most being subjugated to that, but I would be there for her, because that was my job.
She kept her eyes down. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, we can always find you a therapist…if you want to do that.”
She shook her head then brought the mug to her lips for a drink. “Are you okay?”
I thought I would be blissfully happy to be free, but that high quickly wore off. Now guilt tied me down, made me think of the women who were still there, still working every single day, witnessing the death of a friend every week. “As okay as I’m going to be…”
“What about Magnus?”
I lifted my gaze and looked at her. “What about him?”
“Are you going to see him again?”
When he’d walked away, it hurt more than I thought it would. It was hard to say goodbye to someone who had experienced so much of your journey right at your side. He was the hero in my story, even if he was the villain in others. “No.”
“I saw you two together outside…when he left.”
I looked down at my coffee.
“It just seemed like…there was something there.”
Because there was. “Some people are in your life for a reason. Once that reason is fulfilled, it’s over. He saved me. He saved you. Transaction is over.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
I almost didn’t answer her because it was my business and not hers, but after everything we’d been through, there were no secrets at this point. “Yes. A couple times.”
“Do you have feelings for him?”
I shrugged. “That’s a complicated question.”
“Not really. But I’m guessing it’s a complicated answer.”
I drank from my mug again. “What do we do now?”
She was quiet for a while. “I usually ask you that, not the other way around.”
“The semester has already started, so I can’t go back to school right now. I’ll have to clear up everything with the immigration office. I’ll have to get a full-time job, save up some money until I go back. Are you going to go back home?”
She shook her head. “I’m not leaving you.”
I studied her face. “I’m not leaving Paris. This is my home now.”
“That’s fine. We stay together from now on.”
I’d come here to get away from her, to have my own independence, but
now I was happy she wanted to stay. Sharing an apartment and getting through this together sounded nice.
She stared at me for a while, like there was something she wanted to say.
I already knew what was coming. “I forgive you.”
Her eyes immediately watered as she took a deep breath, like she needed to be cleansed of her sins, needed to remove the guilt from her shoulders. She’d been carrying it every single day since all this happened. “I know that I’ve been such a pain in the ass since Mom died, and I’m sorry for that…”
“Melanie—”
“But I’m a different person now. I’ll get a job, my own apartment, and just be a better person, be more like you.”
“I don’t want you to be me. I want you to be you.”
“But I know I’ve caused you so much grief…”
“It’s okay, Melanie. It’s in the past.” I rested my hand on hers. “I want you to be a better version of you, not anyone else.”
She gave a slight nod, tears glistening.
“Let it go. I have.”
She inhaled a deep breath, the tears streaking down her cheeks. She quickly wiped them away with the napkin from her coffee.
“We’ve got lives to live. It’s our chance to start again.”
“Yeah…you’re right.”
I drank my coffee until the mug was empty and set it aside. “I’m gonna go down to the police precinct.”
She stilled, snapping out of our emotional moment instantly. “What? You’re going to the police?”
“We’re reported as missing persons. I have to rectify that. And I’m going to tell them all about the camp.”
She continued to give me that look, like she couldn’t believe what I’d just said. “Seriously?”
“Why wouldn’t I? There are still women stuck there. I’m bringing it down.”
“I…I’m just surprised.”
It would be more out of character for me to do nothing. “Why?”
“I mean…Magnus really put his ass on the line for you. Don’t you think this is wrong? It’s a betrayal.”
I appreciated everything he’d done for me, and I didn’t see him as anything like the others. It was unclear why he was involved in such a horrendous place when he still had a heart. Maybe it was a family obligation…or something else. “They’re two separate things. I do appreciate what he did for me, but I’m loyal to those women who are stuck there, who weren’t so lucky. I will tell the police everything, about the camp, the guards, the boss…but I won’t mention Magnus. I can’t just move on with my life knowing Bethany is still there, that Cindy is still there. Can you?”
All she did was stare.
“No, we can’t.” I rose out of the chair and left my mug aside.
“Raven?”
I turned back to her.
“I don’t think going to the police is going to do anything…”
“Why?”
She was quiet, like she didn’t want to say. “Fender is—”
“The boss?”
She nodded. “He’s really powerful. I mean…you have no idea. I don’t think reporting it will change anything. If anything, you’re just bringing attention back to us.”
That didn’t change anything for me. “I have to do this, Melanie. Bethany risked her neck for me. I have to do the same for her.”
I sat with a sergeant at his desk, and he took all my information, removing me from the missing persons file and helping me get a new ID, as well as some extra money to get me back on my feet again.
“You were trafficked?” He made the assumption, like that was the only possibility for my disappearance.
“No. I was kidnapped—and forced into a labor camp.”
His pen was to the paper, finishing up my file, but he stopped and looked up at me.
“It’s a camp in the south, near the Alps. There are camps everywhere, and the way to get there is on horseback. Planes drop crates of cocaine from the sky, they process it, and then distribute it. It’s full of kidnapped women who are forced into servitude, and if they don’t work hard enough, they’re killed.”
He stared at me blankly.
“What?”
“There’s no shame in being the victim of trafficking. It happens to a lot of women, unfortunately. If you tell me the truth, it might help us catch these guys. No need to make up a story.”
I stared at him for a few seconds, in disbelief. “Make up a story…?”
“Those drug operations are in South America. Not in France.”
“Then how do you explain the drugs on the streets?”
“Tourism.”
My eyebrows jumped up my face. “I’m telling you the truth.”
“Then where is the camp?”
“I just told you—”
“I need more details than that. How do you expect me to send out men to investigate when I don’t know where to send them?”
“I was a prisoner. You think they let me know that information? It was close to the Alps, so send a helicopter to scout the area—”
“Ma’am, this is a police station. We have crimes to solve. We don’t have time for fantastical stories—”
“Don’t you fucking ma’am me like I’m a Karen.”
His expression turned blank. “What?”
It was an American thing. Probably had no idea what that term meant. “I’m telling you the truth. I’m giving you as much as information as I can for you to discover and eliminate the biggest drug operation in France—”
“There is no drug operation.” He stopped taking notes, like there was no further discussion.
My heart hit my chest with every beat.
Terror washed over me.
I knew exactly what had happened without needing any physical evidence. “You know exactly what I’m talking about…”
He stared at me, stone-faced.
“But he’s paid you off…”
“Ma’am, I have no idea what—”
“Fuck off.” I left the chair in front of his desk and stepped away. “There is a woman brutally executed every single week, just because she isn’t as strong as everyone else. We work every single day as slaves. The only way out of that place is through death. If you choose to sit there with a fat wallet and look the other way, then you dishonor the badge. You dishonor everything you should stand for.”
I sat up in bed, the Count of Monte Cristo on my lap, the pages damp at the corners. The rain hit the window right next to me, and the hot coffee on my nightstand smelled the nutmeg and cinnamon. It was the middle of the day, but I had nowhere to go and nothing to do, so I never changed out of my pajamas.
My body had already started to return to its previous weakness since I didn’t work all day anymore. My abs were slowly being covered with a layer of fat, and my breasts were getting bigger. I turned away from the book and looked out the window, seeing the raindrops hit the glass and drip down in quick rivers, only to be replaced by another drop.
My entire adventure might have felt like just a dream, but this book was a piece of my story, and the memory of the man who’d slept by my side in that very bed told me it was all real…every single moment.
Melanie appeared in the open doorway, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed over her chest. “What happened to your book?”
I lifted it up, seeing the permanent stain on the corner of every page. “Dropped it.” I wasn’t sure why I didn’t tell her the truth. It was between me and this story, between me and Magnus.
She looked out the window and stared at the rain.
I closed the book and stared at the cover, the title worn and faded, like it’d been in that camp for a long time, had belonged to another prisoner before they passed away. “I have to go back…”
Melanie turned back to me, her movements noticeable in my periphery.
I set the book on the nightstand and looked at her. “Bethany, Cindy…everyone else. I can’t just leave them there.”
“You went to the police,
Raven. You did what you could.”
I shook my head. “It’s not enough…”
She sighed loudly. “You think you can go there alone and liberate the camp? By yourself.”
“I won’t be alone…” I continued my stare.
Her eyes fell when she understood.
“If we get caught, nothing will happen to you. The boss will protect you.”
“He will not—”
“I saw the way he looked at you. You’ll be safe.”
“And what about you?”
I held the book in my arms and pulled it to my chest. “Doesn’t matter. I can’t live knowing they’re there. I have to finish this, even if it costs my life.”
“Raven—”
“I have to.”
She turned quiet. “We don’t even know where it is.”
“We’ll find it.”
“How are we going to liberate an entire camp?”
“I’ll come up with a plan.”
“And what about Magnus?”
I squeezed the book tighter. “We won’t hurt him.”
“But you’re coming back to destroy his camp, after everything he did for us.”
I felt guilty when I shouldn’t. His kindness didn’t erase his cruelty. “I know, but it doesn’t change anything. Every week that passes ends the life of someone innocent. Every week that passes results in new women taken from their homes and forced into servitude. Every week that we spend drinking coffee and eating cheese…is a week someone won’t survive. Bethany could be next, or one of your friends. We owe it to those women, to women everywhere, to try. And my loyalty is to them…not him.”
24
With Knives and Fire
I used my money to buy a horse.
I brought other supplies, stuff for our survival, but also gasoline, matches, knives, everything that we could use. It would be nice to have a gun, but that was something we couldn’t buy.
Melanie sat behind me on the horse, pointing the flashlights up ahead so we could see where we were going. “Fuck, it’s spooky out here.”
