by Rachel Caine
I claw at Melvin, drag my fingernails through any piece of him I can reach, and take strips of flesh off him as he escapes. I'm yanking savagely at my pinned wrist now, and every pull sparks an agonizing burn, like fireworks in the palm of my hand. I don't care. The fury in me is stronger than the fear, the pain--stronger than anything.
Melvin, rolling to the far edge of the large bed, stares at me as I flail at the edge of my reach. He props himself up on one elbow and watches me with awful fascination. I'm livid with rage, burning with it like a candle, and it doesn't leave room for more sensible emotions, like fear or confusion or horror.
I just want to kill him.
"Is that how you thank me for letting you have one last comfortable rest?" he says to me. "I should have put you in the cellar. Let you worry about the rats and roaches for a while." He twists and looks at the deep fingernail gouges I've left in the flesh of his side. He's lean now. Fit. He's been spending his prison time lifting weights, I think, but he's the pale color of something that lives in caves. He was only allowed an hour of yard time a day, I remember. It didn't do him much good. He's grown a beard. But other than those changes, he's exactly as I remember him.
He's capable of anything, and I damn well know it. I've seen it, in decaying flesh and broken bones and drying blood, a sculpture of horror and agony he made. But cowering isn't something I do anymore. "Put me in the cellar. Rats and roaches would be better company," I say. It comes out more like a growl. I wonder if my eyes are bloodshot. It feels that way. Feels like every vein in my body is bursting with fury. "You bastard."
He shrugs, and that slow, cool smile makes me want to claw it off his face. "You were such a nice woman when I married you. Look what being single's done to you. I don't like the muscles, Gina. When I start cutting, I'll get rid of those first. I like my ladies delicate."
My white-hot anger flickers a little, but I deliberately feed it images of his victims. I'd rather be enraged than terrified, and those are my only choices now. This is what I signed up for, back on that road in Tennessee when I thought about darting into traffic and ending it all. I told Sam that I'd rather give my life this way, keeping Melvin occupied, tied down, so that he could be found.
Rage is better than fear. Always.
"I'm not one of your ladies," I tell him. I wonder how many bones I'll have to break in my hand to pull it free. Three? Four? He's put the cuff on very tightly. But he's too calm. Too prepared. This is a trap, and I think he wants me to hurt myself.
"You're my wife, Gina."
"Not anymore."
"I never accepted that," Melvin says, as if that settles everything. He checks a watch he has on the nightstand on his side of the bed. "It's nearly seven. You should have something to eat. It's going to be a very long night."
I realize now that he's wearing faded old pajama bottoms. They're a little large on him. Antiques, like the gown he's put on me. "Where are we?" I ask. "How did you get me here?" It's not Tennessee. It doesn't feel like that, smell like that. There's a different weight to the air here, and it's warmer.
"This place belongs to a friend of mine," he says. "A grand old place, back in the day. The front of it used to look like the White House, but you can't tell it anymore, between the rot and the kudzu that's taken over. As to how I got you here . . . let's just say I had some help."
"A plantation," I guess, because this all feels Southern Gothic, and the kudzu gives it away. "You think you're the lord of some decaying manor now?"
"Think of it as a place where special events are filmed. Commission pieces get done here. My friend's got a few other location sets around. You've even found a couple of them. The warehouse was one. That cabin you blew up was another."
Special events. I remember the darkest trade that Absalom does, in rape and torture and murder on film, with a sick, gritty taste in my mouth. "You were part of it," I say. "Absalom."
"I was a customer who graduated to being a supplier," he replies. "I had talent. Made a good career out of it for nearly ten years. I was careful. I suppose I got careless, at the end. I should have put that last one in the lake while I had the chance. If I'd cleaned up the garage the night before, like I intended, we'd still be married." He pats the mattress. "Still sharing the marital bed, too. I know you've missed it. I have."
He sounds so normal. Wistful. It's disorienting. Who would I be now if he'd kept hold of me for these past nearly five years? What would he have done to our children? I don't want to imagine it, but I do: poor, passive Gina Royal, afraid to meet anyone's eyes for long, scuttling through life with rounded shoulders and the mentality of a victim. Showing her children nothing but submission.
My kids might be damaged now, but I have fought for them. I've made sure they're strong, independent young people. He can't take that from them. Or me.
"You going to rape me, Melvin?" I ask him. "Because if you try, I'm going to rip as many pieces off you as I can reach."
"I'd never do that to you. Not to the mother of my children." I've gotten to him a little. He stretches and tries to make it look natural, but I can see he's frustrated. I'm not playing the role of cowed victim. I'm not submitting. "Not that I can see her much in you now. Look what you've done to yourself. And for what? To survive? Not worth it, Gina, especially since you're going to die this way." His eyes take on a wet, opaque shine, like ice. He's already started taking me apart in his head.
"Fuck you," I tell him. I start working on the cuff. The pain is extraordinary, a supernova of red-and-yellow flares that burn like phosphorus as I twist my hand. Something gives with a wet, crisp snap, and the sensation is so overwhelming that I don't feel anything for a blessed second. It's like my body is trying to give me time to escape.
I break another bone, and my fingers burn like I've lit them on fire. I let out a cry, but it's an angry one. A victorious one. Pain is life. Pain is victory.
I'm going to get free, and I'm going to kill him.
"Gina," he says. "Look at me." The tone's almost gentle. "I'm sorry it has to be like this, in front of the cameras. I didn't want that for you. I wanted it to be just you and me. But Absalom wanted to get paid back for what they've done for me. And what they're going to do."
"You're apologizing?" I can't help it. I let out a bitter, barking laugh. "God, what next. What's Absalom going to do for you, do you think? Get you out of the country? Set you up somewhere with new victims? They're using you, you idiot. When they get what they want, they'll kill you, too."
"Don't call me an idiot," he says, and the gentleness melts out of his voice and leaves it flat and cold. "Don't ever do that. I played you, Gina. All the way down." His chin lowers, and his eyes almost seem to shutter. There's no humanity in them now. Just the monster. "Brady's been calling me. Did you know that?"
It hits me under the shield I'm holding up, and all my wonderful, freeing anger gutters out in an instant. I stop trying to get free. I don't want to give him an inch, but I can't stop myself from asking, "What are you talking about?"
"Our son. Brady." Melvin sits down on the edge of the bed. "I arranged for him to be given a phone when our friend Lancel had him--remember that? That phone was Brady's lifeline, if he needed it. Turns out he did. First you abandoned him. Then he discovered you lied to him. Just enough doubt to exploit, to get him talking. It almost worked." There's a terrible, bitter disgust in the twist of his mouth now. "But you made him a weak, sad little rag doll, our son. You did that to him. He's worthless to me the way he is. I'm going to have to toughen him up now."
This is not the calm, polite Melvin that other people knew. It's not even the Melvin I knew, back in Wichita; he never would have said these things, not about his own son. This is the toxic sludge at the bottom of a black lake spilling out of his mouth. Hearing him talk about my son this way makes me sick, and it also makes me terrified.
"You're lying. You couldn't have been talking to him," I say, because that's the only thing I can cling to. "He would have told me."
"He didn't use the phone right away--you kept him on a tight enough leash. But once he started, he just couldn't stop." Another cold smile. "Like father, like son, I suppose."
I remember suddenly who found that awful video. Connor. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't Absalom. Melvin did that to our son. He did it deliberately. "You son of a bitch."
"It's not my fault you left him with strangers," Melvin says. "You made him vulnerable. Easy to break, and I broke him. I was planning to have him here with us. I think that would have been fitting, for him to see you break, and then I could take him with me and teach him how to be strong. But it didn't work. Instead of Brady, we got Lily."
It's coming too fast, and it's too much. I don't have time to feel the shocks. I'm drowning in them. "You mean Lanny?" I've said her name, and I wish I hadn't, because he can see the cracks now. The fear. He feeds on it. "You don't have her."
"You're right. I don't. She got in the way when Absalom's transport man went to get our son. By now she's up in the hills, at another of our . . . special places." He shrugs. "I told them to make some use out of her, one way or another. She's not as marketable as she would have been younger, but--"
"Shut up!" I scream, and the raw edge to it surprises me. I feel heavy and cold, like my body is already giving up. I want my rage back. The fear is too hard. Too heavy. Lanny, oh my sweet precious girl, where are you, what's he done . . .
I remind myself, somehow, that Melvin Royal is a liar. A deceiver. A manipulator. And he knows where my undefended weaknesses lie. My children are how he hurts me. I have to believe they're safe. I have to.
"You're a very bad mother," he says into the weighted silence. "I'm going to get my son and make him mine again. I've already got your daughter. You think about that until I'm ready for you."
He knows when to strike and retreat. He stands up and goes to the door, and for the first time I realize that this bedroom has other furniture in it--an old, leaning dresser, some framed prints half-eaten by mold. A cracked mirror that shows the world in two badly reflected pieces.
In it, I'm torn in half, as if he's already started destroying me.
I know I should get myself free. I know I should fight. I have to fight.
But all I can do, as Melvin leaves me, is lie there, shuddering. I claw the sheet over me, because the cold seems so intense, despite the thick, tepid air. I need my anger back.
I wonder if anyone knows where I am. If Sam might be looking, or if he even cares to try.
Maybe this is how I end.
Maybe, before he destroys me completely, I'll buy my children's safety with my blood.
That's all I can wish for now.
26
SAM
It costs Rivard three broken fingers, but he finally agrees to call the airfield and has them ready his private plane for us. That gets around the impossible tangle of canceled flights out of the commercial lines, but it throws us another curve: it takes time to get the plane fueled and ready, and when we board, we find that the pilot's not there yet. He's going to be another hour coming in.
I tell the flight attendant to take the day off with pay. We aren't going to need drinks and dinner. She seems surprised, but nobody ever argues against an unexpected bonus, and her quick departure leaves us on the aircraft, alone.
Mike's watching me as I check the time. It's already eight o'clock central time. Flight time to Baton Rouge is about an hour and a half, but the weather between us means diverting around it, and that adds at least another half an hour. If we're not wheels up until nine, that's eleven on the ground, and no time to get to where Gwen's being held. We should have tried having Rivard call it off. But I knew he'd screw us on that. It would be his only sure revenge.
Every second we waste now is blood in the water. "I'm taking the plane," I tell him. He nods; he's been expecting that. He knows I can fly it, and it's fueled and ready. "Lock it up and let's get in the air."
I slide into the pilot's chair and start preflight checks. The cockpit's different--sleeker and more automated than most--but I've driven enough birds that everything's clear at a glance. Tens of thousands of hours behind me. This plane's a piece of cake. I plot the course and lock it in, and the onboard computer automatically loads the weather stats and adjusts. I was right. Two hours' flight time.
I know how to clear the plane for takeoff, and I'm not surprised that the tower doesn't notice the pilot change; small airfields like these, they thrive on people knowing their own business. I get on the com and tell Mike to take a seat, then taxi the plane out. Focusing on the work keeps the jitters at bay, and the images of what's happening to Gwen a distance, at least for now.
Takeoff feels like victory, like speed, like we're finally beating Absalom at their own game. But I know that's an illusion. Being in the air is freedom to me, and the vibration of the plane is a familiar, soothing rhythm. It keeps the fear in check.
I lock in the autopilot and step away to talk to Mike. "Anything else we can do?"
"I called the FBI's Baton Rouge resident office," he says. "Both agents stationed there are coordinating with New Orleans. I'm trying Shreveport. We might have to go to the state police. Last resort, because I don't know if they'll take it seriously, but we're running out of options."
I leave him to make the calls. There's nothing else I can do now but wait, and I'm not good at it.
Keep fighting, Gwen.
Keep fighting.
27
GWEN
The despair lasts until a ratty-looking, thin woman, arms pocked by a junkie's scars, brings me water. The second I see it, I realize how desperately thirsty I am, and I take the bottle and guzzle it thirstily.
It's a mistake, and I know that as soon as the drugs hit my system. In just a few minutes, I feel the chemical wave of them rushing through my veins, and though I try to pull my broken hand the rest of the way through the cuffs, I can't seem to stay focused. The pain keeps holding me back, and no matter how much I try to concentrate, it's like sand through a screen.
By the time the drugs take a real hold, I'm panting, sweating, moaning, and everything is smeared and blurred around me. Spiders in the sheets. Eyes on the ceiling. The terror is like something alive inside me, fighting to get out. I imagine it clawing through my skin, bursting through in thick, black streaks that choke and blind me.
When I finally pass out, it's a mercy.
I don't know how many hours go by. When I'm finally aware again, I'm not handcuffed anymore. My left hand is swollen, and I can barely move it. The drugs keep me soft-focused and weak, and I see the thin woman again. She shouts at me, a red cascade of sound, and then roughly scrubs me down with a wet towel. She takes off my nightgown and throws clothes at me. I can't manage it myself, so she dresses me like a doll, slaps me when I start to lie down in the bed, and makes me lie on the floor. I don't care.
I'm barely aware that she chains me to the bed's thick iron leg. I'm gone again before I can work out what to do next.
The next time I wake, I'm much clearer. My left hand is massively swollen and bloodied now, and locked back in the handcuff. No chance now of pulling it loose. I've made a real mess of it, and I'm still not free.
I need to find a way out of this and get back to my children. Their faces are so clear that I feel I can reach out and touch them, and I'm seized by a feeling of loss so intense it tears me apart, and I start to cry. I lost them. I lost my kids.
I bang my left hand against the floor, and the pain that shatters through me is breathtaking. It destroys the grief, drives a bright shard of alertness into my brain.
I do it again.
I bite my lip to keep from screaming, and my whole body shakes from holding it inside. I think I'm going to fly apart, but I don't. My head's clearer when the storm's passed. Pain helps. Pain drives out the last of the drugged fog.
I hear creaking footsteps, and I see the thin, bare legs of the woman who gave me the drugs. She stands over me. I nod like a junkie, and she watches for a moment, t
hen leaves. I make sure she's gone before I look around.
I'm in the same room. It's the same bed. Did I really wake up here with Melvin, or was that some hideous drug dream? God help me, I wish I could believe that, but I know this is real. He's real.
This is all grimly real, and I need to get it together because time is running out.
He told me something about the kids. Something awful. I reach for it, but it slips away like oil in water, and I'm almost grateful for that, because I can only remember the feeling of that despair, not the shape.
I focus on what's in front of me. My puffy, wounded hand. The handcuff digging into swollen flesh. Purple-tinted fingertips.
The other half of the handcuffs is fastened around the iron leg of the bed.
I stare at that for a long few seconds, and then I slowly realize why I'm staring.
I can slip it off.
The bed's heavy, but that leg? Thinner than the cuff. If I lift the bed, I can slip it under. The junkie girl isn't careful. She thinks I'm beaten.
I inch over, careful not to make much noise, and I slowly lift myself up to take the weight of the heavy bed on my back, pushing it up. It's awkward, and agonizing, and I have to concentrate hard to keep my trembling muscles from just giving up and letting the bed slam down again . . . but I slowly pull the empty side of the handcuff free, and then I bend back down, inch by inch, until the iron foot touches the wood again. Silently.
Somewhere deeper in this house, I hear bells. No, they're chimes. A clock. I've missed some of the chimes, so I can't tell what the time is, except that it's later than ten. Could be eleven. Could be midnight.
Floorboards creak across the room. I get ready. Come up fast, I tell myself. I want to cry, I feel so lost, so tired, but part of me is still that forged steel that Melvin has made of me. Come up fast. If it's the girl, swing the metal handcuff into her face. Get her down. Take her weapon, if she has one. Keep moving. Don't stop.
