by Sandra Raine
"She's out, Jane," Parker mused as if seeing my mother in distress brought him a vast amount of climactic pleasure.
"Oh, God, mom. . .Please. . .Please wake up!" I urged with both my voice and my hands trembling in unison while my eyes drifted across my mother's listless body until they settled on her waist where both her badge and her gun were still holstered to her person. And without thinking, without realizing there could be trouble, even an act of execution, I reached for my mother's gun, snapped it out of her holster, and pointed it up at Parker. I cocked the gun readying myself to shoot him but I was instead cocked in the back of the head.
I must've fallen unconscious for about a good minute before my eyes started to open back up. But when my eyes and ears began to focus on the room around me, Parker suddenly reached out to me and grabbed me hard by the hair and yanked me back up to my feet where he then proceeded to drag me toward Viktor who managed to recompose himself just enough so that I could see the fault in his eyes 'cause he was so powerless to help me. And I didn't blame him. I couldn't blame him. This was just something unforeseeable - I don't think Viktor had anticipated for Andrew Parker to ambush his men and breech his fortress, nor the things he would say next.
"So once again, Kasa, we're right back where we started. Wouldn't you agree?" Parker ridiculed and toyed especially when he grabbed the back of my hair again and shoved me straight into Viktor's face like rubbing alcohol on an open wound. I whimpered while sniffling back tears of shame.
"And this time I won't be a coward about it - stealing your daughter in the wee fucking hours of the morning. No! This time I'm taking her right in front of your fucking eyes!" Parker then paused for a second and shifted his attention toward my grief. "I do have to say, Kasa, your little girl here has grown into a fine piece of pussy. . .Pussy that I've and many, many others have had the pleasure of indulging in over and over and over again -"
"YOU-FUCKING-PIECE-OF-SHIT!" Viktor then fumed from the very top of his lungs as he struggled beneath a vehemence that I believed if given the opportunity, he would have ripped Parker's tongue from out of his mouth and shoved it down his throat. Parker laughed dismissing Viktor's rage and kissed my cheek slovely hard that I swore he left an imprint of his lips. And the insulting brutality of it actually caused me more pain than anger 'cause he had done it in front of my father, and I was embarrassed. . .for the both of us.
"You can get pissed all you want, Kasa, but I believe you owe me this one -"
"What?!" Viktor then exclaimed, questionably confused, and twice as insulted 'cause his forehead started to twitch and his breath intensified 'cause as he exhaled the fury embedded within his breath scorched against my skin something awful that I started to shake uncontrollably. I was beyond scared 'cause I had never seen such a rage on the very throes of unleashing all hell. I honestly believed that the Devil himself would've been cowering on all fours.
"Yes. For Sissy. For stealing Sissy from me." Parker contended.
"You mean. . .you. . .you did this over. . .a woman. . .Over fucking. . .?" By this time Viktor was no longer threatened by Parker's intimidation nor his men whom remained fanned out around the damaged office, standing at guard 'cause within an instance, something Parker did not anticipate given his protection, Viktor lunged at Parker's throat with me being tossed from Parker's grasp. My head bumped and bounced off the carpet with a piece of glass grazing my scalp forcing me to cry out. But I was neither pitied nor acknowledged 'cause just over my trembling shoulder Viktor and Parker were literally entangled into one another; their bodies literally rolling across the floor, each taking a turn to drill their anger, their rage into one another with fists and words; sharp, callous and brutal words that could have easily severed the world in half. And just as Viktor had Parker where he wanted him after he knocked Parker in the gut knocking the wind out of him thus giving Viktor the upper hand, Hank quickly intervened, cocking back his shotgun only this time straight in Viktor's face.
"DAD!" my voice then broke the second Viktor raised his bloodied hands up in the air in respect to both Hank and the shotgun. I quickly scrambled to my knees, almost crawling to my father instead of running with both my fear and my tears desperately clinging to some kind of miracle. But as fate would seem to have it, I was yet again snatched from my father, and not by Parker or Hank but by another of Parker's men.
Parker slowly rose back to his feet, keeping one steady eye on my father who continued to remain on his knees. Parker then recomposed himself, readjusting the tie around his neck, the cuff's around his wrists, not to mention, his pride which was hanging on a very thin, thin line no thanks to my father.
"Take a good long look at daddy, Jane, 'cause you're going to need it. . .for comfort especially where you're going." Parker then had the audacity to state ruthlessly. And his words, while bitter and chilling to the human bone, should have caused me more fear, I, in honesty, did not feel the least bit threatened by them 'cause I had already been exactly where the "going" was
"Fuck you," I instead sobbed.
Parker abruptly left his stance and stomped the few feet separating us and backhanded me across the face. I screamed with Viktor gritting his teeth, and his face once again spreading with rage. Parker grabbed me rough by the back of my neck and forced me down on my knees beside my father.
"Now say your fucking goodbye's to your father, Jane," Parker then ordered me calmly while I just knelt there beside my father choking back my pride, sniffling back my tears and shaking my head repeatedly.
"No," I sobbed sounding every bit as a frightened child.
"I said. . .Say your fucking goodbye's to your daddy, Jane. . .NOW!"
"NO!" I cried out.
"It's alright, honey," Viktor interceded suddenly, almost consolingly as if saying it would make my situation better, less painful; something a father would say to their daughter. And my heart broke 'cause Viktor was every bit of that father.
"No, dad," I pleaded behind bitter tears matching my father's. "Please," I begged hoping that his approval would convey some sort of piece of mind but it would be to no avail.
From one second to the next, Parker shoved me from my father, uttering in absolute disgust, "Well I'll fucking do it then for you!" And Parker grabbed Hank's pitstol from his hip, cocked the gun back and shot my father four times at point blank range.
In the subconscious of my mind I heard the sound of birds scattering to the wind from the surrounding trees surrounding the apocalyptic landscape of the office. A sudden cold and icy breeze wrapped itself around my body blanketing me with the coldest chill I had ever felt in my entire life. Then a storm suddenly broke in the form of cataclysmic tears. And a thunder suddenly clapped from beneath the scuffed floorboards where my father's body thumped down hard: And just like that, Viktor Kasa, my father was dead. And just like the wrath of hurricane Andrew damaging everything in its path, I was spared, swept up and carried away yelling and screaming, fighting and kicking, cursing and crying until my own storm subsided into an absolute silence.
PART 2
Chapter 8
Somewhere
in the U.S. ~
They keep me groggy, with drugs I think, or perhaps they were just muscle relaxers 'cause I didn't feel anywhere near the vicinity of addicted, I am however, barely aware of my surroundings, my comings and my goings. They keep me hidden in small confined spaces and in different places, usually underground, like basements under homes and buildings.
Sometimes I'm cold; shivering in my own skin. Sometimes it's hot; I take pieces of my clothing off to keep myself cool. Other times the weather is neutral.
Darkness is constantly around me. Very little places harbor light so I don't know if it's day time or night time, and I've lost the perception of time as well as the days, weeks and months; it's like I was back in Abel's Hell only this time Hell is mobile, and I'm usually blindfolded and my hands bound so I can't peek under the blindfolds. My captors have also gotten clever muffling my ears with stereo headphones and c
ranking the volume loud so I can't hear their conversations, keeping me oblivious to where I'm taken or whom I'm taken to.
One thing I do know for sure is that my body had not yet been violated by the sick and perverse and greed of men as I suspected it would have been the second Parker and his men took me away. And I was having mixed feelings about that.
Since I had been taken I had not seen Parker or anybody else associated with him. I also didn't know what my captors looked like either 'cause they wore ski masks whenever they were around me either checking up on me or bringing me something to eat. What I did know was that there were three men and they sounded fairly mature, yet still young. Two of the men spoke perfect English; the other spoke with a broken accent, like Mexican or something. And neither of the three have yet to put their hands on me, and I was grateful even when they just sat there staring at me.
When I'm left alone I do nothing but sob and pray; sob for the death of my father and the absence of my mother and my brother, Jonah. I pray that Sissy and Jonah are okay, somewhere. I pray that Anna and Bree have not been found by Parker or any of his men. I pray that they are still alive and safe. However, I do not pray for myself. I found no reason to, no purpose in it 'cause I felt like I was cursed to be who I was since the beginning of my time here on earth. In my heart I honestly felt, and still feel, that there is no other purpose for me other than the life I was living now. Aside from sobbing and praying, I think of nothing but awaits me. I spend hours and days drawing up pictures in my mind of my future. I usually would end up on the beach, chasing Bree around and kicking up water around Anna hoping to drown her in happiness since her days had been shadowed by so much darkness. I miss my days at the beach with them. Missed their laughter, and how we 'ooh'd and awed' over silly and simple things that were always there but we never noticed for one reason or another. I prayed and hoped we'd be together again.
Then, I'd spend the rest of those hours and the remaining of the day trying to conjure up ways to kill Andrew Parker and rid him from my life once and for all. But as I drew these images in my head, and the further I drowned myself in them the more I began to realize that I was the one being pulled under, and sometimes I would barely escape my images with my life literally hanging on the thinnest line. I saw no end.
Today is another day, I assumed, 'cause they've taken me out of another darkened room. Again I'm blinded and bounded and shuffled quietly back into the cargo van. And I know it's a cargo van 'cause the seating was different; the bench seats felt narrow and the cavity of the van sounded hollow. I didn't feel carpet or rubber beneath the soles of my boots which usually tends to drown out the hollowness to any vehicle, and there was a constant draft that just doesn't seem to want to go away. It reeked of spent oxygen and cigarette ash.
I unexpectedly stirred in my skin the second I felt a hand drop down on my knee. Then my body tensed and my breathing hastened when one of the English speaking men removed one of the ear buds from my ear and spoke.
"Where you're going today you will not speak to anyone or make conversation. You will keep your mouth shut and mind your business. Now nod if you understand?" I nodded and the man shoved the ear bud back into my ear and moved away from me, letting me be.
It took me a good minute to fully understand what was just ahead of me. Then my mind began to reflect on the "anyone". Suddenly my stomach began to ache. And my heart started to beat really fast. Sweat started to gather on my brow, my hands, my legs; and the anxiety must've went on for about a good forty-five minutes. The van came to a slow park and my earphones were quickly removed from my ears. And instead of my arm being met by those same tiny pills in my hand which weakened my muscles and hazed my surroundings whenever I was taken to a new place, I was instead shuffled to my feet and met by the sound of metal doors opening.
The first thing my audio senses caught was the faint sound of music and laughter carrying in the wind. It had been awhile since I heard any kind of a public noise as my ears had been trained to listen to nothing else but the darkness and the silence and my sorrow when alone, and techno music when transported from here to there and nothing more. My senses also grasped the scent of different woods burning in fireplaces so I assumed it was dark out, possibly late in the evening and there was still a winter's chill in the air. But how late in the winter was far beyond me that is until one of the cab doors to the van opened with its radio still playing. And it wasn't playing a song. The station's DJ was on the air, jabbering about another hour of uninterrupted music which really didn't hold my interest until the DJ caught my attention with, "Happy New Year and remember to be safe if you're out there tonight.": I had been missing for over a month now. Then the van door suddenly slammed shut and I flinched like I hadn't flinched in the last year. And for the first time in a long time I felt my entire body go numb with fear. And it was that same numbing fear; a fear I had recognized like the back of Dominic's hand; a fear that gripped and ripped from the outside in 'cause there was no absolute control over it; and absolutely no control over what awaited me particularly when one of the three men grabbed my arm sternly and literally uprooted me from the pavement, tugging me toward a whole new life, and yet, the same.
There was an eerie silence the moment the door closed behind me. The air was still, and it harbored a cigar spent and leather furniture scent. A second later, I heard the sound of a grandfather clock ticking and heavy footsteps approaching me. And when they reached me, I froze. Then, my entire body started to tremble the second my hands were unbound and the blindfold was removed from my eyes.
'Cause it was already evening, my eyes adjusted quickly to the young man and to the slightly young woman standing before me, not more than three feet in front of me. As the two peered strangely at me, I couldn't help but to feel embarrassed, insignificant that suddenly I felt a panic attack quickly building inside me particularly when the woman who, to my surprise, couldn't have been more than thirty, who was dressed in men's black trousers, a white dress shirt and a black pinstriped tie which hung loose around her neck. The woman also sported a man's faded haircut. I mean, she could have easily passed for a man if it hadn't been for her breasts or the red lipstick.
"She looks dirty. And she smells," the woman scowled, almost sounding repulsed by my appearance which clearly wasn't my fault.
"She hasn't bathed. . .What can I fucking say?" The man, who was clearly in his twenties, contended.
"What!?" the woman then scoffed, "What was she kept in. . .a fucking cage? Seriously."
"You can fucking think whatever!" the man spat. "But when we're given orders to keep goods a certain way. . .we keep 'em as ordered. Understand?"
"Well I got a fucking business to run, Marx, and I can't have my "goods" looking like cheap filthy shit. You understand that?!" Marx grunted leaving the woman with no other choice but to take her frustrations out on me 'cause in no time she had a stern handle on me, forcing me by the arm toward the stairs leading to, and what I presumed, the brothel rooms upstairs. And where I was obviously to be confined to one. Suddenly my knees gave way from beneath me 'cause I almost lost my balance and slipped out of the woman's grasp which was exactly hard like a man's.
Then, without thinking, I bellowed a firm, "No! NO!" pulling myself away from the woman, my hands literally clawing at her grasp as if I was a child in the middle of a fit. And instead of the woman struggling with me, she stopped in her tracks and lessened her grasp on me and stared at me comically for a few seconds.
"If you don't want me to break that pretty face of yours, then I suggest you be a good little girl, follow me upstairs and do what I say, hmm?"
"She knows what she has to do, Jeanest!" the man argued sounding totally disgusted that she would even make an attempt to bargain with me as he grabbed a firm hold of the back of my head. I whimpered with the man forcing me toward the stairs then up the stairs until we were on the second floor and standing in an open room overlooking a partial of the first floor.
The open room was decorated wit
h simple pieces of furniture: a long sofa, an end table with a glass table top, and a couple of oversized chairs. There were three wall sconces, all dimly lit and surrounding the room. I couldn't make out the color of the carpet in part of the lighting being so dim; it looked black, but it could've been a navy blue -
"I'll handle her from here," the woman Jeanest said breaking my trance from the room.
"Can you?" the man Marx then questionably insulted. And it was obvious that Jeanest would say nothing in regard to Marx's remark 'cause he just chuckled casually, letting me go. "I want to see her after she gets cleaned up." he then said to my horrid surprise. Again, Jeanest said nothing. And again, she grabbed another stern hold of my arm and led me down a dimly lit hall with the same wall sconces from the open room adorning the hallway and into a spacious bathroom smelling of bleach. And I didn't see it at first but the bathroom's window had cross bars embedded within its frame and the window was painted black - just like the ones in that old tannery building in Boston. And if I wasn't in fear that much before, I was in absolute fear now. I could literally feel the blood draining from my face. And my heart began to beat faster especially when Jeanest pointed to the shower stall.
"Don't keep Marx waiting. He despises waiting. So hurry up. Scrub your body clean. I'll be back in a few to inspect it." And with that said Jeanest left the bathroom and left me standing there with my fear clinging to the bowels of my stomach.
"Oh, God," I groaned as those tears I had been holding back for the last several minutes suddenly streamed down my face. "Oh, God," I whimpered again, and Oh, God! was all I kept thinking and repeating even as I undressed, bathed and waited in a towel all while cowering in my own skin as I waited for Jeanest to return and inspect me. And when she does return she doesn't inspect me. She instead motions me out of the bathroom and into the bedroom right across the bathroom.