The Living Canvas

by Pepper Winters

  But...if I fail.

  If I die.

  I need you to find her before it’s too late.

  Call the police. Tell them everything.

  Find her, rescue her, keep her.

  And...when you find her, please find my daughter too.

  My heart belongs to both of them.

  If I’ve failed...please take care of them.

  I name you godfather.

  Keep my loved ones as your own.

  Tell O I’m sorry.

  Tell my daughter that I tried.

  Chapter Five

  ______________________________

  Olin

  -The Present-

  “YOU’RE LATE.”

  My eyes struggled against the heavy curtains pulling them down. A cloak of sleepiness and weighted imprisonment.

  Gil’s arms twitched around me, his deep rumble of a voice threatening and soothing all at once. “It’s a long walk.”

  “Long walk or not, you took your time on this one, Gilbert. Dangerous time.” The man’s tone changed, speaking to someone younger and innocent. “Look who decided to join us, sweetheart. Told you he’d turn up.”

  I squirmed to focus on whoever he spoke to. A camping light hung in a tree, illuminating the small clearing. My eyes closed again, my muscles ignoring my commands in favour of exhaustion.

  But this time, I fought back.

  I fought hard.

  I moaned and clawed my way to the surface.

  This is important.

  It was imperative I had wits and wisdom, flight and fight.

  I couldn’t quite remember why, but...

  Killers.

  Painters.

  I’m next.

  Standing in the gloom of the false moon lashed to the tree, a man stood with a calculating grin on his face. Beside him stood a child. A girl with long sooty hair, her pretty eyes huge as a nocturnal creature better suited for darkness, not light.

  “Get your fucking hands off her.” Gil’s entire body stiffened as his gaze landed on the child. His chest heaved against me, his heart thundering painfully. “Hey, Olive Oyl. You okay?” His voice echoed with grief and the gravity of seeing a little girl with an older man’s paw resting on her shoulders in the woods.

  My own stomach churned at the picture.

  Olive?

  Olive!

  His dream, his nightmare, the love of his life.

  Olive...the consequence of rape.

  “Hey, Daddy....” Her face scrunched up with worry. “I missed you.”

  “Oh, God. I missed you too, little spinach.” Gil’s legs gave out, forcing him to stumble forward and place me as gently as he could on the ground. His voice cracked. “Wow...you’ve grown so big.”

  She smiled cautiously. “Uncle Jeffrey said I could come see you.”

  “That’s great.” Gil dared look at the guy holding her captive. His entire body trembled to rush forward and grab her. “You finally brought her? After a goddamn year of keeping her from me?”

  “Be grateful I was feeling generous.” The guy chuckled quietly, his hand waving permission to continue conversation.

  Gil cleared his throat, doing his best to find strength I feared he no longer had. His eyes drank in his daughter as if he was drowning. “You okay? God, I’ve missed you so much.”

  Olive cried quietly. “You don’t look so good. Are you okay?”

  “I am now that I’m with you.” Gil strangled a laugh. “Missing you is hard work.” He forced a wink, his face twisting with relief and terror. “I haven’t had anyone to help me cook spinach lately.” He added wobbly humour into his tone. “Know anywhere I can get some out here? Could do with a shot of strength right about now.”

  Olive kicked her dirty sneaker into the earth, no longer willing to talk. “Are you not strong like Popeye anymore?”

  Gil flinched. “I am now you’re here.”

  Olive sniffed. “Daddy, I want to go home.”

  The love in her voice. The yearning and need. She adored Gil. Totally in love with her father just like he was in love with her.

  I wanted to hate her.

  I wanted something to direct my rage at Gil’s molestation. Jane Tallup deserved to be publicly shamed and then shot...but her daughter? The little girl who stood in the darkness wasn’t her awful mother.

  She was afraid and small and trapped.

  And she needed her father.

  Desperately.

  Another wash of tiredness tried to suck me under.

  Something hurt me deep, deep inside.

  My heart cried for this small family who’d been ripped apart by greed. My head pounded for freedom for all of us.

  Gil’s entire fight vanished; he left me lying on the bracken, raking both hands through his hair as he stood upright on exhausted legs. “I want that too. And we’re going home. Tonight we’re going—”

  “Ah, ah, ah, making promises you can’t keep again, Gilbert?”

  Whatever drugs Gil had fed me fractured at the man’s tone.

  Him.

  The black van.

  The asshole who beat up Gil all because I’d used the word us.

  Gil stiffened; his face turned black. “I’m done playing this pathetic game, Jeffery.” His voice dripped with menace. No more distress, only danger. “I’ve given you everything I have. I have nothing left. You hear me? Nothing. You’ve made damn sure of that. Just let me take my daughter and—”

  “Not so fast.”

  The little girl shot forward, spying an opportunity to run. “Daddy!” She bowled toward Gil, her arms outstretched, her face afraid. “Please—”

  She didn’t get very far.

  Jeffrey swiped at her, catching the hood of the lemon jacket she wore. Wrenching her back, he tutted under his breath. “That’s rude, sweetheart.” Ducking to his haunches, he yanked the girl into the cage made by his legs. “Living with me hasn’t been so bad, has it? You’ve enjoyed the toys I gave you. You said you did.” He shook her. “Be a grateful little girl, sweetheart. Go on.”

  Olive sniffed back tears, nodding bravely. “Yes, Uncle Jeffrey. Thank you for the toys.”

  “And?”

  “And for taking care of me when Daddy couldn’t.”

  Gil roared with fury. “Leave her the hell alone.”

  “There’s a good girl.” Jeffrey spoke to Olive before rising to his feet. “I see you brought me a gift, Gilbert.” He acted as if he hadn’t heard Gil bellow at him. He behaved as if this meeting in the woods was perfectly rational behaviour.

  “Name your price,” Gil snarled. “Any figure. I’ll give it to you. A million? Ten? I’ll do whatever it takes to pay you. Just let it be about the money and forget about O and Olive.”

  He bartered for my life.

  He begged for Olive’s.

  My brain short-circuited, unable to accept such wrongness.

  The drugs snatched me back.

  My world went dark and silent.

  I slipped.

  Slipped from chilly forest to soft clouds.

  Blackness.

  Blankness.

  A void.

  * * * * *

  I came to, being collected gently from the forest floor, only to be placed at the feet of the man who’d destroyed Gil’s life.

  I was cold.

  The ground was prickly and painful on my bare, painted skin.

  Gil’s face hovered above mine as my eyes shot wide.

  I was coherent and blazingly aware, if only for a moment.

  His eyes held lines only old men who’d buried loved ones and survived holocausts should carry. His lips were bitten and cheeks sunken. He barely looked alive, sucked dry by the devil keeping his daughter as collateral.

  “It’s always been you, O. Always.” He kissed me softly; his voice sullied with despair. “But...I never had a choice.” His lips skated over mine again, shivering with apologetic misery.

  “D-Don’t...” I blinked madly, fighting the binds of tiredness, wis
hing my tongue worked as well as my vision.

  But it was too late.

  Gil placed me tenderly at the feet of a murderer.

  “Now, get back.” Jeffrey pointed a finger at Gil as if he was an unruly wolf. “You know what we agreed.”

  What did they agree?

  What did I miss while I’d been sucked back into sleep?

  Gil tripped backward. “Please.”

  I struggled to sit up, to dig my palms into the dirt and stop this madness. My mind might be awake, but my body definitely wasn’t. It was loose and languid, powerless and prone.

  It took every bit of energy I had to twist my head to keep Gil insight.

  He looked as if he wanted to rip Jeffery into pieces all while he slowly fell to his knees and prepared to beg. He might have resorted to pleading, but there was nothing pathetic about him. Nothing useless or inadequate about a man willing to lower himself to dirt for those he loved.

  He was regal, a legend, a father who knew where his loyalties lay and what love demanded.

  He was the reason I was here.

  His paint on my skin, and my death on his hands.

  He didn’t deserve my forgiveness, but he did have my understanding.

  I had no choice but to understand the depths of his pain and desperation whenever he looked at his daughter. It blazed all over him like a physical entity. A power he couldn’t deny.

  His hands banded together in prayer as his gaze flickered from me to Olive. His throat worked as he swallowed hard, his voice strangled and dying. “Name it, Jeffrey. What do I have to do—”

  “Keep delivering what we agreed.”

  “I have. Thousands of times over.”

  “Yes, but retirement is expensive.”

  “I’ll pay your every bill and whim until the day you die, just let me take them home.”

  Jeffrey chuckled coldly, wrapping his fist in Olive’s hair.

  She cried out, flinching as he pulled her cruelly into his side. “You think I’d trust you to pay without incentive?”

  “I give you my word.” Gil swallowed again, his face white and strained. “You’ll always be rich. I’ll give everything I have—”

  “Enough,” Jeffrey shouted. “Get out of my sight before you humiliate yourself further.”

  “You can’t take her again.” Gil scrambled to his feet, his fists curled and shaking by his sides. “Keep your side of the bargain.” He winced, looking at me bound and drugged on a bed of twigs and leaves. “Olin for Olive. I’ve paid your price.” His hand came up, waiting for a smaller one to fit into his. “Give me my daughter.”

  “Popeye,” Olive whimpered.

  Jeffrey snickered, yanking her against his leg. “Change of plans.”

  Gil’s face lost any sign of vulnerability. His eyes shuttered, his lips thinned. Aggression rippled over him. “Give her to me. I won’t ask again.”

  My heart picked up, filtering the drug and granting a tiny trickle of strength to limbs tingling and tight from being tethered.

  “I like how you think you’re in the position to threaten me.” Jeffrey snaked his arm around Olive’s shoulders, hugging her close. “Maybe I’ll keep both of them, tighten your leash a little more.”

  Olive winced, curling into herself.

  Jeffrey sighed dramatically. “And you used to be so obedient.”

  Gil bared his teeth, his entire body vibrating with pure hatred. “A deal is a deal.”

  I wanted him to win.

  I wanted his daughter to be saved and no longer living with a madman.

  But if he won, that meant I lost.

  I would die in her place, and my survival instinct wouldn’t let that happen.

  Flexing my fingers and toes, I willed more blood to circulate, to wash me clean, to give me power.

  Slowly, my body shed the garment of lethargy, answering my commands.

  Gil stormed forward, all negotiations and pleasantries over. He looked as if he’d tear Jeffrey’s head right off his shoulders.

  I wanted him to.

  Kill him.

  Save us both.

  But it only took Jeffrey the smallest move to halt Gil mid-step. His hand vanished behind him, whipping forward with a gun. “Decide. Here and now.” The black weapon glinted in the lamplight, morbid and menacing. He swung the muzzle to face me. “The woman you love?” Almost lazily, he tracked the weapon to wedge against Olive’s temple. “Or your daughter?”

  She froze like a tiny rabbit. Teeth locked on her bottom lip. Her shivers pure fear.

  Gil struggled to breathe. His eyes shot black, cursing Jeffrey to purgatory for even pointing a gun at his child. “I promise you, you motherfucker, if you shoot either of them, you’ll be dead a second after.”

  The two men’s eyes locked.

  A silent war passed between them.

  Finally, Jeffrey nodded and waved the gun at the dense blackness just out of reach of the lamp. “I think I’ll keep both alive...for now. Higher incentive for you to pad my retirement a little more, don’t you think?”

  “I’m not painting any more girls.”

  “So you don’t agree with my little hobby?”

  Gil couldn’t hide the growl in his chest. “Killing for sport is—”

  “A recognised pastime,” Jeffrey sneered. “Hunters shoot deer. Humans eat animals. Anything with a heartbeat is killable.” He grinned darkly. “I just happen to like the two-legged variety.”

  Gil spat on the ground. “I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch.”

  “Perhaps.” He laughed, way too confident and assured. “But as long as I have your daughter, you’re my puppet. So...I expect you to keep dancing on your strings.” He waved the gun again. “Now, run along, Mr. Popeye, and don’t forget to eat some spinach. Olive Oyl is right; you aren’t looking so good.”

  Gil didn’t move.

  For the longest second, he stared at me, then Olive and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe the trap he’d been caught in.

  He hated himself.

  His self-loathing permeated the air until he choked on it.

  I waited for him to walk away.

  To leave both of us to our fate.

  But something triggered in him. Some base instinct that didn’t bow to rules or threats, not anymore. He couldn’t walk away. I knew that in my bones.

  I didn’t know how long it’d been since he’d seen Olive.

  I didn’t know anything about his life anymore.

  But the building outrage on his face spoke of a man who’d reached his limit. A man who would no longer kneel to another—not when those he loved were in danger and within grabbing distance—ready to be saved if he could only kill the monster in the middle.

  He stalked toward Jeffrey with his gaze locked on his daughter. “Olive, come here.”

  Olive squirmed and fought, kicking and scratching at Jeffrey as he struggled to hold her.

  I played my part in the distraction, kicking my tied legs and wriggling on the slippery bracken.

  Jeffrey witnessed his carefully choreographed meeting dissolve into anarchy.

  Gil leaped forward.

  One hand reached for Olive, and the other punched Jeffrey in the jaw.

  The three of them tumbled in a pile of body parts while Gil tried to murder his enemy with nothing more than fists and fury.

  I tried to scream. To activate a voice that stayed dormant with drugs.

  But then a gunshot rang out.

  A swarm of crows exploded from the treetops. Pigeons and sparrows, finches and thrushes all soaring for the sky thanks to violence.

  I squirmed and gasped, trying to sit up to see. To know if the bullet had missed or...

  Tears pricked as Gil fell backward, his hands high above his head in surrender, his eyes frantic as he searched Olive for injury. “You okay?” His breath caught and voice scratched with gravel. “Please tell me you’re not hurt.”

  Thank God, he wasn’t shot.

  Fierce hope filled me that the rog
ue bullet had lodged inside Jeffrey.

  Olive cried, crystal tears glittering on pretty cheeks. “I’m all right.” She stayed sitting in the dirt, shoulders rolled and grief overtaking, knowing that Gil’s attempt at rescue had failed, and she was about to pay the consequences.

  Just like me.

  With his gun high, Jeffrey clambered to his feet, brushing off leaf matter and curling his nose at the mud stain on his knee. The flutter of disgruntled birds still flapped around us.

  He wasn’t shot.

  He wasn’t defeated.

  “That was stupid, Gilbert. Very, very stupid.” He aimed the gun directly at Gil’s heart. “I suggest you start walking before I change my mind.”

  Gil shook his head, furious despair painting his features. “I can’t leave them.”

  “But you will if you want to live another day.”

  Gil looked at me, apology and uselessness blazing bright. He looked at Olive, desolation and failure crippling him.

  He came to the same conclusion I did.

  He didn’t have a choice.

  Fight now.

  Die now.

  Or walk away and hope to save us later.

  Olive cried harder, understanding that the family reunion was about to end. “No! Take me with you. Don’t—” She stood and tried to run to Gil, only to be cornered in Jeffrey’s arms. “Don’t go. Please!”

  Gil squeezed his eyes shut, a tear licking down his cheek. “Olive. I love you. Forever and ever.” His gaze opened, locking onto his flesh and blood. A family he’d created not borrowed. A little girl who idolized him. A child who believed he could fix this when he couldn’t. “Please don’t hate me for failing you. I’m not leaving you, okay? I’ll never, ever leave you. I just...this is temporary. We’ll be together again soon. I promise.”

  Olive cried harder. “When? When is soon?”

  He shuddered. “As soon as I can. I promise we’ll be together. I promise.”

  Olive somehow managed to sniff up her sadness and nod bravely. “Okay. I’ll be good. Maybe Uncle Jeffrey will let me go home if I behave better.”

  Gil vibrated with hate toward the man holding her captive. He couldn’t stop his boots crunching forward, taking him toward the gun aimed in his direction and his young daughter. “Jeffrey, please...for fuck’s sake, you have O. I’ll continue to paint and deliver on your demands. Just give me Olive. Let me take her home. Accept the trade.”