The Fall of V

by Jessica Gadziala

  And... nothing.

  It was a really inopportune time for these thoughts - what with Grandma-of-the-Year staring daggers at me - but there was no stopping them once they started.

  Like... what did it mean?

  Was I maybe not in love with him after all?

  Or had I not wanted to feel more of the things I was missing by being trapped? Did I not want to think about the fact that my plan had always been to get to eighteen, finally snag his attention, and let him be my introduction to all things physical... and that this situation could possibly mean that was no longer an option for me?

  Even just that thought made my saliva turn acidic again, burning like battery fluid down my throat.

  Yet another thing to contemplate at a different time.

  I had a lot of introspection in my future.

  If I had one.

  Which I would do everything in my power to ensure that I did.

  Even if I did decide to go with giving back as good as I got instead of stroking her ego.

  "I hardly think having a high school crush on an older guy is even anywhere near the same thing as abducting women, and selling them out to be raped, Grams."

  The Grams seemed to be the only part that penetrated her calm, collected, evil witch thing she had going on. Her eyes flashed, edges of daggers caught in the light. Her back stiffened. Her lips pursed.

  "Careful," she said after giving it a moment, giving herself a moment to get her guards back up. "Haven't you ever heard the phrase about biting the hand that feeds you?"

  There was no stopping the snort that rose up and forced its way out.

  "What? The two times in, how many days I have been here?"

  "My hospitality doesn't live up to your standards?"

  "It doesn't live up to a third world jail's standards."

  Her lips curved upward at that, snide, condescending. "It could be worse for you, you know," she said, tone deep, heavily weighted by the reality we both knew she was speaking of. "It really is only my word protecting you from that fate."

  "Your word didn't protect my mother from getting scars all over her back," I spat.

  "No. My word demanded that. So it might be smart to mark your tone."

  "What's a few more scars?" I asked, shooting a look at her man who was slowly approaching. "If it is between bowing to your will, or fighting for my freedom, I will fight every time."

  "So be it," she said, waving a dismissive hand. "Get her back in the basement. And try not to get yourself stabbed in the process. It would be a real inconvenience to lose two men in one day."

  An inconvenience.

  My gaze shifted to her man, looking for a reaction, offense, disgust at hearing that his death would simply be an inconvenience. That was how she would see it. After months or years of loyalty.

  There was a flicker in his eyes for a short second before it was banked down. I figured that was a survival mechanism in this environment. Having feelings, even legitimate anger or resentment, could likely spell out death for you.

  You had to learn to shut down.

  You had to bottle it all up.

  Which was likely why her men were so aggressively brutal toward other women. Because they couldn't take it out on the one woman who deserved it.

  I almost - for a second - felt sorry for him. Before I remembered that this man had grabbed me off the street, pulled me away from my loved ones, had hurt me, had shackled me to a wall in a basement where he knew I might be tormented and starved. And had done far worse to both Mary and Chris, along with an unknown number of other women.

  He didn't deserve my pity just because he had a job where he wasn't respected.

  "Oh," my grandmother said, having opened the door, then paused, turning back, eyes even more wicked - something I hadn't known was possible - as a smirk pulled at her lips. I didn't know the woman, but I somehow knew to brace myself for whatever words might follow. She left me hanging for a moment, though, dangling with weak fingers, before she stomped down on my knuckles and made me free fall. "And why don't you bring the other girl up? The one my granddaughter here tried to defend. Have some fun with her," she added with the slimiest of smiles that left me feeling slick in the aftermath as she closed the door and disappeared.

  There was nothing for a long moment except the distinct and faded click click clicking of her heels down the hall, disappearing to some wing of the home I did not know about.

  A moment where her words landed heavily on me, weighed me down until I was sure my feet were sinking into the ground, like the world was attempting to swallow me up.

  Of course.

  Of course she would use the one clear weakness I had exhibited against me.

  My humanity.

  My care of another human being.

  And Chris would pay for my attitude, for my relation to this raging bitch of a woman. And I had this awful, gut-churning feeling that with the permission of their boss to 'have fun' with her, that whatever happened would be worse, infinitely worse, than what had happened to her in the past.

  There was a tightening around my throat, a stinging in my eyes - small remnants of helplessness before I shifted slightly to keep my grandmother's man in my sight, and the movement made the key suddenly dig into the top of my barely-there boob.

  Reminding me that helpless was not something I was. Not anymore.

  I had wanted to wait.

  Until the house was quiet.

  Until there was a lesser chance of someone hearing us shuffling through the house. Maybe we could even avoid seeing another person until we were on the grounds which gave us a better chance to take someone down, or avoid them entirely.

  But my grandmother was forcing my hand.

  It was now or never.

  But I had to get back into the basement first.

  Catch him off-guard.

  That didn't mean, however, that I would go down without a fight.

  Seeming to sense this, his head cocked to the side as his hand slipped behind his back.

  I knew that move.

  From movies.

  From watching people at Hailstorm do it.

  Reaching for a gun.

  It should have filled me with dread, but all I could think of when he produced the compact black Glock was Uncle Repo.

  This is a 9mm, Uncle Repo had told me once when he had pulled it out of the backpack in the woods. Small, compact, meant to be conceal carried. I got a feeling this - or maybe the Ruger - will be your gun of choice.

  He had been right.

  I took to the Ruger.

  But I knew how to handle a Glock.

  I knew how to pop out the magazine, check for bullets, stick it back in, aim, and shoot.

  I needed that gun.

  That gun might make all the difference.

  Between freedom and perpetual captivity.

  Between us getting away tonight, or being pulled back into the basement where I would be forced to accept the fact that Chris would be the one paying for my attempt to break us out.

  I lifted my chin, all false bravado because, while I was comfortable with guns, had trained with Aunt Janie on how to disarm someone with one, even using real ones for training, I had never had a loaded one pointed at me with pretty darn good aim.

  "You can't kill me," I informed him, proud of the fact that my voice didn't shake.

  "No," he agreed, "But V would probably let me get away with putting a really painful hole in you somewhere that wouldn't be fatal. So just calm the fuck down, let me cut off those zip ties, and follow me back downstairs, so you can avoid that. Been shot before. Can tell you it fucking sucks."

  I lifted my chin higher still, but held out my wrists.

  Not because I had any intention of going along with his instructions, but because I wanted him to think I would.

  He lowered the gun, reaching into his pocket to produce a pocket knife, flicking it open. I had a second to realize that it was the same one I had, that Uncle Wolf had given me for my thi
rteenth birthday, making me swear I would never go anywhere without it. I didn't, either. I even had it on me when I was taken, hidden in the zipper compartment of my purse along with my just-in-case tampons.

  That purse was lost now.

  I would never see that knife again.

  There was a distinct sadness at that little loss.

  The blade tip slipped under the zip tie on my left wrist, making the other side of it crush deeper into the already open and bloody wound there.

  My air caught, but I managed to keep the hiss of pain inside as he pulled harder, trying to make the thick, stubborn plastic break.

  It - and the piece of wood that had been between it and my wrist on the bottom - fell to the ground as he got to work on my other wrist.

  It was then, when his head was ducked, the very second that the zip tie gave, that my other hand opened, the bottom of my palm extended, slamming upward, catching him under the nose, making him fly backward with a cry of pain as blood immediately trickled out, red and ugly, slipping from his nostrils to his lips, down his chin, and dripping onto his shirt as he was able to think through the pain, and charge me.

  I skittered back, giving up ground, trapping myself closer to the wall to avoid the full force of a man who was twice my size's fist as it unavoidably cracked across my cheek and into my nose, making my eyes water, making the pain overtake half my face, all but guaranteeing a black eye or two within an hour.

  My arm shot out, elbow catching his chin as I fought to get the wetness to stop flooding my eyes, making it harder to see.

  "E-fucking-nough," he growled, raising the other side, still holding the gun, making my stomach plummet, knowing I might have been strong, but I probably wasn't strong enough to handle a gunshot without crying in pain.

  But he turned it in his giant palm, making me all-too-aware of what was to follow.

  It was a silly, overused term.

  And accurate.

  Pistol-whip.

  Even as the thought formed, I could feel the first pang of pain to the side of my head.

  But just for a second.

  After that, everything went black.

  EIGHT

  Ferryn

  Panic was the first thing I was aware of as I gained consciousness, the sensation of loss of time, loss of perception, loss of reality.

  Was it too late?

  My gut dropped as my heart found a new home in my throat, cutting off air, as my brain tried to fully surface.

  But as I finally did, as my mind and body found the connection they had been missing, I could feel my upper body bouncing, a solid, painful unyielding pressure on my belly.

  A body.

  I was over someone's shoulder.

  Bouncing because we were descending stairs.

  I had only been out maybe a couple long seconds.

  Even as my eyes watched the door, left carelessly open, I could feel the insistent pounding in my temples, immediately making nausea swirl through my belly and throat.

  I prayed - though I wasn't sure what kind of faith I even had left anymore - that it was just from the blow, that I hadn't gotten another concussion.

  Uncle Pagan had been the one to warn me about them, having been in a ring maybe more than anyone else could claim.

  Gotta be careful with headshots, Fer. Easy to get brain damage from concussions. Or second-impact syndrome. Drop dead from a simple tap because you already got so much fucking damage up there.

  One nice thing about Uncle Pagan was he refused to dumb things down or even censor his speech.

  But maybe, just this once, I would have been happy not to have the idea of possible death in my future if I whack my head against a cabinet because I had a couple head injuries during this ordeal.

  My body jolted one final time, knocking a bit more of my air out, as we hit the landing, pulling me out of my useless anxiety.

  If I was going to be anxious about something, it should have been what I was about to do, about how I didn't even know how I was going to do what I needed to do.

  My body jumped again, less violently, as he walked over toward my spot, hauling me down, almost dropping me on my butt full-force before he thought better of it, grabbing my upper arm as I dropped.

  The shackle was on my foot in a blink, and he was turning.

  Turning.

  Toward Chris.

  My gaze went in that direction too, finding her watching me with small, confused eyes, not understanding why I hadn't come back damaged, broken, a shadow of the girl I had been when I left.

  There would be time for explanations and assurances later.

  Now, I had to act.

  Before he took her.

  Before he and his friends made her pay for my mistakes, for my connections, for my ignorance of them.

  Had I known from the beginning, I don't know, maybe I could have used that to my advantage. Maybe I could have gotten Chris at least freed in exchange for compliance, for whatever that nutjob of a grandmother wanted from me.

  But even if she agreed, even if Chris disappeared one day, who the heck knew if she would be free?

  It was better this way, I decided, as I took the key out of its hiding place, and stabbed it into the lock.

  It sounded loud, metal scraping metal, to my overly-sensitive, paranoid ears.

  But there was no time to think about that as I carefully slid it off my ankle, settling it down on the ground, pushing myself silently up, eyes dashing around the room for something I could use.

  There was nothing.

  They gave us nothing.

  Except...

  I almost felt my lips curve up as I tip-toe-ran across the room, closing my hands around the porcelain tank cover of the toilet.

  Heavy.

  Solid.

  Perfect.

  I lifted it up with a grimace before turning to find Chris' ankle was already freed, and that bastard's greedy hands were sinking into her hips.

  She was going to shut down.

  And I needed her here with me.

  I needed her to be able to carry her own weight.

  I had to act fast.

  I flew across the room, not silently, my feet slapping on the concrete floors, drawing his attention.

  But late.

  Too late.

  By the time his eyes could even relay the message of what was about to happen to his brain, I was pulling back, swinging, slamming the porcelain into the side of his face with every ounce of force in my body, half toppling forward from the momentum before I caught myself.

  The crack was hauntingly loud, a sound I would likely hear in nightmares. The look of shock on his face froze there as his body crumpled to the side, out cold.

  But there was no telling how long someone would stay out.

  Seconds, like I had.

  Longer, like I likely had been in the trunk of the car.

  Who knew.

  We had to move.

  "Get up!" I whisper-yelled at Chris who I had caught just in time, before she slipped away to the beach or to Christmases of times gone by. Her eyes were saucers, lips parted wide. "Get up. We're getting out of here," I demanded again, grabbing at the man's still body, still enough that it almost seemed lifeless, digging out the gun, popping out the magazine.

  Six.

  I had six bullets.

  Better than nothing, but if we hit trouble, six was not a lot. Not if she had dozens of men. Which, if she thought of them as disposable as paper dinner plates, she likely did.

  I would have to save them, use my hands, use heavy objects, doing whatever I could to ensure I had them if or when I really needed them.

  I rummaged for his pocketknife, knowing I would have to tuck it into my bra, being without pockets or shoes, and needing a hand free to open doors, but figuring any weapon was useful to have, even if it wasn't literally at-hand.

  "Chris! Now!" I barked, knowing I was yelling at a traumatized woman made weak from pain and malnutrition, but I couldn't put on kid gloves now. O
ur lives were in my hands. I needed a good grip.

  Her head jerked, like my words were a slap cracking across her cheek, making her jolt, jump suddenly upward.

  Feeling a small bit of triumph, I darted across the floor, freeing Mary's ankle, slapping my hands into her zoned-out face.

  Drugged.

  She was high.

  "Snap out of it. We need to get out of here," I demanded, hands framing her face - one with the gun in it, pressing against her cheek - voice a kind of desperate I needed not to sound like right now.

  "She won't come," Chris' voice called, soft, quiet, afraid of being heard.

  "She has to."

  "Have your father come back for her," Chris reasoned.

  Her entire body jolted violently as a low, deep, masculine grumble came from between the lips of the man on the floor.

  My hand felt for the cool ceramic again, rising to my feet, ready to bolt across the room, when suddenly... something switched on in Chris.

  Her anger.

  Her righteous, too-long-buried, all-consuming rage.

  It overtook her body that had always seemed so broken, barely capable of holding her up, livened, straightened, steeled itself with purpose.

  And that purpose?

  That would be kicking the ever-loving-hell out of the man on the floor, the man who had likely abducted her too, had trapped her in this basement, who had carried her upstairs to be raped and beaten, who had maybe participated himself.

  There were grunts and hisses as her foot met stomach, ribs, groin, then silence when she pulled back, and with every bit of force in her body - which, at the moment, was a lot - she slammed it forward into his face.

  Once.

  Twice.

  "Chris," I said, reaching out with my free hand to touch her arm. "Chris, he's out. He's out," I tried again as she kicked two more times. "There will be other guys to beat up," I added, and, somehow, that snapped her out of her daze.

  Her gaze shifted to me, focusing, nodding. "Garage?" she asked, jerking her chin up toward the stairs.

  "I think that is the best bet," I agreed, holding out the toilet tank top toward her, knowing I would need both hands to swing it, but I had to hold the gun. "Both hands. And HAAM like you just went on him," I told her, watching her look down at his prone body, his mouth and nose bleeding alarmingly, doing so with glacial indifference.