Take Me

by Anna Zaires, Pepper Winters, Skye Warren, Lynda Chance, Pam Godwin, Amber Lin

  I jumped. Cold water filled my mouth, my nose. Salt burned my feet, my stomach, all over. Like the lashes of a thousand jellyfish, they stung me into paralysis. I gulped water. I breathed it. I sank.

  Chapter Eleven

  I’d surrendered to the dark mistress, to death. It turned out I wasn’t good enough, not even to die. The waves tumbled and scrubbed me like mother nature’s washing machine, and then spit me out onto the beach to dry. I clutched at the sand, grounding myself as it clumped wet in my hands.

  Lying there, wrung out, I had a memory of another moonlit night.

  Dad had come to visit me that night, and then passed out beside my bed. Unable to sleep, to even sit still, I slipped out of the house and into the backyard. The moon had swathed everything in a silver glow. Somehow it wasn’t eerie, but peaceful. Like we were all just flat grayscale cutouts in someone’s imagination. If we weren’t real, then our shame wasn’t real either.

  I heard noises next door, ones I instinctively recognized, even though I never made them myself. It was the rhythm, the universal rhythm of a man taking. A man hurting. Unable to stem my morbid curiosity, I crept along the peeling wood siding until I reached a window.

  Just as I suspected. The man was pushing against a girl underneath him. His hands were all over her, his mouth, his body. And she was making these sounds, breathless and squirming. It had to be hurting her.

  Although, oddly, they both seemed to have clothes on. But even as I watched, that was changing. The girl scrabbled at the hem of his shirt. First I thought she was fighting him, maybe pushing him away or scratching at the soft skin there. But then she pulled his shirt off and threw it across the room. Then her hands were back on him, running up and down. And I realized, looking at the slim torso, that it was Tyler. Not his father. Not some faceless, hurting man, but Tyler. And the girl, some made-up slut from school probably.

  He was one of them.

  It should have been obvious all along, but a whine of shock escaped me. Maybe not surprise, but mourning. Love lost, a love I’d never had.

  “Shit,” I heard him say.

  “What?” the girl asked.

  I turned and raced through the dirt and hopped into the old tire, curling up into it. Even over the racing of my heart I heard the screech of the porch door open. The pebbles crunched closer and closer. Tyler’s head appeared in my line of vision.

  “Hey, little girl,” he said softly.

  I ignored him.

  “I’m sorry you saw that,” he said. “I should have closed the window.”

  I scowled. That wouldn’t have changed the fact that he was doing that. With her! If he needed to hurt a girl, why couldn’t it be me? If I had to be hurt, couldn’t I at least choose who hurt me?

  “Come out of there,” he coaxed. “It’s not—”

  “No!” I knew what he was going to say, that it wasn’t safe. “You don’t know anything.”

  There was a pause, then he said, “Okay, you’re right. I don’t know. Why don’t you come out and you can tell me?”

  I didn’t care anymore. I wanted him to know just how unsafe I really was. Even then, I knew I could hurt him with that knowledge. So I came out and wielded my weapons: a sensual shimmy inappropriate for my age, a knowing half-smile.

  “Do it with me,” I whispered.

  He cocked his head, all genuine puzzlement. “What?”

  “What you were doing with that girl. Do it with me.”

  He jumped up as if scalded. “Jesus! No!”

  The rejection whipped through me. “Fine,” I yelled, uncaring if the whole neighborhood heard. Let them!

  I stormed off toward the back alley, but he caught my arm in a tight grip and yanked me around. “Mia, I didn’t mean it like that.”

  I refused to look up.

  “It’s not a personal…you’re too young, that’s all. Way too young. You’re a very pretty girl, and I’m sure—”

  “Spare me the pep talk,” I growled at him, unwilling to accept his fake kindness. If he really liked me, thought I was pretty, my age wouldn’t matter. I knew that. My age didn’t stop them. “I know I’m pretty. I hear it all the time, I’m so pretty. So beautiful and young, and I bet I can make you feel better than she can. I saw her. She couldn’t even stay still. I can!”

  He stared at me, eyes wide and black. “When—” He swallowed thickly. “When do you stay still?”

  The question cut through my reckless temper. I’d said too much. I couldn’t think, had to stall. “What?”

  “When do you stay still for…that?”

  I picked up the pieces of my bravado to boast, “Why? Do you think I don’t do it? That no one wants me? Well, not everyone thinks I’m too young.”

  “Who, Mia? Who doesn’t think you’re too young?”

  He was serious, so serious, and suddenly I had an inkling, a vision of how bad this could get. Already it was spiraling out of my control. “No one.” I blinked away the wetness. “I was lying.”

  “Goddamnit, Mia,” he shouted.

  The sound of the screen door cut through the night, but it wasn’t Tyler’s door this time. It was mine.

  “What the fuck are you doing out here?” my dad slurred.

  This time I didn’t wait for Tyler to tell me to go inside. I turned and ran for the steps.

  “Stop,” Tyler said.

  “I told you to stay away from her,” my dad said. Then he turned to me. “Get your skinny ass inside.”

  “No, Mia,” Tyler said. “Wait. She was just telling me something.”

  I started to shiver. Nothing good could come of this. They taught us about Eve in church, how she’d taken a bite of the apple. I thought this was how she must have felt when she realized what it meant. Relieved. Remorseful. Afraid.

  They were shouting at each other, hurling so many swear words it was hard to make out a meaning other than fury. Then there was more than words flying through the air, fists and bodies, as they fought. At eighteen, Tyler was strong, but my dad still had a lot of weight on him. The wrestled until finally Tyler had him pinned on the dirt.

  My dad spit up into his face. “You don’t know shit about shit, you motherfucking cocksucker dickhole shithead.”

  Tyler lifted him and slammed him against the ground. “You fucker, you disgusting motherfucker. You’re going to fucking jail.”

  I just stood there in shock, but then the girl came running out, screaming and hollering, and I wanted to stop her, to warn her not to bring attention to herself when they were in this rabid state, but I was rooted to the spot.

  “Get inside,” Tyler said. He hadn’t moved his head, but he was talking to the girl.

  “But,” she whined.

  “Do it now,” he said. “Just get.”

  My dad spoke between wheezes as Tyler’s forearm pressed into his throat. “That’s right, girlie. You don’t want my type to catch a look at you. Might be getting ideas.” And then he choked out a laugh when she ran inside Tyler’s house and slammed the door shut.

  But my dad just kept laughing this awful gasping noise that reminded me of an animal dying. Even Tyler seemed freaked out, standing up and releasing him with a shove.

  “You… think… you’ve… got… me?” my dad croaked through his hysteria.

  “Fuck you,” Tyler said, sounding uncertain.

  My dad straightened and made a visible effort to rein himself in. “Boy, I know exactly what your mama is. I done fucked her for some spare change.”

  Tyler pulled back, preparing to strike.

  My dad’s arms came up as he spoke quickly. “She ain’t legal. I know she don’t file shit. An illegal hooker’ll get deported as soon as they know her. You say one word against me, and no one will believe you. And you better say goodbye to your mama while you at it.”

  Tyler’s arm was frozen, like the freeze frame in a martial arts movie. His whole body was unmoving. “You fucker.”

  “That’s right.” My dad stood taller now, like he’d already won. �
�A whore in Texas is one thing, but it’s still a real life. How long you think she’s going to last in Mexico?”

  I knew what deported meant. I’d seen kids disappear from school, deported. Even knowing that, I wanted Tyler to swear at him again, to say he’d protect me no matter what, and his mom too. I could almost hear the words, drifting on the air like a lost melody.

  In slow, stiff movements, Tyler backed up a step and dropped his arms. The words wouldn’t be coming. My eyes burned and blurred. He couldn’t do this to me. Tyler couldn’t start a fight with my dad, bring this out into the open, acknowledge what was happening, and then leave me to my fate.

  It would be so much worse now. Didn’t he know my dad would punish me for this? The way Tyler wouldn’t meet my eyes told me he knew exactly how I would be punished.

  He took another step back, retreating farther away.

  “That’s right,” my dad pressed. “An old, dried up hag like her. She’d get passed around the streets. Probably bleed out the first week there.”

  Tyler didn’t look angry anymore. He looked anguished. Suddenly he didn’t look like the savior I’d wished for but the helpless teenage boy he was. I turned and ran into the house. I would rather be in there, even if it meant pain, than face Tyler. I’d thought there was nothing more humiliating than what my dad had done to me. This was worse.

  I silently endured under the hands of my father that night and for the nights after that. Tyler disappeared. Not deported. Enlisted. I refused to ask for help, not ever again.

  Then I ran away from home. I was barely surviving when Carlos found me. He really had been a savior to me, no matter how tarnished his armor was.

  As I grew older, I couldn’t hold it against Tyler to protect his own family, his mother, over a stranger. He’d tried to do right by me. He’d tried harder than anyone else. It wasn’t his fault that he failed. The irony, that he’d come to claim a used up whore, wasn’t lost on me.

  Sputtering out the remainder of the ocean’s leavings, I dragged myself up. My legs wobbled beneath me as if I were a mermaid who’d emerged from the sea, standing on new legs.

  Chapter Twelve

  I was too late. That was what I thought when I looked over the ridge to see a battle scene. Not a battle fought—a battle lost. The men wearing black clothes, face paint, and holsters had clearly subdued the unruly band of mercenaries Carlos hired.

  Was Tyler one of the men with their faces pressed into the dirt, cuffed and pinned to the ground? But hope springs eternal, because I frantically scanned the bulky forms of the cops, as if I could recognize Tyler there. Hoping he were one of the good guys after all, that Leo had been wrong.

  But I didn’t see him anywhere.

  I scrambled over the peak to get a closer look but ended up sliding down the embankment. The scrabble of rocks and limbs roared through the salty air, but no one glanced over. I looked again, and this time I was sure. Tyler wasn’t here.

  Someone else was notoriously absent—or several someones. Where were the women?

  The cops seemed to be wondering the same thing. I recognized Zachary talking with some of the men, pointing and gesturing, probably organizing a search. Most of the cops corralled Carlos’s men, but several went off in pairs to search.

  The slaves were the prize here. Whether Tyler was good or bad, he would go after them.

  I had no hope of finding them before these guys. After all, they knew about this island, they’d have access to maps and would have planned their invasion. I’d had no idea a place like this even existed so close to the city. The harbor was mostly used for yachting and hobbyists, not Lord of the Flies reenactments.

  Then I realized I did have some knowledge they didn’t. The boat.

  After all, Leo had planned some sort of coup with Tyler. So he would have pulled the boat up at an appropriate location. Maybe that was even the meeting site. I raced back up the slope and down the beach where I’d came from. For once, my body was on my side, allowing me to sprint without sluggishness or pain despite my injuries and blood loss. Actually, numbness was more concerning, indicative of scarier things than pain, but I couldn’t worry about that now.

  At first I thought I’d been wrong, that there was nothing but more darkness. Then I heard a low moan that raised goose bumps on my skin. Every animal can recognize the sound of deathly misery in another. It was coming from the woods beside the beach, and I crept inside.

  There, in a clearing, was a straggling line of women. And herding them along was Tyler.

  I blinked, wanting to deny it. The women were bound and bruised, with their heads bent low. Tyler urged them along mercilessly, his face stone cold. Leo had been right. Tyler was one of the bad guys. It didn’t make sense if he’d come here for me, but as I watched him lead a line of slaves away from the police there could be no doubt.

  God, I would have thought I’d have learned by now. Hadn’t I made the same mistake with Carlos, thinking he was there to save me when he only wanted to use me? No. No.

  I tried to formulate a logical play-by-play analysis. How had I missed it? List all the facets of my stupidity, both starting and ending with Tyler. None of it could distract me from the soul-clenching pain of betrayal. It was crippling—almost. Because there was still time to do something about it. I’d set out to free these women, and maybe I still could. Besides the fact that if I did, Tyler would lose. He deserved to lose.

  I was no better than he was, using these women for my own purposes. But then again, I didn’t think they’d object if it meant they got to be free.

  I let the anger grow and roil inside me like one of those burning planets, a tangible fury. How dare he trick me? Lie to me? All he ever had to do was ask. Hell, I’d spent the last several years serving Carlos, and he was no saint. I would have helped Tyler, too, except he hadn’t trusted me enough. He’d never trusted me at all.

  I had nothing at all to help me, nothing but a rusty knife and the wrath of a woman scorned. Scratch that. The wrath of several women. There were maybe ten of them on the path, but they stumbled around. It didn’t look like any of them were considering escape. Maybe because they knew they would die out there, tied up and naked. Or maybe the ones interested in escape had already been killed.

  One of the women near the front tripped. Tyler went to her, and I took my chance. I yanked the straggler in the back to the ground. She shrieked briefly, but I clapped my hand over her mouth.

  “Hush. I’m saving you.”

  Her breath pulsed fast against my fingers, but she didn’t squirm or make a sound. We waited in the dirt, both of us heaving, to see if Tyler would have heard us or noticed her absence. When the sound of crunching leaves and crackling branches faded away, I unsnapped the ball gag in her mouth and used the knife to cut away the ropes.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

  “The sorriest excuse for a rescuer, that’s who,” I muttered.

  “We can’t leave the other women.”

  “I wasn’t planning on it.” I held up the remains of the rope that had only minutes ago been wrapped around her wrists. “Care to return the favor?”

  We beelined our way out of the woods onto the beach. It was much faster to move that way, and I guessed Tyler hadn’t taken that route to avoid the visibility. We got back to the boat before the rest of the group, and there we set up shop behind a border of brush at the edge of the woods.

  The sound of rustling heralded the arrival of Tyler and the other slaves. On cue, the woman burst out of leaves, holding her arms behind her as if they were still tied. She fell to the ground, writhing in feigned pain.

  Tyler released the woman he’d been supporting and leaned her against a tree before rushing over. He was greeted with feminine fury in the form of claws and a swift kick to the groin. He fell to his knees, and I, taken over by a crazed madwoman, fell on him from behind.

  Even then, even with the element of surprise and two of us against his one, he threw me off and had the woman pinned dow
n. I was furious, furious that he’d won, again. Furious at all the men who kept beating us just because they were bigger and stronger.

  Red swathed my vision, blotting out everything except the picture of the man straddling the woman. The knife was in my hand, and then it was stabbed into his side, where he slumped over.

  “Oh God, Oh God,” I muttered uselessly. What had I done? So much for my hopes to save Tyler, to be with him. I’d just killed him.

  Frantic, mindless, I pulled the knife from him, as if I could hit the undo button on my moment of insanity, but that only made the blood spurt. I pushed the edges of his shirt down. He groaned and writhed, but at least he wasn’t dead yet.

  The woman ran back to me, though I hadn’t realized she’d even gone. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she said. “I think they’re searching down this way.”

  I stared at the bloody knife in my palm for a minute. I didn’t know if Tyler was good or bad. I didn’t know if he would live or die. But those women were innocent and they needed me now. Soon enough I had half the women free of their binds.

  The other women stared at Tyler’s limp form in a horrified awe that surpassed my own, as if it hadn’t occurred to them that he was human like them. That’s when I realized how well-trained these women were. Whatever their past was, in this moment, they knew themselves as slaves. They even looked at me that way, like I was some sort of Valkyrie warrior instead of just a used up whore.

  “Do any of you know how to drive a boat?” I asked when all of them were loose.

  Most of them stared back numbly, their eyes not even registering the question. I wasn’t even sure how many of them spoke English, since they didn’t seem to speak at all. The woman who I’d first freed said, “I think…maybe I saw it done…I could try.” I couldn’t detect an accent, although she seemed to stumble over the words.