But there must be something I could do. I thought of the threat to tie me up. Maybe I should hide a knife in a pocket that I might be able use to cut myself loose. Unfortunately, my penknife was in the kitchen, but there might be something in the bathroom.
Keeping an ear open for sounds of their return, I rummaged through the vanity drawers and the linen cupboard. I tucked a pair of nail scissors into my front jeans pocket and a couple of paper-wrapped razor blades into the back pocket. Even if neither were strong enough to cut through rope, they could be used to stab or cut something, like skin….
I remembered that another of Eric’s hunting knives was lying on his night table at the same time I heard the boy and the biker starting back up the stairs. There was no time to retrieve it at the moment, but maybe I would get the chance after we finished boarding up the window. I was at the end of the hall, removing the sharp shards and splinters of glass from the floor, by the time the two of them reached the top of the stairs. Each carried a good-sized piece of plywood.
“Auntie, we brought two in case one isn’t big enough,” Jid said, holding up his board, which was taller than he was when he held it up to its full extent.
Slobodan let his go with a clatter onto the floor. He stepped to one side to prevent it from landing on his feet. I heard the crunch of glass.
“Sranje!” he cried out. “Fuck!”
He bounced around on one foot, hurling more Serbian curses until he lost his balance and ended up on his back on the floor. “Bitch! You do this!”
With his face grimaced in pain, he clutched the injured foot. Something on the underside glistened in my headlamp.
“I didn’t do anything. You stepped on some glass.” I kneeled beside him. “Stay still and let me check it.”
More Serbian swearing, but he kept his foot steady while I examined the piece of glass. An inch-long shard protruded from the dirty white sock. The only thing to do was to pull it out. So I did, careful not to cut myself in the process.
This resulted in another round of Serbian curses as the blood spread across the underside of his sock.
I’d no sooner removed the glass than I realized I’d blown it. I should’ve left it in. With it buried deep in his foot, there was no way he could chase after us. How could I have been so stupid not to think of using this chance to escape?
Still, his foot had to be causing considerable pain, making it impossible for him to put his full weight on it. Maybe there was still a chance.
I raised myself from the floor. “Jid, let’s get the first aid kit from downstairs and some water and towels.”
“Not so fast.” Slobodan pulled out the gun from his waistband.
“The cut is deep. I need to stop the bleeding.”
The blood was starting to drip onto the floor.
“The kid go. You stay.”
“Look, I’ve already told you we’re not going anywhere. We’d freeze to death in this storm.”
As if to emphasize the point, a particularly strong gust pushed a stream of snow through the gap in the window, covering us in a veil of white.
“The boy can’t carry everything on his own. He needs my help,” I persisted.
I could see Jid was about to protest, so, turning off my headlamp, I shoved him in front of me and ran down the hall. I held my breath and tried to make myself as small a target as possible.
“Stop!” he yelled. He fired a shot.
He missed.
We kept going. Another metre and we’d be at the stairs and rapidly descending out of his line of sight.
But I hadn’t bargained on the determination of the man.
I heard the groans and thumps but didn’t fully understand what they meant until I was suddenly wrenched backward with a gun jabbed into my neck.
“Bitch, I tell you, stop.”
“Don’t you dare hurt my auntie!” Jid shouted.
I heard what sounded like a scuffle, but with the convict’s light shining directly into my eyes, I couldn’t tell what was happening.
“You leave the boy alone. I’ll do what you want.”
He walloped me across the face with his hand, much harder than Professor had. “Bitch, you do what I say.” He slugged me again.
I reeled backward from the blows. My ears were ringing. Lights danced in front of my eyes. The entire right side of my face was filled with a burning pain, and I was plunged back to the days of my first marriage, a marriage I’d tried so hard to forget. I felt like I had a lead weight dragging me down. All the bravado was knocked out of me. It wasn’t so much the physical pain but the terrifying awareness that a man could still so easily turn me into a quivering blob of jelly, and there was nothing I could do. I’d thought I’d left this behind.
“Are you okay, Auntie?” Jid’s voice hovered over me as I realized I was lying on the floor.
“I’m fine … just do what he says.”
With my eyes still trying to focus, I sensed his nod more than I saw it. My only desire was to curl up in a ball and pretend none of this was happening. But Jid’s hand on my arm wouldn’t let me.
“I’ll help you get up,” he said.
The cold blowing through the window was penetrating my clothes. With the boy pulling on my arm, I struggled to stand but couldn’t find the energy until Slobodan jerked me to my feet.
“You gonna be good, bitch?”
I nodded numbly.
“Good. It freezing. We fix fuckin’ window, and then you fix foot.”
TWENTY-FIVE
The man wasn’t human. While he padded back along the hall, leaving a bloody trail, he didn’t emit a single groan or screw his face up in pain. He didn’t even favour the sliced foot.
When we reached the window, he pointed to the pile of glass where he’d cut his foot and snarled, “Get rid of fuckin’ glass. I cut my foot again, I hit more than face.”
With my cheek a stinging testament to the veracity of his threat, I obediently brushed the shards and splinters along the floor, using one of the broken pine branches as a broom. Jid joined me with another branch. We swept them into a nearby bedroom.
Though the thought of snatching up one of the larger splinters crossed my mind, I knew I didn’t have it in me to stab anyone, not even this monster. But I noticed a familiar glint in Jid’s eye when he slipped his hand into his pocket. It was the same reckless glint that would appear when he was weaving in and out of the other hockey players, intent on scoring a goal. But a twelve-year-old boy was no match for a man like Slobodan. Still, I didn’t tell him to remove the shard from his pocket. Instead, I decided to go with the flow, so to speak, and let the gods determine the role it would play.
I whispered, “Watch out that it doesn’t break.”
Denial started to spread across his face until he realized he’d been caught. His answer was the cocky smile he flashed when he scored.
“What you say, bitch?” Slobodan’s light blinded us.
“Just telling Jid not to hurt himself on the broken glass.”
He shone his headlamp up and down the hall, exposing the dark holes of opened doors. “You got lots of bedrooms. How many?”
“Six.”
“Many places to fuck. This the room where you get rammed?” The man shone his light across the hall and into the large master bedroom Eric and I shared.
Trying to ignore the icy pit in my stomach, I pretended I hadn’t heard. I returned to the smashed window and brushed off the snow covering it. “Jid, do you have the hammer and nails handy?”
“He’s got them.” He pointed to my bedroom doorway. I could hear sounds of movement coming from inside.
The last place I wanted to be was in a bedroom with that man. “Do you mind giving us the nails and hammer?” I cried out with some trepidation. “We want to cover the window.”
“Come get them.”
Jid noticed my hesitation. “I’ll get them.”
I shook my head. He wasn’t going in there either. “Slobodan, we’d like you to nail the board i
nto the window frame. We aren’t tall enough to reach the top of the window.”
“Great big bed. Come, we try it out.” He punctuated it with the raucous laughter that had become the embodiment of the man for me. Loud, sneering, and rude. I heard the bedsprings creak in the one spot where they were weak, a spot Eric and I carefully avoided.
Cold, gnawing fear crept over me. I couldn’t go in there. In fact, I couldn’t move, even if I wanted to. I felt Jid’s hand briefly in mine. When he let go, something remained. I could faintly feel its sharp edge through the Kleenex wrapping.
“Thanks,” I whispered, inserting the glass splinter carefully into the pocket of my fleece vest. It felt a good three or four inches long. Better than the scissors for stabbing.
With the wind from the broken window buffeting our backs, Jid and I waited for the next move.
“Slobo, get your ass out of there!” came a sudden shout from the other end of the hall, along with a beam of light. Professor walked toward us with an unwavering stride — no hint of the earlier stumbling gait. Amazingly, he was sober, stone cold sober.
The bed creaked again, followed by a thud on the floor and loud swearing. The biker limped out of my bedroom, almost colliding with Professor. “I cut fuckin’ foot.”
“I don’t care. We’ve got to get the damn window boarded up before we become blocks of ice.” He held out his hand. “Hand over the nails and hammer.”
Crossing his arms, the Serb jutted his jaw out in defiance.
Neither Jid nor I dared move.
The hand with the snakes slithering around the fingers remained open.
Not a single word was spoken between the two men.
Finally, Slobodan pulled the hammer out from his belt and swung it down toward the outstretched palm. But before it connected with flesh, Professor grasped the handle and pulled, forcing the other man to put his full weight on the injured foot.
He howled.
“Shut up and hold the plywood against the window for the lady,” Professor said with barely an inflection in his voice.
Jid and I quickly moved out of the way as Slobodan slammed its flatness against the window frame. At this point I didn’t care if he damaged the wood or gouged the plaster, as long as it stopped the wind, snow, and cold from storming in. Within minutes, Professor had the two pieces of plywood firmly nailed to the frame. I felt only a whisper of icy air along the edges. But it wouldn’t be long before the cold would start penetrating the thin wood.
“Look at the blood you’ve put on this nice antique pine floor,” Professor said. “You’ll have to clean it up.”
Bloody footprints, some wetter than others, crisscrossed the worn planks.
Slobodan’s pale eyes narrowed in hatred.
“I’ll do it,” I broke in. The last thing I wanted was a fight between these two men. Mind you, if they killed each other, so much the better. But we could also die in the process.
“I want you to apologize for treating this lady so disrespectfully.” Professor brought his hand down onto the hilt of the knife at his waistband. “If you dare touch her, I’ll kill you.”
The Serb narrowed his eyes further and planted his feet as if preparing for action. He rested his hand on the grip of his gun. I felt as if we’d been plunged into a B-movie Western. Normally a bullet fired from a gun should be faster than a flying knife, but in the hands of Professor I suspected it would be the opposite.
I backed up against the boarded window, pulling Jid with me.
Just when I thought it was going to end disastrously, the biker grunted and then slowly lifted both hands away from his body. “No problem.” But the smile on his lips didn’t reach his eyes.
I then noticed a brown leather sheath attached to his belt. Sticking out of it was the bone hilt of the hunting knife from the night table. I waited to see if Professor would do anything about it, but he merely pointed at the man’s bloody sock and said, “Get that cleaned up.”
TWENTY-SIX
I couldn’t make sense of the relationship between these two men. They could hardly be called friends — more like enemies, and yet they had escaped together. They seemed to have little in common other than being convicts. One was a full patch member of a notorious biker gang. The other had supposedly taught at university. I doubted their paths would’ve crossed before their incarceration.
But if they weren’t friends, why did they escape together? Or did Professor and Larry just happen to be in the van when the Serbian’s friends arrived to free him? If so, it was more likely the three of them would’ve gone their separate ways. Instead they came here, together.
That was the other unanswerable question. Why Three Deer Point?
Professor obviously had some sort of hold over the Serbian; otherwise the biker wouldn’t have given in. It made more sense for the relationship to be the other way around. After all, the Serbian was the biker, the tough guy, the bully who was used to getting his own way.
Whatever the source of his power, I was very thankful Professor could keep him in check. Maybe I should become the stalker and go wherever he went just to avoid being alone with the biker.
Slobodan sat on the edge of my bed, smirking while I removed his bloody sock. Afraid of revealing how effective his intimidation tactics were, I steadied my shaking hands as best I could as I worked on his wound. I was terrified that if he knew how much he frightened me, he would come after me again when Professor wasn’t around. Fortunately, for the moment the tattooed man was standing directly behind me.
Though deep, the cut appeared clean, with no remaining silvers of glass and little sign of bleeding. After disinfecting it with the ointment Jid retrieved from downstairs, I covered it with a large Band-Aid and several layers of gauze in case it bled again when he put his weight on it.
“You’ll need a clean sock,” I said. “Jid, could you get one of Eric’s from the drawer?”
“Viper, it very nice when woman caress your foot, especially when you sit on her bed?” He snickered. “But maybe you like more better man do it, ne?” He let out another burst of laughter.
Disgusted by his behaviour, I snatched the sock from Jid’s hand and threw it at the man. “Put this on yourself.”
He roared. “I love woman with balls.”
“Come on, Jid, let’s go downstairs.” The faster I got away from the man, the better.
I expected to be stopped, or at the very least followed, the way I’d been stalked before. But Professor remained in the room. I heard voices, along with shouting, as we headed down the stairs. Maybe they would kill each other this time.
“What are we going to do?” Jid asked.
“I don’t know.” I should’ve been more optimistic, but I no longer had the energy to pretend.
“Guess I’m going to miss my game, eh?” He sighed.
Game? What game? “You mean tomorrow night’s hockey game.”
“Yeah, Coach said I did so well in the last couple of games, he was gonna put me on the first line with Randy and Steve. I’d sure hate to miss it.”
Nothing like a child to put priorities where they should be. I squeezed his arm. “We’ll see what we can do to make it happen.”
“We gonna go now?”
Dumb me. I should’ve been thinking about making a dash for it, but I hadn’t. And now that my mind was finally focusing on escaping, it was too late. Footsteps thudded down the stairs.
“You got soap to clean floor?” Slobodan growled as he limped up to me. I relaxed at the sight of Professor’s bullet head looming behind him.
“I’ll do it.” I didn’t want him ruining the floor with too much water, as if it really mattered. The snow and broken glass had already done more than enough damage.
“Good. You my kind of woman,” the Serb replied. “Get me more fancy Scotch,” he yelled as I headed to the kitchen. “Viper want more too.”
“Don’t get any more, Red,” Professor called out.
“What the fuck?” Slobodan rasped. “I need drink.”<
br />
“You’ve had enough, as have I. We need to keep our heads clear.”
So much for drinking until they passed out.
Shoni lay asleep, curled up in her blanket at the front of her crate. In the back corner were a couple of tiny brown sausages and a small puddle. Poor baby.
She yawned and stretched and wagged her tail and then gave Jid several sloppy licks when he opened the door. Picking her up, he nuzzled his face in her soft fur. “How ya doing, little one?” he whispered. “You’ve been a bad pup.” He kissed her on the end of her nose. Turning to me, he said, “I think I’d better put her out.”
“Good idea,” Professor said, startling me. I hadn’t heard him slip into the kitchen. “I’ll do it.” He pulled the puppy from Jid’s arms. “Come to papa.”
I ached for Jid as he helplessly watched the man take the ball of fluff into the pantry and out the back door.
“I guess I’d better clean the cage,” he said.
“Don’t worry.” I hugged him. “He likes dogs too much to hurt her. You’ll have plenty of time to play with her after they leave.”
“When’s that gonna be?”
“In time for your hockey game.” I planted the broadest smile I could muster on my face. I was back to pretending.
TWENTY-SEVEN
While the cursing biker hobbled back upstairs with the mop and pail, I retreated to the den, leaving Jid alone with the tattooed man in the kitchen. Dead tired and emotionally exhausted, I wanted a few minutes of solitude in which I didn’t have to try to pretend I wasn’t scared for Jid’s sake.
After the way Professor had intervened with the Serbian on my behalf, I was less worried about leaving the boy alone with him. I could even hear the boy’s laughter. Still, if he didn’t join me within ten or so minutes, I would retrieve him, particularly after the biker returned to the main floor.
I was amazed to see from the mantel clock that it was barely nine. The four and a half hours since these guys had invaded my home felt more like four and a half days. With close to twelve hours before daylight, it was going to be one very long and nerve-wracking night.
A Cold White Fear Page 10