by Huss, JA
So where the fuck am I?
Albatrosses don’t live over the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a stupid, pointless fact to know, I get that. But it’s true. They live far, far down in the southern hemisphere or far, far up in the northern one. They do not live in the tropics.
And I cannot be that far away.
I just can’t.
It doesn’t fit.
It’s hot, and windy, and everything feels tropical. Yesterday I was somewhere off the coast of French Guiana. The ship was heading towards the Gulf of Mexico. And I don’t know how I got here, but it was either a helicopter or a boat, which logically means that I cannot be that far from yesterday’s position.
These birds are out of place. Not me.
I press my lips together and nod. I’m going with this last part. Because if I find out I’m stuck on an abandoned topside somewhere down near Antarctica, I might not recover from that revelation.
I snort again. Because either way, I’m probably going to die here. I’m clearly alone with no food, or water, or shelter—unless I want to share that tiny building with the overgrown fluffy killer in that nest.
Get it together, Anya. You are already losing your mind and you’ve only been awake for three minutes.
I rally, scan the area, find a stairwell, and head that direction. The birds—both the giants and the gulls—follow in the air, occasionally swooping down at me so I don’t forget that I’m an unwanted interloper.
The stairwell is partially protected by a framework of metal that encloses the ten steps down to the landing where I get my first look at the level below. I pick out a sound of clicking at the far end of the platform, which is out of sight.
Click, click, click. It’s a constant rhythm.
But really, it’s not click, it’s… snick.
Snick, snick, snick.
And for some reason, it’s a familiar sound. Something I recognize. And this gives me hope. My feet skip down the stairs in a hurry, and I slip because they are slick with algae. I slide downward, my back hitting the sharp edge of the metal steps, and I grab at the handrail before I fall too far.
I let out a breath as I come to a halt. That’s gonna bruise.
But then my mind is back on the snicking noise. I don’t stand back up. I simply scoot down the steps until the far end of the platform comes into view.
And there it is. The noise. It’s exactly what it sounded like.
A man jumping rope.
And if I were a person who laughed out loud, I would do that now.
It is Sick Heart. Jumping rope.
But Cort is not just jumping rope. He’s doing little fighter tricks with that thing. I know, Pavo does this shit too—did, I remind myself, because he’s dead now. I stabbed him in the gut and Cort van Breda slit his throat and sliced his belly open to steal his heart last night in the fight.
This memory makes my stomach roil. Then I gag. And if there was anything in there, I would hurl. But luckily, it’s empty.
I take a deep breath and forget Pavo’s death. Instead, I think about all the ways I’ve seen him jump rope over the years. It was a major part of his training. He was very good at it and so is the Sick Heart.
He’s turning in a circle.
One foot, skip. Two foot, skip.
One foot, two foot, skip, skip—he stops.
Because he sees me.
And then he starts again.
Skip, skip, skip.
Snick, snick, snick as the plastic jump rope clips the concrete with each revolution.
No hello. Of course there is no hello. Because we don’t talk.
And that right there, that’s some advanced-level irony.
He’s wearing the same shorts as he was last night.
Was it last night? I have no idea. I drank way too much Lectra.
I kinda-sorta remember having sex with Cort and his two friends, but that’s seriously only kinda-sorta.
He’s also still covered in blood. Pavo’s blood. His blood. Probably even my blood. And because his body is sweaty, the dried flaky bits are actually becoming liquid again.
The whole thing is horrifying.
But then I look down at myself and realize I’m also playing a major role in this horror show. My white dress and my body are both also covered in blood. When I reach up to my lip, there is a thick, crusty scab over the place where Pavo split it open. And my tongue feels so thick inside my mouth, I have trouble working my jaw.
Pavo.
I sneer his name inside my mind.
He punched me in the face. That asshole was going to kill me. And Lazar was going to let him.
The snicking stops and I realize I’m still looking down at my disgusting blood-covered body. So I look up and find Cort is signing something at me.
Oh, Sick Heart. No, no, no. You can just go fuck right off with that shit, OK?
I don’t speak sign.
I don’t speak anything.
And I am certainly not going to suddenly give up on a silence I have been perfecting for over a decade to communicate with the likes of you.
Except I am communicating with him, because I say all those things with my eyes and Cort van Breda speaks eyes.
Because he laughs.
And then he points to something out of my line of sight and his skipping resumes. He turns in his little circle. Snick, snick, snick. Keeping his back to me.
I stay on the stairs. Just sit there as the ocean below me crashes against the steel pillars below, sending up a salty mist that irritates the wounds on my body, making them sting.
But he doesn’t ever look at me again. Just… jumps his rope.
Eventually, I get up and walk—carefully, very, very carefully so as not to slip again—down the remaining steps and enter the level.
This is a gym. That is very clear. There are containers lining the perimeter. Multi-colored, but mostly an ugly red, or green, or simply rust. The beams above have lots of hooks where things might hang at some point. But only one heavy bag hangs now. And there are no mats. But it is a gym.
I look towards the ocean, wondering if there are people on the lower level, but I don’t need to go explore it to know that there aren’t. I can feel the emptiness. Emptiness and I are old friends. Even suffocating in a crowd of thousands, emptiness and I would recognize each other immediately.
The skipping stops and when I look over at Cort, he is pointing again.
I am now in a position to see what he is pointing at. It’s a line of chalkboards affixed to a wall to my left. Not a wall of containers, but a real, cinderblock wall. There is a door in the middle and when I study the space, I realize it’s a building. And inside there might just be promising things. Living quarters, toilets, and showers. A kitchen. There must be food here. There must be water.
My stomach growls at the mere thought of eating and I suddenly wonder—in a very serious fashion—how long I was out. Because I am starving, and parched, and my muscles are weak and achy. Very, very achy.
Cort walks past me and over to the line of chalkboards. He stops in front of the one with the name ANYA printed in neat, white chalk capital letters at the top.
He points at my name. Then he points at what’s written underneath.
Jump rope. It’s a command.
I say the words over and over in my head for at least a thousand years before I realize he actually expects me to jump some fucking rope.
I shake my head before I can stop it. And then I am fuming. I am pissed. I am nothing but anger.
Because for fifteen years I have perfected the art of non-communication. I have withstood beatings over this choice to not speak.
They have spit on me.
They have slapped me.
They have burned me.
They have raped me.
I have bled buckets of blood and endured volumes of hate and insults for my choice.
And after less than thirty minutes of being stuck with my new owner—and yes, that’s what he is. A fucking slaveowner. Let�
��s not mince words here—I have just shaken my head no.
He laughs. Out loud. The way I do not.
And he reminds me with that laugh that I am his slave, and he is my owner, and if he tells me to jump rope in the middle of the ocean while my body is still caked in yesterday’s blood, and my stomach is rumbling with the pangs of hunger, and my throat is dry with the lack of water, then I will goddamned jump that fucking rope.
And not only that, I will like it.
He picks the extra jump rope up off the ground and holds it out.
I walk over to him, snatch it from his hand, and proceed to jump rope.
I don’t even remember the last time I jumped rope. I might, in fact, have never jumped rope. It’s probable that at some point, once, when I was very small, I did this. But it’s equally probable that I did not. I just think I did because that’s the kind of thing a normal little girl would do, and I have always wanted to be just a normal little girl, and I never was.
So my display, especially next to his, is pathetic and sad.
He one-foot, two-foots his way around his circle again. I am doing some weird double-bounce thing with my feet that I can’t quite explain.
Every time his circle comes back around to me, he’s laughing with his eyes. And he lets this go on for a good long while.
And even though jumping rope is something children do, it’s no joke in the cardio department. I am huffing, and wheezing, and barely able to breathe by the time he stops his stupid rhythmic snicking, walks over to me, takes the rope from my hands, drops it on the ground, and points to my eyes. Watch, that point says.
Then he does a slower version of his snicking. He snick. Snick. Snicks. Which makes absolutely no difference to me at all.
He stops again, doubles his rope up, holds it in one hand like a whip, and then begins twirling it. Not jumping, just twirling it. Then he hops. He points to his feet. And I notice he’s hopping every time the rope says snick.
He stops, picks up my rope, doubles it up, and hands it to me. He signs something that I assume says, Your turn.
I hesitate. Because… what the actual fuck, ya know? What is the point of this life?
It’s a real question. What is the fucking point if I am to be stuck on an abandoned oil rig with a killer who wants to teach me how to jump rope?
He begins twirling his whip again, hopping at just the right moment, pointing at me to follow along.
I swing the rope, listening for the snick, and then hop. Not at the right moment, but I don’t care. This is me doing what he says as far as I’m concerned.
His rope is back in both hands now, and he skips while I hop alongside my whip.
We do this for a little while and I’m huffing pretty good. I’m so out of breath, a sharp pain shoots up my side. This makes me remember something and I stop to just stare at him.
His ribs. Jesus Christ. Pavo broke his ribs. That whole scene with the nurses in the clinic trying to get a brace on Cort. His resistance.
He’s jumping rope with broken ribs.
He stops and signs something at me, which I ignore, but then, even though I don’t want to, I need to. I point at his ribs. At the new tattoo there. A skull, of course. A wraith-like skull that represents the death of Pavo Vervonal.
Cort looks down at his body, confused, then back up at me, smiling. And he keeps jumping.
So I hop. Out of breath and wheezing. Not even jumping rope. It’s so fucking sad, my hop. But I do it anyway. Because that’s the point. Isn’t it? The point is pushing through the pain. The point is to keep going because they want you to quit.
And the secret… the secret is to keep one thing for yourself and let them steal the rest.
Cort van Breda must have decided a long time ago that he will keep his pain.
They can’t have his pain.
And they can’t have my words, either.
That’s why he skips.
And that’s why I don’t talk.
It’s impossible to tell time on the platform. There are no clocks, of course. But also, we’re on a middle level and there is no real way to see the sun.
I do my pathetic hop for what seems like several more eternities, but is more likely twenty minutes. And Cort shows off with the fanciest jump-roping I could never imagine. He skips, he jumps, he hops, he kicks, he double-skips, he double-jumps, he double-hops—but not the way I did—he double-kicks. He crosses his arms in a figure eight, he double-crosses his arms in a figure eight. He somehow travels the length of the fucking platform doing all these things, like he’s dancing with that rope.
And he is.
Cort van Breda—Sick Heart himself—is having a love affair with his jump rope right in front of my face and he has absolutely no shame.
He’s also not even out of breath.
He is dancing back my way when he suddenly stops and points at me. I’m still twirling my rope like a whip off to the side and halfheartedly hopping the way he showed me. But mostly I’ve been watching him.
He walks over to me. His body is glistening with a mixture of sweat and dried blood and he smells like… filth. Like dead filth.
I would take offense to that smell, but I’m pretty sure some of it is actually me.
He takes both handles of the jump rope of out my hand, then holds each one in a single hand, offering the rope back to me.
Right. I guess I knew I would have to jump rope for real at some point.
I take the rope and skip. And to my surprise, I don’t double-hop. I don’t even trip. I go six or seven whole revolutions before I mess up and have to start over.
Cort beams a smile at me. Like he’s proud. Like I am a small, slow child who just needed a little extra practice and encouragement.
He signs something at me. I’m internally annoyed and start jumping again. But he puts his hand out, catching my rope, and stops me.
His steel-gray eyes look straight into mine. Then he takes my hand, pulls the jump rope handle out of it, and positions my fingers into a series of signs. And it’s not like he’s trying to teach me anything. Because he goes way too fast. He’s just making a point, I think.
I don’t answer or acknowledge him in any way. But again, I don’t think he’s waiting for it. He hands me back the rope, and then turns his back and walks away.
I watch for a moment. Well, no. I’m practically studying his back. Because he doesn’t walk far, just over to the wall where he drops his rope on the ground and then reaches his arms up over his head, like he’s stretching.
Hundreds of muscles pop out of his back. He is so well-defined, he looks like an ancient stained-marble statue of Adonis, but with a much finer physique. His back piece tattoo is large and intricate, a design that must have taken several years of fights to complete because even from here I can count a dozen skulls.
My eyes drift down to his ribs and I study his newest addition. It’s a cross between a skeleton and a wraith. It’s Pavo, I realize. In death. He won’t be going to some better place. If such a place exists. No. Pavo Vervonal is going to Hell. And if you are given some kind of incorporeal body to live in for eternity, Pavo will be a skeleton wraith.
So it’s perfect.
Then I remember that I got a tattoo last night as well. I look down at my baby toe and the experience washes over me. Like someone has suddenly pulled back the Lectra amnesia and in an instant, everything is clear again.
I bend down to touch it. To trace the fine, tiny lines of the star. It’s a messy star. The kind of star little kids draw. The kind of symbol that says, Good job.
And, weirdly, it matches one he has on his lower stomach. In fact, he’s got several stars like this on his body. They are filler, taking up space between his skulls and skeletons. Like the way most tattoo enthusiasts use smoke, or flames, or tribal designs.
And then, because I know Cort can’t see my face, I smile.
It is the first real smile since… well. I have to pause at that. Because I smiled yesterday too. That moment when Cort t
ook the Bokori bottle of Lectra from the bar.
Hmm. Two smiles in two days. And both of them are because of Cort van Breda’s actions.
His feet are suddenly in my field of vision and when I look up I realize I’m in a very submissive position.
I immediately stand back up. But I don’t look him in the eyes.
He bends down and studies my toe. Then he taps my ankle. I realize too late that it’s a signal to lift up my foot. But he’s already got it off the ground and I’m stumbling backwards. One strong hand grabs my wrist, and I am suddenly balanced again.
His fingers trace the star on my toe as well. And then he is still.
It’s a weird stillness. Because he is just staring down at my foot and all I can see is the top of his head and the points of his knees. His thumb caresses my toe and the whole thing is suddenly weird.
What is he doing? Why is he just staring at my toe?
His shoulders curve in and he sighs. Then he looks up at me. It’s a startling look. A vulnerable look. He signs something at me, but in the same moment, he is frowning.
My expression is flat because I’ve been doing this a long time and that’s just instinct. But if he didn’t look away, if he didn’t let go of my foot, stand up, turn his back, and walk off—then… then I would’ve responded.
Because the way he looked at me? That look was something worthy of a response.
But just as quickly as it came, the moment disappears. It is utterly erased.
He makes me jump rope.
I have no concept of time. But while I’m jumping, he is working the heavy bag hanging from a steel beam. It’s the only bag on the whole platform even though there are hooks for dozens and dozens of bags on the ceiling.
I get better at skipping as I watch him. My feet seem to grasp the new movements. And even though I can’t go more than one or two dozen revolutions without messing up, that’s actually a good thing, because I need recovery time. I haven’t exerted myself so much since… well. Never.
Cort does punches. Punch, after punch, after punch. Fast ones, slow ones, combinations. What have you. I’m no punch expert. But it feels like he works through a sequence. Some predetermined course of practice that he’s been doing his whole life. And the entire time he is distracted. At least, that’s how he comes off to me. Thinking about other things. Like this is just mindless busy work to him.