Savage Hearts

by Lili Valente

“Both. I’m a generous employer.”

  “Very generous,” she says, fingers trailing back and forth across my chest, making me wish I’d taken my tee shirt off so I could feel her touch on my bare skin. “I’m sure my stepmom would help me find a job on Maui, but I don’t know if I’m ready to go back there. I don’t know what I’m going to say to them after disappearing for so long.”

  My smile fades. “I think you were right before. Let’s cross those bridges when we come to them. No point in borrowing worries from the future when there are plenty here to go around.”

  “Are you worried?” she asks, her palm coming to rest above my heart, which beats slow and steady.

  “No. Just…focused. The future isn’t pushing on me the way it does sometimes. I guess it feels like it will take care of itself.”

  “Or it’s already taken care of itself,” she says. “You know Einstein said the separation between the past, present, and future is an illusion. Although a very convincing one.”

  I think on that for a moment, staring up at the night sky, seeing the light that left those stars thousands of years ago. Some of the lights twinkling in the darkness, seeming so set in their place in the sky, might be dead already. I’m not seeing what is but what was, a long, long time ago. It’s all a matter of perception.

  So maybe the future is the same way.

  Maybe it’s already there, written out on a page I can’t see from where I am now. Or maybe it’s waiting on what I’ll do next, the letters trembling as they prepare for the present to mold the story they will tell.

  “So if the separation is an illusion and they’re all existing at once,” I ask, brow furrowing. “Does that mean that the past could be as changeable as the future?”

  “That’s a nice idea,” she says, her fingers resuming their hypnotic brush back and forth across my chest. “Or a scary one, I guess. Depending on how you look at it. What if I changed the past and never met you?”

  The possibility bounces off of my mind without making an impression. Maybe before I spotted Sam in the airport, it would have scared me, but now I know better than to think anything can keep us apart. “Would never happen. I’ve seen my past, present, and future. You’re in all of them. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that.”

  She leans in, kissing my cheek. “Romantic.”

  “Guilty.” I turn, finding her lips in the dark and giving her a proper kiss, the kind of kiss a woman deserves on a night like tonight.

  My hand drifts from her waist to her breast, my thumb brushing over her nipple through the fabric of her sports bra.

  “We shouldn’t,” she whispers even as she shifts, granting me better access.

  “We should,” I say. “We will.”

  It isn’t easy getting out of our clothes with the harnesses still in place, but we manage, hands quiet and clever because they know our future holds pleasure. Not being able to see her makes her skin feel even softer, making me hyper-aware of each dip and hollow, each lovely curve and irresistible inch of slick, wet flesh.

  So sweet. She is so sweet.

  I bury my tongue inside her and taste eternity. Time stands still and there is only this, only us. Only her fingers tangled in my hair and her thighs trembling on either side of my face and her breath whispering in the dark. It comes faster, deeper, and then she comes with a tiny whimper, careful not to make a sound the others can hear. But I know she’s tumbling over, I can taste it in the clean, salty rush of wetness on my tongue, feel it in the way her pussy plumps beneath my mouth, like fruit, full and heavy, ready to fall from the tree.

  I move over her, kissing her with the taste of her still in my mouth, wanting her to know how sweet she is. Our tongues dance as her legs wrap around my waist, drawing me in to her.

  This time, there is no fumbling in the dark. My body knows where to go. It has always known because I was born to make love to this woman.

  I sink into her with one long stroke, her body pulsing around my cock as I bury myself inside her heat, her love. I hold her closer and rock into her, every thrust a promise that this is unshakable, this is what she can count on when everything else is chaos and insanity.

  This is past, present, and future. This is truth. This is everything.

  The climb is slow, steady, spiraling higher and higher until the air feels too thin and there’s nothing to breathe but Sam. But she is enough, more than enough. We keep climbing, clinging to each other, grinding closer, deeper, until the pleasure is painful and my entire body screams with the need for release.

  And then Sam lifts into me, her orgasm demanding my own, and takes the pain away and there is only pleasure so pure and perfect there is no room for anything else.

  I come without a sound, not wanting to share this with anyone who might still be awake and listening.

  This is only for us, for me and Sam.

  “Let’s get married,” I whisper as we lie fused together, catching our breath.

  “I thought you didn’t want to think about the future.” She wraps her legs around my waist, holding me inside of her.

  “That’s not the future,” I say. “That’s here and now. You’re mine and I’m yours. We just need to make it official.”

  “I am yours,” she says with a happy sigh. “That was…so perfect. I love making love to you. I want to do it every day for the rest of my life.” She sighs again. “Except on the first day of my period, when I’m not in the mood.”

  I laugh, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Is that a yes?”

  “Yes.” She hugs me closer. “But I don’t want a big deal. I just want it to be you and me in some place pretty. Maybe on a portaledge on a cliff somewhere and then the person who marries us can climb back down and we’ll spend the night just like this.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  We talk a little longer, daydreaming out loud the way we used to when we were younger, imagining all the things we’d do when we were grown up and could finally be together all the time. I never imagined our lives would end up the way they have, but I can’t regret any of it right now, with Sam in my arms and her “yes” still ringing in my ears.

  I don’t remember falling asleep, but when I wake up the stars are fading from the sky and the pale pink dawn is creeping up from the other side of the world.

  I lie watching the light consume the last of the night sky, holding Sam in my arms, hoping that, by this time tomorrow, all the darkness will be gone.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sam

  “There is strong shadow

  where there is much light.”

  -Goethe

  * * *

  When you’ve been waiting on something for a long, long time, and then the moment you’ve been anticipating is suddenly at hand, it can be hard to know what to feel. It’s like the anticipation of the event has become its own separate entity, a thing that’s hard to let go of.

  I have a hard time letting go.

  I wake up in a daze and stay there as we pack up camp and make our way back down the cliff.

  Today is the day. Today is the day that I will have my revenge.

  Today is the day that two men will suffer and one man will die and then I will get on a plane and fly away with nothing to anticipate but how nice it will be to live in a world without Todd Winslow in it.

  All the way through the jungle, my thoughts are a record stuck in a single groove, repeating the same things over and over again. But it isn’t until Danny and I have hugged everyone goodbye and are back in the cabin, packing up our things, that reality finally settles in.

  The fear hits a moment later.

  A moment after that, I’m on the floor with my head between my legs, hyperventilating, trying my best not to pass out.

  “It’s okay.” Danny rubs my back in soothing circles. “It hit me about an hour ago. It will pass. Just give it a second. Think about right now and nothing else and you’ll be okay.”

  I bring my thoughts to this moment, to the worn wooden floor b
eneath my feet and the lizard who slithered under the bed when I plunked down a little too close to him. I think about drawing breath into my body and letting it out and the faint smell of wood smoke and mildew that lingers in the cabin. I think about the crick in my neck from sleeping on the tiny camping pillow and the more pleasant ache between my legs from making love.

  After a few more breaths, I lift my head and look at my half-filled backpack.

  I need to finish packing. That’s what I’m doing right now. I’m packing. I’m not drugging anyone or dumping them in a pit in the middle of the jungle. I’m not watching someone convulse as they die from a lethal dose of arsenic.

  If I keep imagining what’s going to happen, I’m going to live through it a hundred times before nightfall and I won’t have any energy left for the actual event. When the time comes, I have to be strong, solid, and focused, not drained and freaking out. I’ve spent a year training my body to face the men who hurt me, but only now do I realize I should have been training my mind as well. I’m beginning to think that in order for a murder to go off without a hitch, the mind is the most important muscle involved.

  Luckily, mine has Danny to help it stay on task.

  After I’m finished packing, he hands me a dust rag and a broom and leaves me to start cleaning up the cabin while he runs out to the mess hall. By the time I’m finished dusting and sweeping, he’s back with a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a few oranges he’s liberated from the kitchen and puts me to work making sack lunches for our dinner while he cleans the bathroom.

  Because one shouldn’t commit murder or kidnapping on an empty stomach.

  The thought inspires a sharp, hysterical burst of laughter, but luckily Danny is flushing the toilet and doesn’t hear me.

  That’s good. I don’t want him to be worried about me. I’m ready for this and as long as I keep busy I’m not going to have a breakdown.

  We leave the commune just after three o’clock, allegedly on our way to a romantic dinner in the next town over. The dinner is our excuse for begging off from a night on the town with Paola and the rest of the guides to celebrate our last night in Costa Rica.

  As Danny drives, I let myself imagine what it would be like to be the Sam they think I am, a woman without a care in the world but what exotic location she and her boyfriend are on their way to next. I imagine that Sam, drinking beers by the beach with her new friends and then getting talked into dancing at the tiny club in town, wiggling to perky techno music that never seems to make it onto the airwaves in the states.

  It’s so real I can almost see it.

  So real that I think maybe that Sam does exist somewhere, in a parallel universe where I wasn’t shattered and put back together with sharper edges than I had before.

  But her world isn’t my world, and by the time we reach the rental house and park the car in the garage, I’m coming fully online for the first time all day. As Danny and I pull on our gloves—we’re not going to leave any prints behind—and do a quick check of the house and the surrounding areas, ensuring the house across the street is still unoccupied and no one will be watching our guests pull in later tonight, my blood rushes faster and my senses sharpen. I feel like I used to right before a volleyball game in high school, after our coach had delivered the pep talk and we were just waiting to run out onto the court.

  Everything is ready, now it’s just a matter of sticking to the game plan and following through.

  “I’m going to tell Rosa to text me if she has any trouble getting J.D. and Jeremy out of the hotel,” Danny says after we’ve each forced down half a sandwich and some water. “If I don’t hear from her within ten minutes of dropping her off, I’ll be on my way back here. I’ll text you before I head out.”

  I force myself to exhale slowly. “I’ll be ready. Be careful.”

  “I will.” He watches me for a beat, before he adds, “This is it. Last chance to bow out. I can handle it alone if you need me to.”

  I shake my head. “No. I’m nervous, but I want to be a part of it. I need to be a part of it.”

  “Okay.” He squeezes my hand. “It’s almost over. Just keep remembering that. It’s almost behind us.”

  “Love you.” I lean in for a kiss, which he returns, firmly, but sweetly, and then he’s gone.

  After he leaves, I change into my blacks in the garage and pull my hair back into a bun I’ll tuck under my sock mask when the time comes. I scan the concrete for hairs and tuck the few I find into the pocket of my black jeans, determined not to leave any DNA evidence behind.

  Last, I check the lock on the front door to make sure it’s open, turn the radio on in the living room so it sounds like there’s a party in the house, and get the ketamine injections ready to go.

  It seems like only a few minutes have passed when Danny texts me that operation Rosa was a success and he’s on his way back.

  All day long, time has been dragging, but now everything speeds up until it feels like the future is a bullet train bearing down on me and there’s no time to get off the tracks. But I don’t want to jump to safety. I’m going to stand and face the future.

  Because the past demands it.

  Because on New Year’s Eve a year and a half ago, four boys set this series of events in motion. They created the monster I am now, and tonight, they are going to reap what they have sown.

  Ten minutes later, I hear the car pull into the garage and the garage door humming closed. A moment later, Danny hurries into the foyer, an aluminum baseball bat in one hand and our sock masks in the other. “They’re not far behind me. We should get ready. Remember, most important thing is that we get the door closed behind them before we make a move.”

  I nod. “I’ll take care of Rosa and then come help you if you need it.”

  “All right,” he says, pulling the sock mask on, making his lips look fuller and pinker in contrast with the rough fabric covering the rest of his face. “But I think I’ll be okay. They should be too stunned to fight back while I’m giving the injection. I just have to be sure not to hit them too hard.”

  I slip the mask over my face and tuck my hair underneath. When I open my eyes again, I’m seeing Danny through frames of black cotton and the reality of the moment hits hard enough to make me flinch.

  It’s here. We’re ready and there is no turning back.

  “See you on the other side,” he says softly.

  “On the other side.”

  He reaches out a hand and I take it, squeezing his fingers between mine, drawing strength from his touch, his presence. Tonight, I am not alone. Tonight I have the upper hand and J.D. and Jeremy are going to learn what it feels like to be powerless and terrified.

  Outside, the sound of a car pulling into the driveway rumbles through the night air before it falls silent. A car door slams and a moment later, I hear Rosa’s laugh and her lightly accented voice telling the men that the rest of the party is inside. My hand slips from Danny’s as I move back into the shadows behind the door and he takes his place around the corner, hidden from view in the hall leading into the kitchen.

  Any second, the men I came here to punish will be walking through the door.

  The knowledge fills my mouth with a bitter, acrid taste. My heart races and my nerve endings feel like they’re catching fire, but at the center of the storm, there is a calm place that fear and panic can’t touch. And from that calm place I reach into my own mind, doing what I have to do.

  I take a deep breath and let go, pulling back the calloused skin that protected me for so many months, flinging open mental doors I’ve learned to keep locked tight. These are the rooms where the horror lives, where there is nothing but blood and pain and the sounds of my own screams. But tonight, these memories won’t bring me nightmares or leave me sweating and shaking in my bed, reliving every helpless moment until I don’t know if I’ll live to see morning.

  Tonight, they will bring me strength.

  As the doorknob begins to turn, time slows to a crawl and
I go back.

  Back to the pool table’s rough felt beneath my cheek, back to the smell of sour beer and whiskey breath and the sweat of unfamiliar male bodies dripping onto my face. I go back to J.D.’s hands shoving me down onto the table and ripping my jeans down my legs while I kicked and screamed and Todd and Jeremy egged him on.

  He was the first and I was still fighting hard. J.D. isn’t much taller than I am or much bigger. There was a chance I could have fought him off if Jeremy hadn’t crawled up on the table and grabbed my wrists, pinning them to the felt as he trapped my head between his thighs and squeezed, holding me in a vice grip between his legs as J.D. forced himself inside me, tearing me apart.

  I had never been with anyone but Danny, had never known any pain associated with sex except that slight sting and ache the night Danny and I were each other’s first. He had always been careful with me, always taken the time to be sure I was ready.

  J.D. didn’t take time; he took my dignity.

  He took something that should only ever be about pleasure and gave me pain and degradation. He showed me that I was nothing to him. I was not human or even animal. I was an object unworthy of kindness or compassion. I was something to be used to make him feel powerful and then passed around to his friends.

  Now, he will pay.

  Now, he and Jeremy will learn what it feels like to be nothing.

  I watch Rosa swing inside, wearing a tiny red dress and stiletto heels, in slow motion. My blood is rushing so loud in my ears I can’t make sense of what she’s saying to J.D. and Jeremy or what they say in return. I don’t feel like myself anymore. I am nothing but rage so huge that it feels like my soul is expanding past the confines of my body until it fills the room, shatters the windows, explodes into the night sky leaving a trail of fire behind.

  And then Jeremy and J.D. come through the door and everything happens at once.

  Danny comes out swinging and Jeremy falls almost immediately, the thunk of the bat connecting with his skull followed closely by the sound of his body crumpling to the floor. J.D. turns to run, but I’ve already kicked the door closed. In my peripheral vision, I see Danny’s bat swinging through the air as I reach for Rosa. She’s unsteady in her heels and falls into me as I wrap my arm around her neck and squeeze, applying pressure to her carotid arteries.