Savage Hearts

by Lili Valente

  I’ve never used full force before—sparring on the mats at the gym we were taught to hold back to keep from knocking our partner unconscious—and I’m shocked at how quickly she goes limp in my arms.

  It takes maybe seven, eight seconds at most and then I’m guiding her carefully to the floor. I take a moment to look up and see that J.D. and Jeremy are flat on their backs and Danny is already jabbing a needle into Jeremy’s thigh, before turning back to Rosa. I inject her with a much smaller dose of ketamine as gently as I can, not wanting to cause her any more pain, even if she is unconscious, and then sit back on my heels. Danny finishes delivering J.D.’s injection and looks up, meeting my gaze across the bodies littering the floor.

  We’re both still for a moment, catching our breath, and then Danny reaches down, grabs the car keys from where they’ve fallen, and tosses them my way.

  I catch them with a steady hand.

  “I’ll get these two into the trunk,” he says. “You want to pull their car out of the driveway so I can get out?”

  I nod, loving him even more for knowing I need to keep this all business. There’s no time for a post-mortem about the events of tonight until after it’s all over.

  And maybe not even then.

  Maybe this is one of those things that we’ll put to bed and never speak of again, like the time I kissed another boy at a graduation party, or last summer when Danny got drunk and said hurtful things that could ruin us if we gave those memories too much air and sunlight.

  Some things are meant to be locked away in the dark and starved of attention until they all but disappear.

  But before we can lock them away, we have to see this through.

  I stand. “I’ll get Rosa taken care of and meet you at the site.”

  “All right,” he says. “Do you need me to come back in and help you get her into the trunk?”

  “Nope,” I say. “She’s light and it’s better for you to go. We don’t want those two waking up before you get out of town. I’ll text you after I’ve dropped her off. If you don’t hear from me in thirty minutes, start without me.”

  “I’m not starting without you,” he says, kneeling and picking up J.D. with a soft grunt. “If there are people outside her apartment, leave her on the street somewhere and call 911 to let the cops know where she is. The emergency number is the same here as it is in the states.”

  “I’m not going to leave her unconscious on the street,” I say, knowing what can happen to women who are left alone and defenseless even for a few minutes. “I’ll get her inside her building, and into her apartment if I can figure out which is hers, and I’ll get to you as fast as I can.”

  With a resigned sigh, Danny carries J.D. into the garage. I pull their rental car out to the street and head back inside. While Danny loads Jeremy into the trunk beside J.D., I hustle into the living room and turn off the music before grabbing the bleach spray we bought and mopping up the blood smeared across the floor near Jeremy’s head. J.D. and Rosa didn’t make a mess so all that’s left to do is lock up and get Rosa loaded into the trunk.

  As I walk back to the curb to fetch the car, Danny is already backing down the drive. He pulls out into the street and shifts gears, heading off into the night without any parting words out his open window.

  I know he thinks I’m taking an unnecessary risk with Rosa, but I have to make sure she’s safe.

  My revenge will not claim any innocent lives. And Rosa is innocent, no matter what kind of life she’s chosen to lead. No woman, virgin or whore or anything in between, deserves to have her autonomy taken away. Our bodies belong to us and they are all equally valuable and sacred. I’ve used Rosa, but I won’t abuse her, or leave her vulnerable to anyone else’s abuse.

  Carefully, I carry her into the garage and tuck her into the trunk. She’s breathing easy, but I make sure to lay her on her side. I read that some people can have trouble breathing after a ketamine injection and it’s better to be safe than sorry. I leave the key in the drop box by the front door where the rental agreement said to leave it and get back in the car. No one will be by to check on the house until after checkout time at ten tomorrow morning, and no one will be able to say that Danny and I didn’t spend the night here.

  Everything is going so smoothly, better than I could have imagined.

  I arrive at Rosa’s apartment to find the street deserted except for a couple of bums digging through the trash at the end of the block. I pull the car up to the curb, cut the engine, and wait. It takes a good twenty minutes, but finally the homeless men turn the corner, and I make my move.

  I pop the trunk and swing out into the warm night. I’ve removed my mask, but my black long-sleeved shirt and jeans are still too warm for the tropical climate. I’m sweating even before I lift Rosa out of the car. By the time I get us both up the steps and the apartment building’s sticky front door unlocked, beads of perspiration are rolling down my face.

  One lands on Rosa’s cheek as I lay her on the stained couch in the lobby. She flinches before letting out a low moan.

  Considering her size, she shouldn’t be conscious for another hour or two at least, but apparently Rosa has one hell of a metabolism and is already burning through the meds like a champ. She moans again and I launch into motion.

  Heart pounding, I quickly wipe the sweat from her cheek with my sleeve, place her keys into her curled fingers, and head for the door. I force myself to walk to the car, knowing that running attracts attention. But I shouldn’t have worried. There is no one to see me run, and no one to watch as I get back into the car and pull away.

  I make it through town without incident, shooting Danny a text that I’m on my way while stopped at a light near the central market.

  His response comes through a second later. See you soon, doll.

  Doll. The unexpected pet name makes me frown.

  I’m a lot smaller than Danny, but after carrying another woman up a flight of stairs I’m not feeling delicate or doll-like. It bothers me for another reason, too. I’m not sure what it is, but I eventually dismiss the gnawing at the back of my brain, knowing I need to stay focused on more important things.

  By the time I reach the gravel road and turn right, heading up into an isolated stretch of jungle not far from the airstrip where I brought Danny for target practice, I’m feeling pretty confident. If the second half of the night goes as smoothly as the first, we’ll be at the airport early enough to grab breakfast in the terminal before we board our flight to Samui, Thailand.

  I’m confident, but not cocky.

  I’ve never been cocky, even back before the attack, when I was an athlete who had never met a ball she couldn’t spike or a wave she couldn’t ride.

  I’ve always known that I have my faults and weaknesses. I’ve always been honest with myself, and I believe that honesty made me better.

  While my teammates in high school were busy blaming a lost game on someone else’s performance, I was watching video of the match and seeing where I could improve. When other surfers said they needed a different board or cleaner waves, I kept paddling back out until I found a way to work with whatever the ocean was giving me on a particular day.

  I don’t suffer from hubris, that overabundance of pride that doomed so many Greek heroes to tragic fates. I don’t fly too close to the sun, I don’t believe I can take on a six-headed sea monster and come out on top.

  So when I pull into the clearing, where the hole Danny and I dug in the forest floor is waiting, to see the rental car’s trunk open, the driver’s door ajar, and the headlights casting eerie shadows across the mouth of the pit, I don’t assume there is a reasonable explanation. I park near the trees, a good hundred feet from the other car and make as little noise as possible getting out. I can’t see if J.D. and Jeremy are in the trunk or the pit, but there is no sign of Danny anywhere nearby and the jungle is weirdly quiet.

  I resist the urge to call his name, not wanting to let anyone know I’m here if they haven’t heard the car pull up
.

  Ears straining and my skin crawling with the certainty that something has gone horribly wrong, I reach into the backseat, open my backpack, and pull out the rifle. Danny wanted me to leave it buried in the woods behind the cabin, but I refused to get rid of it until after all our affairs were in order. Now, it gives me comfort to have a weapon, still assembled and ready to use.

  Scanning the clearing, I don’t see anyone watching me, but I can’t know for sure. Still, it seems like a good idea to check the car. Hunching over at the waist, I creep slowly through the shadows, feeling exposed until I’m squatting down beside the open door.

  A quick glance inside reveals nothing that would make me worry.

  The keys are in the driver’s seat, but Danny might have left them there, knowing no one would be around to snatch them. I look into the backseat, seeing his bat lying on the floor. But that still doesn’t mean anything. With J.D. and Jeremy drugged, he probably wouldn’t have thought he needed it.

  Still…

  I tuck the gun in the back of my jeans—grateful for its compact size—and reach behind the seats to grab the bat. We’re a good three miles from the road, far enough no one will hear J.D. and Jeremy scream, but maybe not so far that the sound of a gunshot wouldn’t carry. Just in case, the bat is a better weapon if I can get away with it.

  Gripping the cool aluminum tight, I circle around to the open trunk and peek inside. J.D. and Jeremy aren’t there. I’m guessing that means they’re in the pit, but for some reason I’m scared to go look. I’m suddenly possessed by the unreasonable fear that if I stand at the edge someone will push me in.

  Or maybe it’s not such an unreasonable fear.

  There’s a chance the brothers have escaped. They might have woken up too fast, like Rosa, caught Danny by surprise, and beaten him unconscious before heading back to civilization. He might be out there in the jungle, bleeding to death under a tree somewhere, and if so, I can blame myself for it.

  Blame myself, and my need for vengeance.

  There was a choice to be made, like Danny said, and I’ve made the wrong one. I should never have put him in danger. I should have kidnapped him if I had to and made him run away with me. Only now, as I realize revenge might cost me the man I love, do I realize that it isn’t worth it.

  Yes, these men deserve to be punished, but love is more important. It’s more important than the law that insists the brothers’ fates belong in the hands of the court, but it’s also more important than vengeance. It is bigger than this, bigger than the hurt and the pain and the hate. I feel that truth shudder through my bones as I start back toward the darkness at the edge of the clearing.

  Slowly, squeezing the bat hard enough to make my knuckles ache, I creep around the perimeter of the bare earth with the pit at its center, keeping close to the trees, scanning the area for any sign of life. I move quietly, carefully, the bat cocked over my shoulder, ready to strike the second I have a target. I check the clearing and the shadows beneath the trees, just in case there is someone hiding in the woods.

  Every sense in my body is on high alert, my ears straining for any sound that can’t be explained away by the wind or some night creature stirring in the brush. I am so focused that I would swear I hear the almost inaudible hum of the bug lanterns before I see them. And I certainly see the lanterns—and the scene they illuminate—long before Todd sees me, but it doesn’t matter.

  And it doesn’t matter that I know I could take Todd out with this bat if I had to, not when Todd has a knife pressed to Danny’s throat.

  Chapter Twenty

  Danny

  “Choose well.

  Your choice is brief,

  And yet endless.”

  -Goethe

  * * *

  I try to call out to Sam, but Todd wedges the knife tighter to my throat, transforming my words into a guttural cry.

  He’s going to kill me.

  I knew it the moment he stepped up behind me at the edge of the pit and pressed the knife into my back hard enough to rip a hole through my shirt and break the skin. I’m not leaving Costa Rica alive, but Sam still can, if I can just get the words out. I have to tell her to run, to get to the car and drive away as fast as she can.

  I chose this. I knew there were risks, but I made this choice anyway. I hope she won’t blame herself or doubt that I love her as much as I ever did.

  Because I do. So much.

  Even after I’m gone.

  I can handle dying as long as I know she’s okay. But I can’t go out knowing she’s alone in the jungle with Todd, that I’ve failed to protect her, and he’s going to hurt her all over again.

  “Put the bat down, doll,” he says. “Or I start cutting off pieces of your boyfriend.”

  “I’m not your doll.” Sam’s breath rushes out, but she doesn’t drop the bat. She takes a step closer to the stump where Todd has me seated in front of him, with my body shielding his and his knife pressed to my throat.

  Even if he let me go, there’s no way I could run. My legs are bound and my arms tied in front of me from wrists to elbows with my own rope. I had just finished tying J.D. and Jeremy’s arms together and rolled them into the pit when Todd came out of nowhere. I didn’t hear a car engine or footsteps or anything. He just materialized out of thin air, like an evil genie, come to prevent wishes from coming true.

  “Do it now,” Todd says again, still in that calm voice that makes it clear he knows he’s won. “You know I don’t bluff. You take one more step with that bat and he loses an ear. I saw the dents in Jeremy’s head. I don’t need a matching set.”

  Sam stops, swaying on her feet for a moment before she crouches down, laying the bat in the dirt. “There. It’s down. Now let him go.”

  Todd chuckles. “Take five steps to your right and sit down against that tree.”

  Sam’s eyes meet mine and I shake my head. The movement ends in a groan as Todd’s knife slices the skin at my throat, but it will be worth it if Sam will run.

  Please, Sam, I beg with my eyes. Please, run. Run!

  “Stop,” she says, voice breaking. “Don’t hurt him. I’m going.”

  “Run,” I gasp. “Run!”

  Todd silences me by wrapping his free hand around my neck and squeezing until the world goes black around the edges. I buck against his hold, but in this position I can’t get any leverage. All I can do is arch my back, flex the muscles in my throat, and fight to keep him from crushing my windpipe. I fight back as best I can, but by the time he releases me, I’m dizzy and weak, with black spots dancing in front of my eyes and blood thudding heavily in my ears.

  “Next time you talk, you die,” he whispers into my ear, his lips moving against the sweat-slicked skin of my cheek, making me shudder.

  His whisper is more convincing than a scream.

  He isn’t making a threat to scare Sam. Sam probably couldn’t even hear him. He was making me a promise, one I know he’ll keep if I open my mouth again.

  Swallowing hard, I look up to find Sam seated against the tree, her legs drawn to her chest. She’s in an upright fetal position, arms clenched tight around her legs, but I can still see her shaking. Her entire body seems to vibrate, making the curls that have escaped her bun dance around her head. Her eyes are wide and she looks terrified, but I know her better than that.

  Sam doesn’t shake like that when she’s scared.

  She only shakes that hard when she’s angry.

  I try to take comfort in the fact that she’s going to fight back, but I’m too damned sick to my stomach. I don’t want to die like this. I don’t want her to be forced to watch. And I sure as hell don’t want her to die.

  I want to marry her on a beach in Thailand. I want to take her home to Croatia and celebrate with my family. I want to watch her hair grow out to its old beautiful brown with the red streaks in it and the joy return to her eyes. I want the happiness and the time and the love and the children and the life that this monster and his friends have done their best to ruin.
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  I don’t want evil to win another round and steal all of it away before our second chance has even gotten started.

  “So what happens next?” Sam asks, her voice rough with emotion. “What do you want?”

  “I want to show you what happens to people who fuck with me and my friends,” Todd says, then adds with a laugh, “I’m kidding. I don’t give a shit about Scott ending up in jail or J.D. and Jeremy being buried alive. Or whatever it was you had planned back there with that hole in the ground. People stupid enough to drop their guard deserve what they get.

  “But I know I would have been next, Sammy, and that isn’t okay.” He pauses, teasing the knife up and down my throat. “How did you plan to do it? Strangle me in my bed after you were finished filling in that hole?”

  “Poison,” Sam says flatly. “We were going to bribe a maid to bring you a nightcap, then break into your room and watch you die.”

  Todd makes a considering noise. “Not a bad plan, but poison is kind of a girly choice, don’t you think? Weak, especially for a big guy like you, Daniel Cooney.”

  He reaches around, hitting me in the stomach hard enough to make me groan and leaving his fist pressed tight to my gut, making it hurt to breathe. “I thought you looked familiar that day at the pool, but when I saw you the second time everything clicked. That’s when I knew I had to start watching my back, and the other idiots, too. I figured you were responsible for poor, dumb Scott and that the rest of us must be on your hit list.”

  The fist he’s digging into my mid-section relaxes, his fingers uncurling until his palm rests lightly on my abdomen.

  But his touch is no less terrifying in its gentleness.