by A. Zavarelli
But what interest does he have in me? His eyes move over me in a calculating pattern, observing every bruise and scrape. Arman takes this as his cue to start poking at my body. He seems to be pointing out all the things that he considers my flaws, and he is none too gentle about it. But Alexei is not looking where Arman points. His eyes are on Arman, watching his face intently. The noxious thumping of my heart tells me this can’t be good.
Alexei steps forward, absently running a strand of my hair through his fingers. I flinch at the pain in my scalp, and he frowns.
“She is American, is she not?” he asks.
I glance up at him curiously. He already knows I’m American, since he spoke English to me last week. So why is he pretending he doesn’t?
Arman replies, but Alexei doesn’t seem to hear him. His gaze is still focused on me, and mine on him. It’s only after I break contact first that he turns back to Arman.
The room is silent for a few awkward moments before Alexei repeats his question.
“American?”
Arman appraises him and then nods. “Yes. An American gem. So you must be able to understand my hesitation in parting with her, even temporarily. She is worth a lot of money this one, and she is very valuable to me.”
“Valuable indeed,” Alexei replies. “Like the shipment I was expecting.”
Arman’s face sours at this, and for the first time since I’ve known him he actually looks speechless. And it’s then that I realize that if Arman is afraid of this guy, I probably should be too. Here they are, talking about pawning me off on this man who already fucked up all of my plans. And for what?
“You’ve put us out,” Alexei states. “You can either part with her as collateral, or I can inform Viktor that you have cut the deal altogether...”
Arman growls out his frustration and throws his hands into the air. “Trust me when I say I’m doing you a favor. This girl cannot be trained. She is worthless in that aspect. I have tried everything. I think the shalava actually likes the beatings I give her. But I have another slave, who…”
“No,” Alexei objects. “I am not interested in other slaves, Arman. The idea of collateral is to part with something of value. Any of your other slaves will not do. It has to be her or nothing.”
“Yes, yes.” Arman nods obediently. “I understand. We are all friends here… no need for threats. You can take the girl.”
The room is quiet while Alexei looks me over once more. Arman is still nervous, evident by the sweat on his forehead, and it makes me nervous too. But then I think of the possibilities outside of this room. This man does not know me. He may have found my pills, but he can’t predict all of the thoughts running through my mind. Leaving here means more options. More opportunities to find another means.
“I will take her,” Alexei breaks the silence. “Until you have fulfilled the order for the lost shipment, plus three additional…”
“Three additional shipments?” Arman’s eyes bulge. “But that could take…”
“The price of doing business,” Alexei responds. “You have inconvenienced me, and I am growing tired of you already. Do we have a deal or not?”
“Very well,” Arman says. “I can have her sent over this afternoon.”
“No.” Alexei shakes his head. “I will take her now.”
Arman sullenly undoes my shackles and attaches a leash to my collar. He jerks me to my feet and makes me walk outside without a shred of clothing on. He hands Alexei the leash, stroking my face one last time. I shudder, refusing to look at him.
The low sun stings my eyes, and they begin to water. It’s the first time I’ve been outside in over a year. It’s so overwhelming I have to fight the urge to cover my eyes. To hide in the darkness like the animal I am. Alexei ushers me to a car where another man is standing guard. He opens the door and I slide into the back seat, Alexei following suit. Once Arman is back in the house, he removes the leash from my collar. Then he frowns and shrugs out of his jacket, handing it to me.
I don’t understand the kind gesture at all, even if it is cold. I hesitate, but ultimately decide to take it, since I desperately need a safe cocoon. It’s warm and smells like him, but it does not bother me.
Alexei says something to the driver who eyes me in the rearview mirror before cranking up the heater and driving off. As we drive, I feel Alexei’s eyes on me but I am too transfixed by the scenery outside to pay attention to anything else. I don’t even know where I’m at. When Dmitri left me to my fate, I was drugged for many days, maybe even weeks. That time- everything except for the horrifying realization of his betrayal- is a blur.
It does not matter, I realize. Wherever I am makes no difference. My heart and body are sluggish, but I need to keep my mind sharp. To focus on any opportunity that presents itself before I descend into the next level of hell.
I scan my surroundings carefully. Outside the window, there is nothing but landscape. We are on a long, lonely stretch of highway. And Alexei is now focused on the scenery outside. So I peek over the collar of his jacket, appraising him. I hate him for taking away my pills. My freedom. But he has also been kind to me. I know better than anyone that kindness always comes at a cost. Kindness is merely an illusion. Like Dmitri.
This man is no different. He is graceful in his movements as he shifts in his seat and stares out the window. He is cool and collected, like he has a force field around him that nobody can penetrate. He is still as well dressed as I remember, and he is clean, which is more than I can say for Arman, who bathed only when it suited him. But I would rather deal with Arman over this man. At least Arman doesn’t hide his true nature beneath nice clothes and a fake exterior.
“My name is Alexei,” his voice fills the tiny space when he turns and catches me staring.
I don’t reply. But still, he persists.
“Now it is customary for you to tell me your name,” he states.
I don’t have a name. I am nothing. No one. If I ever was, I do not know her anymore. So I remain quiet. Safe in my fugue. He cannot take that from me. He will not.
He frowns, and silence returns to the car. With it, my anxiety. I cannot read him. He’s trying to get inside of my head. Trying to hurl every weapon at his disposal into my already tattered armor. When he is near, the feelings come back. The things I told myself I would never feel again.
I need to get away. I need to fly away. By any means possible.
The driver turns the car off the highway and onto a gravel road, slowing his speed. My sluggish heart is pumping too hard. Too loud. I glance back at Alexei, and all of the uncertainty I feel about him fuels my fear. I make a split second decision before I can give it any more thought.
I fling open my door and thrust my torso out of the car with every ounce of strength I can muster. But it isn’t enough. Something strong catches my leg and the vehicle screeches to a halt. The momentum sends the door crunching into my ribs, choking all the air from my lungs. I try to kick and scream, but my body is frozen in white hot pain.
I’m being pulled back into the car, my gaze colliding with the most volatile of blue. He is cursing in Russian, shaking me as he stares at me with wild eyes. When I don’t respond, he changes to English.
“What are you thinking?” He clutches me tighter beneath his grip. “You would rather kill yourself than come home with me? Do you really think I’m worse than Arman?”
The way he says it makes it sound personal, but I don’t know why. I don’t know what to say, so I just continue to stare at him in silence. There isn’t an explanation I could give that he would ever understand. There are no words to convey that the very life essence has been siphoned out of me and the wreckage in his arms is all that’s left.
I was supposed to die in that bathtub twelve years ago. And I did. Only my body came back to life. What remains now is merely an apparition.
“Answer me!” Alexei shakes me again, and I flop around in his arms like a limp noodle.
His eyes betray his disgust with me
. His resentment. I have seen those same things many times in Arman and it did not bother me. But on this face and this man, they bother me.
“Why couldn’t you just let me go?” I yell back. “You took my pills from me! You took everything from me.”
He stares at me in disbelief. And in a single moment, all of the humanity dissolves from his face. He yanks my body across the seat, pinning me belly down in his lap. His hand collides against the cheek of my ass, hard.
I don’t make a sound. Or even flinch. Because his spankings are nothing compared to Arman’s fists. This only angers him further. He rains down a series of hard slaps, grunting each time he does. It’s the man in the driver’s seat who captures his attention when he turns around and taps him on the shoulder.
“Lyoshka.”
Alexei freezes, his hand still on my ass. I’m staring at the door handle, still mourning the loss of my attempt. And then he yanks me upright, into his lap. His eyes meet mine, and his hand comes up to my face. Gentle. So very gentle. There’s remorse in his gaze. But I don’t know why. He didn’t hurt me. He could never hurt me. Nothing can anymore.
When he recognizes that in my expression, the anger returns. His fingers grip my face and his breath is hot against my lips when he speaks.
“Do not ever try that again, Solnyshko. I am not a man you want to test, and you will not like what happens next.”
He pushes me back to my seat and buckles me in before locking the doors with the controls. And, just like that, we’re off again. For the briefest of moments, something passes between him and the driver in the rearview mirror. Some unspoken thought.
There is guilt in his expression. The driver speaks to him in Russian, but Alexei focuses on the landscape as though he didn’t even hear.
The remainder of the drive is quiet and tense. My ribs ache, and I can barely breathe. A deep, throbbing sorrow blooms inside of me, overwhelming the numbness.
I have tried and I have failed again.
And I know this man will never let me go. I have only traded one hell for another.
The car pulls to a stop, and outside I see that we are at a private airplane hangar. In the time that it takes me to turn back towards Alexei with questioning eyes, he’s already got a needle in my arm.
“Shh…” His fingers move over my panicked face. “Go to sleep.”
And I do.
5
Talia
My eyes flicker open and shut, a groan vibrating through my lips as I peel my face off the slab of leather it’s resting on. My head throbs and my mouth is too dry. I’m laying still, but something is moving beneath me. Tires, I realize after a moment. I’m in a car, sprawled across the back seat.
I attempt to flop over and my head bumps against something when I do. A trouser clad thigh. My eyes move up to find Alexei peering down at me.
“Where are we?” I croak.
“Just outside of Boston,” he answers. “Almost to my home.”
His answer sends a small wave of panic through me. And the words leave my mouth without a chance for my brain to filter them.
“I don’t want to go to Boston.”
He raises a brow at me and shrugs. “You are not.”
And that’s it. That’s all I need to hear to slip back into my comfortable state of numbness. The walls resurrect themselves, my emotional fortress restored.
I manage to sit upright, noting that I’m now fully clothed. In leggings and a sweater. There’s a brief question of who dressed me, but it disappears quickly. My attention is focused on the scenery outside.
I’m back in Massachusetts. My mind is too fragile right now to accept that. So I tell myself it isn’t real. That none of this is real. But even so, my lips repeat the words again.
“I’m not going back to Boston.”
Alexei gives me a curious look, but does not answer. And so I am satisfied with his silence. My thoughts slip away into the cavernous spaces of my brain and I just watch. The rolling expanse of trees outside of the window are an explosion of colors to my dull eyes. It is Autumn. And this is how I know Alexei’s words are true. There is nothing like Massachusetts in Autumn.
But it’s not real. And I’m not here.
The drive is long and quiet. Almost to Alexei means over more than an hour. I just watch the scenery fly by outside the window until my eyes hurt too much and I have to rest them again.
When we finally arrive at our destination, comfort surrounds me. The house is a fortress in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but wilderness. I am away from the people. Away from everything. Everything but him.
The car pulls to a stop and I try to get out on my own. I realize soon after that my legs don’t work. Alexei heaves me up into his arms like a child and carries me inside. He’s wearing a soft blue sweater that rubs against my face with every step. It smells like him. Like oak and cloves. And cognac too.
He leads me through a series of halls and rooms before we reach his destination. I don’t have time to absorb the details of the house in the time it takes for him to open the door and set me onto a bed. A real bed, with two mattresses and a frame.
The softness is alien to my body, and everything about this room overwhelms me. I have lived in darkness so long, and this room is bright. The curtains are drawn back, sunlight spilling across the floor. I want to shut them. To stay in the darkness. But I don’t move.
My eyes roam over the room, taking it all in. There’s a bookcase, stuffed with books. And a table with art supplies. An oversized chair next to the window. Rich colors and cold stone walls. It is too big, and still too small. And it all caves in on me.
I claw at my throat, feeling claustrophobic, but stop when Alexei calls out to someone in Russian. When I flinch, he steps in front of me and frowns. And then an older woman enters the room with a flourish. She gives a little smile and bow, her eyes darting straight to me.
She is older than Karolina. And she does not look at me the way that Karolina did. She has soft brown eyes and dark hair speckled with grays. She wears it in a bun, and an apron covers her floral dress. If I had a grandmother, I imagine this is what she might look like.
“Talia, this is Magda,” Alexei tells me. “She keeps the house in order.”
I frown and move my attention back to him. Because he said my name. And I never told him my name. I’m confused and my head hurts, so I rub my temples. I haven’t had a pill in a long time, I realize. Not even half of a pill. And everything hurts.
I need at least half a pill, to keep the numbness. And the rest I can save. I wonder how many Alexei will give me, now that he knows my secret. It worries me, but I don’t have time to consider it.
Magda steps in front of me, giving me a small sympathetic smile. “Hello, Talia,” she greets me in English, though her accent is very much Russian.
I stare blankly at her.
Alexei clips out a few short sentences in Russian and then moves towards the door. But before he goes, he stops, his gaze drifting back to me.
“Remove anything sharp from the wash room,” he tells Magda. “And no baths either.”
Magda frowns at me, but nods. And then Alexei leaves. I’m still staring at the door when Magda takes me by my hand and leads me to the walk in closet.
“There are clothes in here,” she says. “So you can choose what you like, until…”
I don’t hear the rest of her words. I stare at the clothes but don’t touch them. There’s too many. Too many colors. That claustrophobic feeling is back, so I move away from them, bumping into the wall.
“Miss Talia?” Magda asks, concern evident in her voice. “Are you okay? Do you need to sit down?”
I shake my head.
“Very well.” She nods. “Mr. Nikolaev wants you to get cleaned up. There is a shower you can use, and I’ll be right outside if you need some assistance.”
She leads me towards the door of the adjoining bathroom, but I halt before I step inside.
“Miss Talia?”
I can’t look at her when I speak. I can’t allow her to see that the numbness is slipping away again.
“Is there a mirror?” I ask.
“Yes, of course,” she answers. “I will show you.”
“I don’t want to see.”
The room is quiet. She’s considering my words. And then she slips away, returning a few moments later.
“There,” she says. “I have covered it over. No more mirror.”
This time, I let her lead me inside. The bathroom is large, and like everything else, overwhelming. But when my eyes move to the bathtub, there’s a sense of familiarity and longing. The same lyrics begin to play through my mind. My mother’s voice. Angels in the morning. Four angels. And me, too.
Soon…
“No baths,” Magda destroys my reality with two simple words.
She urges me towards the shower and turns it on for me. And then I watch her remove the razors and anything else I might hurt myself with.
“Once you have washed, I will tend to your wounds,” Magda states.
And with that, she takes a seat in the chair across the bathroom where she can reach me quickly if she needs to. It only confirms that thought echoing through my head.
This man is never going to let me go.
6
Talia
I take my time in the shower, letting my sore muscles soak up the warmth. I cannot remember the last time I felt hot water on my skin. When Karolina bathed me, she spared me no luxuries.
There are a lot of toiletries in this shower. The choices overwhelm me, and pressure builds behind my eyes. The numbness is slipping away from me, and pain is taking a greedy hold of my body and mind. I don’t want this. I don’t want any of this.
I just want to be free. Like them. Like my family.
But he won’t let me.
I reach for a bottle without checking the label and use it on every part of my body. I keep squirting the flowery scented gel into my hands and washing, over and over, but I never get clean. When I blink my eyes open, my skin is raw and I’m shivering.