My Peace (Beautifully Broken #5)

by Courtney Cole

  She’s crazy. I’ve always wondered about the women who wrote to inmates after they’d been imprisoned. And Natasha is crazy. She had just done a very good job of hiding it.

  “How did you come to work for William?” I ask her. “Was that part of the plan?”

  “Everything is part of the plan,” she answers and she’s proud of that. “Originally, we thought we’d hurt Pax through William, but then we saw a better way. Once Zuzu was born.”

  “You’ve been planning this for so long?” I’m breathless.

  “Of course. Master-plans take time,” she sniffs, as though I’m the idiot here.

  “Is Zuzu all right?” I ask calmly, and I don’t know how I’m remaining calm. It’s like my blood is frozen as it rushes through my heart, and my daughter is out there somewhere and these people are crazy.

  “Of course,” she tells me. “I thought we already established that Leroy doesn’t want to hurt a kid?”

  “Then what are you planning on doing with her?” I ask. “She’s innocent. She hasn’t done a thing to anyone.”

  “Of course she hasn’t,” Natasha agrees. “She’s fine. And she will stay fine as long as Pax does what we ask.”

  “And what are you asking of him?” I ask. My hands shake against the arms of the chair.

  Natasha smiles.

  “Only for his life. That’s not too much, is it?”

  19

  Chapter Eighteen

  Pax

  Light shines in from the bedroom windows, and I stare at it for a second. The sun rays filter through the air, and the dust motes spiral and I reach out a hand to touch them.

  I haven’t slept all night.

  Doing four lines of coke will do that to a person. I doubt I’ll sleep for days.

  Through the monitor, I hear my daughter singing, through my closed door and hers, and I relax my tight muscles. She’s still here. She’s still alive, and thankfully, from the sounds of it, she doesn’t know the danger she’s in.

  Thank God.

  I straighten my leg and adjust my back.

  I’m sitting on the floor, pressed to the wall, and it is holding me up. The coolness of it bleeds into my skin, and I soak it up. I concentrate on it, because it grounds me in this moment, and keeps everything real.

  Temperature is real.

  The wall is real.

  Focus on what is real, I tell myself. Zuzu is real. Mila is real.

  Mila. God. She’s probably so worried. I heard my phone ring numerous times, and then I think it was turned off. I haven’t heard it from hours, and I know Mila wouldn’t just stop calling. Not if she was able.

  Lord, the thought of her being unable turns my blood cold.

  But that’s not happening, I tell myself. They don’t want her. They want me.

  A paper is slipped beneath the door.

  I open it. It’s time.

  I stare at the boxes. I don’t feel the pain in my leg anymore. The drugs have definitely dulled all of my senses. The idea that I used to live like this… it’s so foreign to me. It’s like living through a fog, not really living at all.

  I open the box, and am surprised to see clear capsules filled with white powder. I don’t know what they are. PCP, maybe? I don’t bother worrying about it.

  I swallow them.

  Within minutes, I’m swearing, and my vision is blurred. Definitely PCP. My skin starts crawling, there are ants on it, and I fight the urge to scratch them.

  It’s a side-effect, and there are no ants. I know that.

  Yet, at the minutes tick past, it’s hard to know anything.

  Everything becomes subjective. Everything is a gray area. Even the sounds of my daughter fade away and I can’t focus on her anymore. I’ve got enough drugs pumping through my veins that I can’t even see her face or my wife’s, even when I try to imagine them in my head.

  Leroy is good at this. He’s planned out exactly how much drugs he can force me to take without me dying. He’s dragging it out, loading me up, then bringing me back down with heroin.

  He wants to make me suffer.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see things. I see movements, and shadows, all moving along the walls and while I know they aren’t really there, I can’t help but check. I’m losing it.

  I know I’m losing it.

  Before I’m completely gone, I try to break the door down one last time. I’m a strong guy. I know that. I don’t make a dent in the door. I think it’s been reinforced from the outside somehow.

  I try to break the windows.

  They don’t budge. They’ve been replaced with shatter-proof glass. He’s thought of everything.

  Son of a bitch.

  I slump to the floor. I’m not giving up.

  I look at the video monitor.

  Zuzu is playing by herself, combing the hair on one of her dolls. Her door is closed, and I’m sure it’s locked, and I wonder what they’ve told her about her parents? Did they tell her we’d be there soon?

  I shout through the door.

  “Zuzu! Sweetheart! I’ll be there soon. Don’t be afraid.”

  She doesn’t even look up. She can’t hear me.

  I examine the door again, and now that I’m really looking at it, I see it’s not the same door I had installed. I think this one might be soundproof.

  It must be. As a test, I bang on it as hard as I can.

  Zuzu doesn’t look up. She can’t hear me.

  No one can hear me.

  My scalp buzzes, and I tug at my hair, and then I force my hand to still. It’s the PCP. It’s the PCP making me crazy. I’ve got to stop.

  I force myself to sit on the floor again, and I pick a spot on the wall, and I stare at it, forcing my breath to be even. In, then out. In, then out. One, two. One, two. I focus on the pattern. I focus on my heart beat. I focus on making my breath fill my lungs up like a balloon, then forcing it all out, like the balloon is deflating.

  If I do this, if I keep my mind active, and focused, I won’t lose it. It will be tethered to me.

  It will still be mine.

  Leroy can’t take that.

  Not if I don’t allow it.

  I glance out the windows for a moment, and the waves are crashing outside, and I realize something.

  I can’t hear them.

  20

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mila

  I’m in my room without a phone.

  Natasha took it, and Natasha has a gun, and has she always had a gun in this house? It must’ve been hidden in her bedroom and I didn’t even know it.

  I should’ve listened to my instincts about her. I knew something was off. I just thought she was after my husband.

  And I guess she was, just not in the way I thought.

  I pace. The door is locked, and I have no means of communication. I’m sure Natasha is answering my texts from Maddy as though she is me, and no one will ever know that I’m being locked up in here. I’m going to be here forever, or until they decide what to do with me.

  There is a knock, then the key is turned, and the door is opened.

  Natasha walks in with a tray.

  “Here.”

  She puts it on the bed, and picks up the TV remote. “I’ve got something for you.”

  She messes with the television, and then a black and white picture comes up. A surveillance video. It’s not high-definition, certainly, but it’s clear enough.

  It’s Pax.

  I suck in a breath, and my husband is sprawled on the floor in a room.

  Looking closer, I decide it’s our bedroom in Angel Bay. There are small boxes on the bed, the size of jewelry boxes. Some are neatly stacked, and some are open in a pile.

  Pax isn’t moving.

  “Is he ok?” I ask quickly. Natasha stares at me.

  “You can see for yourself.”

  Pax is staring at nothing, his eyes open, and is he alive?

  God, is he alive? My heart pounds and pounds, threatening to leap from my chest.


  I touch the screen, his hand, and he’s not moving. There’s no signs of blood or a struggle. His legs are long, his body is taut, and he’s not moving.

  “Come on, baby,” I tell him. “Please be alive.”

  Natasha laughs and I shove her away from me.

  She backhands me across the face, and my head snaps around. I taste blood in my mouth, and my cheek is on fire, and I rush at her, my blood boiling and red blurring my vision.

  But then there is something cold and metal in my side.

  She brought her gun.

  Fuck.

  I back off.

  “Is he alive?” I ask her coldly.

  She grins.

  “Eat. You need to for the baby.”

  “As if you care.”

  “You should put a cool cloth on that,” she suggests, gesturing at my mouth, and then she’s gone again. I ignore my swelling lip, and instead focus on my husband again.

  Is his hand in a different place? Did he move while I wasn’t looking?

  I sink to my knees.

  “Please, please please,” I beg. I’m not sure if I’m begging God or Pax.

  I’m frozen in place and he doesn’t move.

  “Please, God,” I mumble, without taking my eyes off the screen.

  He’s so completely still.

  I wait. I ignore the food tray and I watch my husband for any sign of life. For anything.

  He gives me nothing.

  For an hour, for sixty long, frustrating minutes, I stare at him, and he doesn’t move. But then... then…

  Something is slipped under the door of his room.

  I peer at it.

  It looks like a folded piece of paper.

  Pax blinks.

  He blinked.

  The knowledge rams into me and I cry from relief. He’s not dead.

  He’s not dead.

  Slowly, slowly, slowly, he reaches over and takes the paper. He unfolds it. He reads it.

  He gets to his feet.

  He grabs a box.

  He takes a syringe out. He taps the barrel, he flicks at his arm.

  “No,” I breathe. “No. Pax, don’t!”

  He plunges it into his arm without blinking again. He stares at the wall, like a robot or a machine, and he doesn’t blink. I don’t think he’s feeling a thing. His eyes are wide open.

  When he’s finished, he puts it back in the box, and tosses it in a pile of empties. There are so many empty boxes, and had they all contained drugs?

  I’m stunned. I’m numb.

  What the hell is happening?

  Why is this happening?

  Pax sits back down on the floor in the same place he’d been. He resumes staring at the wall, his eyes wide open and unblinking.

  My chest quivers, my hands shake.

  He’s not fighting?

  This isn’t like him.

  I scan his surroundings. It’s definitely our bedroom. It’s our bed, our night-tables. My gaze stops on the night-table. The nursery monitor is there, and the screen is on.

  Something… something looks like it’s moving. But I can’t see it clearly enough. It almost looks like the outline of a small person. Maybe a child.

  Is it Zuzu?

  Please, God, I pray again. Please. I’ll give you anything. Take my life, not theirs.

  I sink to the floor and watch the screen.

  It’s the only thing I can do.

  21

  Chapter Twenty

  Pax

  Time has no meaning now.

  At some points, it passes slowly, and at others, it passes quickly. It all depends on what is in the box.

  This time, it is cocaine. For the fourth time today.

  He has planned the exact drugs that will counter each other out throughout the day… some speed me up, some slow me down. They’re carefully planned to keep me alive. To keep me going. To keep me suffering.

  “Is Mila alive?” I ask when a note is shoved under the door.

  There is no answer. I doubt they can hear me.

  This note also tells me to look in the top dresser drawer.

  Two boxes of granola bars and a dozen bottles of water are there. I ignore them. I’m not hungry. My heart is racing though. The cocaine speeds it up and I’m flying and I’m numb, and all of my emotions are dulled like I’m sinking in a murky pond.

  I’m worried about Zuzu and Mila, I know that I am, but at the moment, I don’t actually feel it. I don’t feel the emotions that should accompany my thoughts. They’re gone. Leroy has taken them from me. In theory and in practice. In reality and in my head.

  I glance at the nursery monitor.

  Zuzu is sleeping. She’s safe on the bed, and she’s sleeping.

  I can’t save her.

  They are going to kill me here. I know they are. I want to look inside all of the boxes, but at the same time, I don’t want to know just yet how they’ve planned my end.

  Will it be a fatal dose of heroin?

  Will it be too much cocaine?

  Maybe they’ll make me drink antifreeze.

  It’s hard to say.

  All I know is, at the moment, I don’t care.

  Every ounce of my caring is gone. It’s been taken.

  The longer I take these drugs, the more I will feel empty. I know that from experience.

  The walls start to close in on me, and my skin starts to itch, and the ceiling seems to fall. I focus harder on the wall in front of me. If I don’t, I will lose my mind, and he can’t have that. He can take my feelings, but he can’t have my mind.

  My thoughts are my own.

  I breathe in and out, I focus hard, harder, harder.

  I picture Zuzu and Mila. I know I love them. I know I do. Love is a fact. It isn’t always a feeling. I don’t need to feel it at the moment to know it’s true.

  I picture Zu’s blonde curls and bright eyes, her bright smile and her tiny fingers. She holds my hand at every opportunity. I imagine walking across the garden with her, playing hide and seek, which Mila watches. Mila’s eyes are clear too, and her smile is like the sun. She watches us, and the love she feels is in her eyes, and she reaches for me, and my stomach clenches.

  They’re going to kill me, and that will kill Mila. It will kill her.

  I don’t care for myself, but I care what it will do to her.

  She’s been through so much already. She shouldn’t have to go through this, too.

  I stand up, and because I know they are watching me through the small camera in the corner, I take the remaining boxes and throw them as hard as I can against the wall. I stomp on them. Then I flip off the camera.

  The tiny red light blinks and I know they see.

  I stare at them without blinking.

  “Fuck you,” I tell them.

  The light blinks.

  They see me.

  I smile.

  * * *

  Mila

  Pax rages against captivity.

  His muscles bulge as he throws the boxes of drugs against the wall and then stomps them into oblivion. When they are tattered and torn and flat, he flips off the camera, and they must be watching him through it. I smile because this is my husband. This is the man I married.

  He won’t take it lying down.

  I’m terrified about what they will do to our daughter, but I know that they will do what they’re going to do regardless. It was never contingent upon what Pax does. I know that.

  The door bursts open and two men dressed in black storm in. They fight with Pax, and the movement seems to be slightly delayed. Every few seconds, it catches up, and it seems like it skipped a frame.

  One is kicking him now, over and over in his gut. My husband’s body jerks and lifts with each blow. I call out and scream, but they don’t stop. I can feel each blow as if they are doing it to me. That is how closely my husband and I are connected.

  When he is limp, I’m limp.

  My brow is sweaty, my hands are shaking.

  He is no longer conscious,
and they heft him onto the bed, restraining him there. His hands and feet are bound and he is bound to the bed itself. He isn’t going anywhere. His face bleeds, his nose looks broken.

  His head lolls to the side and they leave him there, alone and broken.

  “Pax,” I murmur. “Please…”

  I cry into my hands, and I am so helpless. He’s dying in a room alone, and I can’t get to him, and I can’t help.

  I’m taking a shaky breath when he finally moves.

  He turns his head and stares at the camera.

  He smiles and his teeth are red.

  22

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Pax

  I drift in and out of consciousness.

  I can’t move. Not really.

  The bindings bite into my hands and my ankles, but I don’t feel it. I don’t feel my knee. I don’t feel anything. I don’t even feel my face, and I know it must be ragged. They kicked the the shit out of me.

  I feel nothing.

  The light fades in and out with my consciousness, day turns into night.

  I can’t turn my head far enough to see the nursery monitor anymore, so I can’t see Zuzu. I can’t check on her, I have no idea what she’s doing.

  “Let her go,” I ask them when they come back in later to inject me. “Let her go. I’m here now. He wanted me. He has me.”

  They don’t say anything. Their faces are covered with black ski masks, and I don’t know why they’ve bothered with that. They aren’t letting me live. I know that.

  I try to think of my options.

  I don’t have any.

  All I have is money.

  “I can pay you,” I tell them the next time they come. “I can pay you more than he can.”

  They don’t say a thing. They inject me, the room swirls, and I’m out like a light.

  I don’t wake up for what must be hours. My body is stiff when I awaken, but there is no pain. I guess I should be thankful for that smallest of favors.