by Ace Gray
“They always cry,” she said a bit more urgently.
My fingers trembled on the trigger when she repeated the woman’s words. Then the other rubbed at my eyes. Obviously, I was hallucinating, or I’d snapped under the stress, or maybe that bartender had slipped me something fucked up, I didn’t know.
“So many tears,” she added as a crow landed on her shoulder.
I twisted on the gritty stones and ran. For a few blocks, I was lost to my heavy footfalls and ragged breaths. The only time I’d glanced back, the girl seemed to have disappeared.
Drugs, it had to be drugs.
I finally stopped running, throwing my back up against the wall behind me before looking around. When the street was empty, I rubbed my eyes and looked around a second time, just to be sure. Nothing. My head fell back to the whitewashed wall behind me and I looked up to the starless sky.
The black void was exactly what I needed. It wasn’t soothing but it was empty, and damn did I need to clear my head. Being without Elle was driving me insane. The nightmares, waking and asleep, were going to drown me. And I couldn’t drown. I couldn’t even just stay floating, I had to drain the whole lake and bleed it dry. For her there simply was no other answer.
I started studying the street a little more in-depth as I steadied myself and let the murderous determination fall back into place. The building I was leaning against wasn’t a building at all, but rather a tall white stucco wall crowned with barbed wire. Behind it, a huge house rose with a red tiled roof. Beautiful and obviously expensive light fixtures with small shapes punched out warmed the building in a soft glow. Plush palm trees blocked any view of the small world between the wall and the building but I studied it intently.
The armed guards down the street grabbed my attention last. And not because they were the normal military guards carrying automatic weapons, but because I recognized them. They’d been nameless faces in a dark and sinful room in Chicago, specters who I didn’t need to know.
And if I had any doubts about them or the building I stood in front of, soft sobbing started behind the wall.
They always cry.
I shot around the corner, sure that I was hallucinating again, sure that the bartender had wanted to see the diablo blanco die. But the soft weeping continued. I looked back, knowing I’d see nothing but the formidable wall and caught another one of the light fixtures. From this angle, the design was familiar—a Celtic cross. Or a Spanish take on one anyway.
Whatever woman, force, waking illusion had sent me running here had known what I would find. Who I would find. I turned toward the wall and pressed both my palms to it. For a moment I imagined it exhaled deeply and shuddered beneath my touch. The way Elle would have.
“God grant me this wish. Gods above, below, ancient or otherwise listen to me now. Anyone…” I leaned my head to the wall and prayed she could hear me somehow, feel me maybe. “I’m coming for you, Ladylove,” I whispered, letting my fingers flex against the stucco, then turned to leave.
I dragged my fingers along the wall the entire way down the street, remembering vague details from my sprint here. The complex was massive, for almost three city blocks I was able to keep the smallest connection between her and I alive, touching that wall while streets ran into and dead ended to my left. Then cinderblocked cars and steel-barred windows led me back to the motel. Each detail etched in my memory as I walked back.
There was no short-skirted girl with ancient eyes, no crow cawing, in front of the motel but I stared out at the street all the same.
“Fucking Christ, Cupcake, there you are.” Horse’s wide eyes laid on me a second before his big hands clamped on my shoulders and he shook. “Do you know how worried I was? The things I thought might’ve happened?”
I shoved at his chest, forgetting how much stronger I’d gotten, only to watch him stumble back and crash into our door.
“The craziest fucking thing happened.” I whipped my head left and right, still searching for the ghost. “I found her.”
“What?” Horse’s whole face contorted as he automatically stepped back close to me. “Where is she? Why don’t you have her?”
“This woman scared the ever-living shit out of me.” I paused, not quite sure how to describe her, her appearance, her smell, her fluidity and her bird. “I bolted. At first, I thought I was running away from her but I wasn’t. I was running toward something, toward Elle.”
“You’re swimming around in the deep end man. I’m honestly worried about how fucking insane you sound.” He blew out a deep breath. “I’d offer to let you blow off some steam but I think that’s the line for Conrad.” He smiled shyly at me.
“I appreciate the halfhearted offer and the choice to stick with him.” I smiled wider back. “I couldn’t without her anyway.”
He nodded as he clapped me on the back of the neck and pulled me into the room. He locked the door behind me and started pulling on the only piece of furniture.
“And you think I’ve gone insane.” I raised my eyebrow as he pulled the dresser in front of the door. “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean, what am I doing?” He looked as if I’d asked him his name, then his look shifted and I was pretty sure he thought I’d hit my head out on the street.
“You were apparently at Mickey’s compound. Feet away from guys who could pick you out of a lineup and pin you as the angel of death.” He twisted and leaned against the dresser. “Your tattoos don’t exactly blend in.”
“No one saw me,” I reassured him.
“That you know of.” He shot me a look. “We both know his fucking tricks. We both know that even as his right hand, he wants to strangle you. And now…”
I held his gaze for a moment then nodded as I turned away to slump onto the rumpled corner of my bed. He followed suit a moment later and bounced as he plopped onto his mirrored mattress.
“So, what’s the plan?” He folded his hands beneath his chin and rested on them, waiting expectantly.
“I thought I was insane?” I smirked the slightest bit.
“Doesn’t mean I’m not going to gamble on you.” He arched his eyebrow as if it was the most natural answer.
I didn’t know where to start. That he was here, that he was my right hand. That she was here, and the tether to her had stayed connected between me and that living breathing wall, was all too much.
“I…” I couldn’t find words.
When I looked up he read my eyes perfectly. He took a deep breath and took control. “With Mickey, I’m guessing surveillance is a good place to start.”
35.
Elle
Cole was here, arcing over my bed. His callused hands came to my chest and gently, with all the tenderness he could manage, he willed my ribs to open and close, air to entered my lungs. For the first time in weeks, I managed a full breath. My body shuddered as his fingers gently flexed against me. Then all too soon, he was gone. I went with him. Something warm wrapped around my stomach and pulled me like an oily black feather, floating in the wind behind him.
I woke, gasping. For the first time, it wasn’t horrific dreamscapes or Mickey’s slimy fingers that had me dragging air into my lungs. It was Cole. It was the deep and cleansing breaths he’d given me in the night. It was my need for more. My need for him.
No!
The panic rose in my chest and knotted in my throat. I couldn’t think about him. I wouldn’t. There was no hope in this hellhole, there was no hope for a waste like me. Mickey had broken me, and I was fine—FINE!—leaving the pieces scattered about.
Cole would heal me, he’d glue me back together piece by piece. Even the vivid memory of him was enough to make me want to collect what I could.
“Good morning, my sweet cunny.” Mickey strode in and seamlessly slithered onto the bed. He quirked his head sideways to evaluate between my thighs. “Someone’s excited this morning.”
I let my metaphorical smithereens scatter back to the wind as he eased himself between my legs and wrapp
ed his arms around my back. His fully clothed hips started to roll against me and I twisted to the side as best my bound wrists and ankles allowed to unseat him or make him disappear, I didn’t care.
“Someone’s feisty today. I like it…” He bit down on the exposed part of my neck and I screamed into the part of my upper arm I hid behind. “I’m going to make you forget Cole. I’m going to make you forget yourself.”
His fingers appeared between my thighs but they weren’t violating me. The subtle rub and clink sounded like he was fiddling at his belt.
No! No, no, no, no, no.
I’d been ready for it, ready to surrender to it—or so I thought—but the very real possibility of Mickey finally slipping inside me, made me fight and jerk all over again.
“Yes,” he hissed. “Yes, you found that spark.”
His hand found what it had been looking for and pulled. Tape ripped off my left upper thigh. Mickey slipped down my body and stretched the scarred skin. He pulled harder and harder on my flesh as if he was trying to separate it all over again. I kicked and writhed and screamed as well as I could anyway.
“One more day for what I have in mind, for what will color those thighs when I finally use you.” He ripped the other bandage off and yanked on the skin just the same. Then his hand wandered up my body, squeezing on my still-welted breast until I shrieked. “This is going to bleed, but you’ll just have to learn to lust for blood.”
Then with a maniacal laugh, he was gone.
When the door opened again, my stomach jumped into my chest, sure Mickey had changed his mind, but the old woman shuffled in instead. The broth in her bowl sloshed as she made her way over for her own brand of evil torture.
Her spoon shoved against my lips, her glassy chocolate eyes begged me to eat, but I kept my lips pursed. Not even the vision of Cole, of him healing me, helping me, gave me the will to live. Not through Mickey’s teasing touches, not through his stolen kisses, and certainly not through the moment he’d pierce through any shred of self I had left.
I shook my head, letting the broth spill down my cheeks as I prepared for what came next. For the force that was now as constant in my life as breathing. I waited for her hands to grab my cheeks like bird talons and claw at me until I had to drink. But she simply tried the spoon again at my lips.
“Por favor,” she bent down and whispered in my ear. “Today you must.” Her eyes went glassy. “He needs your strength.”
“Fuck what that monster wants.” A sob threatened my throat but I choked it down.
“It’s not el diablo that needs it. It’s el ángel.”
The soft word, the way it trickled from her lips, was as golden as the dawn, as shiny as the strand that had tied to me in my dark and dreary dream.
“El ángel?” I asked, hope curling on my voice like a morning breeze whether I wanted it to or not.
“Ángel oscuro.” Her face brightened, melting like milk chocolate in the demanding sun, baking the building around me.
Something about her voice, about the mention of an angel, maybe something closer to shimmering fate, coaxed me to drink the soup.
The heat of the room mixed with the warmth that coated my hollowed-out belly and for a moment I felt whole. As soon as I came to my senses, I wanted to puke up the broth. But without my fingers free to shove down my throat, my stomach clung too tightly. With a little bit of nourishment, I felt my limbs for the first time in days. My toes wiggled, sending tendons rolling against skin-warmed metal. I was alive and I loathed it.
But then wing beats, their gentle puffs and rustling of air, cooled the hate rolling in my heart. I looked into the bright light enveloping me, sure that some heavenly body was about to step into focus. I heard the whump, whump, whump of their wings, I felt deliverance with each flap.
I’m coming for you, Ladylove.
The words materialized from the same hidden space as the wings beat. They pricked tears at the corner of my eyes. The sentiment, the hope, was beautiful, even if I wasn’t hopeful or beautiful anymore.
“Don’t,” I whispered to the faint and fading voice, then I prayed that the sound was coming from the fan.
That night I couldn’t sleep. I wouldn’t let myself. If I had a nightmare where my soul disintegrated like the acid eating at my stomach, fear would choke me. And if I had a beautiful, peaceful dream, full of gorgeous green eyes and deep blue paint, I’d find a way to choke myself.
A heavy weight pulled on the shallow bruises beneath my eyes, but I didn’t let them close. Mickey’s promise was a far heavier burden that spread evenly across my body and pressed me into the mattress. I didn’t need to close my eyes to see those deviant scenes in grainy black and white. So many girls, so many sexual fantasies, so many sexual perversions, all of which danced in front of and behind my eyelids.
Would he tie me? Would he share me? Would he violate the very last shred of me?
Would I cry? Would it hurt? Or worse, would my body like it and let him play me like a desperate little fiddle?
If I was anything like the other girls, the answer was simply yes. To all of it.
I swallowed a few times, hoping to digest the rancid world around me. Nothing helped, nothing made me stomach my vile surroundings. But I tried, hoping focusing on not choking on acid was enough to keep me occupied. Keep me occupied until…
The door cracked open when daylight peered over the tall walls surrounding my room. I didn’t bother to turn to see who it was. Regardless, they brought pain or suffering, perhaps both, and, at this point, my tarnished soul deserved either.
The old woman shuffled from behind the door and began running water into the buckets from the first day. Water spit and spattered against the tin, each a small bullet to my shot nerves. I focused on the swish and thump of the fan, wanting it to hold my gaze and transfix my weary soul. Eventually, the slow, easy circles replaced the tin water shots and the circles one by one wiped away my feeling.
Until she fumbled at my ankles, unlocking one and then the other. At first, I didn’t know what to do with myself, or even how to send the mental message to do it, but then I let my toes run along the silk of my sheets. My muscles screamed with each and every small slide. The ragged sound that split my lips was even worse when I tried to throw them over the side of the mattress.
“No, no.” The leathered grandmother grabbed my ankles and pushed them back to the bed, but she wasn’t rough. Gently she massaged my calves then worked down to my feet, stroking her gnarled knuckles between the bones. I closed my eyes and relished each touch in spite of myself.
I told myself not to enjoy it, not to surrender to the sweet feel, but I couldn’t help it. My eyes fluttered shut and I purred as blood flowed back into my aching feet. And when she left them tingling on the bed and unlocked my wrists one by one, I started crying. They’d been chained even longer than my ankles and overwhelming relief flooded me as the woman folded them into my chest. She let them curl there for a few moments before she started to roll her thumbs over the corded muscles. Tears fell all the faster.
She pulled my body to the edge of the bed, her grit able to handle my hollow bones just fine. I limply swung my feet over the side of the bed and she leveraged her body into the crook of my shoulder. The tile was both warm and prickled ice beneath my toes.
“You bathe now.” The grandmother rubbed on my back and used her little frame to lift me from the silk of my sheets.
The warm embrace of the water and the promise of cleanliness pushed my weight onto her shoulders as I stood. My ankles rolled and folded beneath me, unable to hold my weight after being limp and languid for so many days. I tumbled into her waiting arms and her warm chocolate eyes melted as she caught my frail body and held it.
“Be strong,” she bent and murmured in my hair.
I let tears fill in the spaces between my long eyelashes as I turned into her soft chest. She let me lie haphazardly against her, clinging desperately to her body as I found my Bambi legs beneath me. When I managed shaky
footing, we crossed the small space between the bed and the bathtub. Together we managed to get me into the already warmed basin. With her surprisingly delicate touch, she pulled the dingy t-shirt up and over my head.
As she poured warm water over my shoulders, I let myself relax. I watched the long linen curtains move in the faint breeze, each framing the wood-partitioned glass doors that had been thrown open since I arrived. I let my eyes wander the white grout between the sunbaked brown tiles that framed the copper tub. When the woman started scrubbing me down I closed my eyes and let her rub my skin raw.
I let her scratch what was to come from my skin, from my very soul, if only for a moment. Warmth replaced the grime and filth of me and I curled into it. When she poured another bucket of scalding water around my shins, I winced but shrugged into the curve of the tub. She poured two more deep buckets in, covering my weak limbs beneath murky water. I let them float as the scent of warm cinnamon seeped from the bath water.
I was empty for a while, long enough for the water to fade to lukewarm. I was weightless and empty, and it was blissful. For a moment, sleep, real and restful, played with my eyelids. I almost purred as I adjusted my bones against the slope of the tub.
“Perfect, Abuelita.” Mickey’s voice spliced through my relative peace and I braced myself against the metal beneath me.
His breath, the smell of rancid death, tickled both my cheek and my senses as he leaned in traced his nose along my ear.
“She must be spotless. Clean, you hear me?” He ran his hands down my chest as he spoke over my shoulder to the grandmother watching through narrowed eyes. She nodded once with thin lips. “Braid her hair and leave her naked.” He twisted and bit on the flesh and muscle of my neck. His teeth cut against my skin as he sucked, raising it and making my heart pulse in the patch captured in his mouth. With a pop, he let it go. “I’ll be back shortly. I’ll tie her for presentation then.” His tongue traced my earlobe but then he was gone, a demon dissipated into flame.