The Real Thing

by Marina Simcoe

  My question was perfectly logical, only Harold didn’t seem to see it that way. In fact, logic must have been a foreign concept to him altogether.

  Instead, another blow from his fist came lower, across my jaw. My lip split from it, and a thin trickle of blood ran down my chin. I felt the taste of it in my mouth too.

  “I already told you, bitch! It’s none of your business! Your only purpose of being here is to make sure your asshole boyfriend shows up.”

  White, hot rage exploded inside of me! The pain made me angry. I wanted to hit, kick and punch back! All I could think at that moment was to hurt him back! Bound, with my hands behind the back of the chair, I couldn’t fight with my fists. All I had for a weapon at that moment were my words. I burned to make them sharper than a blade and throw them in his face like daggers.

  Shut up, Angela, just shut up, the thought turned inside my brain. Shut up, because it will get much worse if you don’t.

  I forced myself to rein in my anger, and made another attempt to reason with the madman in front of me.

  “Even if he brings you his notes and diagrams, trust me, you won’t be able to use any of them. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. Just let me go, and I promise I’ll ask Marcus not to hurt you.”

  “You are one stupid bitch, aren’t you?” he sneered. “You think I was going to let you go? You think I would let either one of you go once I get his diagrams? He gets a bullet in his head whenever he shows his face in here! And then I will make you watch what I do to his body before I kill you too.”

  Suddenly, I didn’t feel the cold of the warehouse anymore. Nothing felt as cold as the wave of icy, paralyzing fear that finally washed over my heart.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Hey, boss,” came a raspy voice from behind me, followed by shuffling. By the sound of it, there were more goons waiting in the darkness by the wall behind me in addition to the two I’d seen in front of me earlier. “Why would we waste the bitch? Sell her like the others.”

  I turned my head to look over my shoulder in an attempt to see who’d spoken, but he was too far back. From the corner of my eye, I could only see a dark shape along with a few others in the distance. I did notice a faint glimmer of light reflecting off the weapons held by the figures in the darkness.

  My gaze fell on the wall to my left. My eyes had adjusted to the weak light of the warehouse by now, and I could make out several thick rusty chains hanging from the rings mounted in the concrete at even intervals. All the chains ended with metal collars attached to them. All the collars were open. For now. Several dirty plastic buckets were piled beside the wall, along with filthy rugs.

  What was this place?

  “She’d fetch a good price if we don’t rough her up too much,” the same raspy voice said.

  “Huh? Fuck that! I wanna rough her up!” came another voice, this one had a thick accent the origin of which I couldn’t care to figure out at the moment.

  Who are these people? Are they even people? Are they human at all?

  “Shut up!” Harold snapped into the darkness.

  “Is that your new ‘business?’” I shuddered more from disgust than from the cold this time. “Are you kidnapping and selling people? Do you think that makes you a successful businessman?”

  “Bitch!” he growled through his teeth and drove his fist in my temple with all his strength. The force of the blow made the chair tip to the side, and I crashed to the floor. The side of my head hit the ground, making my vision blur, but it was the sharp pain in my elbow that made me scream.

  “Shut up! Just shut your fucking mouth, you’re fucking whore!” His face turned the same purple hue as his shirt; the thin wavy filaments of hair made their way out of his ponytail and now stood on end around his head like a halo from hell. “Shut your mouth! Or I’ll get my boys to plug it with their cocks!”

  It no longer mattered what I said I realized, it didn’t even matter if I replied at all — he was beyond reasoning.

  “You’re…” he repeated, unable to get another word out, choked on his own rage. The hard tip of his boot connected with my side when he kicked me, and I felt my ribs crack.

  The baby! The thought was so sudden, it shot through me sharper than any pain from Harold’s blows.

  I wasn’t sure if I believed what Ingeborg said about me having a baby. I certainly didn’t feel pregnant. I wasn’t even late yet. But just the thought of having a tiny, defenceless being inside of me this very moment made me really scared for the second time since I got to this hellhole. Tied to the chair the way I was, I couldn’t even pull my legs up to shield my stomach from Harold’s blows.

  This was when I begged for the very first time.

  “Stop. Please,” my voice came out quieter than I intended, but he would not have stopped even if he heard me. I closed my eyes, bracing for another blow to my side when a loud noise filled the warehouse, shaking the building to its foundation.

  33. My True Avenger.

  Light filtered through my closed eyelids, and the cold air blew in streams along the floor. I opened my eyes just in time to see one of the heavy loading dock doors fly through the air as if it was hurled by the hand of an invisible titan. It crashed far behind me and was followed by some filthy curses and screams of pain.

  The shiny black tip of Harold’s boot stopped in front of my face.

  “Marcus?” Harold’s voice was small in shock.

  And then I saw him: the sharp, dark silhouette, like an ink painting against the daylight at his back. He walked across the vast space of the warehouse between us.

  Silent, calm, deadly.

  His long hair was unbound. It got caught by the strong draft of air and now flipped in the wind like a coal-black wing behind him.

  My man. He found me, as I always knew he would.

  I closed my eyes to clear the fog out of my head, the remnants from the blow against the concrete.

  Harold recovered from his shock and moved away from me to approach Marcus.

  “Well —” There was a thick glee in his voice before it was abruptly cut off.

  All I heard was a quiet puff and a brief searing noise then the pungent stench of burnt flesh hit my nostrils. I held my breath and opened my eyes to see the silvery grey streams of hot ash move in the air across the floor in front of my face.

  The grey ash was all that was left of Harold I realized and closed my eyes again. I would think about it tomorrow. I just couldn’t process all of these horrors at once.

  Warm hands reached for me. The restraints fell from my arms and legs, dissolving into the air. Strong arms lifted me off the floor and pressed me to his hard chest. Scorching hot like a furnace, it felt like heaven both to my shivering body and to my tormented soul.

  I draped my arms over his shoulders, wincing from the sharp shooting pain in my ribs and elbow, and pressed my nose to the side of his neck. The familiar, comforting smell of hot spice and warm leather filled my nose, replacing the stench that had filled the warehouse.

  Suddenly, an array of noises exploded all around us: heavy cursing, loud clunks of guns getting ready, screams of pain, the rapid sounds of footsteps running either towards us or away from us…

  All of them were silenced one by one with faint puffs and searing sounds, and when I opened my eyes again, more of the grey ash joined the morbid dark whirlpool churning in the air around us.

  Everything ended within minutes. Without saying a word, Marcus carried me out into the daylight.

  The warehouse looked like an ordinary building from the outside. I must have passed it many times on my monthly visits of our distribution centre located in the same industrial area just north of the airport. The building stood apart from the rest and was placed in the centre of a large lot, giving Harold enough privacy for the dark deeds that happened there. What a vile, sinister place!

  A noise of an explosion filled the still, chilly air, and a wide column of fire shot fifty feet into the air from the centre of th
e warehouse roof. It came down instantly like a fountain of liquid fire, engulfing the whole building in flames in less than a second.

  Save for the roaring noise of the raging fire, it was eerily silent. There were few people around this industrial area on the weekends. And it felt odd that things like these could be happening in the city full of people, in the broad daylight.

  Marcus kept walking away from the burning building. He was quiet and seemingly calm, but I could feel the tension vibrating through every fiber of his being, betraying the tremendous effort it took him to control the power raging inside.

  With my eyes glued to the rampant fire behind us, I watched what was the most violent manifestation of his power that I had ever seen.

  The criminals inside had been incinerated with quick, silent efficiency, and I understood now why Ingeborg and the rest of her people insisted on living in hiding. I understood why Marcus was reluctant to tell the world about his magic.

  To me, Marcus’s gift was something wondrous, pure and beautiful. It was meant to be enjoyed and shared with people. In my mind, its purpose was to bring happiness to everyone.

  I realized now that it wasn’t how everyone would see it. Some would see Marcus as a monster to be contained and isolated, if not outright destroyed. Some would find evil, sinister ways to exploit his gift, potentially using him as a weapon against humanity.

  I slid my hands up his back and under his hair, all the way to his nape. The fact that he continued to walk instead of teleporting told me that his mind was still back there in the dark place. I could feel the restless energy coursing through him, surging in a powerful current just beneath his burning hot skin, and I stroked his nape in small soothing movements.

  “Shhh, Marcus,” I whispered, raking my fingers through the hair on the back of his head. I pressed my temple to the side of his face. “It’s okay. You saved me. We’re going to be okay now.”

  The high-pitched wail of sirens finally came from the distance, as police and fire trucks approached the scene.

  “We have to get out of here, my love. Now it’s my turn to keep you safe, and I’ll spend a lifetime doing it,” I promised.

  34. Your Faults Are My Own.

  He took me home to my apartment. He poured a warm bath for both of us and washed the ash out of my hair. He carried me to bed and crawled under the covers behind me, and then he held me close in utter silence.

  The ash was off my body, but a thick layer of it still weighed heavily on my soul.

  “We need to get you to the hospital,” he said finally.

  “I hate hospitals,” I grimaced, not ready to interact with other people yet. “The wait times will kill you sooner than any emergency that brought you there.”

  He chuckled softly in my hair, and I turned in his arms to face him. My cracked ribs protested, and the dull pain in my elbow spread up to my shoulder. This would take a while to heal. Meanwhile, the pain would remind me of today’s events every time I moved. Even when the physical pain went away eventually, the ugly memories would still remain.

  I arranged the ice pack — that Marcus got for me — between us and gingerly placed my injured elbow on it then looked up at him.

  “Marcus?” I started carefully. It wasn’t the right time to ask. There may never be a right time, but I needed to know, and he needed to talk about it. “Have you ever burned someone before?”

  Slowly, he lifted his hand and brushed stray strands of hair behind my ear. His hand remained at my face, cupping my cheek. His gaze travelled behind me for a minute and then returned, settling on my eyes again. I waited.

  “Yes,” he replied finally.

  “When you were a child?”

  Marcus inhaled heavily.

  “Yes.”

  “Was it… Was it an accident?”

  “No,” he shook his head. “Not an accident.” His hand dropped to the bed and his thumb started tapping on the sheet next to my ice pack nervously. “I… I was eight, maybe nine. Still too young to understand fully what was going on in that foster home, but I knew that something wasn’t right and preferred to hang out outside with Simon most of the time. I shared a bedroom with two older boys, but all younger kids had their own bedrooms in that house. Looking back —” he cut himself off and shook his head. “I’m not sorry. How can I be sorry? If anything, I should have done it to him earlier.”

  He inhaled again deeply. I lifted my uninjured arm and placed my hand against his chest, right over his thundering heart.

  “I got up in the middle of the night once to use the bathroom.” His jaw clenched. “ He happened to be awake. He cornered me in there. He said if I lived under his roof, I had to be a good boy and follow all the rules of his house, like everybody else did. I was scared when he held me down, but it was the pain that made me lose it. It made me angry, and I exploded. I don’t remember much after that. My mind had gone blank. I came to only after he had already passed out on the floor. His clothes had burned off, but the fire was still raging all around him. I stopped the fire. I remember being afraid that he’d die. I didn’t want to kill him, Angela. I just wanted him to stop.”

  I nodded, fighting a lump in my throat, and stroked his chest soothingly.

  “He ended up dying in a care home a few years later,” Marcus continued. “He never fully recovered from his burns. So, essentially, I killed him after all.”

  “You stopped him from ruining the lives of other children.” I finally managed to get the words out. “Who knows if any of those he had molested ever fully recovered from his abuse?” I pressed my hand to his chest firmly to stop myself from shaking. “How did you make it, Marcus?” I wondered out loud, even as my throat tightened. “How did you grow up to be the good person that you are at the end of it all? How did you not turn to crime? It would have been so easy to get angry at the world and break all the rules, especially for you. No one would’ve been able to stop you!”

  “No,” he said with emphasis and shook his head resolutely. “I was mostly raised to believe that all I could ever be was a criminal. It made me want to be anything but one. When you know you can get away with any crime, it becomes a matter of self-respect to commit none. When there is no one to force you to stay within the norms of society, self-control is all that stands between you and the person you want to be.”

  He looked closely at me and added slowly, “It is frighteningly easy for me to hurt people. All I have to do sometimes is let go of my self-control, but I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone. Until today. Today, I wanted to kill them all. Those assholes who took you? I didn’t want them to exist.”

  I felt a chilling sensation bloom in my chest from his words, but the scary part of it all was that I understood him completely. If there was a judgment to be passed on him, it would have to be passed on me too, because I accepted his actions as if they were my own.

  “The world would be a better place if some people didn’t exist,” I replied gravely.

  “Does it justify a murder?” he narrowed his eyes at me.

  “I don’t know,” I inhaled. “There are many ways to look at it, Marcus, and many ways to judge. I can’t answer for other people. I can’t look at it from the point of law either: I’m too involved and too emotional to be unbiased. I can only promise you that I will never judge you for your past, just like I would never judge you for anything you did today. I used to believe that people were never all good or all bad, that they were always somewhere in-between. But today, I saw pure evil with my own eyes. Some filth just doesn’t deserve to walk the earth. They deface this world.”

  He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to mine.

  “Now that you know… now that you’ve seen, can you still love me?” he whispered.

  I put my uninjured arm around his neck and pulled him closer.

  “I can never ‘un-love’ you, Marcus. You are mine, all of you. Your faults are my own, and all of your secrets are mine to keep.” I reached to him for a kiss, but the cut on my lip made me wince.
<
br />   He tenderly skimmed along my lip with his thumb.

  “I can’t heal,” he breathed out with regret. “I would give up everything I have, all the magic in the world, just to be able to heal this right now.”

  “Well, if your bargain for healing power works out, could you please start with my ribs first?” I attempted a smile. “They hurt the most.”

  “I’m so sorry, sweetheart! I’m so sorry I didn’t get there sooner. We traced your cellphone a minute before we got the email with the address from him.”

  I shook my head.

  “You got there just in time, actually.” I placed my arm across my stomach and blurted out as soon as the thought entered my mind again, “Ingeborg thinks I’m pregnant.”

  His eyes opened wide from the totally unexpected news.

  “Are you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t feel any different, and my period is due any time now. But you’re right: I should go to the hospital — just in case — to make sure he didn’t hurt the baby. If there is a baby.”

  “Oh, Angela!” Marcus groaned, grating his teeth, and rolled on his back. His hands clenched into fists. “I did it too quick and painless for him. I should have made that motherfucker burn longer!”

  35. Family.

  Well, Ingeborg turned out to be right: Marcus and I were going to be parents!

  This fact, along with the events in the warehouse, made Marcus insist that I move in with him without delay. He claimed it would be easier for him to keep me safe if I lived in his house, which he fortified with a state-of-the-art security system in anticipation of my arrival.

  He also bought his own car for the first time ever and hired a driver-bodyguard to chauffeur me around. Neither of us knew how teleportation would affect the baby in the long run. Even though the couple of times that I did teleport — before we found out I was pregnant — didn’t seem to affect the baby so far, we decided for me to stick with the conventional modes of travel from now on, just to be safe.