***
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when I heard sounds outside the door, and then there was Holden, leaving the door open long enough for me to see that his two little minions were also there. I was sitting with my back up against the wall, trying to ignore the increasing pressure in my bladder.
“Oh, good,” Holden said, smiling. “You’re still here.”
“I’m not sure where you think I would be going.”
He pulled something out of his pocket. It took me a moment to realize that it was my phone. My heart sped up at the sight of it.
“So, here’s what you’re going to do,” Holden said. “You’re going to call Shep. You’re going to call him right now and tell him that you’re breaking it off. I’ll give you some time to think about it—really think about it—and come up with a believable reason. Something plausible. Not something that’s going to make him suspicious.”
“And if I won’t?” The words slipped out of my mouth before I even had a chance to consider them; I hadn’t actually meant to say it. I was supposed to be trying to reason with Holden, not antagonize him, but it was like the second he got in my vicinity, all I could think of doing was the exact opposite of what he wanted.
He squinted at me. “I’ll have to decorate the other side of your face, to make it match. If that isn’t compelling enough, then maybe I’ll have to do the same to your little nieces and nephew?”
I froze. How the hell did he know about them? Was he bluffing? Even if he had been, I knew that my reaction had given me away.
“Yeah, we know about them,” he said. “Cute kids. Sure would hate to see something bad happen to them, especially on account of you just being stubborn. That would be a real shame.”
“You wouldn’t hurt children,” I said. “Even you wouldn’t do something like that.” I said it, despite not quite believing it. Holden seemed like the sort of person who was capable of doing anything, if it would ensure him getting what he wanted.
He scrunched his face up, looked to the ceiling as if giving my last statement considerable thought. “Hmm,” he said. “I guess it depends on my mood that day. But, you know, you might be right. Because I’m not one of those adults who forgets what it’s like to be a kid. I’m not one of those adults who looks down on kids and shit, like I was just born a fully formed forty-year-old or something. I can’t stand people like that.” He nodded his chin at me. “You’re like that, I bet. You probably have chronic neck pain because you look down on so many people. I’m not like that.”
“Good,” I said, breathing a little sigh of relief. I didn’t care what he ended up doing to me; if something happened to any of my sister’s kids, I would never be able to live with myself.
“But that doesn’t mean someone else wouldn’t do something to them. There’s plenty of people who owe my family a favor or two, and some of them are true psychos. They’d be more than happy to take out a few kids, trust me. It’d be fun for them. They’d enjoy it. Because that’s the kind of people they are. You are right, Lena, in that we Parkingtons don’t always associate with the most savory of characters. But that’s because we’re not pretentious. We don’t discriminate.”
“I’d say you’ve been nothing but discriminatory to me since we met. You immediately decided that I’m some stuck-up pretentious person just because we didn’t hit it off. Because you think that I order your brother around, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Shep and I actually make a really great team. I’m not trying to take him from your family. Did I even know him when he moved to the city? Did I have anything to do with that? No. He clearly wanted to put some distance between what you guys are doing and his life well before I ever came into the picture.”
“That may be the case, but it’s been noted that ever since you did arrive on the scene, he sure as hell has been around a lot less than before. All because you’re encouraging him to do that. Because you think this is wrong, or immoral, or whatever the hell it is stuck-up people like you think. But it’s in Shep’s blood. That’s what he doesn’t realize. He was born into this, and it’s not just something that he can walk away from, no matter how badly he wants to. He’s just got to accept that. And so do you. I’ll give you some time to think about what you want to say to him.”
He started to turn to go. “No,” I said. If I was going to have to do this, I wanted to hurry up and get it over with. Maybe—just maybe—once that part was done, he’d let me go. I knew that was basically hoping against hope, but I was willing to try anything. “You don’t need to give me more time to think about what I’m going to say. I know what I’m going to say.”
“Is that so,” he said. He pressed his lips together, scrunched his face up, made a big show of at least pretending to consider whether or not he thought what I’d just said was believable. Then, he shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “You’re a female who wastes no time. But I guess we already knew that.”
He came and stood behind me to watch as I called Shep. I tried to keep my hands from shaking, suddenly wondering if I had made a mistake. Maybe I should have taken some time to think about it; maybe there was something I could say, some subtle hint I could drop that Holden would miss, but Shep wouldn’t.
But there wasn’t, and perhaps I already knew that.
The phone rang.
“Put it on speakerphone,” Holden said. I put the phone on speaker. And then Shep picked up.
Chapter 16
Shep
I did think it was a little strange that I hadn’t heard from Lena all day yesterday, so when I heard my phone ringing and saw that it was her, I happily picked up, though I could tell the second I did so that something was not right.
“Hi Shep,” she said, her voice cool, clipped. “Are you… is this a good time to talk? Do you have a minute?”
“For you? Of course I do,” I said. “I was just thinking that we hadn’t talked at all yesterday. Which I’m sorry about; I would have called but I got kind of caught up at the gym. How’s it going? When can I see you?”
There was a pause, and then she coughed. “I’m sorry,” she said after a moment, her voice slightly shaky. “I… I think I have something in my throat.” She coughed a few more times.
“Are you at home? I could come by a little later. Bring you some chamomile tea, if you want.”
“Um… it actually doesn’t matter where I am. What I wanted to talk to you about was… well… there’s really no easy way to say it, so I’m just going to come out with it. I don’t think we should see each other anymore. I really can’t get into all the details and everything, but I think we need to call things off. I’m sorry.”
“Wait—what?” I said, not believing my ears. I started to smile. “This is a joke, right? Ha ha, Lena—good one. You got me.”
“It’s not a joke,” she said sharply, and there was something in her tone that I’d never heard before. I couldn’t quite pinpoint it: Anger? Fear?
“What the hell, Lena,” I said. “Are you serious?”
“I am dead serious,” she said. “I don’t want you to come by my place anymore, or my work. I don’t want you to call me or ever try to get in touch with me again. It would be better if you just forgot about me—okay? You’ve got your fight to be focusing on now. That should be your top priority. You don’t need to add a girlfriend into that mix.”
“Fuck that,” I said. “Yeah, the fighting’s important, but you are actually my top priority. And you better believe you’re going to have to give me a much better explanation than what you’re giving me now. Because I know how things are between us. I know you feel the same way about me that I feel toward you.”
“I don’t!” she shrieked, and her voice cracked, and she was crying. “Please don’t make this any harder than it already is. Please don’t ask any more questions. I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but it’s what’s best. We’re just… we’re way too different for things to ever work out. I wanted to believe that maybe that wouldn’t matter, but I see n
ow that it does matter, and some differences are just insurmountable. And that’s really all that I have to say about it.”
“That’s not good enough,” I said. I pinched the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger. “I don’t buy that for a second.”
“Well, you’re going to have to.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper now.
“Lena,” I said, “can we talk about this in person? Can I come over? Where are you?”
“No, we can’t talk about this in person. I mean what I said, Shep. Just forget about me, okay? Focus on your fight. I know how important that is to you.”
“It’s not more important than you! Come on, Lena—do you want me to beg? Is that it? Fine. I’ll beg. Please don’t do this. At least talk to me in person. This doesn’t make sense at all. And you know what? That’s one of the things that I love about you—you’re someone who’s logical, who thinks before she says and does things, who doesn’t feel like she needs to talk just for the sake of filling the silence. So what you’re doing right now just doesn’t add up with the person I know and have fallen in love with.” The words were just pouring out of me, more feeling than thought, because I simply couldn’t believe what she was telling me.
There was silence. I wanted to believe that she was hearing what I was saying, that she was really thinking about everything I had just told her. And I could visualize her perfectly in my mind, sitting at her kitchen table, or out on the deck, that little frown of concentration she would get on her face, and I had to believe she was giving serious consideration to what I was saying now because things could not end like this.
“Are you freaked out? Are things moving too fast? Did I do something? You can be honest with me, Lena. You know that. If I did something, tell me. I don’t think there’s anything that we can’t work through. But I can’t help work through it if I don’t know what it is.”
“Please,” she said. “Please don’t make this any harder than it has to be. I don’t have anything else to say to you, Shep, other than I’ve thought about this and there’s nothing you can say to change my mind.”
“But Lena—”
“I’ve got to go. I’m sorry. Goodbye.”
“Lena—”
There was a sound right before she hung up, something I didn’t quite catch. But that barely registered—I threw the phone across the room and sank down to the floor, unable to believe everything she had said to me.
Chapter 17
Lena
“Shit.” Holden grabbed for his phone right as I pressed the red button to disconnect the call. He had some awful rap song as his ringtone, and he silenced it quickly before shoving his phone back into his pocket. That he was going to make me call Shep on speakerphone had not been something I’d expected. It felt like a violation of privacy; I had thought that I would at least get to talk to him without Holden hearing both sides of the conversation.
But would that have mattered? There was no way I could have worked in some sort of clue, some sort of hint about what was really happening. Or was there? I couldn’t focus; I felt like I could barely form a coherent thought. Everything was happening too fast, yet I also felt like it was moving in slow motion. And still, a tiny part of me thought that I would somehow wake up from all of this and realize that it was all a terrible—and terribly realistic—nightmare.
“That was pretty good,” Holden said. “Believable. Authentic. If I were my brother, I wouldn’t try to get in touch with you again. But Christ.” He shook his head in disgust. “I mean, did you hear him? That’s not good enough,” he mimicked, switching his inflection again to match Shep’s. I tried to block him out; I couldn’t stand it when he did that. “I don’t buy that for a second. You’re gonna have to do better than that, Lena.” He laughed, slapping his knee.
“I’m so glad we’re providing you with some entertainment,” I said, and the words tasted bitter in my mouth. “There. I broke up with him. I’ll never see him again. Are you happy?”
“I’m glad that you’re finally playing along, yes.”
“So, can I go now?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Do you really think it works that way? You just make that one little phone call and I’m going to let you out of here, just like that?”
“I don’t see why not,” I said. “Do you plan to just keep me in this room forever? And I need to use the bathroom.”
“I’ll bring a bucket in.”
“I don’t just have to pee.” This was a lie; all I had to do was pee—badly—but I thought there might be a chance he would let me out to use the bathroom, and maybe I would see something that could help me. I had no idea what that might be, but I needed to start thinking in terms of escape.
Holden regarded me. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “No one around here wants to deal with your shit, both literally and figuratively. If you try anything, though, Lena, I don’t think I need to detail all the bad shit that’s going to happen. So, no funny business, okay? You’re deep in Parkington country right now. Nowhere for you to go. Got it?”
“Yes,” I said. I stood up. It hurt because I had to pee so badly, but I needed to not focus on that right now. I waited behind Holden as he opened the door. What I needed to do was keep an eye out for anything that I could grab to try and pick the lock with—a paper clip, bobby pin, anything thin and metal that I could bend. I followed Holden out the door and into a short hallway. We passed through that and into a larger, open space, probably around two thousand square feet. Half the ceiling was open, with exposed beams; the other half was sealed off, probably a loft of sorts. It was like a barn except there were no stalls, just a big room with some dilapidated-looking power tools, a ride-on lawn mower. I thought back to when I went to Shep’s parents’ place and tried to remember if I had seen a building like this, but I couldn’t recall. There were small, rectangular windows that let some dusty sunlight in, and to my left, I saw two wood-paneled slab sliding doors, open a crack, letting in more light. Freedom. I didn’t turn my head to look but only shifted my eyes. It was too far to make a run for it, though.
The bathroom was at the back, a small, dark room with a toilet that looked like it barely worked, a white porcelain sink that was stained with some type of oil or grease. There was no mirror, no medicine cabinet. Nothing that I could salvage.
“There you go,” Holden said. “I’ll be waiting right out here.”
I went in, yanked my pants down, and sat on the toilet. It was torture. I’d had to pee for so long that now that I finally had the chance to go, I couldn’t. I waited, willing it to happen. Seconds passed. Finally, finally, something started to happen, at an agonizingly slow speed. That lasted another few seconds, and then it seemed my body remembered how to work and it felt like I peed for probably a minute and a half.
“You’re not trying to escape through the toilet, are you?” Holden asked. “’Cause that wouldn’t work out too well for you.”
I came out of the bathroom a moment later, after spending longer than usual washing my hands. The urge to try to escape was almost overpowering. I knew it would be foolish to even try, but what if this was the only chance I had to be out of that room?
But I followed Holden back. He gave me a shove and then said he’d be back later before closing the door behind him. There was the barely discernible click as he locked the door. I heard him whistle as he walked away.
I started to pace. Now that I didn’t have to pee, and that wasn’t distracting me, I needed to focus every bit of energy and mental acumen I had into how the hell I was going to get out of here. I didn’t have any weapons. I didn’t even have something I could try and pick the lock with. But I had to come up with something, because there was no way that I was just going to stay in this room, a prisoner, my fate in Holden’s hands.
***
I had no idea how much time had passed. An hour? Several hours? Half the day? There was no sun to be able to use to approximate where in the day we were, and whenever I tried to think about how many minutes ha
d elapsed, it all got muddled.
I could’ve been in here a day. I could’ve been in here a week.
The only other thing I was able to think about was Shep. Just hearing the hurt disbelief in his voice when I’d been on the phone with him was like ripping my heart out, over and over again. And what would be the chances he’d be looking for me? That he’d be worried? He wouldn’t be—he’d be pissed, if anything. But I knew Shep wasn’t really like that. He’d be hurt about this, but then he’d get over it. He’d move on.
I was sitting with my back against the wall, knees bent, arms wrapped around my knees, head down, when the door opened. I lifted my head and saw Holden standing there.
“Glad to see you’re still here,” he said jovially, as if there was a chance that I could’ve gone somewhere else. “Were you able to rest at all? Relax? You could look at this as a vacation of sorts, if you wanted. I know you’re probably scheming all sorts of ways to try to get out of here, but I think if you just change your way of looking at this whole thing, you might realize that it’s not actually so bad. Maybe even enjoy yourself.”
He laughed, slapped his knee, then sat down in the chair he’d been sitting in earlier.
“But first,” he said, “you’ve got one more phone call to make. Possibly two.”
I looked at him warily. I couldn’t talk to Shep again. I couldn’t talk to him again and pretend, the way I had last time; there was just no way. My face must have reflected this because Holden just started laughing again.
“No, you’re not calling lover boy back,” he said. “Or should I say, ex-lover boy. Christ. I still can’t get over how pussy-whipped he sounded. What a tool. I mean, unless it really is that good? Maybe I should find out what the fuss is all about?”
I stiffened. I would fight with every last thing I had if he tried to rape me. Or touch me in any way, for that matter. Now that I’d been able use the bathroom, I felt as if I were able to think more clearly. I still didn’t have something I could use to pick the lock, but now I was starting to wonder if I could use my jujitsu training and somehow neutralize him. I probably could—I hadn’t practiced it in a while, but I was confident my body would remember—but then what? He’d said I was deep in Parkington country, which meant… what? I tried to recall if Shep had ever mentioned how much land his family had, though I supposed it was possible I wasn’t even on the same property that we went to; I could be somewhere else entirely. Close enough to be able to run and get help? I didn’t have my phone; I had no idea what Holden had done with it. If I could find it, or somehow get it back from him, maybe I could make a call. If I called Shep, I wouldn’t even have to say anything; I could just leave the phone on and hopefully he’d hear enough in the background to know where I was. If I was able to get the phone and use it without anyone around, then that would be even better, but I doubted that would be possible.
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