Above and Beyond

by Riley Morgan

  “Damien, you can’t do this. Not again.”

  She heard him laugh, and then felt his breath hot on her cheek.

  “Oh yea? Who’s going to stop me?”

  Ramon (TW - Rape)

  Ramon was getting restless. Every second that passed with that creep in the room with Lena made him sick. She was holding her own, but he didn’t see any way that Damien was going to leave without being shown out. He’d hoped that Lena wouldn’t go for the scissors, but she had. He’d regretted showing her how to hold them to stab. That had given her confidence, when in reality, all she was doing was escalating the fight to more lethal force. Then again, if she managed to stab the bastard, he’d be alright with the outcome.

  He held his breath, hoping that someone else would come along and break up the fight. What he would have given to watch Tia come running in with a frying pan and settle things abuela style. He told himself that first thing tomorrow, he was going to beg her to start sleeping in the room next to Lena’s.

  He gritted his teeth and squeezed his fists. He wanted to kill this slimy bastard. If he showed himself, he’d would have to, or he and Lena would be exposed. By the sounds of it, things had come to a head between Damien and Lena. The bed groaned as the weight of two bodies were added to it. There was no more time. Ramon couldn’t sit here and let this happen. But he couldn’t kill Damien, no matter how much the kid deserved it. For one thing, he’d never be able to return to Miami if he did.

  This was it. He went to push himself up and his hand came down on something hard and plastic. It made a beeping noise like a fax machine. Thank God that Lena was the kind of girl to clean her room by pushing shit into the closet. He picked up the voice modulator and felt around above him for the heaviest piece of clothing he could find.

  He pushed the closet door open just enough that he could see. Damien was on top of Lena on the bed, facing away from him. He adjusted the skirt in his hands and crept silently to the edge of the bed.

  “Damien, you can’t do this. Not again,” Lena said.

  He bent down and whispered something into her ear that Ramon could not hear. Damien sat back up.

  Ramon jumped over the footboard of the bed and pulled the skirt over Damien’s head, gathering the loose fabric in his fist so that it stretched tight over Damien’s face. One quick jab to his kidneys made Damien go limp. Ramon picked up the voice modulator and dragged Damien backwards off the bed and into the bathroom.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” Ramon said in a robot’s voice.

  He turned the faucet in the bath on as hot as it would go, and pushed Damien’s head under the running water. In under a second, the scalding water had saturated the heavy fabric of the dress and made it almost impossible for Damien to draw breath. To him, it would have felt like drowning. Ramon had seen Taliban fighters being waterboarded before. It was about the most awful thing that he’d seen a person endure, and he hadn’t wished it on anyone before. Not even the enemy soldiers that had killed his friends. Damien would be lucky if this was the worst that he got from Ramon tonight.

  He pulled Damien up to his knees and set the modulator to ‘alien mode’.

  “You will call off your wedding with Ms. Buldova. You will never come back here. You will never see her again. Do you understand.”

  One of the problems with torture is that a subject under duress will do or say anything to make it stop. Damien would have agreed that he was a French prostitute, or that he would give his entire inheritance to the Miami battered women’s shelter. But he never would have meant it.

  Then, Ramon wasn’t exactly counting on Damien keeping any promises. He’d just hoped to make a lasting impression on him.

  Ramon pushed his head back towards the water, close enough that Damien could feel splashes of hot water on his cheeks through the dress.

  “And if anyone asks, this never happened.”

  In this case, Ramon knew that Damien was lying. As soon as he got home, he would run to his father, sobbing, and tell him everything. Well, he would probably omit the part where broke into Lena’s room, threatened her, and tried to rape her. But he would gladly tell all of the ways that he had been the victim here. Ramon just wanted to make sure that his story - along with his body - would be colorful.

  Ramon hauled him out of the tub, ‘accidentally’ hitting his head on the corner of the shower. Lena had unlocked and opened the bedroom door, and Ramon dragged Damien’s kicking body down the stairs and out the front door. He stood Damien at the threshold of the house, the soaked dress still over his head. Ramon looked at the voice modulator in his hand and pressed the button marked “chipmunk”.

  “If you ever return to this house. If you ever tell anyone what happened here tonight. I will kill you.”

  He released the skirt and simultaneously kicked Damien’s ass so hard that both of his feet left the ground. It occurred to Ramon later that they probably could have matched the bruise to the sole of his boot.

  When Damien turned around, he found the door, closed and locked. By the time he got into his car and drove away, Ramon was back upstairs trying to be of any comfort that he could to Lena.

  Lena

  Lena wasn’t sure how long Ramon had been gone for. From the second that she’d hit Damien, adrenaline had been coursing through her body. Things moved in slow motion. Time was distorted. Everything was a blurry mish mash of events. She could remember most of what happened but couldn’t put all the events in order. When she watched Ramon drag Damien out of her room, she started to come down, and everything started to hurt. She made it back to her bed before she crashed. The next thing she was aware of was a touch on her arm. Although it was as gentle of a touch as Ramon could manage, to her it felt like a fiery stab. She jumped, startled, and whirled around ready to fight.

  Ramon took a step back and held his hands up in the air.

  “Oh, hey,” Lena said, her pulse racing.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean to-”

  “It’s ok.”

  Ramon sat on the floor beside her bed and looked up at her.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “Not real good,” Lena said.

  “What can I do?”

  “Just stay with me.”

  Ramon sat with her, saying nothing, doing nothing. Lena appreciated his patience. The last time that Damien had attacked her, at school, all of her friends tried to help. They meant well, that wanted their friend to feel better. But what Lena needed then was just to be left alone. She wanted that now too, but she was afraid to be by herself in this evil house. She wanted to be alone with someone else, and that’s exactly what Ramon gave her.

  They would have sat their all night in complicit silence, if Zeus hadn’t come stomping down the hallway. Ramon was on his feet, looking impressively detached by the time Lena’s stepfather filled the doorway.

  “What the hell is going on down here?” he growled.

  “I heard screaming sir,” Ramon said. “I came to investigate and found Lena. I’ve tried to speak with her but she’s requested to be left alone.”

  “Who gives a shit what she requests. Lena, what the fuck is going on?”

  “Oh, nothing dad. Just a little tussle with a rapist.”

  “Don’t speak about your fiance that way.”

  “Who said anything about Damien?” Lena said with feigned innocence.

  Zeus began to look very angry. His temper made Damien look tame by comparison, and Lena did not want to push him any further.

  “I just got a call from that boy’s father. He says that his son was beaten within an inch of his life. Know anything about that Ramon?”

  Ramon shook his head. “No sir. Lena told me that the rape was broken up by robot. I’m a little skeptical of the claim, myself.” He, on the other hand, had no reservations about pissing Zeus off. Lena wondered if he might get a chance to develop some in the very near future.

  Zeus was practically steaming from the ears.

  “I don’t know what’s
going on around here, but on my life, you had better learn to get along with Damien. He’s going to be your husband in six days and you’re going to be the wife I raised you to be, damnit. This family has too much riding on you for you to go around worrying about what you want.”

  Lena smiled from ear to ear. It was the kind of smile that someone makes when they’re driven to madness by anger. Ramon had seen it before. Ramon had worn it himself.

  “I know father. I’ll be a good girl. I’ll do anything for the family.”

  Now it was Zeus’s turn to back off.

  “Thats… that’s right. I trust we’ll have no more disturbances tonight.”

  “As long as you don’t let any more rapists into the house,” Lena muttered under her breath. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Zeus for a response. He turned around and for a moment opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. Ramon followed him into the hallway and locked the door behind him. He’d left the lights on, which was fine by Lena.

  She knew that she would not sleep tonight.

  Ramon

  Ramon would not be sleeping either. Even though Damien had no way of knowing who had beaten him tonight, the truth would be discovered by one means or another. Certainly not honestly, but that wasn’t really important to Ramon right now. The finger would point at him, and he would take the fall. He made the most convenient scapegoat. Normally, he would have been proud to take credit for the beating. Nobody in their right mind could have said that Damien didn’t deserve it. But the people here weren’t in their right minds, and deserve didn’t have anything to do with it.

  Anyway, he didn’t have time to worry about that until Zeus was done with him. After they’d left Lena’s room, the old man had ordered Ramon to follow him back to his office. Ramon was beginning to wonder if the old man didn’t sleep in there.

  “What’s going on in this house?” he demanded to know once he was seated behind his enormous desk, Ramon standing at attention on the other side.

  “Lena and Damien don’t get along sir. Sorry about the other night. Didn’t know the boy was family.”

  “I know all of that. Tell me something else.”

  “Not sure what to tell you, sir. I heard screaming and found Lena’s bedroom door open, her sitting on the bed.”

  “How’d anyone manage to get into her room.”

  “Broke in, I imagine. I’ve got the only key, it’s still in my pocket.”

  Ramon produced the tiny key. His excuse was a plausible one. The lock on Lena’s door only had two tumblers. Even a moron could have picked the lock. A big moron could just knock the door open.

  “And you didn’t see or hear anything?”

  “No sir. My thinking is that Lena let Damien in, and things got out of hand. She’s probably the one that beat him up is my guess, and he’s too embarrassed to say.”

  Ramon was proud of that lie. He felt like shit pinning the blame on Lena, although he knew that she’d be happy to take it. But Zeus must have been familiar with the type of man who, when beaten in a fight, made his opponent into a giant invincible brute. Zeus gave the idea careful consideration and seemed to be happy with it. He must have hated the little twerp as much as anyone, but to Zeus, Damien’s marriage to Lena was a matter of business. He didn’t have to be happy with it, it just needed to happen.

  “Very well. Back to your post.”

  Ramon nearly sprinted upstairs. He needed to be ready to leave at the drop of a hat. The smart move was to leave now, but he couldn’t, not without Lena He knew he wouldn’t do her any good dead or locked up, but he needed to stay here until the last possible second. To look out for Lena and to continue looking for a way of getting her out of here.He prepared two bags. Each had the bare minimum supplies that he’d need to stay alive long enough to get to help. Food, water, and clothes. He’d figured it might be a long walk through a lot of swamp, so he put two extra pairs of socks in each bag. The socks he had were garbage, made for dress shoes. He only had two pair of lightweight but rugged wool socks. He put one in each pack, lamenting the fact that he would not be able to wear either until the bags were needed or no longer necessary.

  He very much wanted to contact Gabe. There was no one in the world that Ramon trusted more right now, except for maybe Lena. And in a contest between which of the could do more to bail his ass out of trouble, Gabe won handedly. But he had no phone, and all of the lines on the compound were bugged according to Lena. In the Marines, they’d had distress codes. Ways of sending apparently innocuous messages that, to a knowledgeable receiver, indicated that the sender was in serious trouble. He wondered if Gabe had remembered any of them. The call would have to be made in the morning, during normal hours, preferably when Ramon had the excuse of dialing a few other numbers to make it look like business as usual.

  If Gabe got the call, Ramon couldn’t be sure that he’d know what he was getting. Even if he did, would he know what to do? What could he do? And dragging Gabe into the middle of this clusterfuck was about the worst thing that he could ask him to do. After what had happened in Afghanistan, Ramon could hardly imagine asking him to get his ass out of trouble with the mob.

  But Ramon’s other options were looking slim. He’d poke around the garage tomorrow and see if he could find some holes in the security there. Getting a pair of wheels would be a big step up in any escape plan. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day for Ramon. He had gotten in the good habit of assuming the worst case scenario.

  Unfortunately, his imagination wasn’t very good.

  Lena

  The next day, Lena went back to pretending that she didn’t even see Ramon. It was a hard act to put on. After everything that had happened yesterday, the good and the bad, she could hardly see anybody but him. Her step-father made her go through wedding arrangements. His logic, Lena supposed, was that if a woman couldn’t decide who she was going to marry, she at least ought to be able to pick out table cloths and napkins.

  It was a good distraction though, and Lena had fun with it. She had seen a lot of reality TV about domineering brides, and she played the character well. The cake, she insisted, would be vegan and gluten free. There was only one bakery in Miami that she would accept. She sat in Zeus’s office beaming inside as he got chewed out by the head baker for daring to request a custom wedding cake with three days notice. Then Lena had her turn at harrying him.

  The color of the wedding would be a sort of desaturated yellow-green. A small child might remark that it was “booger” color. Lena would have agreed. In jarring contrast to the booger green, she selected a number of items with hot pink accents, and decided that each chair would have brown slip covers. She thought it was funny that all of the colors had interesting names like “Seafoam” and “Starlight”. And then there was “Brown”. Lena never gave it a second thought.

  Although she’d never been a terribly sentimental person, Lena had thought about what kind of a wedding she’d wanted. For one, it never would have taken place on a boat. Two, she’d have had more than a few days to plan it. As a sort of protest, every choice that she made - and insisted upon vehemently - was as antithetical to her actual wishes as possible. It briefly occurred to her that she might be able to get the wedding canceled if the decor was so awful that all of the guests began to spontaneously vomit.

  After three hours of being as miserable as she could to her step-father, he lost his nerve and had Lena excused. She would speak with the planner directly regarding any remaining decisions.

  While she was sitting in the living room trying to imagine how she could make the ceremony any more unbearable, she heard her father talking on the phone in his office. Her attention had been drawn by her name, but was kept by what followed.

  “Lena’s bodyguard, I think.”

  Then a short pause.

  “I understand.”

  “Yes. Yes of course.”

  Whoever Zeus was talking to then proceeded to give him very detailed instructions which Zeus then repeated back
twice. Lena could not believe what she was hearing. She thought that trouble would come out of last night, knew it, really, but she didn’t imagine that it would be like this.

  “I’ll take care of him tonight.”

  Lena tried not to freak out. She calmly got up and went to the kitchen. She asked if Tia or Michaela knew where Ramon was, but neither of them knew. She looked outside but didn’t see anybody. It was the middle of the afternoon and the Florida sun made it too oppressively hot for anyone to work outside for very long.

  He wasn’t at her room, or in his, or in the room he kept above hers. As she walked through the second story of the house, she heard the clank of metal on metal.

  She opened the door to the small room that served as the gym for the house. Basil had insisted on it several years ago. He used it a few times and then forgot about it. Lena worked out in it from time to time, but she prefered to get her exercise running and swimming.

  Ramon had his back turned to the door. He was on a machine doing pectoral flies. He was wearing a tank top that showed off a huge swath of his back and Lena stood watching for a long time, utterly transfixed. It wasn’t until the waits clattered back down onto the stack that she snapped to it.

  She stepped into the room and called for Ramon.

  He turned and smiled and met her at the door.

  “How are you doing?”

  “Ok. Still really shaky. I miss you.”

  She stood up on her toes and kissed Ramon before wrapping her arms around him and holding him tight.

  “Ramon,” she said. “I need to tell you something.” She could feel tears in her eyes and struggled to keep her voice from cracking and failing.

  “What is it,” Ramon said, as cool and collected as always.

  “My father is going to kill you.”

  Part Four

  Ramon

  Ramon listened to what Lena had to say. When she was done, he kissed her goodbye. He promised that he would see her soon. He promised that she would not have to marry Damien in three days. Not then, and not ever. He promised that everything would be okay, but he wondered if it was true.