Persephone’s Curse

by Sandra Bats

  “Aww, sweetheart, I wish I could help you. I wish I could just hold you and make it all go away.”

  Her hands fumbled as I murmured into her hair. Like she was looking for something to hold onto. I knew that feeling of being lost. I’d struggled with it before. I surely didn’t want it for anyone, least of all her.

  Her knees wavered and she swayed lightly. I leaned against the shower wall, slowly sliding to the ground and pulling her with me. Her tiny, firm bottom fit perfectly into the circle my legs formed. Under other circumstances, this would have been bliss. Now it was agony because she was hurting, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I stroked her back, letting her cry.

  I didn’t know what it was with water, but it surely helped wash away the horrors. After a while the sobs tearing through her body ebbed. She lifted her head from my shoulder and looked at me. Then she gently gave a brave smile.

  “I’m such a fool,” she murmured.

  I made a disapproving sound, but she kept talking.

  “I would’ve run right up to Maddy, killing us both but still I feel like I should’ve done something. I feel so helpless and she looked at me like she hates me. I wish so badly that I could trade places with her. Until tonight, I somehow always told myself that she was fine, that by some miracle she wasn’t being … wasn’t … you know?”

  “… raped?”

  Her eyes were fixed on mine. She brushed a wet streak of hair out of her face and called herself a coward for not having been able to say it.

  “You’re not. It’s normal that it’s difficult. I couldn’t say it in context with you or Abby. It’s just … it becomes too real when we say it.”

  Elin sighed, and I brushed my fingers over her cheeks. Brushed a few tendrils of red hair that stuck to her skin away. When I softly kissed her lips she kissed me back, her arms wrapping around my neck. Her kiss held a sudden ferocity I hadn’t expected.

  She pushed her body against mine and her hands ran all over my skin. My hands wandered too, over her bare breasts and down to her hips. She squirmed against me, her body pressed to mine in just the right places.

  All these days I’d tried to not rush things with her. Yet, here she was in my lap, wearing just her flimsy panties. I couldn’t help but clutch her tighter against me, teasing her tongue with mine. Her hands suddenly brushed beneath the waistband of my boxers and she boldly tugged at them.

  Realization jolted through my body like a curse. I stared at her. Her eyes were wide and haunted while she kissed me. She kept moving, trying to get closer to me.

  I recognized the look in her eyes. The emptiness I saw there and the desperate need to fill that void somehow. I’d worn that look often enough. Had filled the emptiness with those meaningless women in town I’d told Elin only fragmentarily about.

  I hated recognizing that look in her eyes. It would’ve been so easy to let her slip her hands into my underwear. I wanted her to. Not like that, though. I hissed a curse and grabbed her wrists.

  “Don’t,” I whispered.

  She nearly begged, and I nearly gave in. I would’ve let go of her wrists that instant had her eyes not been wide with innocence beneath those conflicting emotions. Instead, I tried to speak. My voice was far too hoarse even for my own ears.

  “If you look me in the eye and tell me you really want this, I’d be glad. But if this is about you feeling lonely and empty just the least bit, this’ll lead nowhere.”

  “I …” She broke off and stared down at my hands. She shook her head ever so slightly. I untangled my fingers from her wrists, carefully helping her to her feet.

  I hated the apologetic look on her face. I turned the water off, wrapped a towel around her shoulders and kissed her forehead.

  Twenty-Four

  Elin

  Back in our room, I hid behind the blackboard under the ruse of getting ready for bed. In fact, I couldn’t look Jayden in the eye, mortified of what I’d done. I wasn’t sure what had gotten into me to suddenly throw myself at him like that. All I knew was one minute I’d been chilled to the bone from fear and anger, and suddenly that had been replaced by a crazy, white-hot longing I felt for him.

  I settled into bed, pulling the blankets up to my chin. I felt Jayden’s eyes on me for a moment before he lay down and pulled me close. My back was to his chest and now that it was dark in the room, speaking — though still embarrassing — felt easier.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. That wasn’t even me, I just … I didn’t mean to be like that.”

  “Stop apologizing,” Jayden whispered. “I know you felt lonely and you thought that might fix it. I’ve been there, too.”

  His voice was filled with sad honesty and I dared roll onto my back to better make out his features in the dark.

  “Is that why you were with those girls?”

  “Sometimes, yeah. I felt alone after Jane and I escaped. Like I was the only person in the world who knew how evil humans could be. I was too afraid of the nightmares, so I drank all day and all night. After a while, I was sleep-deprived and tried to numb myself. I was in pretty bad shape. One night I was so wasted I wanted to get rid of the insignia at my wrist. It was a constant reminder of what had happened.”

  I brushed my thumb over the smooth, scarred skin at his wrist.

  “I was so out of it I barely remember, but apparently, I heated the back of a knife over a candle and tried burning off my skin. Next thing I knew, I was in Jane’s care. She and Cam thought I’d tried killing myself. It took quite a bit to convince them that hadn’t been my intention. Afterwards, I tried changing things. I drank less, slept a little more. In fact, I just traded one vice for the other. It wasn’t healthier really, just less self-destructive.”

  “But you weren’t alone. You had Jane and Cam,” I mentioned.

  Jayden sighed deeply. “I know. I thought they didn’t understand, though. In training, I learned just how far I can go when I’m pushed. They never had to learn those boundaries. Yes, Cam says he’d do anything for Nigel and Josh, but he won’t know whether it’s true until he has to actually do it. I knew exactly how far I went in my naive belief of protecting Abby. I wasn’t a very good person back then.”

  He tensed when I asked him to tell me about the things he’d done. His hand was clenched and I couldn’t pry his fingers apart, so I just rested my hand on top of his. When he finally spoke, his voice was grave and he didn’t even sound like himself anymore, but darker, deadlier and somehow so detached I could’ve believed he was a different person.

  “Have you ever killed?” he finally asked.

  “You know I did. I shot three guards, you were the only one who survived.”

  “No. I mean truly killed. Not in self-defense, not shooting and running to save your life. I mean standing in front of them and holding a gun to their head. Looking into their eyes. Then pulling the trigger.”

  His voice was so quiet it was barely audible. I had to force myself to not get distracted by the shaking in his words.

  “They teach you the first day in training. They line women and girls up in front of you. You know, infertile ones or those who are in some other way useless to them. Rebels, too. They give you a gun and tell you to shoot while they, likewise, hold a gun to your head. The first trainee in line might think they’re bluffing. There’s always one who thinks they are. You get orders to shoot three times. Then, all you hear is ringing in your ears and piercing screams. You might feel something warm on your face. It takes a moment until you understand it’s blood and brain. If the trainee didn’t take the shot, he’d wind up dead next to the girl. They move on to the next guy and the closer it comes to being you, you figure out the girl will die anyway. But you can survive. You keep looking at the girl in front of you. Her big scared eyes. She knows she’ll die. When it’s your turn you shake, you tremble, and you squeeze your eyes shut. They tell you to shoot. Once, twice, you hear the click when they cock the gun at your head. When they tell you a third time you pull the trigger. You want
to look and convince yourself that she at least died quickly. But instead you look over to see the next in line, trainee or girl, hit the floor with a bullet in their head.”

  He paused for a while and I felt him pull his hand from mine.

  “By the end of the week, you shoot without them telling you to. You tell yourself that you’ll never do what those guards did. You will never stand behind the new arrivals and force them into becoming murderers. A few years later, once training might be finished it might be you who’s holding trainees at gunpoint. The lesson you learned is that there’s always somebody holding a gun to your head or that of someone you care about.”

  My breath left my lungs but still I murmured his name, whispering that he’d been forced to comply for his own survival, that it wasn’t his fault, but he shook his head in the dark.

  “I’d do it all over again to protect Abby or you!”

  The way he uttered the words I knew there were none I could’ve said to appease him. Instead, I opted for another way to reassure him. I rolled over to wrap my arms around him, made sure I didn’t hesitate for a moment so that he didn’t think I was repelled by his past. I truly wasn’t. Yes, I was shocked at what he’d been through, but I understood perfectly well that they’d forced him into it. I heard it in the way his voice broke and felt it in the way his body tensed when I hugged him. Most of all, I knew deep in my heart that Jayden was good.

  ◆◆◆

  That night, the nightmare that woke me wasn’t my own. Instead I stood with others, lined up, Maddy next to me, while masked guards held guns to our heads. Eventually, one of them pulled his mask off. His blue eyes were the saddest I’d ever seen. He held a gun to her head, his finger tightening around the trigger, his eyes flitting between Maddy and me.

  I pleaded for him to shoot me instead as he moved the gun to aim it at Maddy’s head. When he wavered I almost thought he’d aim it at me, but at the last second, he raised the gun, turned his wrist and shot himself. I screamed just as the next guard shot Maddy, my scream lost in the noise. Then he aimed at me.

  Warm hands brushed over my cheeks and he kept saying my name until I opened my eyes. The light was on and I could see the worry in Jayden’s frown. I tried to catch my breath, sucking in air through my mouth, uttering that I was awake as he smoothed my hair from my face.

  As always, he asked what my nightmare was about, and I couldn’t come up with a convincing lie. Instead, I remained silent. There was a realization in his eyes the moment he flinched away and let go of me. He got to his feet and stood in the middle of the room as if trying to place as much distance as possible between us — his hands were clenched to fists again.

  “I shouldn’t have told you,” he murmured. “I’m supposed to be there for you, but I’m making your nightmares worse.”

  I’d never seen him like that; so torn and hurt, almost scared. No matter how much I reminded him that I asked him to tell me, that I was fine, he’d have none of it. I got up from bed and stepped right in front of him, so he had to listen to my words. I rested my hands against his chest.

  “I’m there for you, too. This isn’t a one-way street, where you get to help me get better and I do nothing in return. We need to be there for each other and I want to help you. Maybe you’re coping better than I am, but you still need help. Let me help. It’s what girlfriends do!”

  I meant every word and hoped he at least knew that. He brushed his hands over my arms.

  “Girlfriend, huh?” His question was quiet, maybe a little shocked and I smiled timidly.

  “Of course. I mean I can’t commit to this the way you want me to, not yet. But I am your girlfriend.”

  He brushed his lips over my cheeks, over my eyes, my nose and finally my lips. In-between, he stared at me in bewilderment and whispered sweet nothings. When he got around to almost confessing his feelings to me, I stopped him.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t believe he would’ve meant it, but the day had been horrible and draining. I didn’t want those words to always be connected to that awful day.

  We lay next to each other that night, skin to skin, entangled in each other’s arms just for the sake of knowing someone was there. We didn’t kiss, nor did we sleep. We held each other in the dark, listened to the other’s breath, and while it might not have seemed like much, it was enough for us. It was enough for me to feel his chest move with every breath and having my thoughts running through my mind. His hands on my back moved in tiny circles; their simple pattern gave me something to focus on when the dark was about to catch up. I ran my hands through his hair, over and over, brushing it from his forehead. We both knew that sometimes when darkness was about to swallow you, you just had to hold onto something steady.

  ◆◆◆

  I approached the door to Jayden’s office the next morning, only to find it closed. I’d never seen it closed in the nearly four months I’d been there, except for the times the two of us were inside, making out. I knocked, waited a moment and Jayden opened the door, looking concerned.

  His motion for me to come inside lacked the gentleness he usually showed me, even with others around. Cam and Josh sat at the desk, both wearing grim expressions. I sat down and fixed Jayden with a stare. He leaned against the wall, his arms crossed in front of his chest and when I asked what was wrong he took a deep breath.

  “Josh found out where they took your sister. Cam sent him and Pablo back into town last night. The girls came out of a brothel. When he went inside, pretending to be interested in Maddy, he found out they come there every Friday. Your sister’s a regular.”

  My breath hitched in my throat and all the blood drained from my face as my hands shook. I didn’t understand why he seemed so hesitant, this meant we could go and free Maddy as soon as next Friday.

  “Elin, it’s not that easy. We can’t just —”

  I cut him off right away, because it was my sister and I wasn’t going to waste time on technicalities and reasons why we needed to go about this slowly.

  “Every week we waste she’s going through more!”

  “I know. But we need to look at the bigger picture. We need to at least gather enough information to know what we’re getting into. We can’t just storm in there without knowing the military presence there. The only thing that’ll do is getting us and Maddy killed.”

  Moving out of the chair, I scoffed and shook my head. “You can’t seriously expect me to stand by and let this go on any longer. Gathering information while they’re … while they’re selling my sister to the highest bidder and raping her. She’s fourteen!”

  Jayden seemed to look for words but I already knew what he was going to tell me.

  “Don’t! So it’s okay to go in unplanned to steal some diesel but not to protect my sister?”

  I was shouting at him. From the corner of my eyes I saw Cam tapping Josh’s shoulder and they quickly scrambled from the room. I couldn’t have cared less about anybody hearing me as I shouted at Jayden.

  “Where is the difference, Jayden? When is a mission too unplanned for you? Why this one?”

  “Because you nearly died the last time. I’m not letting that happen again!” He didn’t shout but his words were stern, and he had straightened up, no longer leaning against the wall but towering in front of me.

  “So? People get hurt. That’s the course of the world. You wouldn’t hesitate if this were about Abby! You’d be as crazy as me. You’d not hesitate if this were about anyone but me, you biased ass.”

  He took a step forward, his hands seizing my upper arms, his voice rising with each of his words, a desperate staccato.

  “Of course I wouldn’t. I don’t care about others like I care about you. Everything I do is because of you, because I fucking love you!”

  I flinched back and while I stared at him, my mouth open in surprise, Jayden’s eyes went wide with shock. He ran a hand through his hair, gently shaking his head and taking a step forward, but I flinched back.

  “Shit. This isn’t how I wanted
to tell you,” he murmured.

  He extended his hands towards me, trying to comfort me, but he’d used his love for me as a restraint to keep me from saving my sister. I slapped his hands away, shoved at his chest and he stumbled, taken aback.

  “I don’t care what you feel! This is exactly why I told you this was stupid, because it makes fools out of both of us. You don’t want to help me, fine, be like that. I’ll get her myself. I don’t need you or your confessions. I don’t care what you feel! You’re an arrogant ass anyway and I —”

  “Shut up!” Jayden grabbed my wrist when I tried punching his chest and dragged me after him, out of his room and towards the gym.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I snarled.

  He pushed the door to the gym open, dragging me over to a training mat we’d used for sparring before.

  “You want to fight me, go ahead! I get that you’re pissed, and I get that you need to let it out on me, I really do. I won’t let you ruin us though. Not like this, with you angry and saying things you don’t mean. You want a fight, you spar with me like an adult. You win, we do whatever the heck you want. But if I win you’ll listen to me.”

  If he wanted a fight he could have one. I didn’t give him time to react and jumped forward as soon as my boots were off. I tried to use my momentum to knock him off balance. Jayden evaded my attack, smirking at me the way he always did when he outsmarted me and it only pissed me off even more.

  “This all you have?” he taunted, but I tried the same tactic, asking if he truly thought I’d put him above my sister. If my words hurt, he didn’t let it on, instead blocking my next attack by catching me around the hip and pulling my legs out from underneath me. It brought him up right on top of me and I struggled to get free. I used my weight to flip him in a move he’d taught me and then brought my knee between his legs, warning him not to move.