by Harley Fox
“How’s your head?” Marc asks, and I swallow the hot liquid in my mouth, putting the mug down on the desk as well.
“It still hurts,” I tell him. I try remembering what happened before I got knocked out, but I can’t. “Who’s Edward? And why did he hit me?”
Marc looks uncomfortable. “Edward’s my boss. And the reason he hit you … well, he said because you grabbed Julian’s gun and turned it on us, so he was just taking control of the situation …”
When Marc mentions me grabbing a gun I suddenly remember the feel of it, the weight of the cold, hard thing in my hands. And then the events of last night all come flooding back.
“You’re a thief!” I say, cutting Marc off. “You were robbing … you were robbing the museum!”
I stand up, my head making me pay for the sudden movement, and Marc stands up too, alertness in his eyes.
“You and … those others. That woman. I kicked someone in the groin. But you were robbing the museum. My museum!”
“Now, Persephone, calm down …”
I try making a break for it, but Marc’s too fast. He must’ve been expecting it. His strong fingers wrap around my wrists, tightening like vises. I yell and struggle, but it’s like fighting against a machine. He pulls me backward, wrapping his and my arms around myself in some demented version of a hug.
“Shh, shh,” he says in my ear. In any other situation I wouldn’t have been fighting this off at all, but right now all I can think about is getting out of here, getting away from him.
“Let me go!” I try spinning, but it’s no use. I kick out and he lifts me off the ground, as easily as if I were made of feathers. My legs thrash out, hitting nothing but air, which is probably his intention. Finally I stop and he waits a second before lowering me down. Already I feel tired. Beat. And, as odd as this is to say, it feels good to be held tight like this. Like I’m being swaddled. I can feel Marc’s chest move as he breathes. His heartbeat resonates with my own.
“You going to calm down?” he asks me.
I’m not moving anymore. I don’t answer him verbally. In fact, I don’t answer him at all.
“Are you?” His mouth is so close to my ear. I nod.
“Yes,” I say, and I feel his grip loosen on my wrists, hovering for a second before finally letting go.
I stay standing, and so does he. I take a step forward, testing my freedom, and Marc doesn’t try to lunge after me. I take another step.
“You’re not in danger,” he says, and I turn to look at him. His eyes are on mine. “We’re not going to hurt you. But you have to stay calm, all right? Freaking out like that isn’t going to help you. Trust me. Taking you with us was definitely not on our agenda.”
I have a million arguments against that, but I hold my tongue. Instead I just nod.
“Are you calm now?” I nod again. “Okay,” Marc sighs. “Come on. I’ll show you around.”
Even though I’m closer to the entrance of this little space, Marc leads the way. I decide to follow him, partly because I really have nowhere else to go, and partly out of curiosity.
“So like I said, this is what we call the House,” Marc tells me. He’s leading me through a labyrinth of wooden crates. Even though the passageways are tight and cramped, he seems to know the way. “There’s me, Rebekka, Julian, and Edward. Just the four of us. We all have our space, one in each corner. Rebekka and Julian are in one together, over there, so you’ve got Rebekka’s old space. The bathroom’s over there,” he points. “We’ve got a generator for hot water, but don’t go crazy in the shower.”
“Sorry,” I interrupt, and Marc stops to face me. “How long am I going to be here?”
Again, he looks uncomfortable. “I think that’s still being figured out,” he says, almost apologetically. He turns back and continues the tour.
“Edward’s over in that corner, and I’m in that one there. Oh, and up top is the catwalk. See? You can see it.” I look up. “That there’s the A/C unit. It’s pretty powerful and helps keep this place cool. Without it we’d be pretty fucked, since we’re a few hours from any town. Um, let’s see, over by that wall is our little kitchen. And this is the common area.”
We step past some crates and the pathway opens out into a relatively large common space. Set up at a sort of workspace is the man I kicked in the groin last night. In front of him is what looks like Greek pottery, possibly from the Mycenaean era. But it’s only half-painted, with the man holding a paintbrush himself. He’s got a desk lamp shining onto his work, and even though I’m far away I can already note the imperfections in his work. Not things that your average tourist would notice—but I do.
Sitting at a table is the woman I saw last night with Marc, playing cards with an older man who must be Edward. He’s older, has short gray hair that’s starting to bald, and a large frame. All three look up as we enter, and none of them look happy to see me.
“Persephone, this is Julian, Rebekka, and Edward.”
Rebekka nods in greeting, Julian says hello. Edward, on the other hand, only scowls. But even so, even though I didn’t see him last night, there’s something about him that seems familiar. His face. It’s like looking at the lead actor to a movie I saw a long time ago and can’t remember anything about.
“Hi Persephone,” Julian says. “Don’t worry about kicking me last night. I get that you were acting in self-defense.”
I wasn’t worried about it, but I don’t tell him that.
“Okay, thanks.”
“Hey,” Edward snaps at Julian. “What’d I tell you? Don’t be too friendly. You’re not staying in some nightclub resort, missy,” he says to me. “So don’t get too comfortable.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” I tell him. He scowls in return.
Rebekka says, “Edward wanted you bound and gagged, but Marc insisted against it.”
“Yeah,” Julian chimes in, smiling. “Although knowing Marc, maybe he’d be into a little bondage play.”
Rebekka rolls her eyes, but keeps her face hidden from Julian as she does.
“So that’s about it for the tour,” Marc says. “Any questions?”
They’re all looking at me. I glance around the common area and then look back up at Marc.
“Do you make it a habit of taking the people you meet hostage?”
His face colors a tiny amount. “Ah, no. Like I said, this situation is a bit of an anomaly.”
“So I’m the first person you’ve done this to?”
“Yeah,” he nods. I see Julian nodding too.
“You’ve never dealt with a situation like this before?”
And just as Marc is starting to answer, I reach up, plant my hands on his chest, and push him with all my might.
It’s tough, like pushing over a brick wall, but I catch him off guard and he stumbles backward as he lets out a yell. The others all cry out in surprise and I spin, running down the makeshift corridor, back the way Marc and I came. I hear the sound of collision, followed by the crashing sound of wood hitting concrete.
“Fuck!”
“Get her!”
“Stop that fucking cunt now!”
This place is like a maze. I hear running footsteps following me, spreading out and around. I bank this way, then that. I reach an intersection of corridors and see hands outstretched, preceding the body they’re attached to, and I duck under them as I hear Marc curse and follow close behind.
My mind is reeling, my body hot and shaky and pumped full of adrenaline. Finally I see it: a door. Turning hard for it, I slam into the bar that opens it and stumble out into an absolute wall of heat.
My eyes force themselves to slits for the blinding glare of the sun. The breath I pull in is sweltering and thick. But the others are still close behind so I turn and keep running, my skin already burning from the unforgiving rays of the sun.
But Marc was right: there’s nothing around. As far as my compromised eyes can see is just sand, sand, and more sand. All the way to the bright blue horizon. I turn
the corner of the warehouse and see a corrugated tin shed attached to the side. The door on the front is padlocked. Marc is behind me, still chasing me. Finally I suck in hot air and let it out in a final, desperate cry.
“HELP!” The sound is painful leaving my throat. “SOMEBODY HELP ME!”
Marc is getting closer. He’s faster than me. I keep running, leaving the warehouse behind. His footsteps near mine. I try stopping, banking in the other direction, like when I was a girl playing Tag and I wanted to get away from whoever was It. But the sand I’m on doesn’t provide good footing, and I slip, giving Marc ample opportunity to tackle me, which he does.
“Oof!”
I land with a crunch of bones on the desert floor as Marc’s weight lands on top of me. Right away I struggle to get free, trying to wrench myself away from him.
“HELP!” I call out. “HELP! SOMEBODY, HELP!”
“Shut up!” Marc hisses, clamping a hand over my mouth. With my own shouts silenced, I hear the sounds of the others approaching.
“Mmph!” I say, and respond by opening my mouth wide, getting the top of Marc’s hand in between my jaws, and clamping down hard.
“Ah, fuck!” he says, but he doesn’t try pulling it away. Instead, he drops his head down close to mine and hisses in my ear, “Shut up or he’ll kill you! Do you hear me? Shut up!”
The words form into logic in my head, and while my jaw stays strong, my voice dies down. I turn my head and see the other three approach, Marc holding up a hand to keep them at bay. While Julian and Rebekka are panting, Edward is not. And while Julian and Rebekka are empty-handed, Edward is holding a gun.
“I’ve got it!” Marc calls out to them between breaths. “I’ve got it under control.”
“Apparently not,” Edward says. He doesn’t sound winded at all. “She just broke open a crate of tools. You call that under control?”
“It won’t happen again. She was just scared. None of us planned this, you know. We’re all kind of in over our heads.”
I see both Julian and Rebekka nod, squinting in the sun, but they’re standing behind Edward. He’s staring down at me. His eyes look totally relaxed.
“You’re damned right it won’t happen again,” he says. “Pick her up, bring her inside. And if she makes another break for it,” he cocks his gun, “you can bet I’ll be the one to stop her.”
Marc pulls his hand out of my mouth—I didn’t even realize I’d relaxed my jaw—and lifts himself off of me. I look up and he gives me a look that says Be quiet before dipping down and picking me up over his shoulder, carrying me firefighter-style.
I don’t fight it. I don’t thrash about, or try to escape, or even speak. The five of us head back to the warehouse in silence. But even though my mouth is still, my mind is working overtime, trying to think of how I can fuck them over. I’m going to make them pay for all of this. I’m going to get them back, if it’s the last thing I do.
Marc
The water in the electric kettle starts boiling so I flip the switch off and pick it up off of its base, pouring the hot liquid into the mug. The familiar aroma of instant coffee and powdered creamer rises with the steam up into my nostrils. The mug full, I put the kettle back and stir the drink with a spoon, mixing it all up.
Somebody coughs behind me and my ears perk before I turn my head to see Edward standing at one of the entrances to the kitchen.
“She all set?”
I nod and go back to stirring the coffee. “Yep. She didn’t look too comfortable. But I guess that’s the point of the cuffs.”
Edward doesn’t say anything. I place the spoon in the sink and pick up the steaming mug, turning around to see him staring at me. His arms are crossed over his chest. His eyes drop to the mug of coffee before coming back up to me.
“That for her?”
It’s an effort not to clench my jaw.
“She’s not a prisoner,” I tell him. “We can’t treat her like one.”
“Look,” Edward relaxes his stance enough to station his legs a bit farther apart. “I know you’re trying to get your dick wet, but you’ve got to stop catering to this cunt. ‘Kay? You let your guard down, you’re gonna fuck this up for everyone.”
“I’m not trying to fuck her,” I tell him, unsure myself of whether or not that’s a lie. “And maybe we wouldn’t have to have our guard up if she knew she was going back tonight.”
“No,” Edward shakes his head. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not?” Honestly, sometimes I don’t understand this man’s way of thinking.
“You give the prisoner too much information, you lose the power. Keep them in the dark. Break their spirits.” He nods as I stare at him, aghast.
“Jesus. She didn’t want this to happen.”
“No, that was your doing.” Edward glances at the coffee again. “Don’t fuck this up.”
And with that he walks away, leaving me feeling angry and embarrassed at the same time. If he didn’t knock her out … But arguing with Edward in my mind isn’t going to accomplish anything. I leave the kitchen and snake my way through the vast corridors of wooden crates over to Rebekka’s old corner—Persephone’s new one. I walk in to find Persephone exactly as I left her: sitting on her cot with her knees drawn up to her chest, an angry look on her face.
She’s got a pair of handcuffs binding both wrists together. Down below are another pair of cuffs, these around her ankles. As if that weren’t enough, Edward insisted on looping a length of chain from the lower cuffs to the metal frame of her cot. When I asked if we should give her a bucket to piss and shit in too, he acquiesced and said Rebekka could take her to the bathroom at prescribed times.
“Coffee?”
Persephone doesn’t acknowledge me. She just keeps staring at the wall opposite her. So I step in, stopping in front of her, and bend down until I’m in her line of vision.
“Do you want me to leave this here for you?”
Persephone’s looking at me now, but instead of answering she pulls her head back and spits in my face.
It takes me by surprise, and some of the coffee splashes over the side of the mug as I reel back.
“Ah! Ha-ha,” I say, wiping at my eye with the hem of my T-shirt. Once I can see again I look at Persephone, smile, and spit right back in her face.
She doesn’t react. Doesn’t recoil back, doesn’t say anything. She only blinks her eyes when it happens, opening them back up when it’s over, as though in defiance.
She’s got spunk, I think, smiling.
“I’ll just leave this here, then.” I stand up and leave the mug of coffee on the desk. I’d already cleared away the dishes from this morning after we chained her up.
I leave her quarters but can’t seem to wipe the smile from my face. It disappears, however, when I reach the place where Persephone knocked me into those crates, causing one to fall and smash open. Rebekka and Julian are hard at working cleaning it up, transferring the tools to another crate they’d already brought down and opened up.
“Hey,” I say as I join them.
They both look at me, neither one smiling, neither one acknowledging my words. We work in silence, some of the more fragile tools having to be thrown out for having broken.
“She’s not going to be here for long,” I tell them. “Should be gone by tonight anyway. And then this’ll all be over.”
They don’t say anything, again. And as I think about this fact, I already start to miss her. Persephone, as much trouble as she’s been so far, has been a nice change to my everyday. And if there’s one thing this line of work doesn’t get, it’s changes from the everyday.
The contents of the crate take a while to clean up. There are a lot of them. Sometimes you forget how much stuff we pack in here. Not even counting the originals from our latest heist, the value of this warehouse must be in the millions at least. At one point I joke about the work at least being meditative. Neither Julian nor Rebekka think it’s funny.
When noon rolls around Edward announc
es that lunch is ready. Freeze-dried spaghetti Bolognese. We three get up to get our food, and when we do I look around at it.
“Is there a plate for Persephone?”
Edward doesn’t respond, only slurps up a forkful of spaghetti as he walks to the common area to eat. So I join the others, where we sit in our usual places, but when I’m halfway finished my meal I get up. Edward keeps his eyes down but Rebekka and Julian watch me, though they don’t say anything as I leave the common space and wind my way over to Persephone’s corner. When I arrive she’s still in the same position as before. The spit, I notice, has been wiped away.
“Got some lunch for you here,” I tell her, putting it down on the desk. “Don’t worry; this stuff’s spit-free.”
I give her a smile but she doesn’t return it. The coffee hasn’t been touched, so I take it back with me to the kitchen, dumping it out before washing the mug and putting it on the dish rack to dry.
I go back to cleaning up. Rebekka and Julian eventually join me, the three of us chipping away at it. But it only takes a few more hours before it’s finally done. It takes the four of us to hoist the new crate up to where the old crate was perched, and then the broken pieces of wood are taken out and put into the back of the van to be thrown out when we leave.
Once that’s done, it’s back to doing what we normally do. Julian resumes his replica work from this morning while Rebekka and Edward sit down to a game of cards. I pick up a book and recline on one of the chairs, reading. Every now and again Julian mutters to himself, angry, lost in his work.
It’s quiet. I can’t concentrate on the book. I keep thinking about Persephone. How she must be bored, shackled up there like that. She didn’t ask for this. So I get up and go to our box of books, pulling titles aside until I find one on the history of Greece. Standing up, I also grab a pack of playing cards and head over to her corner with the two items, one in each hand.
As predicted, she’s sitting in the exact same spot as before. The spaghetti on the plate looks like it hasn’t been touched, but I don’t comment on it. Instead I hold out both hands, presenting the objects.