Elemental Pleasure

by Lila Dubois

  She stared at the concrete floor, focusing on it to distract herself from the tingling pain as she worked the center button, finally getting it though the hole. A shadow passed over the floor.

  Whirling, she looked up. There were two small windows in the wall, near the ceiling. They were so dirty she barely noticed them. She’d assumed all the dim light came from the bare bulb above the TV. As she watched, the shadow passed again.

  It could be Felix or the other man outside or it could be a car going by on the street. Her heart raced as she tried to decide what to do. If it was Felix and he thought she was trying to escape, he might kill her. Then again, now that she could speak, she might be able to talk him out of it by promising him money.

  If it wasn’t Felix, this might be her only chance to get help.

  She climbed onto the couch, then onto the sturdiest stack of boxes, bracing herself with her still bound hands. She was high enough she could look out the window, but it was too dirty to allow her to see anything. She rubbed it with her elbow, cleaning away some of the inside grime, but the window was filthy outside too. Because it was at street level, there was garbage gathered in the recess. She rubbed until she’d cleared a small patch.

  A man walked by wearing wing tips and gray slacks. For a moment, her heart clenched, thinking it was Preston. Of course it wasn’t, but now she knew it wasn’t Felix or the other man out there.

  Raising her hands, she tapped on the glass. She did it quietly, not wanting the men upstairs to hear. The feet passed again and she tapped a bit louder. Inspiration struck and she started drumming out SOS.

  Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.

  The feet stopped. Her heart leapt. A second pair of feet joined the first. This man wore sneakers and jeans. Carly shrank back, suddenly unsure. Had Felix been wearing tennis shoes? She couldn’t remember.

  A hand pressed against the glass and Carly let out yelp. Her heart leapt as the hand cleared away some of the grime. If it was one of her kidnappers and they saw her up here…

  Holding onto the wall, she stretched out a leg, lowering herself back to the couch. The hand was still on the window and a shadow blocked the light as someone looked in. She flattened herself against the wall, fist pressed to her mouth to stifle the sound of her shaky breath.

  Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.

  Carly looked up. The hand was on the window, the palm pressed flat against the glass as one finger tapped out SOS. Stretching, she peered at the hand. The man wore a large silver ring, which was turned around so the face of it was against the window.

  The image in the center was a trinity knot.

  Carly let out a sob of relief, her fingers finding the Trinity Masters pendant around her own neck. Scrambling back onto the box, she slammed her hands against the glass. “I’m here! I’m here!” she cried, no longer caring who heard her. She didn’t know how, but they’d found her.

  “What the hell are you doing? Fucking bitch!”

  Felix was down the stairs in a few leaps. Carly screamed and kicked out as he reached for her. He grabbed her leg, yanking her off the boxes. She fell to the floor with a thud that knocked all the air out of her body. He jerked her up by the hair, slamming his fist into her stomach when she tried to knee him in the balls.

  Gasping, she bent over, helpless to stop him as he threw her back on the couch. He reached for her legs, jerking them open once more. She parted her lips to scream, but didn’t have the breath.

  Something moved on the stairs.

  She looked over, expecting it to be the other man.

  A tall, muscled form came silently down the steps, moving quickly. One minute he’d landed on the bottom step, the next he was across the room.

  Lance’s face was set in grim lines. His eyes were as dark as Preston’s and his jaw muscle clenched. He grabbed Felix by the neck, squeezing. The other man’s eyes bulged as he thrashed, raking Lance’s hand with his nails. Lance lifted him from the floor and Felix’s feet kicked out as he hung suspended in Lance’s grip.

  Carly let out a cry of relief. She rolled to her feet and stumbled over to Lance, hiding against his back. She was shaking, dragging in great gulps of air that now smelled of warm man and fresh laundry, not a dirty basement. Clenching her fists into the back of his shirt, Carly pressed her face against him. Another man came downstairs. When she saw Preston, she lost what little composure she had left. Preston took her in his arms as Lance dropped the now unconscious Felix. Then Lance turned, sandwiching her between them, caging her in their protective embrace.

  Carly sobbed against Preston’s chest as Lance stroked her hair.

  “You came, you came,” she whispered between sobs.

  “Of course.” Lance’s words were a warm vibration against her back. “You’re ours. We’ll always come for you.”

  “I’m sorry, Carly. I’m so sorry for everything.” Preston kissed the top of her head.

  Nothing mattered now that they were here. Carly gave in to exhaustion, closing her eyes, trusting they’d take care of her.

  “Please, just take me home,” she begged.

  Together, they carried her upstairs and out into the sunlight.

  ~~~~

  Chapter Ten

  They didn’t take her home. They couldn’t.

  As soon as they heard her yelling, they’d moved. Lance had broken down the front door and raced into the house. Preston had followed, hot on his heels, but had the presence of mind to call 911. He told them who he was and that he’d found Carly, giving the operator the address. By the time they made it back upstairs, the police were already there.

  While Lance held Carly, Preston opened the broken door and went outside to explain what had happened. Police streamed by him, searching the house as Lance carried Carly out. They found the man who owned the small house hiding in a bathroom and the kidnapper unconscious on the basement floor.

  Carly was taken to an ambulance. The medic took one look at Carly and declared she needed to go to the hospital. Preston wasn’t surprised. His heart had nearly shattered when he’d first seen her clinging to Lance’s shirt. The kidnappers had beaten the hell out of her. His fists clenched at the thought.

  “Sir?” The medic stood at the back of the ambulance. “Are you riding with us?”

  Preston nodded and climbed in with her. When the medic tried to stop Lance from doing the same, Lance stared the man down until he relented.

  They stayed out of the way as the medic covered her with blankets and gave her a sip of water. With a shaky voice, she asked the paramedic for something for the pain. He gave her small shot of painkiller, explaining he couldn’t give her anything else in case she needed surgery.

  Carly turned her wide eyes on Lance and Preston before looking back at the medic. “Surgery?”

  Preston didn’t have the heart to tell her one side of her face was swollen to twice its normal size with a huge cut along her cheek. They rode to the hospital in silence. Preston used the time to gather his wits. Since her disappearance this morning, he’d been running in fast-forward. Sitting in the ambulance with her, having her back, relatively safe and sound, the strength drained from him.

  He slouched a bit until he felt Lance’s hand on his shoulder. “Hang in there. She’s going to need us to be strong for a little while longer.”

  Once they arrived at the ER, Carly was whisked away. The detective had followed behind the ambulance, and she pulled Lance and Preston aside to question them while Carly was attended to. As they told their story, the S.F.P.D. detective swung from relieved Carly had been found to pissed off they’d found her, using information they hadn’t given to the police.

  They hadn’t had time to come up with a cover story so Preston confessed that once he had a minute to stop to think about the kidnapping, it occurred to him the whole attack had likely been focused on him and what he was carrying. Then he explained that Lance had helped him look into the possible embezzlement he’d discovered. Lance told the detective he w
orked for DARPA and that he used a program to help him identify likely accomplices based on the information they had.

  “Let me get this straight.” The detective looked at her partner who had joined them. “After you talked to us, you decided the men who kidnapped Ms. Kenan had something to do with a financial irregularity you’d found in your company’s reports, and that it had nothing to do with who she was.”

  “Yes,” Preston said.

  “And how did you figure out who’d kidnapped her?”

  Lance sat forward. “That was me. I checked Preston’s email since he’d sent one last night to the company president. That was the only way someone could know he’d figured it out. I was able to follow an email diversion to David Momens. Preston was sure it wasn’t him, so we kept looking.”

  “I remembered his son worked for the company though I’d never met him.”

  “So we looked into Brian, and when we found pictures of him and his cousin Felix, we knew it was them.”

  The detective scowled. “You should have called us.”

  “Of course, you’re right,” Preston agreed, though he feared his face wasn’t reflecting remorse. He shuddered to think what the kidnappers would have done to Carly if they hadn’t found her when they did.

  Lance shrugged. “You couldn’t have found her faster than I did.”

  The detective glared. “Who are you again?”

  Lance pulled out his wallet and gave her a business card.

  “DARPA.” The detective’s eyebrows rose and she exchanged a look with her partner. “What do you do there?”

  “I’m a mathematician.”

  “A mathematician who breaks down doors and chokes people?”

  “I’m also in the Marine Corps Reserves.”

  The detectives whispered to each other, giving Lance a suspicious look. Finally, they left to deal with Felix and Brian, both of whom they had in custody. Two hours later, Lance and Preston found themselves in the waiting room seated side by side. They were under strict orders to go to the police station to sign their statements, but they weren’t leaving until they saw Carly.

  “Did you see what they did to her?” Lance’s voice was hoarse. It was the first thing either of them had said in over an hour. Reality was setting in, kicking them both in the teeth.

  “Yes.” Preston closed his eyes.

  “When I walked in, he had her down on the couch. He was holding her legs open.”

  Bile rose to Preston’s throat. “Jesus.”

  “What if they raped her?”

  “Then we’ll deal with it. We’ll help her heal.”

  Lance made a sound low in his throat.

  Preston laid his hand on top of Lance’s clenched fist. “Lance,” he said. “Look at me.” The other man met his gaze. “We did it. We saved her.”

  “We saved her.” Lance’s hand uncurled and he tentatively he laced their fingers together.

  They sat that way until the doctor came in.

  “Are you the boyfriend?” he asked, looking at Preston.

  With a sideways look at Lance, Preston got to his feet. “I am.”

  The doctor looked at Lance. “You must be the black ops guy?”

  Lance raised a brow. “Black ops?”

  The doctor seemed impressed by Lance’s credentials. “The detective told me.”

  Preston ignored the doctor’s mistake. “How is she?”

  “She’s pretty banged up. There’s a hairline fracture to her cheekbone and one of her knees is injured quite badly.”

  Preston sat down heavily. Lance clapped him on the shoulder.

  “We’ll need to do some more tests on the knee. She’s waiting to go in for an MRI now.”

  The doctor continued detailing her injuries, most of which were scrapes and bruises.

  “Can we see her?” Lance asked.

  “You can go back until they take her for the tests.”

  He passed them off to a nurse, who led them though the hallways to a quiet corner. There were several beds, but only one had the curtain drawn around it.

  “Here you go. We’re still cleaning up the little cuts and bruises.”

  She pulled back the curtain.

  Carly lay in the bed, looking small and pale. Her hair was a tangled mess on the white pillow. Her cheek was nearly black the bruise, so dark and grotesquely swollen. A male nurse sat near her legs, cleaning the scrapes on one ankle. The rest of her was covered with a hospital gown and a white sheet. There was a bag of ice over the knee that was hidden by the covers.

  “Carly.”

  She turned her head, looking at each of them in turn. Tears filled her eyes. Preston stepped around the nurse, taking one of her hands in his. “Carly, baby, don’t cry.”

  “Hey, gorgeous.” Lance took her other hand. “How are you feeling?”

  She licked her lips. “Better. They gave me something. For the pain.”

  “Good.” Preston raised her hand, kissing it, then the white gauze bandage around her wrist.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Lance figured it out.”

  “After Preston realized who it was that kidnapped you.”

  “The other man,” she said. “Did they get him?”

  “Yes. He works for me. His father has been with the firm from the beginning.”

  “The one who took you is his cousin,” Lance added.

  “They weren’t supposed to kidnap me.” Carly’s words were slightly slurred as sleep came to take her.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” Preston assured her. “Right now you need to get better.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing you’re stuck with me,” she murmured, her eyes closed. “I’m going to have a scar, right on my face.”

  Her breathing was deep and even. It didn’t take long for the medicine to take effect. When he was sure she was asleep, Preston laid her hand down and scrubbed his hands through his hair.

  “She’ll be okay,” the nurse said, ripping open a bandage package. “It looks like she put up quite a fight.” He taped the bandage in place. “I’ll leave you alone for a bit.”

  Preston and Lance looked at each other over her sleeping body, then they each took one of her hands, watching over her while she slept.

  *****

  For three people who guarded their privacy, the next week was hard. The media latched onto the story of Carly’s kidnapping and played it for all it was worth. The one piece of luck was that the real reason for her kidnapping—the embezzlement at Preston’s company—was never part of the story. They wanted the scandal and drama of a famous girl gamer—who had posed for some sexy shots years ago, meaning the media had pictures to flash around—rescued by her boyfriend and her boyfriend’s ex-military friend. Thankfully, Preston was able to deal with the embezzlement quickly and quietly. A forensic accountant poured through two years of financial records discovering that Brian had stolen over four million dollars. Some of the money was in Swiss accounts they couldn’t get to, but due to the criminal case against him, they’d be able to recoup assets still in the U.S.

  Though there was no mention of the embezzlement, Preston was still in the news. He and Lance were hailed as heroes, though more than one reporter vilified them for acting on their own. While they had discussed how they would present their trinity to the world, the decision was ultimately taken out of their hands. Along the way, someone got the impression Preston was Carly’s boyfriend, and they’d had no real option but to go with it. Lance was portrayed as Preston’s friend who was in town to meet the new girlfriend, who was then kidnapped.

  Lance returned to Virginia shortly after they’d brought Carly home from the hospital. As the media attention continued, he and Preston realized they needed to split up. Otherwise someone might question how close the three of them really were. Preston had taken off his Trinity Master’s signet ring while Lance left his pendant and chain in his backpack. The last thing they needed was someone investigating the symbol or asking why they both had jewelry tha
t matched a necklace Carly had been photographed wearing. At DARPA he was better protected from the reporters, but once they knew who he was and where he worked, the story gained more steam.

  DARPA officials issued an official statement confirming his name, military rank, title and DARPA department, but that didn’t slow down the rumors. Somehow the detective’s impression he had been involved in the black ops commanding a Marine Special Operations Company had persisted and stories of “heroics” from his time on active duty were related on talk radio shows.

  After his second day back at work, Lance flopped on his couch, exhausted. His apartment was clean and efficient. He had everything exactly where he liked it, but for some reason it didn’t feel like home anymore.

  Pulling his phone from his pocket, he video called Preston. He hated leaving Preston to deal with the continued media attention and an injured Carly, but they’d been worried that spending too much time together might raise questions they weren’t prepared to answer.

  “Lance.” Preston’s image appeared.

  “How is she?”

  Preston ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. She won’t talk to me, won’t answer my calls. You know I wanted her to stay with me when she was released, but she’s insisting on staying at her own place. I’ve had to go into work to clean up the embezzlement shit the past couple of days. With all that, plus dodging the media, I’m struggling to get over there to see her often enough. When I do, she’s withdrawn, quiet.” Preston blew out an exhausted breath.

  It was nerve-wracking to see Preston—the one who knew how to deal with emotional things—at his wit’s end.

  “I’ll come back.” Lance didn’t know what help he could be, but he shouldn’t be in Virginia, thousands of miles away from them at a time of crisis. “I’ll tell DARPA the S.F.P.D. has more questions.”

  Preston opened his mouth as if he were going to turn down the offer, then he just nodded. “Thanks, Lance.”

  “Don’t thank me. I should never have come back here to begin with.”

  *****