Bracing his forearms on the tops of Ashok’s thighs and lower belly, he listened to her take a deep breath and then there was a metallic click.
The young man’s upper body arched from the table with a scream. There were places where his skin grew around the copper.
She unwrapped the wire from his sac and murmured, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
When it was fully removed, she threw it on the tray beside her and cleaned the raw and broken skin. Ashok gradually slipped back to sleep and Roark straightened.
He smoothed his black hair from his lean face. She pressed the skin around his groin and lower belly.
Done with her examination, she put his clothes in place and removed her gloves. He watched as she took one of his hands between both of hers.
Speaking to Roark, she didn’t look away from Ashok’s face.
“I estimate him to be in his early twenties. He could be younger but there’s no way to tell with the level of mistreatment he’s been through. He needs extensive dental work. You have dehydration under control but it will take a long time to bring his nutritional health back into balance.”
Lifting her face, she said, “He can be saved. I believe that.”
“So do I.”
They stared at one another and he remembered the day he’d used bolt cutters to take her down from a stone wall where she’d been suspended for months. Naked, frozen, and barely breathing, they wrapped her in blankets and carried her through the subterranean tunnels to freedom.
“Everyone can be saved, Mala. You look beautiful.”
Her smile was self-mocking. “Only from the neck up but my body is strong again.”
“Having you with us, to help with things like this, it’s a gift.” He inhaled deeply. “Is there anything I need to know? Anything I need to watch for?”
For a minute, she was quiet. Then she said quietly, “He’s going to be filled with rage for a long time. His mind will struggle to relate his then with his now and it won’t be an easy transition. He needs seclusion but not isolation. Time to heal physically and adapt.” She met his gaze. “Patience. Kindness.”
Removing the buckles holding him to the arms of the chair, he carefully worked the t-shirt over Ashok’s head and down his torso.
Mala handed him prescription bottles and explained dosage for each. “I’ll be here for two days so bring him back if there’s any sign of infection and I’d like to check him over again once you have him stateside.” She smiled. “You’re a good man, Roark. He’ll heal faster because you care.”
They held eye contact for a long moment. “I don’t…understand. He was the fourth person I pulled from the pits. I’m not sure why he was different.”
She shrugged. “I don’t think the why matters. Just go with it because life is very short.”
“Did the court finally grant your divorce?”
“Last month.” Glancing through the window of their small sick bay pod, she murmured, “I’m waiting to see what he does next. I know it isn’t over. I’ll spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, waiting.”
Shaking herself from her introspection, she added, “I’m working with Dr. Geldin now. A lot of the boys come through for patch up and repair. When you’re back in New York, I’ll make dinner for my own little rescue team.” Resting her hand on Ashok’s forehead, she told him, “Bring your friend.”
He lifted Ashok in his arms and his head rested naturally on Roark’s shoulder. “Thank you, Mala.”
“Anytime, Roark. I mean that.”
Walking across the base to the barracks, no one questioned his personal attention to one of the two dozen men and women pulled from the holes.
Now he carried the young man who was already improving physically. He’d have brutal scars inside and out for the rest of his life but he’d survive.
If Roark had anything to say about it, he’d thrive.
Laying him on his cot, he sat in the chair beside it and waited for him to wake up. He was too lean, his skin gray. They assumed he was of Middle Eastern descent but couldn’t be certain. His hair and eyes were black.
Mala put his height at five-five and Roark knew his growth was stunted from malnutrition and life lived underground. Every inch of him was muscle and bone.
Half an hour later, Ashok opened his eyes and immediately bolted into a crouch on the bed. He hissed in pain as the skin of his groin tightened in the position.
“It will heal.”
Raking his palm over his balls through the sweatpants, Ashok’s eyes widened. After a long silence, the smaller man lowered to a sitting position on the side of the bed and stared at him.
“Roark.”
“Yes.” His heart slammed against his sternum.
In Hindi, he said, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he answered. “Let’s get you some food.”
He mimed the act of eating and the other man nodded. They stood and at a level six-feet, the top of Ashok’s head was at his shoulder. He held out his wrists to be restrained but Roark shook his head.
They walked side by side to the mess hall. His team looked at Ashok in shock and he knew the other captives weren’t doing as well. The young man improved almost hourly.
Despite what he’d been through, Ashok’s mind was quick and his body was strong.
He followed Roark’s movements nervously. As he placed a bottled juice on his tray, a basket of cutlery slipped from the rack behind him. His hand moved so fast, catching the steel container, that Vi barked a small laugh from where she stood a couple of feet away.
“Excellent reflexes,” she said. Without a word, Ashok put it back and pressed closer to Roark’s side. “It’s okay, little man. It’s all good.” Her smile was reassuring and she remained still.
“His name’s Ashok.”
Vi’s eyes went wide. She looked at the younger man and pointed to herself. “Vi.”
Pressing harder to Roark, he said inaudibly, “Ashok.”
“Nice to meet you, Ashok. Eat up.”
He guided him through the rest of the line and led him to a table away from the others. They focused on their food, Ashok regularly staring at the way Roark held utensils.
They were almost done when a commotion outside made Ashok stiffen sharply. He stood, leapt over their table as well as two others in the way, pushing through the door to the base beyond.
Another female captive held one of the field medics with a jagged piece of glass pressed to her throat.
Ashok circled them despite other people yelling at him to stay back. One rotation, then a second. The former captive became increasingly distressed.
In Hindi, she whispered, “The promise.”
Stopping in front of them, he held out his hand to the medic but didn’t take his eyes off the girl.
The woman took it and he tugged gently. The girl let the medic go and Ashok pushed her away. Then he stepped closer and the wildness in the girl’s eyes was counter to the way she lowered her hands, dropping the glass shard. They stared at one another for a long time.
Again, she growled, “The promise.”
He nodded and inhaled carefully. Then he cupped her skull and snapped her neck in one efficient move. He brought her to his chest as Roark’s team surrounded them, shouting.
Ashok stared up into his face. “I promised.”
“To kill her?”
“I promised.”
“We can help. They can heal.”
“Not all. Not all, Roark.”
He held his gaze as he understood. “The women?” Ashok nodded. “You promised?”
“I promised.”
“Bring the other women rescued,” he told Gear who stood beside him.
“Sir?”
“All of them were brutalized. If they need him to keep his promise, we can’t wait for them to spin out like she did. Someone could be hurt. It’s their choice. Bring them.”
Two medics, one of them the woman who’d been held, brought a litter. Ashok tighte
ned his hold on her for a moment but then lowered her to the canvas.
“Peace.”
He stood and waited, his legs braced, staring at nothing. The three women were carried from the female barracks, two fought and screamed. The moment they saw Ashok, the ones who were in full panic raced to him.
“The promise.” They cried hysterically as one held her stomach in horrible pain. “The promise.”
The girl in pain straightened and stared at him. She whispered brokenly, “P-please.”
Gently, he cupped her face and she closed her eyes with a fragile smile a moment before he snapped her neck. He held her against him for a long moment.
At his side, Mala told Roark, “We’ve been unable to get near them to confirm their injuries. She worried me. I think there was massive internal bleeding.”
The crying woman nodded and as Ashok set the second girl gently on a litter and stood, she took his hands and held them to her head.
She whispered, “Peace,” as he took her life.
Holding her, he stared at the remaining female taken from the pits. She shook her head and he smiled.
“Strong. Heal.” He lowered the third woman and approached the last. Taking her hand, he led her to Mala. “Strong. Heal.”
“I’ll take care of her, Ashok.” Mala wrapped her arm around the small woman and walked with her to the medical pod.
Turning to Roark, the young man said, “Promise…kept.”
“You’re the strongest.” Ashok didn’t reply. “You tried to protect them. You promised to ease their suffering.”
“Not all heal.”
“You will heal, Ashok.”
“Yes.”
Over the next few days, he started taking Ashok to visit the other captives. He calmed them, taught them what he learned, and their respect was clear.
He learned to communicate more effectively and by the time they boarded the plane for home, Ashok was able to help explain what was happening to the others.
From the seat next to his, black eyes looked up at him. “I stay with Roark.”
“Yes.”
Nodding once, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Roark knew everything in his life was about to change and he welcomed it.
* * *
Six months later…
Sometimes the rage took him, almost broke him, and he wouldn’t be sure he would make it through.
The fury felt like flames on the back of his neck. The memories of that period in his life, the humiliation, the pain…they overwhelmed him and he couldn’t figure out which way was up.
Those were the precious moments he appreciated his lover more than ever before. When all he wished to do was fight, claw, and bite, Roark brought him back. Showed him the way back to his sanity when he doubted it existed.
The seconds would tick by, the bigger man holding him hard, keeping him immobile with oak-thick arms and legs wrapped around his own limbs and torso, and eventually, the feeling of being in the cage again would ease.
Eventually, he could inhale, felt his heart return to normal, felt his rage recede into the roiling darkness from whence it came.
Tears were always the second phase. Wracking sobs he could not control as he screamed his hurt, his sadness at the state of humanity. Again, Roark anchored him to reality, allowed him to purge the knot of terror that grew like a cancerous tumor deep in his gut.
Then he would help him shower, dry him down, and pull him beneath the blankets where he would whisper the first real words heard in hours.
Soothing him in the present, reminding him that it was the past, explaining the future that waited for him.
The future his healed self would enjoy.
He slept, like being drugged, and a part of him was always surprised to open his eyes the next morning to find the sunlight caressing the skin of the first person to treat him like a human. Who’d looked him in the eye and seen more than a wild thing.
He was a man who controlled the outside world with an iron fist. A man respected by other men.
Huge, strong, and fearless.
The man who’d taken him from the hole. Who’d gotten him into the United States. Who’d taken him into his own home after debriefing, after psych evaluations, after he was physically able to travel.
Roark taught him English that had been long-forgotten, how to use modern plumbing, and about things every Kindergarten child probably knew that – at roughly twenty-six – had been beaten from him.
Such things were not needed in the hole, in the cages. In the life he’d led before. Those things were part of his humanity and they were driven from him with chains and whips and fire. He’d allowed himself to forget…to survive.
Placing his palm on Roark’s face, long lashes that seemed strange on such a powerful man lifted and caramel eyes stared into his.
Words were never used on the mornings after. As the sun gradually rose in the sky, Roark loved him, held him, and murmured to him.
Often, as the pleasure took him, replacing the learned psychosis he struggled to eradicate, he would pray to the God he’d invented in the hole.
“Don’t let him tire of waiting. Don’t let him leave me. I’ll do better. I’ll try harder. I need him…I need him…I need him.”
Security
New York City - January 2014
Over the sixteen years he’d known her, half of them were filled with love and the other half filled with a deep and sincere respect. His love for her haunted his nights and destroyed his peace of mind for almost a decade.
She only had eyes for one man and it was not her employee.
Finally, the hold she did not know she had on him lessened and he breathed a sigh of relief, free at last to focus and interact with other women in the world.
Six weeks before, a new woman walked into his life and into his heart without a single moment of warning so he could protect himself.
Very different from his first unrequited love, she was pretty but not beautiful, smart but not brilliant.
Her magic was in her smile. She smiled with her entire body and it lit her from the inside out. Genuinely kind and exceedingly generous, he watched her with the rest of the staff and fell deeper in love every time she laughed.
He was not a man who spoke of his feelings and being raised in the frozen tundra of Siberia made him hard and unable to hold conversations others took for granted. Thankfully, his English was better than it was twenty years ago.
He saved most of his earnings in case he ever ended up a married man. He wanted to have everything necessary to provide for a wife, maybe even children, someday.
Passing forty-three years of life without such a miracle made him doubt the possibility more by the day.
He wondered at his purpose, why fate saw fit to place him in close proximity to women his heart opened for without the ability to tell them.
It seemed cruel.
He checked all the doors and smiled at his boss as she left on the arm of her new husband. The man was worthy of her and nodded as he held the door.
Only when they were safely ensconced in the man’s car did he turn back to the foyer, prepared to make one more round of the old mansion before heading to his quiet apartment.
A sound reached him as he touched the door to the main ballroom and he paused. Hearing it again, he turned and followed it. Down the hall, he waited for another.
When it came, he approached the door to one of the specialty rooms used by particular guests.
No one should be in the club.
Pushing it wide, the scene before him filled him with rage unlike anything he’d ever known.
An older man, one of the first members, held her against the wall. His forearm pressed against her throat as tears streamed down her face. She desperately fought but made no progress.
Her eyes met his over the man’s shoulder and she didn’t need to say a word.
Without hesitation, he bodily lifted the man from her, slamming him to the hard floor, bouncing his head off th
e surface. Kicking him to his stomach, he removed cuffs he’d never used in this building from his low back. The man was out cold.
Only when he was secure did he turn his head to look at the woman he loved. She’d slid down the wall and sat weakly on the floor. Her clothing was ripped and bruises covered her face.
Despite the circumstances, she tried to smile one of her beautiful smiles through her tears and shakes that were noticeably worsening. He shrugged his suit jacket from his shoulders and wrapped it around hers.
“Thank you, Stav.”
“You are welcome, Vita.” He stood and took her with him. “Come. I will keep you safe.”
“I know.”
Sweet Little Kitten
Chicago - February 2014
During the day, Megan Trass was a corporate tax accountant. The firm she worked for was the biggest in the city and hundred-hour work weeks were the norm during tax season.
Her professional wardrobe consisted of power suits in ultra-conservative colors; she wore her hair in a bun and very little makeup. Matching pumps with thick, low heels were as risqué as she ever dared.
Megan was a woman with a team of people who reported to her, to whom she delegated countless tasks, who were answerable for their job performance and dependent on her for good reviews, raises, and yearly bonuses.
She decided who was ready for promotion and she’d found it necessary to fire a member of her staff the month before.
It was not an easy position to hold and she scratched and clawed for six years to become the first female in company history to hold a management position.
Male-dominated did not begin to describe the industry she chose to enter. Men ran most companies and corporations. Those men typically felt more comfortable if their taxes were done by stodgy older men in sedate ties who never smiled.
That was who she was to the rest of the world. Accountant, slightly OCD, A-type personality, upper middle class upbringing, and a vanilla girl in bed.
Driving home from the office earlier, she called her husband.
The Barter System Companion: Volume One Page 23