The Debt

by Sara Hubbard

  But then…

  Click.

  Did she just fucking pull the trigger? Her eyes flash open at the exact same moment mine do. Yes, she fucking did.

  Click. Click. She keeps trying, but it continues to fail her. Does she think I would be stupid enough to give her a loaded weapon?

  “Self-preservation,” I growl.

  She backs away, pulling her legs out from under me and crawling on her back along the bed as far as she can go until she collides with the headboard. The gun is still in her hand. I grab her ankles and yank her forward, crawling on top of her again. This time I use my body weight to pin her to the bed. She wrestles with me, and I’m surprised at the strength she has in her small, delicate body. I snatch the gun from her hand and toss it on the bed before I pin her wrists down on the bed.

  My heart jackhammers in my chest; my pulse thunders in my neck. I can do it now. I can take her life just like she was ready to take mine. I am nothing to her and she’s nothing to me. I just needed to be sure. I let go of her restrained arm and reach for her swan-like neck.

  “I’m sorry,” she cries. “I’m so sorry. Just don’t kill my mom. Please! Don’t kill her!”

  She flails underneath me. She bucks and kicks and screams and hits my side with her free arm, but I’m too big and too strong for her to ever overcome me. I hold her neck firmly, just under her chin, and I start to squeeze. Her eyes widen, and I think how easy it would be to snap her neck.

  Do it. Fucking do it. Do it! She was ready to take your life, so go ahead and take hers. I take a deep breath in and out, and then I slowly relax my hold. Here she is about to die, and she should be begging me for her life. Pleading with me. Making bargains. All of my victims do the same thing. Every last one of them. But unlike my other victims, she pleads for someone else. Again.

  I see my reflection in the pale depths of her wide, panicked eyes, and I relax my hold more. The fight in her slowly dies until she lays lifeless underneath me. I would think her dead if she wasn’t still looking up at me, blinking those long lashes of hers. When I first met her, it was me looking up at her as I fought for my life. Now she looks up at me. I saw warmth in her eyes then. Now, all I see is pain and fear.

  What the fuck am I doing? I let go of her and sit up. She was willing to shoot me, and that’s shocking, but now that I’m calm, there’s hurt. “The next time you point a gun at a man like me, you better be fucking sure it’s loaded.”

  I climb off the bed, and noting my shirt has come untucked, I fix it before standing tall.

  “What did you expect me to do?” she whispers. “I can’t stay here with you. You killed him. All of you did. That was my only out. I have to get to my mom and keep her safe.”

  “You want to keep your mom safe?” I ask. “Stay here and let the world think you’re dead.”

  “For how long?”

  I don’t give her a reply because I don’t have one. I can’t imagine a time when it will be safe for her to leave. Not until everyone in that warehouse is dead or in jail, and that’s not going to happen any time soon.

  She bats away tears and sniffles. “I have a life!”

  “The life you had is over.”

  “When I don’t show up for work, they’ll call the police and do a wellness check. My mom will file a missing persons.”

  “You think the cops are going to save you?” I chuckle at that. “Think again. They wouldn’t even know where to look.”

  I start for the door as she continues to plead with me. I grab it and slam it shut after I walk through. A few steps later, a loud crash causes me to turn. Shards of glass slide under the door. Yuri was right, there’s still a lot of fight left inside of her.

  Chapter 5

  Luna: I knock on the door of Maxim’s new hospital room. He moved down to a surgical unit a few days ago. I’m used to patients being unconscious, so having him awake and interactive for a week left an impression. I miss our late-night chats, his dry humor that he never delivers with a smile on his lips, but only with his eyes. He’s not good for me, and I shouldn’t care about him. I should wish him well and forget all about him, but something inside of me pulls me to him. Is it because of who I am? The relationship my mother had with my father? Maybe wanting someone who isn’t good for me is already in my blood. I know this, and yet here I am. Checking up on him. Using it as an excuse to see him.

  It’s after midnight, and he’s awake. He doesn’t seem to sleep very much. Perhaps that’s his normal. Or maybe he’s all slept out after his time in a coma. When he spies me, he watches me with intensity. It’s both unnerving and intoxicating, and it makes me stir inside.

  “She’s back,” he says in a soft voice.

  I cross my arms over my chest and lean against the doorframe. “I was on a break and thought I’d see how you’re doing. Although I have to say I’m surprised you haven’t forced your way out of here yet.”

  “If I left, I wouldn’t have a date with a beautiful woman to look forward to, would I?”

  I suck my lips in to fight a smile as heat rushes to my cheeks. Then I dip my head and move forward to the chair beside his bed. “What happened to your guards?”

  “My mother.” There it is. The smile in his eyes, but not on his lips. It’s like he lights up inside.

  “Well, I can understand that. She never gave me a hard time, but when I came to this floor earlier to bring down a patient, I saw her yelling at a nurse. I believe she called her feckless. I had to look it up.”

  “She has a way with words.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “People think I’m scary, but I’ve got nothing on my mother,” he says.

  I lay a hand on the back of the chair and linger, unsure if I should sit and stay or leave.

  He pats the arm as if knowing I need encouragement. I take a seat and our eyes lock. “I don’t think you’re scary,” I say. Not in the way he means, anyway.

  “Because I don’t want you to.”

  I frown at him. “Why would you want people to be afraid of you?”

  He’s silent for a long moment. I wonder if I’m going to get an answer at all, but finally he speaks. “Because it’s necessary.”

  “For what?”

  “To be effective.”

  I shrug my shoulders. “I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

  “Good.”

  I chuckle at him. Sometimes he speaks in riddles. “Okay, you want people to be afraid of you, but not me? Why am I different?”

  “Well, if you were afraid of me, I never would have gotten you to say yes to me, would I?”

  I shift on the seat and turn away, thinking. When I turn back, I say, “Are you really still here because you want to go out with me? That can’t be the only reason, right?”

  He stares at me but doesn’t answer, and I’m pretty sure that he’s telling the truth. I feel special even though I still have reservations about seeing him. He was my patient. I know people would frown on it.

  “I guess I can’t back out then, can I?” I say.

  He makes a face. “You wouldn’t break a promise, would you?”

  I shake my head. “Would you?”

  He hesitates. “Not if I could help it.”

  The corner of the dressing on his chest peeks out from under his sheet. It looks bloodied, and it concerns me. I reach out but hesitate before touching. “May I?”

  He nods.

  I lower the sheet and ignore his tan muscles and the scars that hint at the life he supposedly leads. I peel the corner of the dressing back, bothered by the dark shadowing. When I make a face, he says, “It’s infected.” He points to the IV pole where a bag of antibiotics hangs.

  “I guess it’s a good thing we had a deal. You still need to be here.”

  He nods. “I guess so.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re okay. I should probably get going, though. My break’s only fifteen minutes.”

  “And you wasted it on me.”

  “It wasn’t a waste,” I say soft
ly. “Feel better, okay?” I tell him.

  “What’s your favorite color?” he asks.

  I stand and look down at him, smiling but confused. I have to think about it. “White.”

  He nods.

  The next day when I arrive to work there are thirty-five white roses at the nurses’ station on my floor without a card of explanation. I know who they came from. There is one rose for every day he stayed on my unit.

  * * *

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, facing the French doors, I watch the sun on the horizon. My hand is once again chained to the bed. I’m not sure when that happened, or how I could have slept through it, but I did. Clouds pass over the sun, and as they move and clear it, I have these stretches of warmth that die suddenly only to return again. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here staring. It feels like forever. The reality of my situation hit hard after Maxim left me last night.

  At first, I cried for my father, but then I cried harder for my broken heart. How could a father trade their child’s life for their own? My face screws up as tears run faster and harder, and I choke back my sobs. As my crying slows, I wipe my face with my forearms and calm my ragged breathing. What happened to the father who loved me “to the moon and back?” The memories of who he once was have all but faded though one persists in my mind.

  I was maybe eight or nine. He and I were in the backyard with a telescope we made together out of odds and ends. I still can’t believe that thing worked, but it did. I remember him wrapping an arm around me that first night we used it. I peered through the glass up at the moon, and it looked so close that I thought I could reach out and touch it.

  Dad said, “To the moon and back. That’s how much I love you, Luna.”

  “That’s not very far, daddy. It looks so close now,” I said.

  He laughed at me and ruffled my hair. “Then how about the end of the universe? Is that far enough?”

  I nodded, smiling, and thought he must love me a lot.

  I sniffle and wipe my nose with my scrub top.

  If trading my life for his was the worst he’d done, maybe I could come to terms with his choice. I could chalk it up to him being so far gone with his addiction that he didn’t know what he was doing. Maybe he was already high when they grabbed him. But he didn’t just agree to give my life for his, he took another. An innocent girl’s. He’s a flawed man, but I never imagined him capable of murder. I clutch my chest as I feel it fracture.

  Maybe it was a lie. Maxim is a criminal, after all. I shouldn’t believe a word he says. The man I knew before, who I thought had good inside of him, who I truly cared for…there is no trace of that man in Maxim anymore. I don’t recognize him one bit. He’s a monster, and he’s keeping me here in this white-walled prison with fancy paintings and fixtures.

  I pick up a vase off the nightstand and smash it against the wall. I don’t know why I think this will make me feel better. It doesn’t.

  I have to get out of here.

  Be strong, Luna, I tell myself. You need to keep your wits about you if you’re going to make it through this alive. One wrong move, and he could hurt you and your mother. She’s already been through so much, and now she’s going to have to deal with Dad and me missing. I can’t save her from that—from not knowing what happened to us. She’ll be devastated. It’s maddening, and I feel so damn helpless.

  Maxim said I had to let others think I’m dead to keep her safe. Maybe that’s true, but that doesn’t mean I accept it. There has to be another way. It’s true I would have died for my father yesterday, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to throw in the towel. I want to live—but not here as his prisoner. I’m a fighter, and I always have been. Maxim will see. He probably thinks I’m weak because I would sacrifice myself for someone I love, but that’s because he doesn’t understand what it means to love someone. How could he? I bet he’s never sacrificed for someone else his whole life.

  A creak startles me, and I brush my tears away with the swipe of my hands. The door opens wide, and I peek over my shoulder to see a short woman with full hips and a large chest. Her graying hair is pulled back into a tight bun. She’s wearing a white shirt and black pants.

  At first, she stares at the shards of porcelain all over the floor and the glass. She lets out a sigh before her gaze finds mine. Her smile is tentative at first, but then it builds until it’s warm and bright. It falls when her eyes train to my handcuffs.

  My first instinct when I see her is to beg for help, but I know if she’s here, it’s because he allowed it. She’s not going to help me. A nagging voice in my head says, “Try.” But I worry it will only get me into more trouble. At this moment, it seems he’s going to let me live. If I push him, like I did last night, he might put his hands on me again and finish what he started.

  “Good morning,” she says in a thick accent I assume is also Russian.

  I say nothing.

  She frowns and says something in Russian. Her tone is soft, and it feels soothing. If she feels any sympathy for me, it’s not enough to run over here and free me. I yank the cuff, and it rattles against the wood.

  “I have to pee,” I say. “Can you help me?”

  “I speak no English.”

  “You sound like you speak English just fine.”

  She ignores me and steps outside for a brief moment to grab a broom, a dustpan, and a large garbage bin. I watch as she picks up the pieces of the lamp and disposes of them. “Ouch,” she says after most of the bigger pieces are removed. She stares at her finger before sucking on it.

  “Are you hurt? Did you want me to look at that?”

  “I’m just fine, miss.”

  “I’m a nurse. I could help, if you could just uncuff me.”

  She sighs. “Mr. Maxim did that?”

  I rattle the chain on the cuff as I close my fist and shake my hand. “The handcuffs? Yes, I think so.”

  “Then no. He would be very angry with me.”

  “He’d never know. I won’t tell him.”

  “Oh, miss.” She shakes her head and looks as if she almost feels sorry for my naivety. “He would know. Mr. Maxim knows everything.”

  I slump back against the headboard and frown at her. She busies herself with sweeping and getting every last piece of glass and porcelain from the floor. I think she’s about to leave, but I don’t want her to. I don’t want to be alone.

  “Please don’t go,” I say.

  She stops, broom and dustpan in hand. “Do you need something?”

  I open my mouth and snap it shut. There are so many things I need right now, and first on the list is getting uncuffed from this bed. “He’s going to kill me,” I say. “You work for him so you must know who he is and what he’s like. Can you really just walk away, knowing what he’ll do to me?”

  “Mr. Maxim is a good man.”

  “Good?” I say with a stifled laugh. “There is nothing good about him.”

  “You are wrong. I know him since he was a boy. There is goodness in him. You’ll see.”

  I shake my head. If only that were true. If only he was the man I hoped he was. “You’re wrong,” I say.

  She nods and turns on her heel.

  “Wait! Please. Could you at least uncuff me? I really have to go. I can’t hold it anymore.”

  “Just wait here. I’ll get Mr. Maxim.”

  “No! Please.”

  She hurries out the bedroom door and disappears down the hall. I don’t want to see Maxim. I’d be grateful if I never saw him again. I wait several minutes, thinking she forgot all about me, but then heavy footfalls step out of time with quick-paced flats. They slap at the floor while the others boom. I almost feel the bed shake underneath me, and a shiver radiates down my spine.

  They have a short conversation in Russian before her shoes scuttle away, their rapid-fire noise growing quieter and quieter. I don’t immediately look in his direction when he steps into the room, but I feel his presence behind me like a big, black shadow. Every step he takes as
he rounds the bed to face me, my heartbeat quickens more. I breathe in and out to try to control my fear, but I know it’s likely written on my face.

  He reaches out to my cuffs and slides a small key into the lock. When I’m free, my arm falls to the bed, limp. I can move it, but it’s tingling. Only now I notice it must have fallen asleep. I grip my hand and massage it to try to bring it back to life. The cuts on my wrist are raw, and I touch my fingers to the dried blood.

  “Stand up,” he demands.

  Hesitantly, I do as he asks.

  He pulls a balled-up garbage bag from his back pocket and unfolds it. I don’t know what it’s for, but it can’t be good. I widen my eyes in horror.

  “Take off your clothes,” he says.

  “Wh-what?”

  “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “No,” I say, head up.

  “Take. Them. Off.”

  I shake my head.

  “You act as if I haven’t seen you naked before.”

  I glare at him and clutch my arms to my chest. As he towers over me, he looks down at me from under hooded, dark brows. With one of his big, strong hands, he waves at me to hurry up. That hand was around my neck last night, and I thought it was the end. But then, miraculously, he stopped. Perhaps I shouldn’t have tried to fight him. Maybe I should have begged him to finish me. Anything would be better than what I imagine he’s about to do to me now. He said he had no interest in sex with me. It seems he lied.

  I grip the hem of my scrub top as tears fall from my lashes. Beads of sweat materialize on my brow, and I swallow a lump in my throat. I pull the top over my head and refuse to look at him because I fear his thoughts will be written all over his face. With my shirt off, in my bra, I already feel naked and vulnerable. Exposed. I swallow again and untie my pants. They’re so big on me they fall to the floor.

  “Pick them up,” he says.

  I raise an eyebrow, confused, but I do as he says. I hand him the pants and the shirt.