by Nicole Fox
Edgar kicks me again, but this time, I smile.
I’m barely paying attention when Edgar finally has me dragged from the room and taken to another.
The only way I could endure the torture was to focus on my family. To focus on Luka getting better and saving Milaya.
The only way to survive was to imagine a future in which I would be with them again and cling to the memories I still have. The memories that no amount of pain can take away.
The guard pushes me through a door and then slams it shut hard enough that the walls seem to rattle. I close my eyes and press my hands over my ears, trying to keep my brain from rattling around inside my head.
“You need to lie down.”
I open my eyes and squint against the light from a lamp in the corner. The voice is familiar but it takes me a minute to place it.
“Kari.”
She doesn’t look up, her head bent over a bed in the room. “There are ice packs here for your bruises. I’ll look you over in a minute when I’m done here.”
“Is this your room?” I ask, lifting myself slowly to my feet.
“No, it’s yours,” she says. “At least for now. Until you two are better.”
You two.
I look up and notice there are two beds.
And next to Kari is a table covered in medical instruments. And blood.
My heart realizes Luka is nearby before I do. It lurches in my chest as though it wants to leap out and cross the room to be with him.
“He is doing okay, but he needs time to rest,” Kari says. “And I’m not sure the Cartel will give him much time.”
I tiptoe to the edge of his bed and look down at him.
It is so nice to see him without his mask on. I could see him without it at night, of course, but during the day, all I could see was his square jaw and his mouth. Now, though, I get to take in all of him.
His face is still handsome, but pale. So pale.
“Has he lost a lot of blood?”
“Three bullet wounds will do that,” Kari says.
When I gasp, she winces in apology. “Two of them are grazes, so it isn’t quite as bad as it sounds.”
I grip the side of the bed to keep standing, and Kari reaches out and pushes me back towards the second bed. “Sit down before you collapse. Like I said, I have to take care of him first before I can tend to you.”
I’m too tired to argue. I sit on the hard mattress and watch her work. She cleans and disinfects and then grabs a suture thread and needle.
“Are you qualified to do this?” I ask. Not that we have any other options.
Kari nods and pulls aside the flaps of Luka’s suit pants to reveal the wound in his thigh. It is gaping and bloody, and I can’t look. “I was a surgical student. I transferred to the city to pursue better educational opportunities. It is part of the reason Edgar was interested in me at all. The Cartel needed in-house medical assistance.”
Her hands are steady as she works and that is enough reason for me to trust her. In her position, I would be shaking like a leaf.
“There are ice packs in the cooler,” she says, tipping her head towards the door. “If you need something for your bruises.”
Mostly for something to do other than try not to pass out at the sight of my husband being operated on, I go to the cooler and pull out an ice pack.
The cooler is also full of blood bags.
“Will you need these?” I ask.
“He lost a lot of blood.”
My stomach turns and I close the lid quickly, dropping down onto the mattress.
Now that I am out of immediate danger, my body is starting to ache. Bruises are forming across my arms and legs and deep muscle aches are starting to make themselves known. I can already tell that it will be excruciating by the morning.
“I guess you are dying to tell me you were right,” I say. “That it was pointless to fight against the Cartel. That I should have just gone along with their rules and done my best to get out of the inn.”
Kari doesn’t answer me for so long that I think she must not have heard me. She snips the black thread coming out of Luka’s leg and then runs an IV.
I don’t want to think about the many different ways this operation could be unsanitary. I don’t want to consider the possibility that Luka could survive a gunfight only to die of an infection. I have to trust that Kari knows what she is doing.
She rolls over a metal stand with little arms and hangs a blood bag from it. I look away as she begins the transfusion. When she is finished, she turns to her table and begins organizing her supplies, shifting things around. Finally, she crosses the room and stands in front of me.
I look up and see that she is holding something out to me. A scalpel.
“What is—”
Kari presses the blade into my hand and folds my fingers around it. “End them, Eve.”
It takes me a minute to realize who she’s talking about.
The Cartel. She wants me to take them down.
I shake my head. “I don’t understand. You told me you’ve been here for years, that it would be better to just go along with them. What about our sorry state has made you change your mind?”
“Love,” Kari says, rolling her eyes. “It sounds corny, but I have never seen two people more willing to fight for each other than the two of you. Edgar told me the truth about who you are to one another before I came in here. If you’d told me you were husband and wife from the start, I might have started supporting you sooner.”
“I wish I’d known that,” I say.
She shrugs. “After everything I’ve been through, I’ve learned to keep my expectations low, but after you survived a beating at the hands of Edgar and Luka was willing to take on every single Cartel guard to save you—well, there is a glimmer of hope.”
I take the scalpel and lay it on the bed next to my thigh.
A girl and her scalpel versus the world. What could go wrong?
20
Luka
There is pain, but mostly there is darkness.
Tiny blips of light make it through to me, but they are lost in another wave of nightmares and pain.
I see Eve and Milaya waving to me. I don’t know where I am or where they are. As I walk towards them, they don’t get any closer. I begin to run, but they remain out of reach. When I call out their names, begging Eve to walk towards me, my voice is swallowed up like I’m in the vacuum of space.
The only sound is my ragged breathing.
In and out.
In.
Out.
I sound like an old car chugging up a hill. Or a half-broken washing machine during a spin cycle.
There is a mechanical whirring noise that seems out of place, and no matter how hard I try to scream, nothing can drown out the sound.
Except the shots.
Gunfire cracks through the air, and I hit the ground, ducking from the shots.
I call out for Eve and Milaya, but again, they can’t hear me.
When I search for them, they are gone. Where they were standing is only a puddle of blood.
“How is he doing?”
The deep voice comes from above me and around me, and I spin but can’t find it.
Then, suddenly, I’m back in my body.
My eyes are still closed, far too heavy to open, but I know I’m awake because of the pain.
It is everywhere, rippling through my body in a constant current but also coming from somewhere deeper. Somewhere in my core, like the pain is being created there and sent to the rest of my nerves. I try to move, but my legs are strapped down. Even if they weren’t, I don’t think I’d have the strength to pick them up.
“He’ll live.”
Through the haze of pain, I’m able to recognize the voice of the woman who has been helping Eve every morning. Kari, I think.
“He is lucky,” she says. “The shot to the leg is the worst. The others are grazes.”
“Our guys need to work on their aim,” the deep vo
ice says. He is probably a Cartel member. One of the guards who shot me, maybe. Or one who dragged Eve away. “Hey, buddy, wake up. Edgar wants to see you.”
I hear shuffling footsteps. I want to get up and chase after them, demand to know where Eve is. What happened to her?
Did they kill her?
The thought hurts worse than any of my wounds, but still I can’t move. Can’t speak. Can’t do anything but lie here feeling useless.
I hear the door open and close, and I know I’m too late. The opportunity has passed.
Then, I slip back into the darkness.
When I wake up again, I’m shivering.
I’m cold everywhere. So cold most of my body feels numb, and for a second I have the terrifying thought that I’m dying.
Eve and Milaya are gone, maybe dead, and I’m dying in a room at a shitty inn under the watch of Cartel members who want to skin me alive.
Then, I feel the cold shift down my back like it is a living thing, crawling down my body. I flinch.
“Luka?”
The sound of her voice, even scratchy and sleepy, is like music to me. For the first time in I don’t know how long, I open my eyes and turn towards the sound of it.
Eve is lying next to me. Her face is splotchy and bruised, one of her eyes swollen until it is almost shut. But she is smiling.
“Luka, you’re okay.”
I reach out and grab a strand of her hair, more to tell myself that she is indeed real and not a figment of my imagination.
Then, I look down and see the ice pack pressed between our bodies. It is wedged between her ribs, which are clearly black and blue, and my side where a large bloody bandage is taped down.
“Are you too cold?” She pulls the ice pack from between us, showcasing even more of her bruises.
I frown. “What did they do to you?”
She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. You almost died.”
“Just grazes,” I say. “That is what Kari said.”
“You could hear her?”
I nod. “A little.”
“Then you must have heard her talk about the shot to your leg.”
I look down and see an especially large bandage across my thigh. I’m still wearing pants, but the right leg has been cut up to my hip.
“Kari thinks she got the fragments out, but it could be fractured. She doesn’t know.”
“I feel fine,” I lie, shifting slightly on the bed. The slight movement sends a burst of pain shooting up my leg and through my core. I tense and Eve sees it.
“You filthy liar.”
I smile and then lift her chin with my finger, bringing her towards me. “Why did you lie for me?”
She leans forward until her nose touches mine, shaking her head to brush them together. “Because I love you.”
Our lips press together softly as though it is the first time. I reach out and cup her face, curling my fingers behind her ear. When I drag my hand down her neck and across her waist, she winces.
I pull back and look at her. The bruising is even worse than I thought.
“What did he do to you?” I growl, tracing the swollen purple bruises down her ribs and across her back.
Eve relays the torture, explaining in minimal detail how Edgar abused her. Every slap she narrates is like I’m getting shot all over again. Before she’s finished, I’m shaking all over with bloodlust.
I’m going to kill the motherfucker who hurt my wife.
“I’m sorry.” I close my eyes and shake my head. “I should have been there.”
She grabs my face and kisses me. “You tried to be. That is what matters.”
I try to believe her, but my failures seem to be stacking up. Time and time again, I have let my family be hurt, and I can’t help but feel like I’m not doing my job.
“You need to rest,” she says, lying down on the small bed next to me and draping her arm across my chest. “I don’t know when they’ll come for us, and we both need to be as strong as we can.”
I try to imagine fighting with this broken, battered body, and I can’t imagine it. I’m terrified that, once again, I’m going to have to sit uselessly by while my wife is pulled from my arms and dragged away.
Eve sits up, her hand over my heart. “Calm down. Rest.”
“Are we going to get out of here?” Perhaps if I was stronger I wouldn’t ask the question, but I’m not, so I do.
Eve’s eyes flutter, going glassy, and she nods. “Of course we are. We are going to get out of here, get our daughter, and go home. I am going to make steak au poivre with pommes frites while you fill the glasses with our best wine.”
She explains the perfect night together, and I can see it all clearly in my head as I drift off to sleep.
Once sleep has me, however, the images shift.
Instead of steak, there is human flesh. Instead of pommes frites, there are bones.
One by one, I’m taking out the Cartel members, all the while recounting everything they’ve done to my family.
Every horrible thing they’ve done to deserve this punishment.
I save Rian Morrison for last. I laugh as she screams.
There is no way to know what time it is when I wake up, but I feel better.
Not good. Not even okay. Just better.
It hurts as I sit up, and I look over and see Eve asleep next to me. Her face is even more swollen than before. Purple bruises with green around the edges cover her cheek and the skin around her eye.
Still, she is beautiful.
I want to reach out and brush her hair behind her ear, but I don’t want to wake her. Not yet. If I did, she would stop me from doing what I’m about to do.
Shoving away my fear of the pain, I swing both my legs off the bed and set my feet on the floor.
It comes like a train speeding towards me, slamming into my chest all at once. Pain explodes inside of me, hot and pulsating.
But then it recedes.
I squeeze my eyes shut and wait as it becomes a dull roar in the back of my mind.
When I stand up, the pain comes again, but the pressure of my foot against the floor seems to stabilize it in a way. It sharpens the pain so it is relegated to just my right leg, making it marginally more bearable.
When I take a step, however, my vision goes black around the edges.
Immediately, I shift my weight to my good leg.
Will I have a limp? Like Joel Foli? In a sick way, it seems ironic.
But a limp is the least of my worries now. Getting out of here alive seems like priority number one.
With every step, I feel more capable. The pain doesn’t ease at all, but I grow more accustomed to it. Rather than being surprised by each wave, I’m able to anticipate it, grit my teeth, and move through it.
Not quickly, mind you, but I can do it.
“What are you doing?”
Eve’s voice catches me off guard, and it is lucky I’m near the wall because I have to throw out an arm to keep myself from falling over.
Eve is out of bed and at my side in a second. “You should not be walking around. Why didn’t you wake me up?”
She took the robe off earlier, leaving her in nothing but a black lacy bra and matching panties. Under other circumstances, I would already have her pinned against the wall, the lacy scraps flying through the air.
I lean down, ignoring the blast of pain brought on by the position, and kiss her forehead. “Because I knew you wouldn’t let me walk around.”
“You need to be resting,” she says.
“I have been. Now, I need to get stronger.”
She shakes her head. “It’s too soon.”
“We don’t have time.”
I can tell by the furrow of her brow she wants to argue, but she can’t. She knows I’m right. Neither of us knows how much longer we have before Edgar or any of the guards come back for us.
I turn to walk back towards the bed and see two water bottles and a hunk of bread sitting on the metal operating tray. “Do you wa
nt a drink?”
The water is room temperature and covered in condensation, so I know it was left a while ago.
When I try to hand it to Eve, she hesitates. “What’s wrong?”
“At the ranch,” she says. “The Morrisons’ house. They gave me water but it was drugged. It knocked me out. They held me down and forced it down my throat.”
I file that away as another reason why I’m going to rip Rian Morrison limb from limb.
“I’ll take a drink first,” I say, twisting the cap off. The bottle was still sealed, which seems like a good sign.
Eve watches nervously as I drink half the bottle, and then helps me walk back towards the bed. After several minutes when I’m still awake and feeling fine, she drinks the other half of the bottle.
“It only took a minute or two for the drugs to take effect,” she says. “These must just be normal bottles.”
“Whatever they have planned, they don’t want us unconscious,” I say, unsure whether that is a good or bad sign.
We break the bread apart and share it, but Eve insists I take some of hers. “You are bigger than I am. You need more calories.”
“But you are hurt,” I say.
She points to my leg. “So are you. Worse than me. Eat.”
I listen to her and then lie back on the bed, holding out an arm for her to snuggle into.
“You are stronger than I ever thought,” I whisper into her hair. “I always knew you were stubborn and brave, but I had no idea you could endure so much. That you could fight so hard.”
“Honestly, neither did I,” she says. “I didn’t know I could do it until I had to.”
“You tried to explain it to me at the beginning of the week, but I didn’t get it. Not until now.” I kiss her temple. “I’m sorry.”
Eve shakes her head. “Don’t apologize. You are the reason I’m strong at all.”
I think back on the last few days. On how weak I’ve felt. How helpless and small, and I shake my head. “No, you always had it in you.”
“That’s true,” she says. “But I found it because of you. Because of how you lead our family with such strength. You made me realize that I have that inside of me, too. When I needed strength these last few weeks, I thought of you and Milaya. Doing that helped me get through whatever was happening. You two made me strong.”