by B. B. Hamel
“Let go of me.”
And he did.
I stepped back, rubbing where he’d gripped.
He walked to the door and left.
I let out a breath, half strangled moan and half gasp for air.
He was leading me around like a pet on a leash and I didn’t know how much longer I could keep up before he dragged me along.
9
Winter
We sat together in the back of an armored limo.
At least Darren said it was armored. I couldn’t tell the difference. Three identical limos rolled out in front of us with one more behind. “It’ll be hard to tell which one we’re in,” he said as explanation when I frowned at the line of them parked out front of the house.
His brother was in the lead car. I caught a glimpse from a distance: lean and smiling. All the guards seemed to like him and laughed whenever he spoke.
The opposite of Darren. The men respected Darren—but they didn’t love him.
I couldn’t blame them. He was distant and harsh, barking orders and expecting instant obedience—militaristic, difficult, but fair.
The ride out of South Bend was quiet.
I watched buildings flash past. Crumpled Victorians that must’ve been beautiful in their day, now left to rot in overgrown lots. A sparse, sad downtown, choked with buildings and empty storefronts. College kids lingered outside of a bar, smoking cigarettes.
“How does this place still exist?” I asked softly, mostly to myself.
Darren tapped his fingers on the glass. “The college, mostly. Football games bring in tourist dollars and that’s enough to sustain most of the businesses around here. The Rust Belt used to be full of a thriving middle class, but that’s all gone now.”
“It’s sad, right?”
“Something like that. The world moves on.”
“I think that’s what people say when they don’t want to admit we made a horrible mistake.”
“Spoken like someone still stuck in the past.”
I refused to look at him, but that struck deep into my core. “What do you know about that, anyway?”
“We’ve all got a past, love. Why did you run away from home?”
“I told you. My father was a bastard. Treated my mother like garbage.”
“That’s not the full story. There’s got to be more.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t want to go there. I wasn’t ready. “A bad thing happened. My father was involved.”
“Involved how?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You’ll need to open up eventually, love.”
“Stop calling me that.” I glared at him. We were a couple feet apart, but it felt like he sat right on top of me, pinning me back against the plush leather seat. “And I don’t have to give you more. You’ve got me, that’s enough.”
“I want all of you.” His lips pulled back and he leaned closer. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
“No, thanks.”
The limo pulled toward the highway. Darren’s lips parted and his tongue ran along his lower lip. We sped up, bumping along.
“A while back, I figured out something about family. Do you want to hear it?”
“I’m not sure I have much of a choice.”
“No, you don’t.” He ran his fingers along my thigh. I slapped them away, but he didn’t seem to mind. “Family is uniquely able to hurt you. Whether they mean it or not, and usually they don’t.”
“Everyone knows that.”
He nodded absently and looked out the window. Farms flashed past: corn, barns, pens for livestock, and more fields.
“What they don’t know is family always ends in heartbreak. No matter what you do, it hurts. That’s the nature of love. There’s always the opposite.”
“Hate? I don’t think you hate your family.”
“No, not hate. Pain. The opposite of love is pain.”
“That’s a new one.”
He dug his fingers into my legs. I sucked in a breath and grabbed his wrist, but it was like tugging at steel. He moved closer to me, head tilted to the side.
“That’s why is always ends poorly. Opposites attract. There’s always the flip side of every coin. When you love, you have to accept the pain.”
“Spoken like a truly broken man.”
“You think you know better then? What’s love to you?”
“Love’s the only thing that keeps me from drowning myself in the bathtub every night.”
He watched me carefully, not moving, his fingers tensed but no longer painful. He pulled them away and seemed to retract within himself, crossing his arms over his chest.
I frowned a bit, not sure what I said that made him retreat. He’d been having fun a second ago, teasing me and torturing me, and I had to admit that I enjoyed it, too. He was clever when he wanted to be, and his touch sent confusing pings of mixed pleasure and pain all along my spine, spread down between my legs, and left my hands shaking with need.
I wanted to press, but I got the sense it wasn’t the time. Darren was still dangerous, even if he did seem to enjoy toying with my emotions. I could inadvertently step on a mine and watch my limbs explode into a pink spray of gore.
Silence descended as the caravan of black limousines sped past field after field.
The Midwest was strangely flat. Sea Isle was flat—but it also had the rolling dunes and the constant motion of the tides and the bay, stretched out with green floating plant life.
The stretch of highway between South Bend and Chicago was arid and flat, dotted by farms and distant houses. Small towns sprouted up like crops, littered near central lanes, gas stations, downtown shopping districts, and defunct drive-in movies theaters.
I tried to imagine growing up in a place like this instead of upstate New York in my father’s palatial house. People had experienced real loss—of jobs, of family, of industry, of future. I could see myself as a teenager, desperate to leave, just like I was desperate to escape my father’s house.
And I wondered if what happened to me then would’ve happened to me here. If my mom would’ve slipped back into drug abuse. If my father would’ve been a softer man.
If the truth of that night would’ve been enough to make him believe me and step outside of the tiny comfortable world he’d created.
Tragedy had no place in my father’s house. It didn’t matter what kind of tragedy—whether it was his wife’s drug abuse, or an assault on his daughter.
He couldn’t accept it. Not in his perfect life. Those things happened to other people.
Trying to tell him otherwise branded you a liar and a mouthy little bitch.
It took me weeks to work up the courage to tell him what happened. Weeks of worry and self-hatred, of wondering if I was overreacting, if maybe it wasn’t that bad—but it was, it was, it was that bad.
Then the look on his face after I got it all out, let the story spill from my lips, every embarrassing detail, every nightmare second.
His expression was blank. No, worse. His expression was disappointed.
I was so angry when he told me to let it go, that it was in the past, that we couldn’t do anything about it.
I screamed at him. For the first time in my life, I raised my voice in anger, even though I knew it would cost me dearly.
You mouthy little bitch, he shouted as he slapped me across the face.
All for telling him the truth.
For telling him something he didn’t want to hear.
I was fourteen, four years after my mother left. I started planning that night.
And in another four years, I escaped.
Darren wanted that story from me. He wanted a glimpse at what made me the way I was.
And I was tempted to give him the ugly truth, because I was afraid he’d react like my father—with anger and denial.
If that happened, any lingering desire for him would vanish, and I’d be free of this stupid, jarring, physical need.
&nbs
p; I looked at him, watched his face as he watched the landscape. I wanted to reach out and touch his cheek, just to see how he’d react. I could do it—he was inches away. It wouldn’t be hard.
The first explosion sent me sideways against the door so hard I thought my shoulder might pop free from its socket.
10
Winter
My ears rang and someone grabbed my wrist. I groaned, tried to push them away. Everything spun. I smelled gasoline.
“You have to get up.”
Another hard tug. I blinked rapidly and the world came into focus.
Darren’s face. Blood trickled down his forehead. The front window was smashed and the driver lay slumped over the steering wheel. More explosions went off, smaller explosions.
Gunshots everywhere.
Darren shoved my door open. I tumbled backward but he wrapped an arm around my waist and caught me. He shimmied out, supporting my weight as he crouched down next to the car.
We were in the middle of the highway. Debris was scattered all over—car parts, a bumper, red-colored glass, several human fingers. I stared at the fingers: where did they come from?
I was in shock. I knew it, was distantly aware of it.
“Stay down.” Darren’s voice was hot against my neck. He crouched low and peered over the back bumper. His gun flared to life several times.
On the opposite side of the road, cars sped away. Some were stopped a few miles ahead, and more were stopped a few miles behind. The corn rustled in the wind, and a large white house stood surrounded by a tractor and trucks, a speck in the distance.
The lead car was toast. It’d taken the brunt of the explosion. Its body was ripped in half, and blood was splattered all over the ground. It looked like ketchup or paint. I tried to rationalize what was happening and failed.
I choked down several breaths and kept myself pressed against the side of the car.
Bullets ripped through the air. My ears were on fire from all the shots. Darren cursed, reloaded, kept shooting. His men were crouched all along the line of cars, several of them firing heavy rifles, the stocks bucking against their shoulders.
I risked a look through the back windows.
Across the street, in the cornfield, men were crouched down low. I knew they were there from the flashes of their muzzles. They were like small flickering flames, like lightning bugs in the plants. Darren’s men tore through the stalks, their weapons mowing the corn down, killing everyone hidden away in that field one after the other.
It didn’t last long. It felt like forever. Darren reloaded, checked on me, forced me back down and yelled at me to keep my fucking head out of the line of fire unless I wanted my brain splattered all over the pavement, and went back to shooting.
I watched his men, dazed.
Finally, it died down. Several guards ran over. Darren relayed orders, got a group together, and swept into the field, leaving me behind with Anthony and a few more soldiers.
Anthony’s face was bloodied and his arm hung limp. A large gash along his shoulder bled freely. He was grinning from ear to ear as he slumped down next to me.
He said something.
“What?” I asked, shaking my head. I couldn’t hear a thing.
He shouted, “Was that your first time?”
“Getting shot at? Yes, it was.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Get used to it.”
The soldiers grinned at him and I only stared, horrified.
Bodies lay unmoving nearby. A young guy, eyes staring sightlessly, chest leaking slowly. Another man, big and brawny, had a hole the size of a fist through his right eye.
Nobody moved to help them. One of the survivors lit a cigarette.
Darren returned after a few minutes. He barked more orders and the soldiers scattered. They dragged the bodies to the side of the road before piling into the remaining cars.
Sirens screamed in the distance. Darren shoved me in the back seat. My ears were starting to work again but my hands were heavy and tingling, and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. He glared at the window as the caravan began to drive again.
“What was that?”
He looked at me. “Roman.”
That was all he needed to say.
I turned away from him with a shiver.
My rescue attempt. If he’d been wrong about which car we were in, it could’ve been me blown up. And none of Roman’s men were particularly careful with where they were shooting.
That was an ambush, and I’m not totally sure Roman cared whether I survived it or not.
I could see it from his perspective. Give it a good, honest effort, but if I died in the attempt—well, oh, well. Cassie would be upset, but she’d move on, and I wouldn’t be a problem anymore.
I could barely catch my breath. I was so deep now—I was sitting on the ocean floor getting crushed by water and gravity and the lack of air all at once. Roman above, Darren below, and both of them held a gun pointed right at me.
“Hey. You’re freaking out.” Darren moved closer as the sirens got louder. “You need to calm down. You’ll hyperventilate and pass out.”
“He knew I was here,” I said and couldn’t get it together, couldn’t stop gasping in mouthfuls, I was drowning, I was dying. “He didn’t care.”
His face darkened. “No, he didn’t.”
“Why? I thought he wanted to save me.”
“Roman wants only what’ll help his empire in the long run.”
“He loves Cassie. I know he does. I saw it.”
“I believe you, but love only gets you so far. This is war, love.” He put both hands on my shoulders, squeezing them tight. “You have to try to bring it down. You’re breathing too fast.”
I couldn’t still my racing heart. I was still in shock from the attack and finally coming down from whatever high managed to keep me from losing it completely. But Darren was right, panicking wouldn’t do a damn thing to save my life, and so I squeezed my eyes shut and concentrated on the pressure of his fingers on my arms.
Strangely, that worked. Focusing my concentration onto two small points of my body helped calm my overly active brain. I wasn’t calm—not even close—but I wasn’t about to pass out.
He didn’t release me.
“Better?”
“I think so.” I opened my eyes. “What am I going to do?”
His face was clouded and blank. “You really hoped he’d save you.”
“Of course I did.”
“It’s not happening, love. He’s not coming for you. I’m all you have now.”
I bit my lip hard enough to break it open again. I tasted blood and licked my lips.
He leaned forward and kissed me.
I was too surprised to react. It was gentle at first, probing and inquisitive, until it got harder, more intense. He pushed me back against the door and pinned me there as my mouth opened and let him inside. His kiss was an attack, an invasion force primed to break me to pieces. His lips were a scorched earth policy, and I was his target.
All of me burned.
I hated that it tasted good, lilacs and jasmine and a deep nutty earthiness. His tongue rolled along mine, eating me, drinking me, lavishing in touch. His fingers bit into my flesh harder, leaving tight little bruises were his fingers puckered my arms, and I wanted him to hurt me, wanted him to make me feel something.
I was alive. Fuck, I was more alive than I’d ever been.
I threw myself into that kiss recklessly. I wrenched my arms forward, wrapped them around his neck, and moaned sweet, hot nothings into his mouth. I wanted him to drown me, to take me and rip me to pieces and leave me something else after he was through. I wanted to be mangled and maimed, and his teeth and lips could do it, could take me all the way and further and leave me stranded somewhere new.
He grunted in response as I bit him hard than swirled my tongue along his. The kiss was heaven, was sweetness and light and darkness and pain all wrapped up into one erotic, heady moment, and I didn’t want
it to end, didn’t want to face the consequences of this stupid mistake, this bad decision brought on by a near-death experience. I didn’t want what came next.
I only wanted this, right now.
His phone began to ring. That was all that saved me.
Otherwise, I would’ve been lost. Consumed, right there in the back seat of a halfway-shattered limo.
He let out a frustrated growl and pulled back. His lips were puckered, pink and wet. I was soaked and desperate, my legs tingling for him to push them wide open and bare me.
“Go ahead,” I whispered, “answer it.”
I could tell he didn’t want to. But he ripped the phone from his pocket and held it to his ear. “What?” Silence as he listened. “Pay them whatever. We have contacts in the department. Call the chief if you have to.” More listening. “It was an accident. Make that clear.” Then he hung up and sat back in his seat.
The intensity deflated and I sat back staring ahead. All the fear drained from my chest along with the uncontrolled fear.
I felt vacant and drained.
“Anthony is taking care of the local cops. Roman must be insane, making a move in public like that.”
“A message.” The word sprang out fully formed.
He frowned, head tilted, and nodded slowly. “You’re probably right. But what’s he saying?”
“He doesn’t care where you are or what you do, he’s going to hunt you down and kill you for what you did.” I looked over and smiled. “Can you blame him?”
Darren said nothing, only retreated into himself and stared out the window.
I let him go. His kiss lingered on my lips, buzzing and wild, and if his phone hadn’t rung to break whatever insanity took over, I would’ve given him my body and every inch of myself if he’d wanted it. That stupid phone broke the spell, but I couldn’t be sure that would happen next time.
If there even was a next time.
Maybe Darren was wrong. Maybe Roman really did want me taken alive.