CHAPTER TWO
Montessa awoke and moaned. Renan’s blows had been nearly unbearable this time. She blinked, but the room remained dark.
“Decided to wake up?” The voice was soft, surprisingly so. The words were spoken intimately like a lover would, but she didn’t recognize the voice, except to say that it was strangely beautiful and foreign.
The hood was yanked off her head, and Montessa blinked in the dim light that came from a small lamp. Even that light was too much.
“I’m going to throw up,” she said. A shadow suddenly swooped close, holding a large, plastic bowl in front of her face. She retched, twice. Montessa realized the stranger was holding her hair back from her face. “Thank you,” she whispered when she was done. The bowl was emptied. The stranger mopped at her face with a damp baby wipe. She closed her eyes to keep out the light.
“I don’t like filth. Don’t mistake this for tenderness.”
That soft voice again.
She nearly laughed. She felt her lips turn up despite herself.
“I won’t.”
Silence.
She felt the stranger perch beside her. She opened her eyes and stared at her feet. During the struggle, she seemed to have lost one of her shoes. She felt a vague sense of loss for it, but decided that mourning wouldn’t do her any good. When had it ever?
“You think this is funny?” He didn’t sound angry, just curious.
Montessa swallowed hard. Assessed. The headache made it feel as though her skull had split in half, but her mind was fairly clear. She was tied to a metal folding chair, bound at wrists and ankles, waist and shoulders. She couldn’t get out if she tried. She glanced at the red stain on her shirt, blood from her throat. Escaping wasn’t an option. Not now, anyway.
Her hair hung in her face, and she tossed it out of her eyes. Felt her skull scream. Grimaced.
“It isn’t funny. It’s . . . apt.”
She felt him eying her. Felt the anxiety crawling under his skin like flames. Fire. Smoke. Steam.
“You don’t act like most of the girls I take.”
Montessa wasn’t like most girls. She wanted to say it, but the room swam, and her stomach churned.
“Bowl,” she said, and vomited, hard enough to choke and heave and cough. When she was finished, he wiped her face again, holding the tissue while she blew her nose. He gave her a glass of water and let her spit it out into the bowl. “Thank you.”
“It’s weird that you keep thanking me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s even stranger that you’re apologizing.”
She blinked up at him then, trying to make out features, but all she saw was the glow of a cigarette in the dark. It moved and danced in a strange way, split into two and three. Fireflies. A swarm. She heard it in her head.
“Hey. Are you gonna puke again?”
She couldn’t answer. The swarm of fireflies turned into something else. Flames. A city. On fire. Montessa whimpered, trying to pull away.
“Hey.”
The bowl was in front of her, her hair pulled back again, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the glow of his cigarette, of the flames running down the mountainside, of the open mouths of screaming people trapped inside buildings.
The stranger touched her, and she jerked away from his hands.
“Too hot,” she said, but the words came out jumbled, slurred, and the fire ran across her body, charring her tender skin. Then, for the second time in as many hours, she fell unconscious.
***
Lu looked at the girl for a long time.
She didn’t seem afraid of him or of being tied up. There had been an easy acceptance of her situation he wanted to ask her about. That he would ask her about. It was almost like she had seen into the core of him, seen what he was. Not The Man Who Had Taken Her, but the force of nature that was Lu.
He busied himself cleaning out the bowl. Pulling the girl’s hair back and tying it with a rubber band, just in case. Checking to make sure the metal chair was firmly fastened in place so it didn’t move, that she was breathing easily. He’d had one suffocate before while he was driving. What a shame. Such a loss. He’d cursed for days after that one, and had to find another right away to stuff food into the hunger. It happened much sooner than he had planned, of course. It had been dangerous, and close. Too close.
He climbed to the front of the semi, hopped behind the wheel, and started the truck.
Lu drove down the road, past the turn-off that the girl usually took to get to her house. A small thing, neat on the outside, thanks to her. He had watched her scrubbing and weeding and painting the trim. Saw her mowing the lawn in a pair of men’s shorts and a white tank top. The boyfriend was never outside unless he was coming or going, a posse of men or women hanging around him. Lu wondered what the house looked like now. Destitute. Empty. Maybe it mourned for her in a way. Perhaps it knew she was leaving a hole that would never be filled. Wondered if it had cried when she left, knowing deep in its eaves she wouldn’t return. Lu felt vaguely sorry for it, in a way, but not for long. You can’t do what he does and give in to the weakness of sympathy.
He continued driving, leaving her house, and her boyfriend, and everything else that had any meaning to the girl, behind.
***
Montessa woke up somewhere in Idaho. She didn’t know this at the time, of course. She just knew she was stiff and that she hurt from being tethered to the chair. Her head felt a bit better, and the nausea was mostly gone, but her thirst became a problem. The hood made it hard to breathe. She tried to breathe shallowly, but she still inhaled the thin, dark fabric. It still fought its way into her mouth, wanting to coat her throat and airways with lint and thread and darkness.
Her breath started to come fast. She fought to slow it.
Montessa squirmed against the ropes uncomfortably. Testing. Feeling. The knots were tied. Her ankles were sore and raw. She still wore one shoe, which she kicked off, and wiggled her toes.
Better to lose both than to be constantly reminded of the one.
She had learned about loss early, learned about moving on as much as you could.
Her head swirled. Or maybe she was moving. She held her breath, listened, and heard the sound of revolving tires. Felt her body shift. She was definitely in a vehicle of some kind.
“Doing okay back there?” His voice was muffled but still strangely melodious.
“I need to use the restroom.”
“Of course you do.”
“And I really need a drink of water if you have one.”
“Quite the demanding princess, aren’t you?”
She didn’t reply, just tipped her head back, willing her eyes to somehow see through the black fabric. Montessa swallowed hard, tried to keep the panic and despair down.
She felt the gravel underneath wheels, before they rumbled to a stop.
She heard her attacker clamber toward her, caught her bottom lip with her teeth, and nipped it hard enough to draw blood.
Concentrate on that, Montessa, she told herself.
Montessa didn’t want to wonder about who the man was and what he had in his hands. She had no desire to think if death was as peaceful as liars always said, or if it was gushing and bleeding and toned, bare legs drumming a sporadic rhythm on the ground as the last neurons fired off. She bit her lip again. Otherwise her screams would force themselves out of her belly and throat and she would scream both of them into oblivion.
“I’m going to untie your feet so you can use the camper toilet. I’ll have my knife to your throat. Try anything and I’ll kill you.”
“You’re going to kill me anyway, right? Why should this deter me?”
“If you want to be stuck like a pig while taking a piss, be my guest. It seems like a cheap way to go.”
“I won’t try anything. I just . . . please, hurry.”
She felt his hands on her ankles, felt the tension of the ropes release. “Don’t kick me.”
“I already told you I won’t.”
He wrapped his hands around her waist, her shoulders. The ropes fell away. He yanked the hood off, pulled her awkwardly to her feet, and she groaned at her stiffness.
“My hands?”
“They stay tied. I’ll pull your pants down for you.”
`“I . . . ”
“Relax. This isn’t my thing. I certainly won’t be getting off on it.”
She thought she should be ashamed, that there should be a stab of humiliation, but there wasn’t. This wasn’t any different than being a stripper, or any different than being used by Renan.
Using the restroom was a relief.
“Thank you,” she said after he yanked her pants back up.
“You’re exceptionally polite.”
“For a kidnapped girl?”
“For anyone.” He led her back to the chair, and she balked.
“I’m sorry. Could I stand for just a little bit longer? Even a minute or two?”
“Think you’re in a position to ask for favors?”
“Mama taught me it never hurts to ask.”
She looked him in the eyes then: dark brown, exotic, so dark that they almost seemed black. Pinpoints of light in them, fire at the corners. Her breath caught.
“I scare you.”
It wasn’t a question; it was a statement. He knew it. Knew it deep in his bones the way he knew he was a murderer. That he knew he was meant to be a lover to somebody, meant to go down in flames.
She swallowed hard. “Your eyes.”
“What about them?”
His thoughts were plainly written on his face. He was waiting for her to discuss her fear. To tell him about his blackness, how he chills her.
For some reason, Montessa thought that he might’ve heard it before. A hundred times by now, at least. She saw his shoulders draw in, anger becoming prominent. Then, her kidnapper suddenly straightened and gritted his teeth together.
She heard his thoughts in her head. Who has the knife, huh?Who is in charge here?
“You are,” she said, “but that wasn’t what I was going to say. Your eyes have a fire inside of them. Like nothing I’ve ever seen. I just . . . that sounds silly.” Sitting down, Montessa rearranged her arms behind her so they were as comfortable as her bound wrists could get. “You can tie me up again. I just wanted to move around a little bit, that’s all, but I can see you’re stressed and would like to get going.”
Her kidnapper stared at her, stared into her eyes. Montessa knew her pupils didn’t match, and her hair was matted, but he scrutinized her flaws intensely anyway. She thought he might’ve seen the dried blood on her head and down her throat, the angry wounds he’d caused. It didn’t deter him, though, from binding her body too tightly to the chair and pulling the hood down roughly over her head again.
Montessa listened as he crawled back to the driver’s seat, started the truck, and turned up the music. Way up. So he didn’t have to hear her trying to calm her breathing in the back of the cab.
***
Night came.
He filled up at a gas station and grabbed some hot dogs and Cokes from inside. Then, he drove a good hour away from there before he let her use the bathroom again. The sigh of relief she breathed when he yanked the hood off, however, hurt him somehow. This made him angry. He tried hard to sound benevolent.
“I have some food. Hungry?”
“Yes, please.”
“What will you give me for it?”
It was a cruel joke, but one that he often played. This was where they begged, offered him everything. Their body, their money, anything they had on them. This was when wedding rings came off and dignity peeled from their souls like their clothes from their bodies.
Lu laughed. It wasn’t what he wanted, but the entertainment value was worth it. It’s funny to think how little things like faith and honor and trust really mean when their bodies are on the line.
Montessa looked at him.
“For a gas station hot dog? I can sing. Would you like me to sing?”
Lu started. “Sing?”
“A song. Do you like songs?”
He didn’t know what to say. He sat down on the little bed, beside her. “Nobody has offered me a song before.”
“Do you want anything in particular, or should I choose?”
He unwrapped one of the hotdogs, took a bite, and watched her eyes follow it greedily. “You choose.”
Lu watched as she closed her eyes, noticing one eyelid still discolored from earlier bruises. Of course her coward boyfriend would beat her. He turned his face away and took another bite. It didn’t matter. None of this mattered.
She opened her mouth and began to sing. What he expected, he wasn’t sure, but this soft and sweet and slow song sure wasn’t it. The song reminded him of being a child, if being a child had been somewhat pleasant, which it wasn’t.
He wanted to slap her mouth silent, wanted to watch her lip split. He wanted her to sing forever. He realized his fingers had curled into fists and were shaking, the hotdog squished in his hands.
“Stop it,” he said, and she stopped. Just like that. A woman used to doing what she was told.
He threw her hotdog on the ground.
She looked at it, then up at him. “If it wasn’t what you wanted, then you should have said so.”
Her voice was calm.
Lu felt knocked off kilter. Shouldn’t she be begging by now? “Nobody sings when they should be begging for their life.”
She blinked her haunting eyes. “What should I have been doing, then?”
He snorted. “Most women offer me their body right away.”
“I’m not most women.”
He squatted down, picked up the hot dog, and peeled the foil back. “I know. Your mama told you that you were a little princess.”
He held it out to her.
She took a bite, spoke with a full mouth. “No, I said that she told me I was special. There’s a world of difference.”
Then she ate, and the hot dog was gone faster than he would have expected. He had the feeling she would have licked the juice from his fingers if he would have let her. Again, Lu felt that feeling of something, something almost akin to sympathy. Again, he pushed it away.
“Thirsty?”
“Yes, please.”
“I got a Coke.”
“Do you have Diet?”
He started to laugh then, a sound that filled the dark cab, and it made her face hot and turned her stomach to ice at the same time.
“What, you’re worried you’re going to get fat? Put on a little weight while strapped to that chair?”
Her cheeks warmed. “I guess . . . you’re right. What a silly thing to worry about. Got any chocolate while you’re at it?”
She was joking. She was actually sitting there in restraints, trussed up in the back of a cab, and she was joking.
“Balls of brass,” he said, and opened her drink. He slipped a straw in and held it for her. She drained the can quickly, so quickly, and he realized she probably was thirsty, that she had probably been thirsty after her night of dancing, that she had probably been looking forward to a long drink when she got home, but he had robbed her of that. For the first time, he felt something close to shame.
“Thank you,” she said, and shifted uncomfortably on the chair.
Lu slammed the drink down. “Don’t thank me. Stop thanking me. I’m not a nice guy.”
“But I . . . what do you want me to say instead?”
He stood up. “Stop asking me that! Like you’re some good, obedient pet or something. It’s disgusting. You disgust me.”
She silently swallowed and dropped her head, but not before he saw the shine of tears in her eyes. Finally. She was going to act like a real victim.
“Want to know what’s going to happen to you?” This was it: his speech. His Time to Tell. He reveled in explaining long, and slow, why each girl had been chosen, what their future held.
“You’re going to kill me. With what? Your knife? You seem to like that knife.”
Lu frowned. “I do like my knife, but I don’t always use the knife, you see. There are other ways.”
“Whatever you hit me with.”
“The wrench. Sometimes, yes, but not usually.”
“Why do you do it?”
He smiled. Dark. Predatory. “Because I want to.”
Because I can. Because I’m a god in here. Nobody thinks less of me.
“They don’t think that of you, anyway.”
He snorted, not wanting to overthink why she said what she had. “Isn’t this where you tell me that I don’t have to do this?”
She shrugged as well as she could in the chair. “I don’t think that would make a difference.”
“You could try it.”
She looked him in the eyes. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do.”
He tugged the hood back over her head, and imagined seeing her tears through the fabric, but of course it was impossible.
Lu didn’t talk to her again until they were in Northern California.
“Hey. Desert Girl. Ever see the ocean?”
She started. She’d been asleep. “What?”
“The ocean. Ever see it?”
“No. I always wanted to, but never got out that way.”
“Then I have a surprise for you.” He grabbed her and dragged her roughly forward. She made a sound in her throat, something high and afraid and thrilling. Lu sat her in the passenger seat of his cab, used a padlock to fasten her bound wrists to the door handle, and pulled the hood from her head. The hood had left her hair mussed, and she rapidly blinked in the cloudy sunshine.
“Close your eyes,” he said. She obeyed. He rolled down his window, the fresh air rolling in. She turned her face to it. “Smell that.”
She smiled then, an innocent thing, a smile of pure joy. It hurt Lu’s heart that he had to be the one to witness it. He wished it was anybody else. Could be anybody else.
“It smells just like I always imagined it would.” Color came to her cheeks, just a little.
“You can open your eyes now.”
Lu watched her from the corner of his eye. Large, liquid eyes sprang open, and the breath she took sounded too close, too intimate. Lu, who was used to seeing blood and viscera and the most hidden and secret of things, blushed and looked away.
***
“It’s as beautiful as I had always hoped.” Rocky. Blue. The water churned and pulsed far below them. Montessa pulled herself as far forward as her bound hands allowed. “Do you ever let people go out there?”
He looked at her. “What?”
“People. Girls. Your bodies. Do you ever . . . in the ocean?”
“Sometimes.”
She watched the water with something exquisitely close to hope. “Would you possibly consider . . . ”
“Disposing of you in the ocean?”
The color that came so recently to her face fled. “I don’t like it when you put it that way.”
“It is what it is, sweetheart.”
“Why?” she asked, her eyes still on the sea. “Why do you have to make everything so horrible? Even if it has to be, why would you say it in such an awful way?”
He shrugged, leaned back in his seat, and put a cigarette into his mouth. “Why sugarcoat it? Doesn’t change anything, does it?”
The cigarette burned.
“This just doesn’t seem like you,” she said.
He laughed around his cigarette. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know a lot more about you than you think.” She turned to face him then, and her skin was pulled too tight across her face. “So how long do I have?”
He closed his eyes. “How come you always seem to know what I’m thinking?”
“How long?”
He sucked in hard, held the air in his lungs. Felt the burn from the inside out, but in a different way than he usually burned. “A few days, maybe. Until I get tired of you.”
“Well, sure.”
He opened one eye, studied her. “Why sound bitter all of a sudden?”
She turned to him, all skin and bones and rage in a tiny little package. “Who says you get to decide, huh? Maybe it’ll be all over when I get tired of you.”
His cigarette flared, erupted, fire spurting from the end and running up its length. He cursed and tossed it out his window. Opened his door and stamped it out. Cursed again. Stared at the girl bound in his passenger seat. She was staring right back.
Lu felt his heart do a strange thing.
It hurt. It opened. It beat.
