“It was just me and my aunt when I was growing up,” I say. “I’ve never been around a big family like this.”
“You should see it during the holidays,” Nora says. “All the rest of the extended family comes, and it is a true madhouse here.”
“I can’t even imagine!” I say it, but I don’t mean it. I find it quite easy to imagine such a large gathering with a beautiful tree in the living room, people gathered all around, presents passed back and forth, and all the friendly banter between the siblings, cousins, and other relations—blood or otherwise.
It’s a beautiful scene in my head, and I wish the holiday season hadn’t passed so recently.
The nine ball pops off the table and rolls behind the bar, and Antony and Threes start sword fighting with the cue sticks. Reid sets himself up as a referee, and Nate acts as an announcer.
“And in this corner, weighing in a four hundred and fifty pounds—”
“Fuck you!” Reid bellows.
“—and carrying a Predator Panthera pool cue, Reid the Rebel!”
“What a fucking shit show.” Nora rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “Forgive my preacher’s wife language.”
“Was your husband a preacher?” As soon as I mention her husband, I regret it. She must still be in mourning, and I went ahead and brought him up. I’m an idiot!
“Fuck no.” Nora laughs, apparently unoffended by the topic of her late husband. “It’s something my wax technician says. Her husband is a preacher.”
I have a feeling I know what a wax technician is, and I don’t want any more information. I am glad I don’t seem to have upset Nora with my ill-spoken words.
“You and Nate seem pretty close,” I say, trying to change the subject entirely.
“We are,” Nora says. She looks away from the shenanigans and back at me. “We have the perfect love-hate relationship. We bicker all the time and say horrible things to each other, but ten minutes later, we’re laughing and splitting a bottle of wine. We’re the closest in age, and he’s the only reason I survived my ordeal.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t suppose he’s told you about me, has he?” Something in her tone sounds ominous.
“He’s talked about you a bit.”
“But he never told you what happened to me, did he?”
At first, I think she must be talking about the recent death of her husband, but that doesn’t quite fit her expression. The death of a spouse is obviously tragic, but it doesn’t happen to someone. Her words don’t fit that topic.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Nora looks at me for a long time, seeming to struggle internally.
“It was a while ago,” Nora finally says. “I was with a friend on a spring break trip. We took a cruise out of Miami. When we got to port at Bonaire, one of the islands in the Netherland Antilles chain, we were approached by a couple of guys on the beach. I was all into one of them—a really good-looking guy with dreadlocks. I thought he was the perfect accompaniment to an island adventure, you know? Melissa seemed to be getting along with the other guy, too. He also had long hair, but he was a white guy and didn’t have the cool accent.”
“Melissa? As in, my boss Melissa?”
“Yeah. We were close then.” Nora gives me a hard stare. “You shouldn’t mention this to her.”
“I won’t,” I promise. My stomach feels a little uneasy.
Nora presses her lips together for a moment, nods, and continues on.
“We ended up partying with them, got smashed, and missed the cruise ship when it left that night. I started making arrangements to charter a flight to the next port and catch up with the ship, but one of the guys said they had a boat that could get us there. We didn’t think anything of it. We’d been with them all night at that point, and nothing had happened other than drinking way too much. As soon as we got to the boat, I knew something was wrong.”
My skin starts to turn to ice as Nora continues her tale.
“As they were getting the boat ready to go, we were rather abruptly joined by two other, older guys. One looked like he belonged in the military, with a buzzcut and everything, and he was clearly the one in charge. The other guy was fat and smelled awful. That’s all I really remember about him. Anyway, they showed up, and before we knew it, the guy with the buzzcut pulled out a knife, and we were shoved into the cargo area.”
Nora pauses for a minute, and I’m too horrified to speak.
“All four of them raped me,” she said quietly. “I was pretty sure they were going to kill me, and I would have happily accepted that at one point. I figured out pretty quickly that killing us wasn’t what they had in mind. They kept us there on that boat—still at the dock—for three days, trying to break us. It worked, too. I was broken. If it hadn’t been for Melissa, I’d probably be a sex slave at some drug lord’s compound right now.”
“My God, Nora.” It was all I could think of to say. I have no idea how to respond to a story like this. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. How did you get away?”
“After they decided we weren’t going to resist anymore, they started up the boat, headed to god knows where. Once we were on the water, they let us come up top again. We were traveling along the beach, running parallel to the shore, and I could see a lot of people not
