Esteban carefully put the gun on the floor. “That was something I won’t forget,” he said.
“You did say you wanted memories,” I told him once I’d found my voice. It was already hoarse, my lips dry.
“I did,” he said. He slipped his arm under my back and flipped me over so I was on my stomach. “But I’m not done. The gun was hot, but what I have . . . fires better.”
I smiled into the towels as he lifted my ass up into the air, straddling me from behind. He took a firm hold of my hips and thrust into me, making me feel impossibly, wonderfully full. It wasn’t long until we were both coming together, grunts and cries and sweaty skin on skin. My world danced with colors, rainbows, sunshine.
Rays of light in all this dark.
* * *
I must have fallen asleep in Esteban’s arms because he moved a bit, jostling me awake, and my eyes flew open. It was nighttime, and everything was in shadow.
“Just getting a glass of water,” he whispered as he got off the bed. “I’ll get you one, too.”
With my tilted vision I watched him leave the room, his firm, bare ass barely visible as he stepped out of the dark and into the faded light of the hall, where he disappeared around the corner. I could hear him searching around for glasses.
Suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. For no reason, I was terrified deep in my very core, the kind of scared you got as a child when you were certain there was a monster in your closet.
I was certain that there was a monster in the closet. I could almost see him standing behind the doors, feel his eyes upon me.
My instincts were going wild, telling me to flee, that something was very wrong.
That was when I realized there wasn’t anything in the closet
But there was a breath at my neck.
It happened so fast.
I opened my mouth to scream and a man placed his hand across it, clamping it shut, pressing my lips against my teeth. He told me to shut up, his voice cruel even though I was unable to make a sound, and the smell of stale tobacco filled my nose.
This couldn’t be happening.
What was happening?
Surely I had to be dreaming, but this was no dream.
I was ready to fight, ready to kick, ready to go. But when the man pressed the cold, hard end of a gun against the back of my head, I froze.
All hope drained out of me. Esteban was in the kitchen with no idea of what was going on. I wondered who this man was, and if there was just him, or were there others. Was he just a burglar? Or was he involved with Esteban somehow?
The man ripped me off the bed and I let out a muffled cry, my feet trying to find purchase on the floor. The man’s arm was very strong and the grip was very tight.
“So he thinks he can just fuck with me,” the man whispered, snarling into my ear with an American Southern accent. “That isn’t how we play it.”
So this wasn’t a home invasion. No, this was something much worse.
I watched in horror as Esteban slowly came back into the room. He was holding something in his hand, a small teapot, I think.
“Lani, I decided to make you some tea,” he said breezily. “Chamomile.”
Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks. He saw us, taking in the situation in an instant, then he inhaled, his body tensing.
“Put the gun down,” Esteban said in a very calm voice. “She has nothing to do with this. Do not hurt her.”
“Do not hurt her?” the man yelled, nearly blasting my eardrums out as he sprayed my skin with spit. “I will hurt her, I’ll hurt her and make you watch. Then I’ll kill her and I’ll kill you. Unless you tell me where Natasha is.”
“I will tell you if you let Lani go,” Esteban said, as if he had been in this exact situation many times before. He was so calm, and I was so scared. “Please, just drop the gun and we can talk.”
“I’m not talking to you, I don’t trust you.”
“I’m naked,” Esteban said. “How could I do anything? You obviously have me in a tough situation.”
The man pressed the gun harder against my head and I cried out, but the sound was muffled. I was so fucking afraid.
Though it was hard to see Esteban in the shadows, I could see him frowning, the glint of worry on his brow. “I’ll tell you where Natasha is if you—”
“No!” the man screamed. “No ifs. You tell me now or she dies. It would feel really good to see her brains splattered on that wall over there.”
And in that moment, I saw it. I saw him pulling the trigger, I saw the explosion, the bullet going in, my brains going out. I saw my death, my very violent death, the death I’d been attempting for weeks. It was finally here, but I didn’t get to choose this.
Esteban’s words echoed in my head, from the time we were at the lookout. It’s a good sign to be scared. When you stop feeling fear, that’s when it becomes dangerous. That’s when you die.
And now, I wanted nothing more than to live.
“Fine,” Esteban said. He never came closer, just shifted a bit, but despite my horror I noticed something strange about the way he was holding the teapot. His posture was strained and the more I tried to focus on it, trying to make shape out of the shadows, the more I realized there was something wrong about the teapot in general.
Esteban went on. “Natasha was in the wrong place
