She hadn’t sobbed. She certainly couldn’t come without me. The men seemed confused when she merely stared past Ted and me, at the wall.
With my face resting on my hands and my fingers cradled over my nose, with my eyes watering, I waited and waited. That child squealed gleefully outside, and a small detail that I had missed popped to the surface. It was a girl child.
I’d never touched anyone that young or that distant before. Tentatively, powered by ire, annoyance, blood lust, or maybe just a need for revenge, I reached. I locked on.
I fucking-well locked on and knew in an instant whose girl child I had. But what could a twelve-year-old do against many armed men? There was this one thing.
“Get him some water for those painkillers.” The man looked disappointed at my lack of hysterics. He clicked his fingers for that water and swallowed more beer.
Once I’d downed a couple of the analgesics and handed back the plastic tumbler, Ted pursed his lips.
“Talk.”
“Or what?” I murmured, pressing my finger and thumb over my eyes. My anger had dulled to crackling embers. “They’ll do me like they did her?”
“Maybe. Though I’d have to pay them extra. Don’t make me do that. I hate wasting money. You can control women?”
“Most.”
“For how long?”
“While they’re with me. They forget things, too, if I say to forget. They won’t reveal what happened to them.” I would vomit a bit of detail, and maybe then he’d let me rest. Then I could sort out an escape plan. “I can get any of the susceptible ones to fuck you, if I want.”
“Jesus.” He sat back, pulled on his beer. “Andy was right. And the Keppra?”
Ah, the Keppra. I revolved the packet. “It enables me. It’s a weird side effect. I need it to hypnotize them.”
“So it is hypnosis! I knew it. Had to be. Fuck.”
Well. I had him swearing and looking triumphant, though the floor had decided to spin, which leeched away some of my amusement.
I swore unintelligible curses under my breath, and I wasn’t faking it. “Look. Your cunts thumped my head. Like the doc said, I have concussion, a merry-go-round in my head. Let me rest. Tomorrow, I will give you a demo.”
The silence thickened. I looked up and felt certainty when I saw his face. The man was imagining dollars. Lots and lots of dollars.
Me? I was imagining sticking a knife in his ear. Red blinked at me. “But I want her wherever you put me.”
Ted rose. “Take that Keppra stuff off of him and lock them in the basement. Two men on the door, all night, armed. Put a bed in there. Check him hourly. Be careful. Midday, I will see you. I’m off home to see my wife.” He cocked a pretend gun at me and fired. “Bang. I will keep your offer in mind. Demo tomorrow. Don’t disappoint me.”
So this wasn’t his home. Or it was one of many. Maybe one he kept for illegal stuff, killings, kidnappings, the annual general meeting of thugs.
He left the room while his men were cleaning up and hauling Red to her feet. The front door opened. I heard a yell then both felt and heard the run of girl-child feet in a hallway, heard her shouting to her dad that she needed to go pee. She drew closer, with the adult steps trailing after her.
More startled yells sounded from the man escorting her into the house, as she ran toward my room. There was a dulled whisper outside, and I could have recited, verbatim, the words she said to the guy on the door. After a series of curses and a thump, the door was opened as if kicked. It banged to the stopper, bounced out a few inches, and there was Stephany, the boss’s daughter, with a Glock pistol held to her throat… Behind her, a man looked stunned, his face frozen and morphing into fear.
Of course. How could he have guessed she would lean into him and whisper a strange rude story then snatch his holstered gun?
By her own hand, the muzzle of the Glock pressed at her throat skin, denting it. Her eyes met mine and stayed on me, and I slowly levered myself from the chair as their voices erupted.
“Fuck.”
“What the hell is she—”
“Get it off her!”
“How?”
The initial gabbled exclamations from the men around her stilled as she backed into the wall beside the door. They weren’t courageous enough to snatch it from her, or stupid enough.
When her father, Fake Ted, entered the room, I waded into the silence.
“She’s obeying my commands.”
His expression lurched from confusion and worry to anger as he deciphered my statement.
“Touch me or Red or her, and she will blow her own head off.”
His teeth bared in a snarl. “How f— You cunt! Let her go.”
I smiled. “When I’ve been gone for an hour, she will return the gun, place it on the floor. She won’t remember what she did, so go easy on her. I want your car keys and a gun. Red and I are leaving. Interfere and bang-bang. Or more likely, one bang only, because her head will be gone. Come into the room and wait over there. All of you.” I pointed.
The girl was slim, fair-haired, and completely unafraid.
I gathered up a pistol and then Red, with a hand under her elbow, and we walked out of there, alone and untouched apart from the damage we had already suffered. I picked up our shoes in the hallway and was struck by the strangeness of sneaking along this hallway, barefoot. I might have been Peter Pan off to a fairytale world.
Peter was a helluva lot more innocent. So was
