He rolled a joint, finished off a beer. Down the hall we heard Courtney shriek. The sound echoed through the building. Dani stood up and I let out a sob.
“Sit the fuck back down,” Brian said. Dani hesitated, staring at the door and then at him, like she was wondering if she could get through it in time.
He casually picked up the gun beside him, pointed it at her with one arm, then swung his arm around until it pointed to me.
Dani sat back down.
He took a long inhale of the joint, let it out with a coughing laugh. The room filled with the skunky smell of marijuana.
“Gavin’s a freak—he likes it rough.” He gave Dani a look. “Guess you’re getting off easy tonight, sweetheart. We’ll make it up to you tomorrow.”
“When are you going to let us go?” she said.
He shrugged. “This weekend? Tomorrow? Never? Maybe we’ll just keep you around for a while.”
“We’ll starve to death,” I said. “We can’t live on one sandwich a day.”
He nodded, thinking. “You did good tonight. Maybe we’ll bring you some more food tomorrow.”
Another scream down the hall, the sound digging into my bones.
“Please stop him. Please,” I said. “He’s hurting her.” She’d never screamed that loud before. The thought of what he might be doing terrified me.
“Sorry, can’t do that. Gavin, once he sets his mind on something, he’s like a bulldog. And he does like that girl a whole lot.”
“If he kills her, you’ll go to prison,” Dani said. “You’ll be murderers.”
“Maybe we’ll kill all of you,” he said with a cold smile. “That’ll make things real simple. Hitchhikers are always coming through. We didn’t see the possibilities before, but now?” He laughed. “Our eyes are wide open.”
“It would be easier to keep us than start over with anyone else,” Dani said.
“You don’t think we can do this again?” The look he gave her made it clear she was treading on thin ground.
“Why go through the effort when you already have us?” Dani said. “That’s all I’m saying. But you need to keep us healthy.”
Brian’s face was thoughtful. He took another drag, walked over and offered the joint to Dani. She took a long inhale. When he offered me a hit I glanced at her. She nodded, telling me to play along. I took a drag.
He sat back down. “So you think we should keep you?”
It seemed like Gavin had been gone with Courtney for a really long time. There’d been no more screams, which was almost worse. I tried not to think about what was happening to her, just about buying us time.
“Why not?” I said. “You’ve got nothing to lose.”
“It ain’t easy coming here every day,” he said.
“You don’t have to come every day,” I said. It would be a relief if they didn’t. “You could just leave us food and water and come when you want.”
“Like you’re our pets,” he said, his voice high-pitched from the weed. Then he laughed. I hated his laugh. Hated Gavin’s even more.
“Yeah, like we’re your pets,” Dani said. I could hear the undercurrent of anger in her voice, knew she was close to snapping.
Keep it together, Dani.
He leaned closer. “We’ve already got everything we want out of you.” He sat back with a lazy smile. “I’ll think about it.”
A few minutes later, Gavin finally brought Courtney back. She could barely walk, and I saw bite marks on her collarbone. There was no expression on her face, just tears and snot leaking down, mixed with dust and blood. Gavin pushed her to the floor. She moaned, brought her knees up to her body.
He grabbed a beer, opened it, and took a long slug. He wiped his sweaty face on his arms as he looked over at us. He lingered on me for a while.
“I’ll try you out tomorrow.” He gave Courtney a look. “Bitch is starting to bore me.” He spit on her. She didn’t even flinch as it ran down her face.
Brian laughed. “You messed her up good.” He walked over and offered her a hit from the joint.
She wouldn’t look at him. He gave her a kick with his boot. “Take it.” She turned to face him and he held the joint to her lips, looking at her almost tenderly as he said, “There you go.” He gave her a few more tokes, then stood up, turned to Gavin. “Let’s go.”
*
We crawled over to Courtney, leaned against her thin frame. I could hear her breath, the sound comforting. She’s alive. We’re all still alive. I tried not to think about the pain between my legs, Gavin saying he wanted me next. I wished we had turned ourselves in. Jail would have been better than this.
“Are you okay?” Courtney whispered after a few minutes.
“I’m all right. Are you?”
“I can’t do it again. I can’t.” She started crying hard.
“You won’t have to,” I said fiercely. “If they untie us again, we rush them and try to grab the guns and … and—”
“They’re too strong,” Dani said.