KILLING SARAI (A NOVEL)

CHAPTER SEVEN





It seems like forever since I’ve had a hot shower like this. I had showers on occasion at the compound—I was the only girl given that luxury—but never one like this. They were always lukewarm at best, but never so hot the water could burn the skin off my back. I don’t even turn the cold on at first, allowing myself to bask in the heat until it becomes too much and I’m forced to. I want to stay in here forever and not think about what is waiting for me on the other side of that door, but the reality of it all wins out and it’s all I think about. I sit down on the floor of the tub and draw my knees toward my chest, wrapping my arms loosely around them and let the water stream down on me from above.

I think a lot about Lydia, wondering if she’s OK or if Izel beat her for a much longer time than usual, all because of me. I know she did. And although there was nothing I could do to stop it, I made a promise to Lydia that I fully intend to fulfill. I won’t let it go on forever.

But if they find out that she knew I was leaving….

After what seems like an hour, the hot water starts to run cold and I get out, wrapping my hair in a towel folded neatly on the back of the toilet. I wish I had a clean set of clothes, panties at least—lost my pillowcase of clothes in Victor’s car when we left it behind. I slip my filthy running shorts on over my panties and then pull the light blue tank top down over my breasts. Javier forbade me ever to wear a bra.

When I step out of the restroom, Victor is still sitting in the same spot he was in as before. But the suitcase is no longer on the foot of the bed.

As I walk toward the bed where the suitcase had been and start to sit down, Victor looks up and catches my eyes. He doesn’t say a word, but I can sense that something is different about him. For a moment, I’m unsettled by his unusual demeanor, but that quiet look in his eyes which I somehow doubt he knows I can see right away, completely catches my interest. It feels almost…tragic.

“Tell me about your mother,” he says.

He turns on the chair to face me, giving me his full attention, resting his arms over the length of the chair arms and letting his fingers dangle casually over the ends. His white dress sleeves have been pushed up just below his elbows.

Completely taken aback by his question, I just stare across the room at him blankly.

“Why?” I ask simply, unsure of his intentions with the information. I go ahead and sit down on the foot of the bed, working the towel in my hair with both hands to dry it. But it’s all just for show; every fiber of my consciousness is focused on Victor and every move he makes.

He doesn’t elaborate. And in case he decides to change his mind and go back to not giving a damn, I speak up before it’s too late:

“What do you want to know?”

I squeeze one last section of hair with the towel and then drop it on the floor.

Victor tilts his head gently to one side and then interlocks his hands in front of him, his elbows still resting on the chair arms.

“How did she meet Javier?”

I think back on it for a moment. “I don’t know,” I say. “I mean, I know it had to do with drugs and sex. The same way she met every man she brought into our home. My mother and I didn’t talk much.”

He tilts his head to the other side reflectively. What’s he waiting for? I study him for a moment, trying to get some idea of what brought his interest in my mother on and finally I choose to tell him whatever I can. Maybe because I’ve needed someone to listen for the longest time. Lydia and the other girls were too traumatized by their own abductions and experiences within the compound for me to confide in them. And their lives were much more chaotic than mine, much more…unfair. I could never bring myself to talk to the other girls about my insignificant problems while they were being beaten and raped and mentally and emotionally tortured.

I was in paradise compared to them.

I shake off the imagery and look back over at Victor.

“The first time I saw Javier, I knew he was different from the other men my mother brought home. More powerful somehow. He walked with this proud air about him. Unafraid. Confident. The other men—and there were a lot—were scumbags. They couldn’t wait to get through our tiny living room and past me before feeling my mother up. They were disgusting, pathetic.”

“And Javier wasn’t?” he asks.

I shake my head, gazing off toward the wall now. “He was disgusting because of what he was and how he used my mother, yes, but he was too professional to be pathetic.”

“Professional?” He looks upon me with slight curiosity.

“Yes,” I say with another nod. “Like I said, he was powerful. Though I wasn’t aware of it at the time, about what he was, I knew he was different. I stopped worrying about my mother and the things she got herself into when I was twelve-years-old. I was used to it all by then. She always managed to make it home. Despite being strung-out and sometimes beaten, she never called the police or seemed scared of anything so I guess I started believing in her safety as much as she did.” I look at the wall again, my hands pressed against the edge of the bed on either side of me, my body slouching down in-between my shoulders. “But when I saw Javier, I was scared for her again. I was scared for me.”

I lock eyes with Victor and say, “The moment he saw me, I knew my life was over. I didn’t know how or why at that time, but I just knew. The way he looked at me. I knew….”

My gaze drops to the carpeted floor.

“Why are you asking me this stuff, anyway?” I turn to him again. “Why the interest all of a sudden?”

I catch him glance over at the digital tablet lying on the table next to him. I look at the tablet for a split-second, too, wondering about all of the secrets it holds. Victor stands up from the table and my eyes follow him as he walks toward me.

“Turn around,” he says, standing over me.

I tilt my head back enough to see his face; he’s too close, crowding my space and it’s frightening. “What?” I ask, confused and getting the worst feeling.

He leans over and reaches inside the duffle bag in-between the beds and retrieves another rope just like the one I used to tie Izel to the chair with.

“Turn around,” he says again.

I shake my head frantically. “No,” I say and start to back my way across the bed.

He grabs me by the waist and flips me over onto my stomach.

“I have to get some sleep,” he says, pressing his knee, although carefully, into the center of my back. “You’ll have to make do. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t tie me up! Please!” I try to wiggle myself free, but he grabs one of my wrists with his free hand and fastens it against my back. I struggle and kick and thrash about, but he’s too strong and I feel like a fawn under the paw of a lion. “You’re sorry?! Then don’t do it! Please, Victor!”

His grip around my wrists, now with both of them restrained behind me, tightens harshly and I can’t help but believe it has everything to do with me calling him by his name, rather than my struggling against him. With one side of my face pressed into the mattress, I feel the rope wind around my wrists and then he ties it into several firm knots. After he’s satisfied that I’m unable to get my hands free, he stands up from the bed and grabs my ankles next. I pull one foot back and manage to kick him square in the stomach, but it doesn’t faze him. He just looks at me, catches my leg in mid-air on the second attempt and binds my ankles together with one hand.

Tears barrel from my eyes. But I stop fighting.

He carefully rolls me over onto my side, facing me toward the wall with my back to the bed where I know he’ll be sleeping. The thought of him being behind me like that all night and unable to see him unnerves me to no end.

The lamp between the bed switches off, leaving the room bathed in partial darkness. It’s still early, just after sundown, but I’m exhausted enough that it feels like it’s two o’clock in the morning.

I cry softly into my pillow for a little while. Thinking about my mom and all of the things Victor forced me to remember. And I think about Lydia and Mrs. Gregory who lived two trailers over from me; they are really the only family I’ve ever had. And when the uncomfortable position my arms have been put into becomes painful, I roll my body awkwardly onto the opposite side. I peer through the darkness to see Victor on the other bed lying on his side with his back facing me. He’s still fully clothed. I notice that he did at least take his shoes off, but his feet are covered by thin black dress socks. I wonder if he’s still awake.

“Victor?”

“Go to sleep,” he says without moving a muscle.

“When you take me back to Javier, will you at least give me a gun?”

Silence filters through the space between us.

“Will you?” I ask again, stirring that silence. “It will give me a fighting chance. I’ll either kill Javier myself, or I’ll die knowing that I tried.”

Victor’s shoulder rises and falls slowly as if he’d just taken a deep breath.

“I’ll think about it. Now go to sleep.”