Anya had seemed pale and grim, more closed off than usual. She gets that way sometimes when Mom yells at her, or when a vote doesn’t go Daddy’s way.
But this was different, I realize. Maybe she was pissed at me for going to Jane’s house.
Or maybe she lied to Daddy and handed me off to my rapists from four years ago.
You know. A little thing like that.
If I breathe evenly, counting in fours and eights, I can fade out a little. Nothing I do will make me calm. Nothing. But I can control my breath.
Can’t control my bladder, though. It’s screaming for attention. I have two choices. Call for help, or pee myself.
“Oh, look. Isn’t she cute. Wiggle wiggle.” Stellan’s voice is followed by my ass being slapped, hard. The sting of his palm sends fear coursing through my blood like a spike, an infusion of uncontrollable tension.
“I need to pee,” I tell him.
He sighs, like this is the biggest imposition ever. Then I’m hauled to my feet. One ankle rolls and I’m half suspended. His fingers dig into my elbow as I squeal. He rights me, my body pressed against him.
Stellan’s a well-known actor now, the kind you see on television in romantic comedies. I’ve heard he’s quickly become the golden boy, making nearly a million dollars an episode. Fast rise upward.
A little too quickly.
He brings me to the bathroom. Thank God he gives me privacy, even if he leaves the door open a crack. My hands are still bound behind me. I grab toilet paper before I sit down, then realize it’s useless.
“Um, I need my hands,” I call out.
Heavy sigh. Stellan appears, his expression grim. “Turn around. You don’t need this,” he says in a chiding tone, as if it’s my fault I’m wearing a zip tie.
I bite back the urge to say I don’t need any of this.
But he frees my hands. My shoulders ache. I take one step forward. My mind has to be still. Smooth and placid like the surface of a lake. All I can do now is take one movement at a time.
And hope Drew gets here.
I sit on the toilet and can’t pee. My body won’t let me. A memory from an online psychology class pierces through the chaos in my emotional tornado. When in fight, flight or freeze mode, the muscles tighten.
That must include the bladder.
“Come on,” Stellan calls out. “We don’t have all day.”
What’s the rush? I want to ask him. In a hurry to hurt me? Kill me?
The thought doesn’t help.
Think about Drew, I tell myself. Remember his arms, how he smells. Look around the bathroom. There’s a can of shaving cream. A bar of used soap. A toothbrush holder with a crooked toothbrush hanging from it. The sink is messy, with small speckles on it. An electric razor is next to the shaving cream.
Huh. Wonder why he shaves both ways.
As I breathe my way to a relaxed state, I let myself indulge in imagining what it would have been like to become domestic with Drew. To come here and hang out. Spend the night. Slowly work our way toward a long-term relationship. Mom and Daddy would never put up with my living with him, but eventually we’d get married.
My ring finger on my left hand tingles at the thought.
Married.
Mrs. Andrew Foster.
Years ago, I had these fantasies. I lived a life before the attacks where I could be like any other woman, dreaming about the future. We even talked, tentatively, about what life would be like after Drew graduated from West Point.
We were just about there.
And then it was all taken from us.
My body finally releases out of desperation, the relief making me tremble. This must be what happens, I muse as I finish up and wash my hands, all my muscles trembling, legs and arms shaking. This is how we handle the imminent threat of death.
I stare at the faucet and turn on the cold water again. I cup my hands and bring water to my mouth, wincing as scrapes on my face touch the cold liquid. Drew doesn’t have a cup in his bathroom.
Men are so weird.
I drink until my stomach hurts. Who knows when they’ll let me have water? Out of habit, I grab the soap and wash my hands again.
Why am I washing my hands if they’re about to kill me? I wonder, hysteria rising inside. Am I worried about germs?
We’re conditioned by life to think in terms of cause and effect. Action and consequence. As I dry my hands, I see the raw marks from the zip tie. My Band-Aid rubbed off. I spot the pinprick from the microchip Drew put in me.
Please, I pray. Please, God. Please.
I stall, buying as much time as I can in the bathroom.
And then Stellan comes for me, all dead eyes and eager hands.
Drew
“Jane,” I say to Silas. “Jane reported me. Mark said she reported my break-in to the police.”
At the mention of her name, he averts his eyes. “Yeah. We don’t know what that’s about.”
“I wondered. I’ve wondered if she was Lindsay’s informant at the Island.”
“We investigated that, Drew. Came up empty.”
“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t her.”
“You think she turned against you? You think she’s part of all this?” He’s incredulous. I’m pretty sick of people using a tone of disbelief when they talk to me. “She was the one who found Lindsay four years ago.”
“Yeah.” I give him a hard stare. “How about that?”
He shakes his head, his huffing laugh dissolving into a low, gritty voice. “That’s pretty hard to swallow.”
“But not out of the realm of possibility.”
“Everything’s possible when you think the world is one big conspiracy theory, Drew.”
“I have every right to wear a tinfoil hat right now, Silas.”
“What about Anya? Harry said she’s the one who told him that was Mark Paulson on the helicopter. Is she in custody? Being interrogated?”
His nostrils flare. “She lawyered up.”
“What?”
“She’s refusing to say a word without her lawyer.”
“Damn.”
“Doesn’t mean anything. You know how politicians are. Everyone lawyers up.”
“She sent Lindsay on a helicopter with the very same men who attacked her four years ago, pretending that it was Mark Paulson on that chopper, and you’re making excuses for her? Are you out of your fucking mind, Silas?”
“Just stating facts.”
“Facts suck.”