Erica
Earlier that day
I––who had seen gunfire, knife fights, and bullet wounds, criminals, wild sex, and assault––was about to do the scariest thing of all since breaking up with Brian.
I was going to tell my mother.
We agreed to meet at a restaurant. I figured a public space would diminish the chances of her creating a scene. I also didn’t want her at my house. Perhaps I was imagining it, but I would swear I could still smell cigarettes and gasoline and leather, buried in the very fabric of my sheets and towels. Fortunately, my father was away on business, so I would only have to deal with her.
I got there early, wanting to feel settled and in control by the time she arrived. Even though it was barely midday, I ordered a cocktail––a nice mango mai tai––to further soothe my nerves. It was funny. I would have been less jittery if Dominic had shown up at my door with yet another bleeding friend. The prospect of telling my mother what had been going on unsettled me terribly.
Don’t get me wrong. My mother was a kind, generous woman. She just tended to have very high expectations. And she had supported Brian and me from the get-go.
Bursting through the door like a ray of sunshine to a cantankerous sleeper, she arrived.
“Erica, darling!” She exclaimed, waving at me as if she was not obvious to spot and rushing over. She sat, snapped her fingers impatiently for a menu, then looked at me with avid glee.
“So, darling¸ tell me––how’s the wedding prep going? You know, Mrs. Appleton is supremely jealous––her daughter’s twenty-eight and single! Now, are the flowers ordered already? You want to make sure you get the best, dear. It really shapes the whole wedding––”
She continued, unperturbed or even oblivious to my lack of response. The coward in me wanted to let her keep talking. Hell, I could smile, nod occasionally, allow her to pay the bill, and manage to escape the whole affair without saying a word.
But if my adventures with Dominic had taught me anything, it was that I did not have to be a coward if I did not want to.
“Hey, Mom, listen. I have to tell you something” I said, trying to get her attention. I had to repeat it twice before she finally registered that I was speaking.
“What is it, dear?” She asked at last.
I took a deep breath. “Look, Mom. The wedding’s off. Brian and I broke up.”
She stared at me for several seconds, her mouth hanging open and her face on freeze-frame, like a program on a computer that’s crashed because too many demands have been put on it.
Finally, her processing caught up with my news, and she managed to gasp, “What? Why?”
I shrugged. “I caught him cheating on me.”
My mother was aghast. “Oh, honey, are you sure?” She demanded. “These sorts of things can be complicated. Are you sure he was cheating on you?”
“Yes, Mom,” I stated. “I caught him balls deep in his slut-of-a-secretary.”
She gasped––and not at the content of my statement. “Oh, Erica, don’t be vulgar!” She whined. “Still, boys will be boys. Are you sure it’s not better to forgive him and move on? He’s still a good man, you know. Good job. Good prospects. Good genes.”
I stared at her in horror. She had just found out that a man had betrayed her daughter in one of the most fundamental ways possible, and now she was defending that man.
The old Erica––the one who had fallen in love with Brian, and who had let others cow her all her life––would have withered against these profound manipulations. She would have cried and apologized and at long last allowed herself to be convinced.
But I wasn’t that Erica anymore.
“No Mom,” I interrupted. “He was a douchebag. He was cowardly, and he lied and tricked me.”
“Well,” she simpered, patronizing, condescending. “Is there something you did to drive him away? Perhaps…not satisfying him, in the way a man needs?”
Yikes. There was a question no one ever in the history of the world wanted to be asked by her parents. I scowled.
“No, Mom,” I repeated. “I am perfectly capable of satisfying a man.”
This was also a statement which the old Erica would not have been sure about. But now, after Dominic, I knew.
Our meals arrived. I found I was not hungry at all, and yet I still defiantly stabbed a piece of it with my fork, chewed, and swallowed.
My mother’s meal remained untouched.
“I’m just afraid that you might be acting too hastily,” she commented. “I mean, to call off a whole wedding, just for one minor transgression?”
“It was not minor,” I said. “Besides, when I told him I wouldn’t take him back, he tried to rape me. Is that really the kind of man you want married to your daughter? The future father of your grandchildren?”
“He offered to take you back, and you still refused?” She gaped. “Erica, how could you?”
“Are you listening to me?” I demanded. I was starting to get angry now. “Brian was not a good person! If I’d married him, I would have spent the rest of my life hating myself!”
“Oh, Erica,” sighed my mother, shaking her head and clicking her tongue. “No man is a good person. They’re all horrible, really. The point, then, isn’t to look for a ‘good’ one, but to find the one that can give you the best life possible. Brian could have done that. Don’t you see? You’re not getting any younger, dear.”
As I stared at her, I felt, for a moment, pure hatred for this woman. I opened my mouth, ready to rip her to shreds, to tear down her stupid little world-view and reveal it for the hypocrisy it was.
Then, I noticed, the smallest, most insignificant of things: her lipstick was smeared. The expensive paint on her fingernails was cracked, revealing dull, yellowing, aged nails. At the base of her hair, dyed a strong blonde to indicate youth, was a nest of gray, just peeping through. Next to her chair rested a three-hundred dollar handbag, in which an expensive designer wallet waited, containing cash, a half dozen credit cards, and a bent and wrinkled picture of her, my father, and I at the beach––from about twenty years ago.
She prizes that moment––a space in time when she was happy. When we all were happy.
Twenty fucking years ago.
So instead of swearing at her, or even hitting her––as I had been close to doing––I reached out and took her hand.
“There are good men out there,” I told her. “And I––each of us––deserve one. I’m not going to give in and settle, just for a comfortable life. Is it dangerous? Yes. But, Mama, it’s worth the risk.”
She looked at me, blinking slowly under the fluorescent lights of the restaurant. Her eyes seemed to be filling with tears.
“Oh, Erica.” She said, then my phone rang.
I considered not answering it––this moment with my mother and I was special––but then it occurred to me that it might be Dominic. Feeling excited, I retrieved my phone and clicked to answer.
“Hello?”
“Erica!” The old and extremely unpleasant voice of Mr. Blade said into my ear. I wrinkled my nose, and held up my finger to my mother, asking her to wait.
“Hello, Mr. Blade. How are you?”
“Fine…fine. Well, actually, I’m not. There’s an emergency at work, and I need you to come. Dawson didn’t file those reports, and now the whole company is behind!”
“But, sir!” I protested. “It’s Saturday! Surely you could ask Patricia, or Barry––anyone, really.”
“Busy!” He lamented. “All busy!” Then, his voice changed, becoming somehow sinister. “I just thought that, given your spotty performance this past week, you might appreciate an opportunity to, you know, make some of it up. Take one for the team, so to speak.”
I winced. Mr. Blade was a right old prick, but he was still my boss, and even if I didn’t like my job, I wanted to be a good employee. It was not like he didn’t really have a point.
I sighed.
“Alright, sir. When would you like me to come in?”
“Oh, quick as you can! Quick as you can!” He said. Then: “I’ll be waiting for you.”
Click.
Rolling my eyes, I put my phone away and glanced apologetically at my mother.
“I’m so sorry, Mom,” I said. “I know I invited you all the way up here, but I have to go. There’s been an emergency at work.”
She sighed, and clutched at her handbag. “See,” she said quietly. “This is what I’m worried about. It’s not that you don’t deserve a wonderful man, or can’t get one. Of course you do, and of course you can! It’s just that life has a way of eating up all of your time. If you’re always at work or something, you’ll never have the opportunity to meet the right man!”
I looked into her eyes. She was not trying to be condescending or manipulative. She was genuinely concerned.
I smiled and took her hand. “Don’t worry, mom. I’m better at finding guys than you think.”
Reaching into my wallet to fish out a few twenties, I paid the bill, kissed my mom goodbye, and left.
“This better be pretty fucking important,” I growled as I entered my car, and beginning to drive to work. “That conversation was actually starting to sound nice.”
Muttering and swearing the whole time, I made my way steadily to the firm.
# # #
When I pulled up to the parking lot I was slightly disconcerted to find that my car was the only car in sight. No one’s––not even Mr. Belton, who usually arrived before everybody and left after everyone. Mr. Blade’s car was not present, either, but this was typical. He was able to afford to live in the same area as his office, so he often walked to work.
Still, this thought made me rather nervous: The two of us will be alone in the building. It sent chills down my spine, but I quickly brushed it aside. “You’re a strong, independent woman now,” I thought. “You don’t need to be afraid.”
Right.
I pulled out my card key, swiped, and entered.
Blade was on the first floor, busily ruffling through his office and looking agitated.
“Thank you for coming, Erica! Thank you! Now here––” He plopped a massive pile of folders into my arms––“Is what you need to work on today. Thanks again!”
And with that, he swept away.
Slightly surprised, I made my way to my desk and began hacking away at the papers. I had expected him to talk want to talk to me longer––perhaps to leer, or mock me again for my mistakes this week. But no. He seemed genuinely engrossed in his work––leaving me with few options but to do the same.
After an hour or so of this, my worry began to melt away. If Blade planned on anything sketchy, his actions weren’t indicating so, and everything genuinely seemed normal. Wanting a little bit of a refresher, I walked over to the water cooler, poured myself a drink, and took a long, relaxed sip. With my cup in hand, I returned to my desk, alternatively drinking and sipping.
Half an hour later I began feeling very strange.
My pen wouldn’t stay straight. Time and time again it would glide off the paper, leaving long black lines across my work and even my desk. Meanwhile, my eyelids grew heavy, as if I had not slept in days, and I felt my chin dipping down against my chest as my eyelids flickered.
I grunted and shook my head, willing myself to focus on the work before me, even as the words themselves slipped back and forth from perfect clarity to an unreasonable fuzziness.
I rose from the chair, with the intent of getting something caffeinated to drink––a coffee, perhaps––and was surprised when my hip collided right with the edge of my desk, knocking me so off-balance that I nearly fell over.
“You alright, Erica my sweet?” Blade’s voice asked, drifting in from his office like poisonous gas.
“I…I dunno…” My words came out slurred, and as I tried to focus on my gaze on Blade as he emerged from his office, I felt it slipping away from him again and again like water off an oiled pan. Suddenly, a massive wave of dizziness overcame me, and I staggered, catching myself only just in time on the edge of my desk.
“Oh, no, have you been drinking on the job again?”
“No!” I blurted, throwing a finger in the air and sounding like a petulant two-year-old––or worse, a very drunk adult.
Drinking on the job…
Suddenly, something terrible occurred to me.
“You!” I cried. “That water! You drugged!”
He smiled. “Well, we needed to make sure you were cooperative.”
We? Part of my brain thought, but I was too disoriented to listen. Instead, I pushed away from my desk, away from him, and tried to run, but my legs seemed to be made of rubber. I stumbled, colliding with a lamp and sending us both crashing to the floor.
“You coward!” I screamed at him, backing away even as the broken glass of a bulb bit into my skin. “Not even brave enough to rape me conscious!”
As I hollered, I noticed the stem of the lamp, several feet long and barbed with the rest of the bulb, looking exactly like a spear. I scooped it up and aimed it at him, but it was like slipping a thread through a needle while very, very drunk.
“Oh, no, don’t get the wrong idea,” Blade crowed, approaching. “This isn’t about fucking you––though I’m sure they’ll be a lot of that later––it’s about who you’ve been fucking. Dominic Molina? Leader of the fucking Broken Spires. Girl, you gave me and the Crooked Jaws such a gift, looking up those pictures. A perfect present, falling right into my lap!”
My heart stopped, and for the briefest of moments, I felt everything snap into focus.
Dominic… No! I had put him in danger!
With a roar of rage, I hurled the lamp at Blade, scrambled to my feet, and began winding my way towards the exit. As I stumbled, I fished for my cellphone in my pocket, yanked it out, and dialed Dominic’s number.
Ring, ring. Ring, ring. Time after time again I heard it buzzing, and yet Dominic did not pick it. Please, don’t let something have happened to him!
“Going somewhere, sweetheart?”
I staggered, tumbling to my knees. The phone continued ringing in my hand, but for the moment, this was not what I cared about. What I cared about was that that was not Blade’s voice.
A shadow loomed in the doorway, blocking my only exit.
“Who-who are you?” I demanded, acting braver than I felt.
The man chuckled, and stepped into the light.
“My God!” I gasped. A monster stood before me. Flinty, hate-filled eyes. Teeth bared in a snarl, and a gun raised in one hand. But this was not what made him monstrous. It was his other hand, hanging uselessly by his side. Mangled, twisted, useless, deformed. So mutilated beyond belief that it no longer looked like a human hand, but a claw.
“Hey. This is Dominic––” The voice cut through my muddled terror like a ray of light through a fog.
“Dominic! Thank God!”
“––Molina. Please leave a message after the beep.”
“No!”
The clawed man approached in front of me. Blade approached from behind. I lacked even the strength to stand, and could only barely bring the phone to my ear. “Dominic?” I cried. “Dominic! Please, I need your help! They’re after me, and––”
The clawed man reached down and ripped my phone from me. My drugged fingers offered no resistance, and I tumbled to the floor, gaping up at the pair of them in horror.
“Better hurry, Jasy-Baby,” he sneered, “Or your little piece of ass is gonna have a new cock to suck.”
He hung up.
My last image, before fading to black, was him and Blade, leaning over me, and laughing in triumph.
Erica
I veered in and out of consciousness. Strange shapes. Strange faces. Familiar faces, warped and stretched in unfamiliar ways. The face of my mother, one second tender and loving as I told her how I felt, and the next second twisted and crooked with judgment, resentment. My father, distant and cold, and then immediate and pleading. Even Dominic, savage and cruel when he fired his gun in that bar fight, and then gentle and vulnerable, moments after climax, lying atop me as our bodies panted in unison.
I smiled. That was a nice pendulum to ride. In fact, it was so comforting and soothing that, when I felt consciousness returning to me like a cold hand sneaking under warm clothing, I fought it.
“No…Noooo…” I groaned, and I heard a cackle.
The cold hand became a douse of icy water, and I remembered the danger–not only to me, but to Dominic as well.
I was aware of cool air upon my skin, and that roused me further. I fought and I fought, and, finally, I was able to open my eyes.
“Good girl,” A voice crowed. “Tough girl. That’s good. I want you awake.”
It was Blade, leaning over me. We were in a car, and my head was resting in his lap. In the driver’s seat was the clawed man–recognizable for the mangled hand clutched around the wheel–and he flashed an evil grin in my direction before returning his focus to the road.
At the sight of them–their leering, animal faces as twisted and ugly as their hearts–a great rage rippled through me. I coiled my will, like a snake about to strike, and surged towards Blade.
“Argh!” I grunted as I felt ropes tighten around my body. Blinking, I cleared my vision further and glanced around: my arms, legs, neck, and mouth were all tied. Whatever poison Blade had used was still thick within me; although the bindings were so tight they turned my flesh blue, I could not feel them.
I did, however, feel the icy, jaggy nails of the clawed man as he reached down and stroked–ever so gently–the line of skin visible at the hem of my shirt.
I shivered. His touch felt frigid and biting, like alcohol on an open cut.
“Mmhmm,” he moaned in pleasure. It was a sound like sour milk glugging out of a carton. “Skin like cream. Skin like porcelain. White and soft as a dove.”
Teasingly, he dragged his fingers up the length of my shirt, pausing above my cleavage. Lovingly, like a father would undress a child, he began to undo the buttons there.
“Naawww!” The sound surged through me, choked by the gag in my mouth, but I still managed to make my scream heard. I writhed and bucked, trying to knock his fingers off me, but they kept their grip, light and yet inexorable as a skater slicing across ice. My buttons were undone. Despite my efforts, he gripped the edge of my shirt and peeled it and my bra slowly away from my skin. My breast was exposed. In a raging horror, like an animal fighting to claw its way out of my gut, I felt his fingers close on my nipple. I froze, as if the touch had sucked all of my energy out of me.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “You and I are going to have so much fun, once we make it back to the compound.”
His hand traced around my breast, flicking and pinching, and then navigated up and down the side of my neck. A pressure near my ear–pressed in the crook of his legs–hinted at his growing erection. My skin prickled in protest wherever his slimy touch rested, and yet, the more he fondled me, the more I felt something powerful–a deep-seated visceral rage–overcoming my terror.
He worked my other breast free, feeling them both, while I focused on the gag in my mouth. He didn’t notice, but instead slithered up to start stroking my hair, my cheeks, my lips. The gag was tight, but not so tight that I couldn’t manage at least one quick bite.
“Argh!” He roared in agony as I pounced, hurling all of my energy into fighting my bounds, into wrenching my mouth open and closing it over the tip of his finger just as it crossed the threshold of my lips. I tasted blood, but I didn’t care. I longed to make him suffer.
“You stupid cunt!” He screamed, drawing his hand back and slapping me. I could have cried out, could have trembled and twisted, but I didn’t. I took the impact–the pain was distant compared to my terror–and glared right back at him with gleaming, hate-filled eyes.
“Oh, you’re going to regret that,” he hissed, seizing me so hard by the breast that I felt my flesh bruising. “You’re going to wish you hadn’t done that, Erica my sweet.”
“Hey!” The clawed man called from the front seat. “You mind the goods, Blade! Remember, she’s mine first. I’m gonna be the one to fuck that honeyed little poozle raw. You keep your filthy hands off her until after I’m finished. Remember that Blade.”
Blade grunted in distaste, but stuffed my breasts back into my shirt anyway. I could hear him mumbling the rest of the ride, “My filthy hands, you perverted little cripple? You’re the one with a hand like a meat hook.”
And though his hands slid over me the rest of the ride, he did not dare slip beneath my clothing.
“Remember this, Erica,” I told myself, trying to swallow my disgust. “They hate each other. Maybe you can use that.”
I focused for the rest of the ride on returning clarity to my mind and body by fighting off the rest of the drug. It was hard, and every victory brought another terrible blast of reality into awareness–the shooting pain in my hands and feet, the stink of Blade’s pants, so close up next to my face–but still, I persisted.
The clawed man parked the car. I could feel it in the jolt that sent me rocking back and forth on Blade’s lap. A moment later, the door was opened, letting in a dark stream of cold night air. I must have been out for a while.
The clawed man smiled. He looked monstrous, with his mangled hand held out before him like one would hold a candle, outlined in the moonlight.
“Welcome,” he said, “to the Crooked Jaw compound.”
With that, he reached down, seized the rope just below my breasts, and heaved me out of the car to my feet. Whoever had bound my ankles, however, had bound them too tight, for they folded like old putty and I collapsed to the cement.
“Jesus, Marco, be careful!” Blade snapped, sounding scandalized. I guessed he only wanted to hurt me by fucking me. Throwing me around on the pavement wasn’t fun.
The clawed man–or “Marco” as he was apparently called–merely chuckled and hauled me back to my feet, leaning me against the car for support. My knees were bleeding from the impact, but I barely felt it. Instead, I glared right into his eyes.
“Brave girl, huh?” He said. “Dominic choose wisely.”
“That’s right. Brave fucking girl,” I thought. If I had not been gagged, I would have roared it. It occurred to me again how much I had changed. Last year, I would have been twitching on the ground, begging. But not now. I was Dominic’s girl, and I wasn’t going to give this asshole the satisfaction of seeing me squirm.
He must have sensed my retaliation, for he flung himself against me, knocking my head back against the car and pinning me with his body. He grunted, his breath like hot acid in my ear as he hissed, “Before, I was just gonna have my way with you, then kill you while Dominic watched. But now, I’m gonna keep you both alive long enough for him to see me break you. He’s gonna watch me fuck you, over and over, and then I’ll watch you both die.”
His mangled hand was like a grappling hook against the soft flesh of my stomach. His cock was hard as iron, pressing against my thigh. But he did not do anything. Just make that threat. It was funny: he intended it to scare me, but, strangely enough, it made me feel better.
Dominic is on his way.
I just hoped that he’d be able to rescue us before we both ended up dead.
# # #
After that, Marco marched inside through the main door, leaving Blade to half-drag, half-carry me around the back and down a flight of stairs, to a basement. In this place, I assumed it was a dungeon. As he worked, panting and sweating like the fat old man he was, I made absolutely no effort to help him. I’d sag when I felt his grip weaken, and stand strong when I could make him stumble into me. This resulted in many bruises on my shins and hips from colliding with the stone stairwell, but I didn’t care. I could sense Blade’s frustration growing, and, with it, I had the budding–just the slightest little inkling–of a plan.
At last, we made it to the bottom of the stairwell. It was wet, and stank of sewage, and when he jangled the keys to undo the lock, I mistook the sound at first for the jittering of rats.
“The first step,” I thought, “is to get him to remove this fucking gag.” Blade’s frustration was so ripe I could practically smell it. “If I’m going to succeed, I have to talk to him.”
I moaned and worked my jaw back and forth, an obvious plea for its removal. Blade eyed me with annoyance.
“Once we’re inside, Erica my sweet,” he replied. “You can use that mouth all you want.” And with that, he opened the door and shoved me inside. I winced, both at the sudden impact of striking a hard cement floor, and the idea of using my mouth on any of these guys. Blade slithered over, grabbed me by the hair, and dragged me to the next room, where, with a different key, he unlocked the door and flung me in.
Smarting with pain and humiliation, I barely noticed him crouching down beside me until I felt a tugging at the strap around the back of my head. With a few quick tugs, it came lose, and my gag fell away.
I twisted around, gathering up all my spite to hurl at him in whatever words I could muster, but my savagery was lost in my throat. My first, aching word was:
“Thunder!”
There he was, lying in a battered heap upon the floor. He did not appear to be tied up, but the mottled bruises covering what little flesh was visible showed how badly he had been beaten. Apparently, they did not feel the need to bind him–his injuries were confining enough.
“I’ll be back for you later,” Blade growled, and he marched away. The door slammed behind him, and I heard the distinct sound of a key turning in a latch as Thunder and I were locked inside.
“Thunder! Thunder! Are you okay?” I tried to wriggle towards him, but I was tied too tightly. He did not move, and I felt, at long last, despair beginning to settle in.
“Please, Thunder, please,” I whimpered. The pain in my wrists and ankles was enormous. I tried to distract myself by rolling onto my back and getting my bearings on the room.
It was, as I had predicted, little more than a basement. Stone walls surrounded us on all sides, bottomed by a cement floor, chillingly angled to a dip in the middle, in which there was a small drain.
I did not like to think about what they used that drain for.
In the corner, there was a cot, nailed to the floor, without pillows or sheets. A dingy, yellowish sink waited nearby, and under that was a large tin bucket with a heavy lid. I did not need the smell to tell me what that was for.
The whole place was a prison cell, and Thunder and I were trapped inside it.
“Uh…Erica? Oh, no. Is that you?”
“Thunder!” I gasped. I tried to roll to him, but my bindings were wound too tight. Fortunately, I could hear him moving towards me.
“Those fuckers,” he grunted, as I felt his weak, swollen hands scrabble against the ropes. At last, I felt the pressure release, and after several long minutes of working feeling back into my arms and legs, I was able to move again.
“Thank God!” I cried, and threw myself around him in a hug. He winced–obviously, he had some ribs or something broken–but he did not complain.
At last, both our eyes wet with tears, we drew apart.
“What can you tell me about this place?” I asked. “And the two men who brought me here?”
Thunder sighed. “Let me guess. One was that stinking old lawyer–smells like cat piss and looks about as nice?”
“Yes!” I exclaimed, and doing the impossible–chuckling.
“Apparently, he’s been behind all the ‘legal’ shit that the Crooked Jaws have been performing. He’s their insider.”
“Figures,” I growled. “I always knew the man was slimy.”
“And the other guy, did he have an injured hand, bent out of shape like a claw?”
“Oh, my God, yes!” I gasped. “Who is he? How did you know?”
He sighed again, and then proceeded to tell me a long, horrible story about a man named Marco “La Gancho” Herrera.
“You mean…Dominic did that to him?” I murmured. “My Dominic?”
“Yes,” Thunder said sadly. “And though he’s never said it aloud, I know he regrets it.”
I whistled through my dry, cracking lips. “No wonder he hates Dominic so much.”
“He hates Dominic more than he hates any man in the world. Which is why they brought you along as well, those bastards. I would have been enough as a hostage, but I think he really wants to make Dominic suffer.”
“By hurting us?”
“By hurting us.”
We let that sink in.
“But don’t worry,” Thunder said at last. “Dominic is loyal to me, and I think he loves you. He’s sure to save us.”
At his words, I felt a swelling of warmth in my heart. It was the warmth of affection, not the warmth of rage. It made me feel braver.
“It will be dangerous for him,” I commented. “We have to help him any way we can.”
“How?” Thunder spat sadly, gesturing around the room. “We’re trapped in here, and I’m no use in a fight right now. Trust me.”
“I’m not sure we’re the ones who will need to fight,” I whispered. Then, I leaned close to him, so close that not even the walls could hear. I told him about my history with Blade, and how Blade and La Gancho did not seem to get along.
Slowly, hesitatingly, achingly, we began to concoct a plan.