Chapter Eighteen

Colleen

 

I have been a prisoner my entire life, but this is different. Before, I never had hired Russian guards following me everywhere, even sitting outside my bedroom door at night. Before, I was a prisoner but I didn’t always feel like one. The prison was more hidden than it is now. Father won’t even talk to me because of what Gabriel and I did. When he looks at me, the shame is plain in his face. He hates me for making love to a man, and hates even more that he let the man go. It was all part of the deal with the Italians, some Family stuff about respect and honor and all those things they spout that mean nothing in the end.

 

Two weeks pass and I spend most of that time thinking about Gabriel. Something horrible happens after the first week of living like this: I begin to question if what Gabriel and I shared was even real. I begin to question if what we felt was genuine or—as Alma constantly tells me—if he just twisted my mind to make me do what he wanted.

 

“Men are very skilled at that,” she says as we sit in the living room, going through magazines to choose new wallpaper for the hallway. It’s the sort of boring, mundane thing she has me doing most days now. It’s like she thinks that by making me do stuff like this she can turn back time and make it so I was never in bed with a man; it’s like she’s trying to hammer my purity back into me.

 

“They can make inexperienced girls believe all sorts of nonsense,” she goes on, licking her finger and then flipping the page. “It’s really not even difficult, Colleen, not for men who know what they’re doing. What did he tell you? That he loved you the moment he saw you, that he only wants you, that he’ll be with you forever?” She smiles tightly. “Oh, that’s the game they play, the game they always play. It doesn’t mean anything in the end. It’s just what they say. A bunch of nonsense if you ask me.”

 

“You weren’t there,” I mutter.

 

“Pardon?” she snaps, lashing her gaze at me like a weapon. “What did you say?”

 

I would normally back down, but it’s been two weeks of this. The bruise might have mostly disappeared by now, but that doesn’t mean that the memory has: the way she gripped onto my neck, the way her face twisted as though all the hate in her was aimed at me. I force myself to hold her gaze, even if every part of me wants to avert it.

 

“You weren’t there,” I repeat.

 

“I wish I had been!” she hisses. “Then I could’ve told you all of this before it was too late! You have no idea what this is doing to your father. He is sick, girl, sick thinking about it.”

 

“But business is going well,” I say, knowing I’m on dangerous ground but unable to stop. It’s not simply that she’s telling lies about Gabriel; it’s that the more she talks, the more sense her lies make. It’s been this way as long as I can remember: Alma twisting me with her words, making me believe anything she wants as long as she has enough time. That’s what these mother-daughter activities are really about, I know.

 

“Don’t worry about business.” She bites her lip, staring at me. “That isn’t your concern. You just need to worry about remembering the sort of nice girl you used to be. What kind of a man is going to want you now, do you think? Let me tell you: your prospects have dropped very, very much. Maybe we’ll marry you off to a pig!”

 

I sigh and turn back to the magazine, telling myself that she’s just talking, just trying to contort me. But two weeks … two weeks without Gabriel’s touch, without his whisper in my ear, making sense of it all. Now it’s just me, Alma, and my mind. My mind is perhaps the worst of all. It runs rampant without Gabriel’s warm body pressed close.

 

“How would you like that?” she sneers, when I don’t reply. “Is that your big goal in life? Is that what you want? You already fucked a pig, so why not!”

 

From the hallway, one of the Russian guards mutters something to the other in their language. I don’t even know their names. They’re twins, both tall and hard-faced with shaved heads. The only difference between them is that one has a scar across his forehead, so I know him as Scar and the other as Clean; it makes silently hating them easier.

 

“Please don’t talk like that, Mom.”

 

She grimaces, but doesn’t rise to the bait. Oh no, Alma O’Rourke is above such things.

 

“You’ll forget about him soon enough,” she says confidently.

 

The most terrifying thing is she might be right. It would be different if we’d had some news of him, but if Alma or Father have heard about him, they haven’t let me know. He could be dead, gone … somehow, gone would be worse. That would mean that Alma was right and he really never cared. What if I really do forget him? What if one day soon, Alma and I sit around talking about how silly I was, about how I was a stupid young girl and I’ll never make that kind of mistake again? My chest tightens at the thought, and tightens even more with the knowledge that it could quite easily happen.

 

“Don’t look like that,” she chides a few moments later.

 

“What?” I say, genuinely confused. “Look like what?”

 

“Like I’ve just told you you’re ill. It’s a good thing. Why would you want to remember the most distressing time of your life anyway? You were kidnapped and raped.”

 

“Don’t,” I say, voice dead calm now. Rape: that’s a step too far. She might be able to twist everything else, but she can’t twist it into that. As long as there’s breath in my body, I will deny that accusation. Because it’s not true and, worse, because Alma wants it to be true. She would much prefer if I was raped.

 

“Don’t speak the truth?” She giggles, sounding a little mad. “You were kidnapped, held hostage, and your kidnapper had sex with you. What else would you call it?”

 

“Alma!” I snarl, dropping the magazine to the floor.

 

She looks up in shock. The Russian guards go suddenly silent.

 

“Pick that up,” she says quietly.

 

I shake my head, hardly thinking about what I’m doing except that this cannot be allowed to become the new story.

 

“No,” I mutter. All at once it becomes very important that I don’t pick the magazine up, because if I do I’m in some way validating her crazy claims. That’s what it feels like, anyway: a battle waged over a wallpaper magazine.

 

“No? Okay then, girl. Okay.” She places her magazine on the table, folding her page at the corner so she doesn’t lose her place, and then stands up and brushes down her pleated trousers. She walks around the coffee table and stands over me. “Pick it up.”

 

My whole body is shaking now. I know what’s coming if I don’t pick it up. We’ve waged similar battles every day this past fortnight, Alma making a point of always coming out on top. It comes back to the pet thing; she can’t allow me to step out of line on even small issues like this, because then I might get overconfident.

 

“No,” I whisper.

 

She grimaces, and then relaxes her face as though guilty with herself for allowing it to twist into such an unladylike position. Which is a joke since she’s about to do something supremely unladylike.

 

“No?” She kneels down now so that we’re eye level. “What is the matter with you?” she whispers. “Are you sick? Is that it, baby? Are you ill?”

 

“Stop it!” I snap. “I’m not ill and I’m not delusional and—and—there’s nothing wrong with me!”

 

The slap is predictable, but even so it shocks me every time. It’s the way she moves. One moment she’s kneeling there prettily; the next her pink-nailed hand snaps at me like a reflex. It connects with my neck, the slapping sound worse than all of it; it’s far too loud, sounding like something is seriously hurt. Then the pain comes, delayed, the imprint of her hand pulsing on my neck, the same place the last bruise was.

 

“Go to your room,” she says, returning to her chair. “You will not have dinner tonight. Maybe that will teach you to respect those who provide everything for you.”

 

“You can’t starve me!” I protest. “I’m not a child anymore!”

 

Alma snaps her fingers, summoning the Russian guards. “When you behave like a woman, I will treat you like a woman. But you are behaving like a child, so I will treat you like a child.”

 

Scar looms over me, with Clean right behind him. They are big burly men who seem like machines at times. They were hired to do a job—obey Alma at every turn—and they’ll do it no matter what. There’s no meanness in Scar as he grabs my arm and hauls me to my feet, just inevitability.

 

They take me to my room and lock the door behind me. I walk around the room, wanting to smash something but knowing it’ll only lead to more pain. Then I realize that if I’m thinking about this logically, I can’t want to smash it that badly after all, and I drop onto bed. I try to read, fail. I try to sleep, fail. I try to remember in detail what it felt like to be joined with Gabriel—which was easy last week, but is getting harder now—and I fail.

 

Night comes and Alma is true to her word. Nobody knocks on my door and nobody brings me dinner. Outside, one of the Russians snores and the other talks quietly on the telephone, which they spend much of their time doing. I go to the window and look down into the dark, wishing they’d given me a room I could climb down from. But Alma is an even smarter jailor than Gabriel.

 

Night deepens and it starts to rain, falteringly: a few patters, and then a few more. But the heavy rainfall never comes. Another patter; another …

 

I go to the window and open it.

 

“Hello?” I whisper. Stones?

 

“It’s me.” Gabriel’s voice comes to me as though from a dream. For a few moments I am stunned, wondering if I really am going crazy. “Colleen?”

 

“Y—yes,” I whisper, heat flooding into me so fast my cheeks burn. “Is it really you? I thought you’d left!”

 

“Be quiet,” he whispers. “You don’t want to wake …”

 

“I know,” I say, quieter now. “What are you doing?”

 

“I had to see you,” he says. “I know you can’t see me, but—Have you forgotten about me, Colleen? Do you hate me?” There is a note of desperation in his voice that tugs at my heart.

 

“I could never hate you,” I tell him, and now that he’s here, I mean it. When he’s here, it all makes perfect sense; it’s only when he’s gone that the doubts creep in. “But … what are you doing? This is too dangerous!”

 

“I just want you to know that I haven’t forgotten you, either. I’m coming for you. Just wait. Just be patient. If you want me, I’ll take you.”

 

“I do,” I say firmly, thrusting the doubts aside. “More than anything—”

 

The security lights flare up and Gabriel winces, standing there in a black hoodie and black jeans, black boots, with a black hat pulled over his head. His beard, jet-black, has grown like a wild man’s.

 

“Time’s up,” he says, smiling tightly.

 

Then he sprints across the garden and vaults the fence, disappearing just as Scar barrels into my bedroom and Clean runs toward the fence outside.

 

“Sit nice,” Scar mutters, grabbing me by the wrist. “No talk.”

 

For once, I am happy to obey. I don’t think I could talk if I wanted to.