Freeing Lana (18 page)

Tink
snorted slightly in his sleep and the phone dropped from her leg when she
jumped. After she realized it was nothing, or at least she thought it was
nothing, she retrieved the phone and looked at it. The screen was cracked and
there was nothing on it even as she repeatedly pushed the buttons. She slid the
back off the phone and removed the battery, but after returning it to its place
and covering the back again, she was still unable to get the phone to work.

“Shit,”
she said without realizing it.

Tink
moved slightly under the crisp white sheets and Lana quickly forgot her broken
phone, as well as any hope Sergio might text her back anytime soon. Leaning
forward, she took one of Tink’s hands in her own and squeezed it gently as she
again felt the unmistakable pangs of guilt as they nipped unrelentingly at her
thoughts. Never again, even if it killed her never again would she go to the
prison and see him. The unconscious man sleeping in the bed in front of her really
loved her. Maybe not as much as Sergio had loved her, but he loved her just the
same and he deserved a woman who could keep her fucking legs together unless
she was spreading them for him and him alone. Daniel could go jack off in the
prison shower all he wanted, but he would never see her again, and she would
never do anything he asked her to do. No matter what!

Tink
stirred again and she tightened her grip on his hand slightly. If he was aware
she was there in the room with him, she wanted him to feel her holding his
hand. As he blinked his eyes slowly, she rubbed the back of his hand with her
thumb, trying to let him know he was being taken care of. Then he turned his
head toward her and opened his eyes, though she could see the pain medication
was still thick in his veins and he was clearly still quite sedated.

“La…,”
was all he could manage, but it made her heart jump.

“Yes
Tink, I’m here,” she said.

He
smiled warmly as he cupped his hand around hers, his eyes still with a glazed
over tint to them seemed to light up some at the sound of her voice.

“I
love you, Tink,” she said, doing her best to keep her voice from cracking.

2

In
the moment when everything became perfectly clear for Lana, that moment when she
knew what she wanted for perhaps the first time in her life, everything
changed. One second she and Tink were coming together like never before, their
hearts bonding in the same manner their bodies often had, and the next she was
being escorted out if the room by federal marshals. Her protests went unheeded
as her questions were unanswered. As they led her out of the room, she looked
back at Tink and she could have swore the look on his face was one of shame,
rather than the anger or even confusion that should have been there.

“You
can’t do this,” she told the man now standing in the hall between her and
Tink’s room, “visiting hours aren’t over yet.”

The
man said nothing, only stood there with his hands laced tightly behind his
back. At last, she saw Tink’s doctor stick his head of his office and she tried
to get his attention, but he quickly darted back into the safety behind his
door. When one of the nurses finally came in her direction, pleading with her
to be quiet as to not upset any more of the patients, Lana about lost it.

“Then
tell me what the hell is going on!”

“Didn’t
they tell you anything at all?”

“No,
they just grabbed me and pulled me out of his room,” Lana said, her voicing
reaching a higher pitch than she would have liked. “What is this all about?”

The
nurse, an older woman most likely in her sixties if not even older, looked
irritated as she shot a glance at the man beside Lana. Finally, she shook her
head and walked past him, and then taking Lana by the arm and leading her
further down the hallway away from Tink’s room. Lana reluctantly allowed
herself to be pulled down the hallway, hoping someone would finally make some
sense of all this.

“These
guys aren’t the assholes they appear to be,” the nurse said, tilting her head
in the man’s direction.

“They
sure could have fooled me,” Lana told her.

“The
thing is they are usually kept in the dark about what’s going on and couldn’t
answer your questions if they wanted to,” she said.

“Then
do you know what’s going on, why I was pulled out of there?”

“Yes,
I do,” she said, “he has a visitor coming in to see him and no one is allowed
in the room while he’s there, that’s all.”

“Why,
who is it?”

“It’s
his son, the way I understand it,” the nurse said, taking note at the way
Lana’s face suddenly appeared confused. “You didn’t know he had a son, did you
dear?”

“No,
I didn’t,” Lana managed, trying to understand why not.

“Oh,
the girlfriend rarely does,” she said, offering an understanding smile as she
wrapped her arm around Lana’s shoulder, leading her further still away from
Tink’s room. Lana stopped where she was and looking past the woman, and the man
still standing so rigidly in the middle of the hall.

“But
why is all of this commotion necessary, just because his son wants to visit?”
 

The
nurse cocked her head to the side for a moment then the realization dawned on
her and she again offered that warm smile of hers, only this time Lana began to
see the condescension behind it she hadn’t noticed before.
Oh, you’re a special kind of stupid, aren’t you?
At least, that’s
what Lana thought it probably meant.

“Sweetie,
his son is in prison,” she finally said, “but since his dad was shot, they are
bringing him here to see him, just in case you know? But don’t let that worry
you none; he’s going to be fine. Once the wheels got started in motion, Doctor
Mills saw no reason to tell the feds any different. The man had been shot for
Pete’s sake, so he saw no harm in letting him see his son while he was here.”

Lana
started walking back toward the man still blocking the hallway. Ok, so Tink had
a son. She could deal with that. She could even deal with the fact that he had
done something stupid and ended up in jail. Hell, she wasn’t naïve, shit
happened. She thanked the nurse for being kind enough to let her know what was
going on and took one of the chairs along the wall, the one as close to Tink’s
room as the dick in uniform would allow anyway.

This
just might be interesting, and she wanted to be sure and see as much of it as
she could. Besides, a glimpse of a younger version of Tink, could that be a
hint of what might be in store for her someday, a son with the man she loved?
When the outer doors swung open at the end of the hallway, she stood up and
took the few remaining steps allowed in that direction. The marshal of course
became worried again and stepped in front of her.

“Relax,”
she said, almost allowing a smile, “I just want to see what he looks like.”

In
the moments that followed, perhaps in the years that would follow, she would
regret ever saying that, for in that moment just before the heavily armed
entourage turned the shackled man and led him into Tink’s room, she did see
what he looked like.

“No,”
she managed weakly, but as the realization sank in, she screamed it, “No!”

They
all stopped, none of them expecting to hear a woman scream on this particular
assignment they had drawn, and they looked at her. The man in the orange
jumpsuit, his hands and feet shackled together so he had to walk in half steps,
was already grinning as he looked up in her direction. And just as the lights
went out, just as she fell forward unaware the man who had seemed so rude
before was catching her, keeping her from smacking her face onto the tile
floor, just before all of that, Daniel Morrow smiled at her, and then stepped
out of view into his father’s hospital room.

Chapter Thirty-Four

1

Sergio
Marsilis
stood quietly just inside his bedroom door,
leaning against the frame and listening to Lori squirm on the contraption she
was still securely bound. He wasn’t quite sure how she had done it, though he
was intrigued not to mention impressed, but she had managed to get the plastic
dick out of her while he was gone. The condition of it as it hummed lightly on
the carpet suggested it hadn’t been out long however.
 

He
crossed the room, taking notice that her hands and feet were still secured to
the wooden frame, and offered no hint they might be about to come free. As he
reached down and turned off the vibrator, she stopped squirming and appeared to
be listening. He was sure she was wondering if he had returned or if the
batteries had just died. He didn’t make her wait long. Taking the new supplies
he had retrieved during his night out, he walked across the room and went to
work.

Lori
flinched slightly as the paint brush touched her bare stomach, but Sergio
ignored this and continued about his work. With painstaking care, and one last
dip of the brush into the red paint, he put the last detail on her skin before
stepping back and admiring his interpretation of what he had so recently
learned to be true: the two women, and quite possibly all women, were one and
the same. The brush fell casually to the floor as he picked up the riding crop
and with the exerted effort of an Olympian jockey, brought the leather down on
her bare flesh.

The
wet paint splattered and her skin reddened where he struck her, while her
muffled sobs sang to him from the background, creating a chaotic masterpiece
worthy of the goddess herself. It was becoming harder to make out, but the name
“LANA” was still readable on her skin, and then the air exploded as the leather
cracked again.

He
stepped between her legs and inserted himself fully, relishing in the wetness
there. Then bending forward, he allowed his own skin to smear what remained of
the name he had painted on hers as he thrust deeper inside of her. The moans
coming from under the hood she wore matched his thrusts and he rocked against
the sturdy frame violently, making no effort to hold back and not stopping
until his legs trembled and he had spent himself inside of her. His face buried
between her breasts, he allowed himself to say the name his lips had avoided.

“I
love you Lana,” he said.

Any
trouble he might have had earlier understanding her muffled words under the
hood were no longer present and he immediately knew what Lori was screaming
now. The name had slipped but he couldn’t take it back and he knew it.
Reluctantly, after he had returned his dick to his pants, he reached up and
removed the tape from across her mouth.

“Get
me out if this you sick motherfucker!”

“I
know damn well you didn’t just say that,” he shot back, no longer feeling
embarrassed and now emboldened by the strength of his own words.

“I
want out of this,” she tried again, this time weakly and a bit intimidated by
his forceful reproach.

“That’s
better, but the answer is no,” he said, easily forgetting his mistake and
making sure she still knew who was in charge of this situation, “I still have
plans for you.”

“No,”
she said, and he thought he might have heard tears in her voice, “revolution,
damn it, Goddamn revolution.”

“Are
you serious?”

“Yes,
I am completely serious, revolution,” she said. “I’m done, get me out of this.”

“Very
well.”

He
went about the task of freeing her from the harness, and while she seemed to be
angry as well as a bit frightened, he did think he saw some hint of
appreciation when she was at last able to look at the contraption he had built.
When she was finally free and again dressed in the clothes she had worn when
she arrived, she stopped at the door and turned back to him.

“I
won’t be back,” she said flatly, “and you’ll be lucky if I don’t call the
police.”

“Call
the police, for what, tying you up and doing what you came here for me to do?”

“I
never asked for this,” she said. “You’re sick!”

“Fine,”
he shot back. “Get the fuck out and don’t come back then.”

“Don’t
you worry,” she said opening the door, “I won’t be back.”

Once
outside of his apartment, standing in the hallway with her hand on the door
handle, she stopped. The two of them stood there for a moment, both knowing
that nothing they said now would hold much merit, but both still wanting to say
something anyway. Sergio did want to tell her he hadn’t meant to call her Lana;
it was just that their names were so close and it had been a mistake, but the
paint on her stomach said otherwise so he didn’t bother. Finally, it was Lori
that spoke.

“You’re
a fucking monster,” she said and slammed the door closed.

“No,
I’m not a monster,” he said softly to the closed door, “not yet anyway.”

2

Lana
walked away from the hospital with no real destination in mind. All she knew
was that she couldn’t be there, not right now. The way she had felt when she
thought she had betrayed Tink was nothing compared to this. All along, all this
time, he had known that his son was the one who had held her captive, and he
had kept that from her. All the while he was fucking
her,
he knew damn well that his own damn son had fucked her up completely. She
didn’t know what to make of it.