Harrowing (23 page)

The knife slashed down.

At first I felt nothing. Then red hot pain searing all the way through me. I glanced down, saw blood starting to seep out through my sleeve.

“That enough for you, Annasuya?” Bruno leered at me, taunting. “You want some relief? Shall I give the next one to your son there?”

I bit my lip. My arm was killing me.

“No,” I said firmly. “Whatever you want to do to my son, do it to
me
instead.”

Bruno licked his lips. Smiled luridly.

“Are you sure? You have no idea what I was planning to do to your son. Are you sure you’d be able to take it?”

He crouched next to me.

“As I’ve said before, it’s easy to talk when you’re not feeling the pain yet. Are you ready to get cut up? Burnt? Mutilated?”

He stroked his finger along my cheek.

“You have a beautiful face. But then again, so does your son. Where do you want the cuts? Here?”

He stroked my cheek some more.

“Or there?”

He gestured towards Romeo.

I closed my eyes. An image of Romeo battered and burnt beyond recognition, curled up like the little boy in the photograph, slid into my mind. Huge tears began to course down from under my eyelids. I swallowed. I opened my eyes. I tried to make my voice sound like ice, but I couldn’t keep from trembling all the same.

“Do it to
me,
” I told him, “and leave Romeo alone.”

Bruno sneered.

“I hope you still feel this way by the time I’m finished with you,” he said.

The blade glinted in the light as it slashed down towards me.

I heard Calvin howling with rage and indignation. The sound floated over towards me as if from a distance.

I felt covered all over with something warm and wet, like blood. I wondered what had happened. I must have blacked out. From far away but growing nearer with each passing instant, I felt the throbbing of a vague and almost imperceptible pain growing stronger and more insistent, cutting into me from all sides at the edges of my consciousness.

Romeo’s scream pierced my heart, my baby in danger or agony. My eyelids flew open.

Sandy Bleckley was hightailing it down the stairs towards Romeo at about a hundred and fifty. Romeo shrieked again, a shrill screech of mortal horror.

“The bomb!” he screamed. “You’re going to make the bomb go off, lady.”

Calvin’s eyes popped wide open.

“What bomb, Romeo?” he yelled.

Romeo gestured towards his feet.

“
That
bomb,” he cried.

All eyes angled down towards the rusted metal ball at his feet. Sandy froze in mid-stride. Her gaze travelled to Bruno’s face, anguished.

“You set a bomb here, Bruno?” she said, her voice rising hysterically. “You set a
bomb?
”

Bruno took a step towards her and raised his arms. Sandy turned tail and dashed back up the stairs.

“No, Bruno! No! What d’you want? To blow us all to Kingdom Come or something?”

She edged towards the doorway, her raging figure starkly outlined against the glaring light of day.

“Wait,” Bruno called.

Sandy shook her head.

“For what? For your fucking
bomb
to go off?”

She disappeared out the door. Bruno took off after her.

“Wait, Sandy! It’s not a bomb. I swear it’s not. I was just threatening the kid...”

Bruno made it to the top of the stairs and scrabbled after Sandy, disappearing from our view.

Calvin, Romeo and I stared at each other for a minute in stupefaction. Then I recovered my senses.

“Run, Romeo!” I ordered. My lips felt stiff and swollen and I could barely pronounce the words. “Get out. Hide. Don’t let them find you.”

Romeo started shaking, his teeth chattering together.

“I-I can’t leave you, Mimi!” he wailed. “I can’t leave you. They’ll kill you.”

I tried to shake my head, but I felt as if I were made of rubber.

“If you get away, you can get help, honey sweets. But if you don’t... If you stay here, then we’ll all... Well, we’ll all...”

Romeo stared at me. Tears glistened in his eyes. Finally, he heaved a deep breath and nodded.

“Okay, Mimi. But I’m coming back for you. I’m going to get help.”

He began inching his way backwards up the stairs, never taking his eyes from me.

“Mimi. Don’t leave me. Okay?”

He whirled on his heels and leapt through the opening of the door, out of my sight.

I wondered if I’d ever see my baby again.

*

I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. Fire seemed to flash through me from all sides now. I wondered what Bruno had done to me. I must have blacked out while he was doing whatever it was he had done to me.

Then I felt firm hands grappling with the bindings around me. I opened my eyes a crack. Calvin was leaning heavily against the back of my chair, moaning, brandishing the razor blade in his hand. The same blade Bruno had used to probably cut me into a hundred little pieces, from the way I felt. Now he wielded the knife to set me free.

“How did you get loose, Calvin?” I whispered. My words could barely make their way out through my bruised lips. “I thought you were tied up.”

Calvin grimaced and showed me his wrists, cut raw and bleeding.

“I
was
tied up. But I wriggled free.”

Calvin began to cut through my ropes. It was painstaking work. Calvin was weak, and the cutter, effective though it was against tender flesh, made hardly a dent against the roughened hemp.

“Hurry,” I whispered. “They could be back any minute.”

Calvin nodded and grunted, notched up his efforts. After what seemed like an eternity, I felt the ropes fall away from me. I pushed weakly against them, felt them tumble off me to the ground.

Calvin wrapped his arms around me.

“Can you move, lovey?” he crooned. “Can you get up?”

I tried to nod.

“Of course,” I said. My voice came out softer than I expected. “Why shouldn’t I be able to?”

I tried to pull myself to my feet, but my legs crumbled like rubber. I could barely feel them. I gasped and grabbed onto Calvin.

“What’s happening to me, Calv?” I cried. “Why can’t I move?”

“Yes you can,” he replied grimly. “You can move. You’re stronger than you think, Annasuya. It’s just a little more, and then we’re free.” He glanced me up and down. “He didn’t do anything terrible to you, even though it looks bad. Only cut you up into about a thousand little pieces. But I’m sure they’re only superficial cuts and no broken bones so, c’mon, let’s scram already.” He tugged urgently at me. “I was so proud of you, honey sweets. Pained, but proud.”

“Why?” I asked blankly.

Calvin stared at me.

“You don’t know?”

I shook my head.

“What happened?”

“You don’t remember?”

Calvin grinned again.

“That bastard kept cutting you up. And every time he did something to you, he asked you if you wanted to take a break and for him to give the next one to Romeo. And you know what you did? Each and every time, you said no. Each and every time. It must have hurt like hell. I can’t even imagine what you must’ve been feeling. But each time you said no.”

I couldn’t remember any of it.

“He also said something about how this was just whetting his appetite and how you could expect the next round to be loads less innocuous, before that madwoman burst in on us and interrupted him, fortunately. You sure you don’t remember?”

I shook my head again. It was like he was talking about something from another lifetime.

“I don’t blame you. I’d love to forget everything that’s happened too, if I could.” He rubbed his eyes wearily, smearing blood over his face. “Well, but nuff blathering. Let’s get the hell outta here triple time. Can you get up now?”

I firmed myself, steeled myself up inside and made another attempt. This time I was able to stay on my feet. Calvin dragged me towards the stairs and scrambled upwards. Trying to climb the stairs was another herculean feat. It felt like trying to grapple up Mount Everest. I crumpled onto my knees on the steps, pulling myself upwards with my bloodied hands, one hand after the other. Calvin reached down and tugged at me. Even so, it seemed to take hours to reach the top.

Once at the top, Calvin peered about fearfully.

“The coast looks clear,” he gasped out at last, and inched his way up and through the doorway.

I followed, my heart in my throat.

We could see the gravelled clearing where Sandy had parked her van yesterday. Sandy’s van was there now. We couldn’t see anyone inside.

Calvin pressed his finger to his lips.

“Sshhh. They must still be around,” he said in a barely audible whisper, gesturing at the van.

A little further away, next to a distant line of trees, I glimpsed another car as well, probably Bruno’s.

We began to prowl across the clearing, ready to flee at an instant’s notice. I still felt weak, but adrenaline rushed through me, urging me on, numbing the sensation of pain and the debilitation of indecision.

An anguished cry of agony chilled my blood and made my limbs turn cold and useless. I dropped instinctively to a crouch in time to see Sandy hurl herself across the clearing towards her van from the other side. She was holding something against the pulsing artery on Romeo’s neck. I froze, petrified.

“Don’t hurt him,” I cried in a strangled voice.

Sandy ignored me. Shoving Romeo through the open door in the side of the van, she scrambled in after him and slammed the door shut. A minute later, we saw her appear in the cab of the van. She revved up the engine and started backing away. I wanted to leap for the vehicle but my rubbery nerves refused to respond. Within a minute, Sandy had manoeuvred the van off the grounds and was zooming away down the country road already at the speed of a Rally racer.

I cast Calvin a glance of despair, at a total and complete loss as to what to do now. As we stood there like dunces, I saw Bruno creep out from a nearby bush neither of us had even noticed and tackle Calvin like a pro football player, pounding on him and beating against him without respite. Calvin turned just in time to see
something
hurtle towards him.

Whatever it was struck Calvin down right where he stood. He didn’t even have time to utter a single cry. There was no expression on his face as he crumpled to the ground and lay spread out there in a senseless heap.

I stood there frozen, like a lump of turd. Calvin didn’t move. I took a tentative step towards him. But then Bruno seemed to recover his second wind and started bearing down on me.

I stepped back, torn between Calvin and my baby. It took me all of one second to make my decision. My heart was pounding in agony for Calvin, and tears were frozen inside me. But my baby won.

I turned on my heels and hightailed it towards Bruno’s car, seizing strength from goodness knew where. The only thing I was aware of was that I had to save my baby.

*

Bruno’s car loomed up before me. Without stopping to think, I leapt into the driver’s seat. The relief I felt at seeing the keys in the ignition, hanging there innocently as if just waiting for me, was indescribable. I twirled the keys with rigid fingers. The car sputtered into life immediately. I almost hugged her. Blessed, glorious Ford Cherokee!

I glimpsed Bruno’s reddened face swollen with rage in the rear-view mirror and floored the accelerator before it even occurred to me to close the door. Bruno jumped towards the car. I switched gears, wrenched at the steering wheel and zapped out of there before Bruno could make a second attempt.

I didn’t know where I was and for a while I was only able to circle about, trying to see something I recognized. Some landmark. A highway. A street sign. Even a poster to indicate what town I was in. But everything was strange and blurry, out of focus. Tears began to cloud my eyes and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself breaking down, shaking like a victim of malaria. I couldn’t control my hands on the steering wheel, my foot slipped off the accelerator. At last I pulled to one side as best as I could and killed the engine.

I could have exploded with frustration. I was nearly there. All I had to do was to discover where I was, and go after Sandy. I didn’t have the faintest idea where she could have taken Romeo, though.

I banged my fists against the dashboard. I was almost there, goddamn it! How could my nerves betray me so, in this most crucial moment?

I glanced down at myself, studied myself thoughtfully, all of a sudden amazed that I was still able to hold it together. Still capable of doing what I had to do, after all I’d been through during the past twenty-four hours and everything Bruno had done to me.

I held my arms up before me, palms up, staring in astonishment at the fifty million cuts zig-zagging across my hands and arms. Superficial cuts, which would hopefully not leave scars. But still, now that I was aware of them, they were starting to hurt like hell. Strange that up till now I hadn’t felt a thing. I wondered how I’d been able to function in such a state.

I examined myself more thoroughly, still flabbergasted. Dozens of little cuts everywhere, tiny aggressions that I hadn’t even noticed before. Across my shoulders, down my chest, even along my legs. Bruno had done
this
to me? I couldn’t even remember it.

I nudged gently at what remained of my bloody, tattered clothing, trailed my fingers delicately over the angry welts on my skin, gasping at the sudden fire racing through me. Now that I’d noticed them, every wound seemed to sting excruciatingly. I bit my lips against the sudden pain and felt unexpected whiplashes across my cheeks.

I turned the mirror towards me and gaped in a daze at the gashes across my face. Superficial lashings, fortunately, that would probably heal within a few days. But I could scarcely believe I hadn’t felt them earlier. Tears slipped down my cheeks, making the wounds sting even more intensely.

In other circumstances, I would probably have been barrelling towards a hospital upon finding myself in such a pitiful condition. But now I needed to get to Romeo.

I clenched my fists about the steering wheel and gritted my teeth.

My baby needed me. And I wasn’t about to let him down.

If I lost him, I wouldn’t be able to live with it.