Seduced in the Dark (14 page)

“Why isn’t Reed here? Why the both of you at
different times?”

“Agent Reed and I have different job
descriptions. He’s interested in the case; I’m interested in your
well-being as well as the case.”

“So he doesn’t give a shit about what
happens to me, is what you’re saying.” I’m not shocked by the
information; it’s something I already knew to be true, but still,
it stings to hear it from someone else.

“I didn’t say that. Please don’t put words
in my mouth,” Sloan says. I think I’ve made her uncomfortable, but
I can’t say for what reason. “Agent Reed says you kissed him?”

My eyes open wide and my mouth is slightly
agape. I can’t believe he told her! Why would he do that! “So!?!”
My face is heating up, and I’m positive it stems in equal parts
from anger and embarrassment.

This is a side of Sloan I haven’t seen yet,
her brow is arched and her mouth is a little tight at the corners.
“I’m not your enemy. Please stop acting like I am. He told me
because he’s concerned for you and the only reason I bring it up is
because you were just telling me he doesn’t care about you.”

“Fine! I kissed him.” I look away from Sloan
and toward the windows. Only Reed uses the kindergarten
interrogation room to talk to me. I probably make him nervous.
Good.

“Why?”

“Because he had something I wanted.” The
words fall right out of my mouth and although I know the picture
they paint of me, I can’t say I care. I’m fixated on the pigeon
walking back and forth outside my window. I’m envious of the
pigeon. It doesn’t have a care in the world beyond eating,
sleeping, and defecating on park statues. That’s the life.

“Is that the only reason?” She’s trying to
keep her words innocent, but I know nothing she says is innocent,
not even her stories about interpretive taxidermy. It would be easy
to forget Sloan is a member of the FBI and she’s trained to handle
cases like mine. She comes off as very empathetic, and even a
little vulnerable herself, but she wouldn’t be where she is today
if she weren’t a wolf under that wool suit.

My head swivels toward her and away from the
window. I make myself smile brazenly, “Are you jealous,
Janice?”

She doesn’t miss a beat, “Of what, Olivia?”
I smile again and this time there’s an answering smile on her face.
Yeah, Sloan has teeth. I like teeth.

We go back and forth for several minutes.
She asks me a question and I turn it around to pose the same
question of her and she turns it back on me again. It would seem
like useless conversation, but I think we’re both learning little
things about one another with each exchange. Still, I’d rather be
talking to Reed. I tell Sloan as much.

“That isn’t unusual, you know. Some victims
of abuse tend to gravitate toward strong, authoritative men…like
Agent Reed. They also tend to mimic the behavior expected of them
by their abusers, especially when that behavior is of a sexual
nature.”

I feel like she’s just doused me in hot oil.
“Don’t. Don’t do that bullshit psychotherapy crap on me. It was a
fucking kiss, not a pledge of my undying devotion. And for the
record, I’m not some broken rape victim you have to put back
together. I’m fine.” I’m crying again and I hate myself for it. Why
won’t my face stop leaking!

“I’m sorry, Livvie. I didn’t mean to upset
you,” Sloan says. She sounds sincere and that almost pisses me off
more than her suggestion I’m some basket-case.

Aren’t you? You don’t know who you are
anymore. You have no place to go from here.

“I think we’re good for today. Do you want
to stop? We can go have some lunch in the cafeteria. Maybe play
some cards in the rec room, or maybe checkers? I love
checkers.”

“Sloan?”

“Yes?”

“You’re doing it again.” I wipe the tears
off of my face and blow my nose with some tissues – funny how
they’re ready and waiting by my bed.

Sloan lets out a deep sigh and leans back in
her chair. Her expression is inscrutable, as though not even she
knows what she is feeling, or thinking, or wanting to say. Finally
though, she nods slightly to herself and opens her mouth. “I don’t
think you’re broken. I don’t mean to ‘psychoanalyze’ you, well…”
she laughs without humor, “at least, not out loud, but I do think
there are some cracks to be filled in. You’ve been through so much
in the last few months, and I’m incredibly impressed all you have
are cracks. You should be broken, but you’re not. Cracks can be
mended and believe it or not, you have a lot of people who want to
help you mend.”

I swallow really hard. I don’t want to cry
any more. I don’t know what I want, except for Caleb. I think I
would gladly go back to the mansion, if it meant I could be with
Caleb again. I would live it, all over again. I know it isn’t
healthy and I worry that maybe, just maybe, Sloan and Reed are
right. I’m fucked in the head and nothing I feel is real.

“
You don’t know what you want, Livvie,
and what you think you want, you’ve been brainwashed into
wanting.”

Even Caleb said my love isn’t real, but…I
feel it. I feel my love for him more strongly and deeply than
anything I have ever felt in my life. I think if it turns out
they’re right and I am wrong…
that
will break me.
Survival…it’s the most important thing.

***

It’s been an okay morning, I guess. I didn’t
care for talking with Sloan, but playing checkers with her was
slightly amusing. I could tell she was still analyzing me as we
played, asking loaded questions beneath the guise of conversation,
but for the most part we just talked about life outside the walls
of the hospital. I missed a lot of things over the summer.

For starters, I missed graduation. I’m not
sure how I feel about that. I suppose I don’t really care, but it’s
strange not to. It had seemed so important four months ago. I guess
I’m still a graduate. My grades were exemplary before I left.

Left, that’s funny.

Nicole started college. She’s called the
hospital a few times and we’ve chatted a little – not about
anything important. I avoid that. She’s offered to leave school for
a few weeks and visit me, but I asked her not to bother. I’m fine
and I have a lot of stuff going on anyway. It was shockingly easy
to get her to agree not to come. Life goes on. Even if yours is
over.

Sloan has left the building, but she says
she’ll be back later today. As if I’d asked or even wanted her
here; the woman is daft.
I’ll take: Answers to questions no one
has asked, for $100, Alex.
Still, I wish I had something to do
besides lie in bed and watch TV. I’ve raided the library, but it’s
all so unimpressive.

Reed is supposed to come interview (more
like interrogate) me soon and I can’t help but feel a little
excited about seeing him and talking to him. When he gets angry
with me I can almost see Caleb in his brown eyes. It’s silly, but I
almost live for those little glimpses.

I’m not sore anymore, haven’t been in days.
My bruises are gone and my scrapes are scabbed over. When they
heal, it will be as if all evidence of my time with Caleb has been
erased. I wrap my arms around my stomach and squeeze until the
thought passes. If you had told me a month ago, I’d be sad to have
unmarked skin, I’d have called you stupid and smacked you around
for good measure. But here I am: a girl without a mark, and without
a reason to keep moving forward.

“
That’s not true, Pet. You have every
reason,”
Caleb’s specter whispers in my ear. I don’t know if
hearing his voice in my head makes me crazy, but I don’t care
either way. It’s what I have left after the scrapes heal. I can’t
give him up. Besides, I know the voice isn’t real, no matter how
much I wish it were.

I like to play his voice in my head at
night, when the hospital is quieter and I can concentrate on making
him as real as I can. I spread my legs and finger myself to the
memory of his mouth sucking on my tits and his fingers flicking
back and forth over my clit. If I try really, really hard, I can
hear him, feel him, even fabricate the smell of him – but I can
never get him to kiss me. I usually cry after I come. That’s
exactly the kind of thing I don’t tell Sloan. I’m fairly certain
she’d have a field day with that information.

I make use of my time waiting for Reed; I
take a shower and put on the oh-so-sexy hospital lunatic outfit
they give me to wear: gray pants and shirt. You would think they’d
have something more cheerful given the scenery, but then I think of
the crafts room and decide it’s just as well. My skin tone does not
do yellow. My lunch arrives and I pick through the soggy carrots,
eat the gravy covered, yet still tasteless beef, and drink my milk.
I eat the green Jell-O too. Caleb fed me better food during my
kidnapping than these people. I laugh at my own joke.

“Something funny, Miss Ruiz?” I look up from
my tray and see Reed.

“Yes,” I say, “something is very funny,
Reed.” He smiles, no teeth, but it’s still pretty nice just the
same. I wonder if Reed has a girlfriend. He’s not wearing a wedding
ring. What would Reed’s girlfriend be like?

“Care to share, or do you have to extort
more concessions out of me first?” he says and casually walks into
my room and stands at the foot of my bed.

“You’re funny, Reed.
Me
extort
you
, that’s rich.” He smiles again and shrugs. I mimic him.
“I was laughing because the food here is awful and Caleb fed me way
better stuff. Seems like
this
place is real captivity.”

“Say the word and I’ll have you transferred
to The Pentagon; I hear they serve amazing spaghetti every
Thursday.” He sets his briefcase on the chair and leans against the
wall.

“Gee, thanks. But I think I’ll just put up
with the horrible food. If I’m going anywhere from this place,
it’ll be to my new digs in whatever mid-western town you’ve decided
to hide me in.” I give him my sweetest, condescending smile. “How’s
that going by the way?”

Reed shakes his head, unfazed. Not that I
really expected to get a reaction from him, this guy just doesn’t
lose his cool…unless you make out with him. I smile again, wider,
all teeth, and my smile isn’t remotely sweet. The idea has promise,
as it seems to be the only thing we have in common.

“Let’s get right down to it then, Miss Ruiz.
I’ve been doing some more research on your boyfriend and his
terrorist friends and I have a few questions for you, starting
with: When did you meet Muhammad Rafiq?”

Leave it to Reed to ruin any semblance of a
pleasant moment. The man is an automaton and his programming is set
to one objective: get the bad guys by any means necessary. I would
respect him if he weren’t trying to ruin my whole life. Just
another way he reminds me of Caleb. “That’s not where we left off,
Reed. You said I could tell you the whole story.”

He sighs. “Dr. Sloan called me after she
left the hospital. I’ll get all of her notes later, but for now,
she said the only thing to come out of your time with her today was
an acknowledgment it was Caleb who left you the money in Zacatecas.
Two-hundred-fifty-thousand dollars is a lot of money to transfer
and deposit for a girl he planned on selling. I definitely want to
talk about that, but for now the important thing is to find out
more about Rafiq. When did you meet him?”

Reed has been here for less than ten minutes
and he’s already managed to royally piss me off. “I didn’t know
that’s what he was doing. I didn’t know until later he’d left me
the money.” It takes me a second, but then the rest of his words
sink in and then I’m angry with Sloan as well, the
only
thing to come out of our three hour talk is that Caleb went to the
bank? That’s pretty cold. Everyone around me is just full of
surprises lately.

“Rafiq, Miss Ruiz. When did you meet him?”
Reed has apparently decided to forgo the imposing environment of
the craft room and interrogate me in my room. Fine with me.

“He was there when we got to Tuxtepec,” I
whisper. This isn’t a part of the story I want to tell, but I know
it’s what I have to do. The truth is – I want Reed to make it to
that auction. I want him to round up those bastards and free those
slaves. I owe it to them. I owe it to myself. I owe it to Caleb.
“He’d been waiting for us.”

Reed and I are silent for a moment. He pulls
a recorder out of his jacket pocket, presses the record button and
puts it down on the bed. “It’ll help me go through your statement
later. I know this is hard, Miss Ruiz. I also know, you think I
want to make it that way, but I don’t. I just want to do my job and
make these people pay for what they’ve done, to you, and to so many
other women and children. There are children there too…did you know
that?” I shake my head. I hate him for putting that thought in my
head. I can’t stand the thought of a child suffering. No more jokes
or banter. Reed quietly lifts his briefcase and sets it on the
ground before he sits down.

I clear my throat and lick my lips. This is
where the real story begins.

***

I don’t know exactly what time it was when
we arrived, but the sun had set not too long before. Caleb and I
hadn’t done much talking on the way. I didn’t really have anything
to say to him that wouldn’t result in him punishing me.

My heart pounded a sharp tattoo in my chest
as we made our way down the seemingly endless driveway. The person
who owned this house definitely had a lot of money and demanded a
lot of privacy. Large trees hid our destination, but I could see
the glow of lights in the distance. Soon. Soon, I would lose
everything that was ever important to me.

I berated myself for not making more
attempts to escape, even if I could barely walk, let alone run.
Still, even if I died in the process, I felt like I should have
tried again. Death had to be better than what I had coming. I knew
once he got me inside that house I would be a sex slave for the
rest of my life. I know Caleb said two years, but I just didn’t
have any faith in that. How could I?