Switched (15 page)

“I came looking for Felicity and Maria. Are they here?” I asked.

“Why are you obsessed with these other women? Who are they to you?”

“They’re missing, and I’m worried about them.”

Bruno leaned into me and cupped my chin with his hand. “It’s best to forget about them. Pretend they never existed.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks, and my nose ran. “They don’t exist anymore?” I croaked.

“Poof. From dust to dust,” Bruno replied.

“I changed my mind. I don’t want to be here. I need to go home. I have to wash my hair.”

“No teasing, beauty.” Bruno spoke in a whisper, his face so close to mine that I could almost taste his breath. “I don’t allow teases. Teases must be punished.”

“I didn’t mean to tease you. How about I leave with Nataniel and come back another day?” I was really clutching at straws. Come back another day?

“Nataniel? Who’s that?”

“Nataniel the vegan librarian.”

“The Professor?”

“Yes, I mean the professor.”

“The professor is dust,” Bruno said and snapped his fingers. “Forget him like you forget the girls.”

I heard a little click in my mind, and I knew that my fear switch had been turned off, and my anger switch had been turned on. I was spitting mad, sure that I was going to make mincemeat of Bruno Perrier and escape from his personal luxury liner, completely unscathed.

“So what do you want with me?” I asked him with my renewed courage.

“I’m afraid I have exotic tastes.” He fished a metal handle out of his pocket and gave it a click, making it spring to life into a seven-inch knife. I flinched backwards, but he caught me easily with his other hand and drew me closer to him.

“I like it better if you fight me,” he whispered. “Don’t worry. You might like it. Sometimes they like it. But no matter, fight me. I like that the most."

I saw stars, and the room swirled around. Dizzy. Freaking out. I hoped for a cataclysmic stroke, anything not to have to play his game. Sure, I wanted to fight him, but I didn't want to fight him while he had a seven-inch knife in his hand.

"Sure, Bruno," I said, surprising myself with the sound of my voice, which dripped honey. "I would love to do that, but first may I freshen up?"

Talk about clutching at straws. It made my flesh crawl, but the only thing my survival instinct could dream up was a little placating of the crazy psycho man and an escape to the bathroom until help would arrive.

Would help ever arrive? Nobody knew I was on the boat. And besides, did help in any form ever intervene on a cruise-ship sized yacht of an arms-smuggling tycoon? I had my doubts. I also had my doubts that there was a lock on the bathroom door.

My brain sent me a message: Doomed. Debra, you're doomed.

But as was usually the case in my life, I didn't listen to my brain. I had already transformed from high powered CPA cum waitress to a fighter. If Bruno wanted a fight, I was going to give him a fight. I was Floyd Mayweather. I wasn't going to go softly into the night like his other victims.

My thoughts turned to his victims. Poor Felicity. Poor Maria. Did they try to fight Bruno, too? Were they raped and murdered here, locked in his luxury bedroom, faced with his knife?

I shook my head, trying to shake out those thoughts. I wasn't going to let myself suffer the same fate. I was tired of being the victim.

"No, I don't think I would like you to freshen up, beauty," Bruno told me, thwarting my pathetic plan at the escape to the bathroom.

"Are you sure? I fight better with an empty bladder."

"Go ahead and pee right here, my beauty. That might be nice."

Blech. My skin crawled. My heart raced.

"You're a monster," I said.

"Yes," he said. "Call me monster again. I like that."

I grabbed a cushion and hit him with it, trying to knock the knife out of his hand. He was stronger than he looked. Even though he was a pampered tycoon, I guessed he got a good workout raping and murdering women.

What an asshole.

I bolted off the couch and ran to the other side of the room. I looked around for something to throw at him. Nothing. Where were the knickknacks? Weren't rich people lousy with knickknacks?

"Good. Good," he said. He approached, holding the cushion and handed it to me. "Try it again. The cushion was smart."

I took it and ran at him, succeeding to push him into the wall. I thought I heard him grunt, but turned out to be only laughter.

My rapist murderer was laughing at me.

I pushed harder, smashing the cushion flat against his face, and I tried to knee him the balls. He deflected easily, even with the cushion on his face and while he laughed louder.

With no effort at all, he grabbed the cushion away from me and tossed it across the room.

"Very good," he said. "That was fun. Now, take off your clothes, beauty, and let's get this party started. Or better yet," he added like a wonderful idea had popped into his head. "Let me cut your clothes off of you." He waved the knife in my face.  "I'm talented with a knife." he added.

You know that moment when you're about to fall? You know you're going to fall, and you do that thing with your arms where you try to catch your balance, waving them around in a circle, and then you shimmy your body in an effort to override gravity, but you know it's all in vain because you're most definitely going to fall.

And in that moment you think "why me? Why do I have to fall?" And then
splat
, you're down on the pavement or on the tile floor of your shower, and you have to take stock of the damage. Bruised ego? Bruised knee? Broken toe?

All because of a stupid fall.

That's what I was thinking while Bruno had the knife at my throat. Why did I have to fall? Why did I have to be a victim of a crazy monster? Why did I come on the boat? Why did I have to investigate Felicity and Maria's disappearances? Why wasn't I stronger, faster? Why didn’t I know karate or at least carry Mace?

In short, I blamed myself.

I knew objectively not to blame the victim. I would never have blamed Felicity or Maria. It was so obviously Bruno's fault. He was a depraved monster. He was crazy. Sadistic. I should have only been angry at him.

But my helplessness in the face of his knife and his superior strength made me hate myself.

It made me sad.

He cut my shirt off of my body, nicking my shoulder. I flinched in pain.

"Sorry beauty," he said. "Sometimes the knife slips a little. What am I saying? All the time the knife slips a little."

I screamed. I screamed and screamed until my voice grew hoarse and I couldn't scream any longer. It didn't make a difference. Nobody came to my rescue, and Bruno didn’t stop.

He moved methodically, pushing me down onto the couch, his knife an ever present reminder of my eventual demise. He untied his robe and let it drop to the floor.

"Scream louder," he instructed. "You are not doing it for me." He pointed down at his crotch and blamed me for not having an erection.

I tried again to kick him in the balls, but he flicked his knife, making an inch long cut on my calf. I screamed, again. This time in pain.

I was going to die right there in his luxury yacht, I reasoned. But I didn’t want to die, there on a luxury yacht, turned into pastrami by a maniacal killer. I wanted to die from heart failure while getting a pedicure at a spa when I was one hundred and five years old.

Just when I was sure that my final moments would be filled with torture and rape, a miracle happened.

It was a parting of the Red Sea kind of miracle.

A knight on a white steed kind of miracle.

The door to the bedroom burst open, and the vegan librarian stepped inside.

Nataniel stood stock still, not saying a word, not moving a muscle, with an almost surprised expression on his face, as if he had taken a wrong turn toward the men's room and opened Bruno’s bedroom door by mistake. He was handsome and slender and the oddest of saviors. He had no resemblance to an action hero, whatsoever.

Bruno seemed to agree.

"The professor?" he asked and chortled in amusement.

Nataniel didn't reply. He still had that sort of stunned expression on his face. But there was something else there, too. He was unafraid. Silently determined.

I scooted away from Bruno and slid off of the couch. Bruno didn’t seem to notice. His attention was fixed on Nataniel, and he held his knife up, pointing it in his direction.

"Very funny," Bruno said and called for his goons. He called them over and over, but they didn't show up to help him, and Nataniel didn't look over his shoulder to see if they were on their way. They weren’t.

Bruno's expression turned from predator to prey. Afraid. Without his henchmen to protect him and no longer alone in the room with a victim, but faced with two people to contend with, he was much less scary, even with the knife.

He called again for his henchmen, and for a moment I thought: How long are those henchmen going to stay in the bathroom?

Because for sure I didn't think that Nataniel had overpowered them, escaped from them to run in to Bruno’s bedroom on his own. That was unthinkable. That was crazy.

But it was the only explanation. My vegan librarian--the professor--had somehow subdued the goons, and that made him a veritable threat to Bruno and my ticket to freedom.

"Where are my men?" Bruno asked Nataniel.

"They're not coming." Nataniel's voice was cool, calm, as if he was telling Bruno that the sun was shining or that it was Tuesday. Normal. Banal. Uninteresting.

"What did you do with them?" Bruno asked. He was incredulous. He probably thought Nataniel shot them with an invisible weapon or brought in the army. How could he have overpowered the two mouth-breathing behemoths?

Nataniel sighed heavily, but didn't respond to Bruno. He took a couple steps toward him, and Bruno squatted like a shortstop ready to snag a grounder. Or in his case, braced himself for a fight.

It should have been an easy fight. He had a weapon, and Nataniel was armed with nothing. Only five percent body fat and string bean arms, as if he hadn't done a day's hard labor in his life, and he probably hadn't.

Nataniel never said a word, and with each second that passed in silence, the reality seemed to dawn on Bruno: His goons were gone. Snuffed out by a vegan librarian, by a mild-mannered man that Bruno hadn't taken seriously.

Hell, nobody took him seriously. Maybe it was the glasses. Maybe it was his quiet ways, but Nataniel wasn't a man that emanated respect. At least not in that way. Not in the fear way.

But now it seemed Bruno had plenty of fear where Nataniel was concerned.

He screamed out for his henchmen one more time, and it reminded me that it had been me just a few minutes before, calling out for help. Predator had become prey. Prey had become predator. The monster had met his match.

Nataniel approached Bruno slowly, never blinking. Never taking his eyes off of the monster.

"Get back!" Bruno ordered, waving his knife in the air like he was directing traffic.

Nataniel cocked his head to the side, as if he didn't understand him. Bruno quickly lunged with the knife, but Nataniel grabbed it, allowing it to cut deeply into his hand.

I screamed in horror, but it was Bruno's face that registered the most distress.

Nataniel wrenched the knife away from him, his hand a bloody mess. But the struggle wasn't over. Faced with a man who wasn't afraid of getting stabbed to death, Bruno took it up a notch and punched Nataniel in the face. His fist landed with a loud crack.

Nataniel shook his head like a dog after a swim, but beyond that, the punch didn't seem to faze him. Unafraid. Unhurt. Nataniel was singularly focused, but now he was injured and bleeding, and Bruno took advantage of that.

Grabbing Nataniel by his arms, Bruno yanked at him. Nataniel got off balance, and I watched as he began to topple over. I ran to help.

I mean, I was tired of being the helpless female in this story. Besides, I was pissed. Pissed! There was no way Bruno was going to win, and now that he was disarmed, I sort of wanted to hit him where it hurts.

I punched Bruno in the arm with all my strength and tried to wrench his hands off of Nataniel. But Nataniel had regained his balance and was in complete control of the fight. He seemed to take my interference with more than a little bit of impatience. He took hold of my arm and sent me flying into the wall with surprising force.

The wind was completely knocked out of me when I made impact with the wall. I tried to catch my breath. I held my head and willed it to stop spinning around. I didn't have a lot of luck fighting. I probably should stay clear of fighting in the future, I thought. Or maybe get a dog.

“We’re supposed to be on the same side,” I mumbled.

Near me, I could hear the struggle escalate between the two men. They grunted with the effort to survive the other one. I gathered my strength and stood up, determined to help Nataniel subdue Bruno.

But by the time I turned around to the action, the grunting had stopped.

Bruno lay on the floor with a knife planted to the hilt in the soft flesh of his belly, his body prostrate and lifeless.

Nataniel pulled the knife out of Bruno’s body, and a pool of blood gurgled from the incision. He held the weapon, as if it was dead, too. Lifeless with no further use.

“Nataniel?” I said, but he was far away in his head, gazing at Bruno’s bloody corpse and the bloody knife in his hand.

I fled from the room and called the police. "Help! Murder! Blood! Tycoon!" I shouted into the phone, crossing my fingers that they would understand me. They did. Within minutes, the police climbed aboard the yacht, ready to take on an army.

It dawned on me that it was probably no secret to the police that Bruno the tycoon dabbled in arms smuggling and something more. They had wisely decided not to take any chances and came prepared. I waited outside on the deck and shouted "over here!" when they got on board. They pulled me aside, concerned for my injuries.

"He's inside," I said. "Dead. Nataniel helped me. He's injured much worse than me."