Bittersweet Heroine (3 page)

He looked into my eyes curiously. I’m sure he expected me to tell him my plan, but I still had to work on it.

It would probably take days, weeks, or maybe even a few months, but I would accomplish what I needed to do and I would finally be freed from the chains that held me in Amsterdam and I would take as many of the girls as I could with me.

Valentina

I
kept pressure on my cut. The napkin I held against it felt wet and warm and I wondered how the hell it was possible that something like this could have happened. It should have been easy; get in, find the American, and get out. Now I wouldn’t be able to work for Smith because he knew and I wouldn’t be able to work for Kerstan because
he
knew as well.

I sat back against the lush leather seat in Kerstan’s car as he yelled at his driver to go as quickly as he could. He sat with me in the back and pulled the napkin away again.

“Does it hurt?” he asked me.

“
Niet
,” I replied, slightly shaking my head.

“Liar,” he said with soft chuckle as he pressed the napkin back against the side of my face. He sighed and ran his hand back through his hair, “Why didn’t you listen to me when I told you not to go? Did you really think I was going to leave her there?”

I rolled my eyes, slid away from him, and glanced out the window. “This is not about you and what you want. This is what I have to do for
myself.
I chose to help the American because I heard rumors about a House Master falling for one of his girls and I knew it was you. Who else would it be? You forget that I was one of your first workers, Kerstan. I know how soft you can be even though you portray yourself as something completely different. Have you really become this cruel, this hard?”

Kerstan sighed.

“I am whatever is required of me to keep my business intact and unchallenged. I was going to stop a couple of years ago, but then Luuk, he approached me with a business offer I couldn’t refuse. In return for helping him set up his own House and getting revenge on a whore that tore his family apart, I was to get an even split of the money his girls made for him. How could I say no?”

“And the American? How do you feel about her?” I asked with a grimace. I hoped this conversation would be over soon, as I was starting to feel dizzy.

“I feel nothing about her,” he shot back, giving me a stern look.

I smiled at him, a knowing smile that told him I knew better, before I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. It took another ten minutes for the feeling of nausea and dizziness to go away, but that was better than not going away ever.

I felt strong hands wrap around me moments later, and opened my eyes. I was tired and I’m sure it was due to the loss of blood, but as I looked groggily into Kerstan’s face, I knew I would be somewhat safe for now. He reached into the car and pulled me up into his arms, cradled me against his chest, and used his foot to close the door as he walked toward the main doors.

As soon as he walked through the doors, there were gasps and whispers. He bellowed for any of the grandmothers and as they approached, he began speaking to them rapidly in Dutch. He told them that I was to be taken care of hand and foot on a twenty four basis. He told them to call a doctor who would come and glue my wound so that it wouldn’t scar as terribly as it would with stitches.

In a matter of him being done giving them directions, he set me on my feet and one of the elderly women took me away to my own private room on the floor. One I imagined had once belonged to the American at some point.

I sighed as the grandmother laid me down on one of the two beds and told me she would be back with clothes and a warm blanket for me. I closed my eyes again, but reopened them moments later when I felt like I was being watched.

“Did you see her?”

I turned slightly on my side to get a better look at the girl with the angelic face, drawn tightly together in old anger and desperation. She had long brown hair, big brown eyes, and kept her arms crossed tightly across her chest. Her accent was not of Dutch descent, but I couldn’t figure out where she was from.

“Amity? Did you see her?” she asked again, taking a few tentative steps toward the bed.

I didn’t answer. Not for any reason other than I didn’t know if I could trust her. Instead, I pulled the napkin away from my cut, opened and refolded it, and pressed the cleaner side down.

“Do you speak English? Do you understand or speak German. I don’t speak Dutch. I understand some of it. Amity? Lieve?” she asked desperately close to tears.

“Are you a friend?” I finally inquired.

“Yes. My name here is Betje, but my real name is Wendeline. Is she okay? Is she alive?”

“She’s alive,” I confirmed, not wanting to say much else about how mentally broken Amity seemed to be.

“Thank God,” the little German said, sitting on the bed next to me. “I miss her so much.”

I watched her wring her hands as she looked at me. It seemed as if though she wanted to ask me more questions, but wasn’t sure if she should.

“Out,” Kerstan said entering the room. He walked over to Betje and affectionately put a hand on her shoulder. “She needs rest. You and I will talk in a moment. Wait for me in the hallway.”

The German girl got to her feet and stared at me for a moment, before she turned her eyes to Kerstan, nodded, and left the room.

“That’s her best friend,” he explained as he sat down where Betje was. “I hadn’t been very kind to her and Lieve tried to protect her from me. I wasn’t happy about it so I had some things done to her while Lieve watched then I sent her to Luuk.”

“I’m not a priest,” I replied in a labored voice. The numbness was starting to go away and the pain was starting to creep up on me.

“I’m aware,” he said with a wry smile. “But I think that you should be aware of how I’ve ... evolved as a House Master since you’ve been gone. It’ll help both of us; me if you let me talk about it and you, if you listen.”

I rolled onto my other side so my back would be to him. It hurt like hell since that’s the side my cut was on, but not only did I not have time for stories I had no want for them either.

He scoffed as he the bed creaked, signaling him getting to his feet.

“Eventually you’ll have to listen. The doctor is on his way. Stay in this room until you feel better.”

I heard his footsteps retreating as he left the room, following by the door closing.

With my eyes closed, I sighed again. I hadn’t even come close to saving the American and now Luuk knew the real reason I had come to his house.

I can’t save her yet. I haven’t even saved myself.

Famke

T
he screams were starting to haunt me. Ever since the Dutch girl had left with Kerstan, Amity had been wailing. It scared me because I didn’t know what was wrong or what had been happening to her to cause it. 

Luuk had locked her back into the main dining room once they had left and warned us that if we let her out or went near the door, we’d be found floating in the Amstel river. He said no one would care about a discarded whore and everyone believed him.

Everyone but me.

In the moment that Kerstan had spared my life, I learned that not all House Masters were bastards like Luuk. It made my fear of him and my want to be free clash together with my quest for freedom being the winner.

I wanted to help her, but not the way Kerstan’s girl wanted to help her. I wanted to set her free, truly free, to stop the pain and anguish she had suffered in her short life. Not because I hated her, but because I could see myself in her and I didn’t know if I would be able to sustain myself much longer if she was around. 

Amity would be dead, I’d be in jail for the crime and we would both be away from Luuk. It was the perfect plan, I only had to figure out how to execute it.

I took a deep breath as I left my room. The other girls were asleep somehow and the halls were empty. I walked quickly to the dining room and almost stopped short when I saw the door was slightly ajar.

I looked down at my bare feet for a moment wondering how I close I could get before I was noticed. I pushed the fear of being caught out of my mind and walked toward the door again when she let out a howl.

The closer I got the more my body started to shake. The howling, the wailing; something was obviously very wrong. I walked up to the door and I pressed my face against the opening, as the dim light illuminated a small portion of the room. It took my eyes a full sweeps of the room to find her and when I did, my hand flew to my mouth.

She ... she was under the table, the chairs had been knocked out of the way,  the table had been flipped on it’s side, and there was a group of men standing around her ... they were ... taking turns with her.

I watched as she fought wildly until two of the men restrained her while a third pushed himself onto her. Amity let out another scream as the man viciously moved in and out her until he was finished. Then another climbed on top of her, then another. And all the while Luuk was standing against the far wall, his arms crossed over his chest, as he watched Amity being gang raped by almost every client he had.

I felt myself becoming ill. I turned around and I ran from the room. Killing Amity wouldn’t save her, hell it wouldn’t save
me
either. This was our life now and this is what we were meant to be.

I got back to the room and I threw myself onto my bed and started to sob. Ilse came over and laid down behind me, wrapping her arm around me.

“Are they hurting her?” she asked quietly.

A heart-wrenching sob was my only response. I couldn’t nod my head, it was still full of the image of what was happening to her.

“Can we help her?” she asked.

I let out another sob, feeling absolutely helpless. There was nothing anyone could do to help.

“Famke, stop crying. There’s something I have to tell you. It’ll help us all, but I need you to pull yourself together for me. Please?”

She pulled her arm away from me and sat up. I rolled onto my back, trying to steady my breathing, as I wiped fresh tears away.

“When Kerstan and his girl were leaving. I slipped a note to them. No one knows this, but I’ve been in Luuk’s room. He’s used me for his own personal pleasure before and I’ve talked to him about things. Did you know that he has a brother named Theo? Did you know that Theo and Amity were very much in love? I wrote that down and got it to Kerstan when he was leaving. If somehow he can find Theo and bring him here, maybe this will all be over. Maybe this nightmare will end and maybe we’ll be able to get out of this with whatever dignity we have left.”

I looked at her like she had lost her mind. Why would Kerstan want to help us? Any of us? We weren’t his girls and Amity was just his fuck toy when he wanted.

“Give it time. We’ll be out of here soon,” she promised, before she went back to her bed and pulled her covers up over her head.

I wish I had her resolve.

Theo

I
was standing in the airport asking myself for the millionth time why I had put so much stock into a random phone call.

I didn’t even know who the guy was and it was kind of hard for me to understand what he wanted, but what I did understand were two words that made my heart beat erratically; Amity Crane. As soon as he said her name and Amsterdam, I was booking the first flight flying over.

For all of her faults, I still loved her. I had every intention of making her my wife before she went temporarily nuts and partied her way into my little brother’s bed, but I loved her so much that I was willing to forgive that.

I just wanted her back. I felt a part of me die off when she left. She said she needed to find herself and I was so angry with her for leaving and not wanting to attempt to fix things right away that I pretty much threw her out of my life. But it had been three years already and this was the first I had heard of her whereabouts and I was going to bring my  love home, no matter what.

As I went through airport security I felt myself getting a bit excited. By all counts, I knew this could be potentially dangerous, but Amity Crane wasn’t a common name and she said she’d be going to Europe. I could only hope that she managed to get clean after she got there and didn’t go to Amsterdam for the drugs.

I reasoned with myself that if I had gotten to this point, listening to a mystery man on the phone telling me where to find her, then I didn’t really give a shit. I just wanted to bring Amity home once and for all so we could start over again.

An hour or so later, I boarded the plane, popped some Dramamine, and let myself drift off to sleep. I figured that if I slept for the whole flight, I’d wake up refreshed and ready to go.

Some hours later I was jostled gently awake by one of the flight attendants. She smiled at me and told me that we had arrived. I thanked her, got to my feet, and reached for my backpack that I had slid into the overhead compartment. Once it was securely on my back, I exited the plane and went into the terminal.

This was as far as I knew to go, other than this I felt completely lost. Part of me was expecting her to be waiting for me when I got off of the plane, part of me was wondering when I would realize this was a cruel joke.

But when I saw a pristinely dressed man holding up a sign that said Theo Lennox, I realized this might not be a joke after all. I walked up to him and showed him my ID to let him know who I was and he told me to follow him.

“First time in Amsterdam?” he asked, once I had gotten situated in the backseat of his car.

“Yeah.”

“I hope you enjoy it then,” he said with a nod as he pulled away from the curb and into traffic.

“Thanks. I’m just here to pick up my girlfriend honestly,” I said, leaning back into the chair.

He glanced at me in the rearview mirror and nodded again. It was weird to me that I was so willing to go with this strange man that I didn’t know, in a car that belonged to someone I didn’t know, that I had put all of my faith in to get me to Amity.