Learning to Trust: Curtain Falls (4 page)

I passed out almost immediately, the
world
a fleeting thing that my emotional state just couldn't handle anymore. Oh, how I had needed that...

***

Frederic suddenly
woke me in the middle of the night, his hands gently shaking me
until I was conscious
. "Wha—"

"Marisa, we have to go." Frederic's voice was deadly serious.
Were we in danger here?

"What are you talking about?" I rubbed my eyes, squinting at the dim light from the lamp on the nearby desk. It peered at me and forcibly stole away my sleepiness, a glowing eye in the darkness of the room.

"The deal is on," he said firmly. "We're going to meet Roland"
He spoke with continuing
finality.

"
Deal
?" I asked. "I don't want any part of this. I can't see him again."

"You're coming. There's nothing you can do about it.
" I'd never heard Frederic speak like this before.

"Am I in danger?" I asked. My fatigue was now a relic from my past, a fleeting memory. Adrenaline was pumping.

"You are if you don't come," he said.

"Frederic, I just can't—"

"Hurry the fuck up!" he snarled. "I'm not kidding about this. We
need
to go. Get your stuff,
now
!"

"Okay, okay, okay," I whined. There was so much ambiguity surrounding his intensity.

Why was he acting like this? Were we in danger here? Was
he
threatening me? Or were we just in an unsafe place because Roland might dispatch his cronies to come fetch us? God, we had shared such a beautiful moment earlier, one that had been both tender and frenetic, thoughtful and passionate.
There was passion here, sure, b
ut
it wasn't pleasant in the least—and it was
scary
.

I got my things together and dressed quickly. "Can I use the bathroom before we go?"

"Hurry up," Frederic said. He was pacing back and forth near the window. "Don't try anything
funny
."

I froze in my tracks. Was I a
hostage
? I somehow convinced my feet to move and walked into the bathroom, shutting the door behind me. My brain sprung to life, infinite possibilities surging through my consciousness. Had I chosen the wrong person
yet again
? Did they know I was undercover? Maybe Frederic was about to drag me to Roland and
throw me at his feet to beg
for mercy.
Fuck!
My phone was in my purse in the room.

This was
fight or flight
—but was there anything I could do?
God, nothing made any sense. He had seemed so distraught about Roland's violent actions last night. What was
this
?

Calm down, Marisa.
Don't assume
anything
.
Don't trust anyone but yourself—

"Hurry up!" I heard from outside the door.

"Okay, okay," I said again. I used the bathroom and then quickly washed my hands, taking a moment to look at myself; I realized that it might be the last time I ever got the chance. I looked worn and used, the victim of a complex set of rules and obligations. Dark circles hung beneath my eyes and my hair was an absolute mess. I fought the urge to cry harder than I ever had in my life—I didn't want Frederic to see my weakness, not now.
I was mad...
and that was exactly
I wanted him to
see.

I finally walked out, my composure the best it could be given the circumstances. My eyes, full of hostility, locked with Frederic's. "You ready now?" His voice was suddenly filled with timidity. Maybe I had actually intimidated him—or he just calmed down.

"Yeah. Where are we going?" I swallowed and realized I probably wouldn't be able to maintain
rage
very long.

"I can't tell you that. We'll be there soon enough. C'mon. Please be cooperative so I don't have to—"

"To what?" I said venomously, cutting him off. "Kill me?"

"Marisa, come on, I'm not going to—"

"Go to hell," I
said, once more asserting my dominance that
didn't actually
go any further than
our
conversation. It was a pretty pitiful show of power. One thing clicked though, while we were standing there—I needed to try to do
something
with my phone. I didn't know if I could actually call
Ramón
somehow, but I'd at least do my best to attempt. I needed to get the phone powered on without Frederic noticing, and then try to send some sort of message. I didn't even consider what might happen to me if he caught me trying to use it.

Frederic made me go first, his eyes following me like a hawk. When I got around to my side of the car—he had moved it from the position against the wall where I could barely get out of it; how nice of him
!
—I reached into my purse and pressed the power button on my phone, the inside of my purse suddenly il
luminated by the startup screen. I paused very briefly and then climbed inside.

Oh shit, what if I had a bunch of missed notifications?
The phone would go crazy after it came on—and that exact thing happened. I felt it start to buzz, the
night time
silence interrupted by awakening technology. I coughed and forced the purse to the floor, hoping it would be
enough
. And then, the engine roared to life, drowning out the telltale phone. I had never been so thankful for that machismo sound in my life.

I waited with absolute patience to see if Frederic had noticed anything—he just went through the motions of driving the car as if nothing had changed. A sigh of relief escaped me
that I suppose seemed okay
. I still didn't have a plan, but I at least had another
option
.

We had passed out early, so it didn't surprise me when I saw the clock on the dashboard said
three
o'clock in the morning. I guess if this was the big international deal, it must mean that the
big guns
had just arrived from a transatlantic flight—and perhaps were impatient. Apparently
,
Frederic didn't have anything to say, because he was just as quiet as I was. Maybe he was figuring out his own plan of action...

I wa
s surprised by how awake I felt.
I guess it
probably
helped that I felt like my
life was being threatened
. Fear was quite the drug, really. This was way better than coffee.

It was difficult to get comfortable in my seat, even though this was a luxury car. My body was just mimicking the actions of my mind, the futile attempts to figure out a way to use my phone without Frederic noticing. I knew I couldn't text without looking, so I ruled that out first.

What else could I do?
I went over the very limited options in my mind. If I could see the screen, that would
mean
that it was illuminating the interior of the car, an obvious dead giveaway. It didn't take me long to realize that the only option I had was a total shot in the dark, one that I had no way of verifying the success of. I had to try, however.

Ramón
was the last person I called, therefore, if I hit the call button multiple times, it should bring up the
recently called list
and then call him. I would just have to try it over and over again, hoping that an unending stream of calls would let him know something was up.

I sat and quietly watched Frederic, studying his routine of checking each mirror and popping over keeping an eye on me. It was robotic, predictable. I slid my hand into my purse, put it into position, and waited for him to look at his driver's side mirror. The next time he did, I pressed the button multiple times in a row
and wa
ited. As expected, I had no clue
if anything was actually going right.

Since I also didn't know
how long the journey would take, I immediately tried again after a few minutes
, my intention to get as many calls through as possible
. How would
Ramón
even find me? Would he triangulate the location from my cell phone? I'd heard people say that before—Frederic had warned me about it with Roland as well—
but I didn't understand how it worked. It felt like I was missing something, some crucial piece of the puzzle, but my slate was totally blank.

I mindlessly pressed that button over and over again, pausing between each attempt, convinced that
it both
wasn't working
and
that Frederic still hadn't noticed.
I had fallen into a slight trance as I worked.
The car suddenly came to an abrupt stop. We were in the middle of nowhere, so I figured something was amiss. My heart started pounding. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"You think I can't see you playing with your phone? Give it to me. Now."

"No," I pleaded. "I'm not doing anything with it."

"Then give it to me. I told you
to leave it turned off
. It's going to get you into trouble."

"It's not on," I said.

Frederic
looked at me, his
eyes scolding me as much as his words. "Listen, I'm not going to play this game anymore. I've seen it lighting up half the car for the past twenty minutes." He was getting noticeably frustrated. "Give me the
goddamn
phone
now
, Marisa."

I sat there in silence, not sure what I should do. What would he do with the phone? Would he check to see whom I had been calling? There were a lot
of
risks associated with handing over that phone, a lot of—

His hand grabbed my purse and wrestled the phone out of it, his strength more than I would have ever predicted. I fought him, grabbing for that stolen, sacred object, fighting for it like my life depended on it.
His driver's side window started to lower and finally the climax occurred—he hurled the phone out of the window. I heard it crack loudly against the pavement, the fatal blow that
signaled
the end. That plan was no more. I could only hope it hadn't been entirely in vain.

Hopelessness kept me frozen. At the very least, I had prevented him from finding out who I had been in communication with. That was a small victory, at the very least. Still, the blow was devastating, the intensity sobering. If I had any doubt that this was serious, it was gone now.

In
my
brief moment of inaction
and contemplation
, a lot of things flashed through my mind. Images from my childhood, college, my many work-related experiences. There were my parents, the days on the beach with my friends, the bustling city that I had spent so much time in before coming here. And then there was blackness, chasing all of it away, wiping it off the face of the earth
.
I didn't want to give up now. No, that wouldn't be worth it.

What did I have to lose anymore
?

W
hy was I going along with this
?
For some reason I felt like I was being led into a slaughterhouse, just winding around
and following the other cows
until I'd suddenly meet my death by surprise.

I was stronger than that. I decided
I'd try to
run, to flee this.
Who could I trust now?
Nobody seemed to fit the bill besides
Ramón
, and he was
inconveniently located
right now.
Would
he find me and end this madness? There didn't seem to be anything left to do but run—or at least try.
I yanked open my door before Frederic started driving again and jumped into the night.

The road was surrounded by woods, so I
would just make a straight shot and get as far as I could. I liked the idea of Roland getting enraged because his
precious Frederic
had lost track of his
girl
. My feet hit the ground hard as I took my first running steps.
Unbeknownst to me, t
he gravel on the side of the road was c
omprised of loose stones.
I fell to
the ground
as my foot su
nk into the unexpected textured and stripped me of my forward momentum.

Pain shot through my leg as it scraped across the stones, the stinging something I'd have to ignore for now. I scrambled back to my feet, doing everything in my power to find stability.

Bang!

I froze, the loudness overwhelming my ears. That was
a
gun
. It had to be.
Was I shot
? Nothing felt different, but then again, it never seemed to be that way in the movies.
The guy always heard the shot and then realized a moment later that the bullet had penetrated his abdomen
after feeling around
.
Was that me
? I felt my belly, but everything seemed to be normal. I was so disorientated, so—