The Bond That Built Us (13 page)

The man turns to the other, and I hear him call him ‘Carlos.’ Carlos is slightly taller than the one speaking, and his hair is cut really short. The other has long black hair that flops into his eyes, and he has a weeklong five o’clock shadow.
He has chubby cheeks and his teeth are a tinge of gray.

Finally they both turn to me. Carlos comes forward and speaks to me. “Why
shouldn’t we kill your friend?”

After
processing what he said, I clear my throat and pray that it works. “He has money. Lots of money. We can get it for you, but you can’t kill him.” I choke on the word ‘kill’ and sit and wait while they mull over the information. I’m still on the floor, sitting on my knees with my ankles and wrists bound together. I don’t know what they want from me but hopefully I can keep Kellan alive long enough to get out of here. People always want money. They will wait for that. If they kill him, the money won’t come. I can keep Kellan alive just a little bit longer. I still don’t know why they picked me. Maybe because I was an easy target just walking down the street alone.

“Okay. We
will keep him alive for a while. But if you fuck up, he’s gone.” I gulp and nod, thankful that Kellan has a little more time. The two men exit the room, leaving Kellan and me alone. Whatever strength I had that was keeping me upright during the altercation with the men left my body in a huff and I collapse to the floor.

“Aubrey? Are you okay? Aubrey!” Kellan yells, frantic.

“I’m okay. Just tired.” My eyes feel heavy and my body is giving out. The stress of what is happening is taking a toll on me. “Let’s sleep,” I mumble.

“Can you get up on the cot? It is probably more comfortable.”

“Only if you are with me,” I think I say. I don’t really know if it is coherent. But Kellan slides on the floor over to me and tries to help me on the little bed. I am like a wet noodle, though, and he struggles.

“Aubrey, come on. Just try for a sec.” His voice gives me just enough power to push up from my feet and arch my back to shimmy onto the mattress. He does the same, only more graceful, and we squeeze together on the tiny cot. I can feel him watching me so I will my eyes to open.

“I wish my hands weren’t tied, I want to touch you right now,” he whispers.

“And I wish we were back at the
villa and I didn’t get us into this mess.” I still can’t believe it. It’s a nightmare that I am just waiting to wake up from.

“Aubrey, it’s nobody’s fault.
”That’s where he’s wrong. It is my fault, I left alone and at night. I was just asking to be taken. I wasn’t thinking then and acted irrational. But I don’t want to argue with him. Deep down he knows who holds the burden. Kellan pivots slightly to give me a little more room on the cot. “Just try and get some sleep. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

I nod and close my eyes again and somehow fall asleep within seconds.

A hand wraps around my calf and I am yanked off the cot and onto the dirty floor. My head bounces off the ground and all I can see are black and white dots.
The pain is radiating all over my body in waves. There is a ringing in my ears and I have the thought that my head is cracked open. I imagine blood seeping out of my skull and slithering in a stream down to the drain that is in the middle of the floor. When my sight becomes clear again, I see Kellan a few feet from me, a cut on his cheekbone and blood clotted around his nose. His eyes are closed but I can see his body twitching. He’s alive.

The hand on my leg squeezes tighter and he yells in my fac
e. “The cotis not for him! Only you.” His nostrils flare and he is scowling so hard, a vein in his temple is popping out.

Carlos is standing above me and his hand releases my leg and smacks me across the face. Then he leaves. I’m so confused about what is going on or why I am here. I want to ask but am afraid of the answer.

After minutes, hours, I don’t know, Kellan rolls over and opens his eyes. He sees me on the floor and groans. “Fuck,” he moans. He sits up and cringes, asking, “Are you okay?” He moves his nose around, a little like the Bewitched chick. The dried up blood cracks and a fresh new batch of red trickles out.

“I’m okay,” I say. “What about you?”
I’ve been staring at him ever since Carlos left. The pain in my head has subsided and my cheek doesn’t sting anymore. I’m sure there are remnants of his hand there but at least I can’t feel it anymore.

He let out a humorless laugh. “Been better. What the fuck is their problem?”

“I don’t know. He said the cot is for me, and you can’t be on it. Then he left.” I conveniently left out the part where he hit me. Kellan didn’t need to feel guilty about that. We sit there on the floor, speechless, just waiting for the men to come back.

I don’t want them to, but we know it is inevitable. When they
do finally come back, we don’t know how much time has passed. They come in with two bowls and two spoons. They set one in front of each of us, untie our hands, and leave again. I peer down into the white ceramic bowl and see chicken noodle soup.

I am so hungry but I’m afraid to try it. I sip the broth hesitantly and when I don’t keel over, I devour the rest of it. I see Kellan doing the same. We both sigh in contentment. He crawls the few feet between us and touches
my cheek with his hand. I cry, wondering if I was ever going to be touched gently again. I see red marks around his wrists and when I look and see the same wounds on me, I cry some more. He continues to touch me all over, assessing my wounds. He growls when I wince after he touches a bruise or cut. He still feels guilty.

Another long period of time goes by before the men come back. They slide two water bottles toward us and when we are guzzling it down, they attack. I shriek, expecting the worst, but they grab our wrists and tie them together again, only in front of us.

“What time is it?” I ask.

The man who isn’t Carlos looks at his watch and says, “
Thirty after ten.”

“What day? How long have we been here?”

He snarls at me, apparently perturbed at all my questions, but says, “Over twenty four hours.”

He shoves me down onto the cot as I do the math. So it has to be ten thirty in the evening. Somehow we went the whole day with only having a cup of soup and a bottle of water. I am still shaky, though I don’t know if it’s from lack of food and water or from fear.

Kellan moves so his back is leaning against the side of the cot after they leave. He is facing the room, his back to me.

“We can do this, Aubrey. We can get out of here.”

I scoff and roll my eyes, though he can’t see me.

“I’m serious. They’re smart
, I mean they managed to get us both, but they make mistakes. I don’t know if they’ve never done this before or if they are being careless, but they’ve fucked up plenty of times already.” He waits a few seconds before continuing. “Think about it. They took you on a busy street. That couple saw us, saw them, saw the van, and they notified the cops. They let me live. They aren’t hiding their faces, they unbound us for a while, then recklessly tied us back.”

“So? I don’t think they care about that stuff. If they want to kill us, they will. The
n what?”

He turns his body and looks me in the eye. “We can do it. We just need to survive for a little longer and learn more about them. Then we make our move.”

I chew on my lip anxiously. Talking about trying to escape scares me because if we get caught, there is no other way out. We’ll be dead. “But if we stay and comply, maybe they will let us go once they have the money. That’s all they want and then we’ll be free, right?”

Kellan shrugs and looks down at his hands which are cut and dirty. “I don’t know, I don’t think so,” he whispers truthfully.

I tell myself that Kellan is just being cynical and we will get out of here no matter what. But as I lie here and stare up at the cracked and stained ceiling, reality starts to kick in and I know. I know that there won’t be a way out unless we make it happen. The saying
it’s always darkest before the dawn
pops in my head and while I should use it as encouragement, I can’t help but wonder how dark this journey can go before dawn hits.

12

Kellan

We are woken by the sound of the men in the hallway, laughing and yelling. They sound drunk. My whole body aches from sleeping on the floor. I wish I could be up on the cot with Aubrey, not just because it is just slightly more comfortable, but because I want her to feel safe. Well, saf
er
.

The men bang on the door and it swings open. They walk to the center of the room and pull the string of the light, illuminating the room. I look at the light bulb and when I look away, I see a big white spot.

“Get up!” The men yell. One trips over his own feet and stumbles, while the other one chuckles at his wavering stance. Aubrey told me earlier that the taller one is Carlos. He is standing above Aubrey with a domineering look in his eyes.

“We have
a show for you,” Carlos says, turning his head to me. “I think you will enjoy it.”

His arm juts out and he grabs Aubrey by the throat. She wails and
pleads as he moves closer to her and sticks his thumb into her mouth. She shakes her head violently to try and knock him off but he clenches tighter on her throat and she coughs and wheezes a little and stops fighting.

A sneer plays on his lips as he takes her wrist bindings and re-s
ecures them above her head, tying them to the corner of the cot. My body goes into overdrive, starting to realize what he is going to do. I’m hoping and praying I’m wrong. But as he trails his nasty hand down her face, chest, stomach, and to her shorts to unbutton them, I know I’m right.

Before I can retaliate, the other man grabs my restraints and pulls me to the wall, where he holds me back.
My jaw is clenched so tight my teeth could shatter at any second.

Carlos rips her shorts down to her ankles where they get tangled in her bindings. He does the same with her underwear and sh
e is weeping uncontrollably now, her body convulsing as she sobs.

“NO! You sick bastard, don’t fucking touch her!” I scream and pull hard against the knots around my ankles and wrists. The other guy yanks back and I slide to my knees, still refusing to give up.
I continue to fight against him but he is holding his ground and I can’t gain any momentum to uproot him.

Carlos looks at me with spite, and says calmly, “You get to watch while I make her scream.” He slides his belt
off and throws it on the floor and pulls out a condom packet from his filthy jeans.

I yell and curse while he hovers over her. She continues to buck around as best as she can but once his weight pushes down on her his strength overpowers her. I squeeze my eyes tight, not wanting to watch what is happening.

“No, no, no, please, don’t… please…” Aubrey pleads, desperation lacing in her voice. Her pleas become louder and more frantic as the seconds go by. But her begging does her no good because the next thing I hear is her scream out and cry loudly. The man behind me elbows me in the side and breathes something incoherent into my ear. He smells of stale beer and cigarettes.

“You will watch!” Carlos yells from over by the bed. “Watch or I do
it again.”

I open my eyes and force myself to watch the most horrific thing I might ever see. Tears are streaming down Aubrey’s face and she keeps mumbling ‘no’ and ‘please’ over and over again. Her chin and lower lip is quivering uncontrollably and seeing her in so much pain and anguish gives me a second wind.

I jerk forcefully against the man and he startles and drops me. I come so close to ramming Carlos away but the other one catches up to me, yanking me back with only inches left between me and Carlos. In no time at all, Carlos finishes, but not before Aubrey throws up all over him. He curses and yells in Spanish and thrusts hard into her to punish her for it. He grabs her by the cheeks and digs his fingers into her skin. Then he releases and smacks her face hard, causing her head to whip to the side.

He pulls off of her and slips his jeans back up from his knees. I am panting heavily from exertion and sorrow, hating myself for allowing that to happen. The second man throws me to the floor and walks over to Aubrey and touches her, slipping his finger inside of her.
She makes a defying sound but can’t move enough out of the way to get him to stop. Her thighs are trembling and twitching while he touches her.

“I get next,” he says confidently and pulls her underwear and shorts back up. He unties her from the cot and the two of them leave, but not before smiling at me maliciously.

I am shaking with so much anger my restraints are rattling. I want to kill them, with my bare hands. Watching that is and will be the worst thing that has happened to me. And poor Aubrey, I can’t even begin to fathom how she is feeling. I was here, five feet from her and couldn’t stop it. I am a failure and a liar. I vowed to keep her safe when I couldn’t. I almost hate myself more than I hate the men. Almost.

Aubrey rolls to her side and throws up again, this time on the floor. She just lays there
lax with her head hanging over the side of the cot, unmoving.