Psycho Save Us (9 page)

Panicking, Kaley
tried to wrench her hands apart.  That didn’t work.  The handcuffs were closed
tight, cutting off circulation it felt like.  It was dark inside the room. 
Bars of moonlight came through the shades of a window above her, casting her
and her sister in zebra stripes.  On the floor of whatever room she was in,
toys lay strewn like so much detritus.  There was a space heater, but it wasn’t
currently running.  A ceiling fan overhead blew on its lowest setting, giving
off a light gust that in her latest dream had manifested itself as the wind
blowing in her face as she stuck her head out the bus window on the way to
school.

There were
voices.  Perhaps the echoes from before?  No, new ones.  These came from
someplace.  They came from somewhere inside the house.  Sounded not too far
away.  An adjacent room.  There were three or four different men, all jockeying
for position in the conversation.  She caught snippets of English words, but
there was also plenty of some other language to conflate the topic being
discussed.  At times the voices raised, then lowered, and even whispered before
rising again.

An argument?

Kaley kicked out
with her feet again, trying to break free of the cuffs by sheer power.  She had
heard of people becoming uncommonly strong when they were under pressure, but
she was issued no such magical powers now.  She screamed through her gag and
writhed in emotional anguish, and in frustration at herself for not listening
to the charm.

Beside her, Shannon
sniffled.  Fresh snot was moving from her nose and collecting around her gag. 
Her eyes were like saucers.  She was missing her pants, too, but still had on
her Powerpuff Girls underwear.  Kaley crawled over to her and threw her cuffed
hands around her neck, hugging her closely, briefly, hoping that this would
assuage her long enough so that Big Sister could do what had to be done.  “I
have to leave you,” she tried to say.  But what came out was, “Ah hah tuh luh
yuh.”

Shannon—poor,
poor Shan—she got the gist of this and shook her head violently.  She clung to
her sister, who was trying to separate from her.  Then, Kaley touched her
forehead to her sister’s.  She closed her eyes.  She couldn’t speak, but had to
make her sister see.  She had to make Shan feel what Big Sister had to do. 
What happened next was closely akin to prayer, only not directed towards the
heavens.  For a moment, Kaley felt something.  It was Little Sister Terror. 
Then, Shan’s body jerked, and she peed herself.  But peeing herself was good,
because after it was over it calmed her.  When Kaley opened her eyes, Shannon
was looking at her.  Her little sister nodded reluctantly.  She didn’t like it,
but she understood. 
Big Sister must leave to go get help for Little Sister
.

Kaley then
pushed herself away from Shan and found the nearest wall.  She couldn’t stand
right up, of course, because her feet were bound.  She inch-wormed until she
got her back pressed against the wall, which was made of cheap paneling and had
a ghoulish poster of Marilyn Manson half torn and hanging from it.  Other than
that, there was no other decoration to this room.

Kaley pushed
herself up to her feet, and then hopped twice before the door swung open.  “
Dorogaya
moya
,” said the burly white man, half ensconced in shadow.  “
Kak vashi
dela
?”

Kaley screamed
through her gag and dived for the window.  It was closed, of course.  On the
other side of the shades were steel burglar bars.  She had just enough time to
ram them once with her left shoulder, hearing a pop from within the socket, and
then the burly white man was on her.  He snatched her by her hair, tearing some
out and flinging her to the ground, landing atop her sister who wriggled to get
out of the way but only made it halfway.  Kaley landed in Shan’s urine, and
quickly spun her feet around to face her kidnapper.  She kept her knees bent,
both her cuffed feet cocked and ready to kick at his knees or shins if he
approached.

The big white
man stood over her for a moment.  And then he laughed.  He laughed long and
hard, even slapping his knee like he’d just heard the greatest yarn.  He wore a
black wife beater, gray khakis, and a chain for his wallet.  His face had
multiple piercings, and a tattoo of barbed wire or a twisted tree branch that
went down the right side of his face.  Another tattoo, this one of the crimson
bear, was on his right arm.  Kaley recalled that tattoo from her time in the
floorboard of the Expedition.

A mountain of
muscle, he towered over her like Oni from
White Ninja Meets Shaolin Crane
. 
For a moment, she thought insanely,
We’re in his clutches
. 
Oni has
us
.  It was the kind of thought born of delirium.  Her head still spun from
whatever they had used to knock her out. 
Probably that stuff—what’s it
called?—chloroform!
  She’s seen an
NCIS
episode where a woman got
kidnapped by her ex-husband using that stuff.

“
Ti takaya
prelesnaya
,” said Oni.  He leaned forward, the moonlight revealing two
tusklike protuberances at the edges of his mouth—large steel studs pierced
there.  Kaley saw that face grin at her ravenously, and she kicked up at his
face. 

Quick as a snake,
he snatched up her feet, held both ankles in one big hand, and ran his fingers
down the length of them.  “
Ya ischu devushku, kotoraya khochet lyubit i bit
luybimoy
,” he tittered.  His voice was much higher than his size hinted at.

Kaley struggled
to kick again, but couldn’t get her feet free of him.  She felt…sick.  It was
on her again.  The lust.  The terrible lust.  A thing so hideous it would make
it difficult to trust another man for years to come.  She shouted something
obscene at him, but he only laughed and tickled her legs.

“Hey, yo!”
someone called from down the hall.

The smile on Oni’s
face died.  He dropped her legs immediately and looked over his shoulder.  He
looked down at Kaley, tilted his head to one side, considering something.  And
she felt wanted.  She felt
his
want of her.  And the terror that rolled
right off her little sister next to her swirled and mixed with this lust,
causing an automatic cringe of revulsion from both.  For a moment, she was the
bearer of two great burdens.

Then, someone
shouted something down the hallway, out of sight where Kaley couldn’t see. 
This robbed the white man of almost all his lust as he made for the door.  He
paused in the door, though, and through the pale moonlight, she could just make
out his wink.  He did something with his lip that caused the steel studs to
click against his teeth.  “
Do vstrechi
,” he said, and shut the door. 
From the other side, she heard it lock.

To her, his last
words had seemed (felt) like a promise.

As soon as the
door closed, Kaley reached up to her gag.  She tried pulling at it, but it was
tough.  A sock or something like it had been shoved into her mouth, several
loops of duct tape had sealed it tightly against her head and something like a
zip tie had been added for good measure.  Her sister appeared done in the same
way.  No matter how they both struggled, nothing loosened these gags.

They wound up clutching
one another again.

Emotions swirled
about Kaley.  Her sister’s terror was the most powerful.  She was redolent with
it.  But other emotions ebbed and flowed throughout the house, permeating the
walls and permeating
her
.  Like wading through water at first, but then
someone had added cement to the mixture.  It was thick and oppressive on her. 
Distrust, lust, and anger welled in her.  She felt the abductors falling apart
already.

Minutes later, Kaley
and her sister heard more raised voices.  Then the door flung open again and in
walked three men.  One of them was the burly white man from before, but the
others were black men.  This gave her hope.  She hoped they were men from her neighborhood
who would recognize her, realize they’d made a mistake and grabbed the wrong
kids (who were the
right
kids?) and would set them free with the promise
not to tell anybody.

But this didn’t
happen at all.  Instead, the men said nothing as they dragged both Big and
Little Sister over to the space heater.  More handcuffs were produced, and
though Kaley struggled the whole time it didn’t stop them from cuffing her and
her sister to the space heater.

One of the black
men, a tall one built like a basketball player and wearing gold chains with a
cross about his neck, turned and said, in the most rational voice one could
imagine, “Let’s see her kick you now.”

The white man,
who before had spoken in the foreign language, now spoke in strained English,
“She not a problem.  Not problem for me.  I not worried.  Room secure.  My
people—”

“Yo people call
you a regular fuck-up,” the black man said, wearing a half smile of
satisfaction.  “That’s why yo ass got some help tonight.  Now get the fuck in the
livin’ room an’ let’s talk the rest o’ this out like men do.”  But the burly
foreigner with steel studs in his mouth didn’t go anywhere.

Another black
man, this one short and skinny and wearing pants pulled so low his underwear
was showing, waited by the door, shifting his weight back and forth,
fidgeting.  He touched the pistol tucked in his waistband impatiently, glancing
up the hallway like he was expecting someone to show at any time.

The bigger black
man knelt so that he was eye level with Kaley.  “This yo sista?”  Kaley didn’t
move.  “This yo sista.”  It wasn’t a question this time.  “Imma kill her if you
try anything again.  White boy over there says you tried to dip.  Don’t.”  He
pulled out a pistol.  Kaley didn’t know what kind it was.  Cars were the limit
of her boy stuff knowledge.  He touched the gun to Shannon’s head.  Oh, God, it
was
touching her sister’s head
!  “I won’t kill you, I’ll kill
her
. 
Got that, lil’ girl.  Now, I’m very sorry this had to be you tonight,” he said,
and Kaley sensed immediately that he wasn’t sorry for anything, “but that’s how
this cookie right here crumbles tonight.  A’ight?”

Kaley nodded
vehemently.

He gave her a
second, judicious look.  “Stay cool, an’ this’ll all be over soon,” he said.  She
didn’t think so, but she certainly felt that he believed that.

The two black
men filed out quickly, and Kaley watched with mounting terror as they all
left.  She was terrified because she knew what was going to happen.  She knew
the same way she’d known this was all going to go down like this tonight, only
now she was listening to that charm her grandmother had passed down to her
instead of ignoring it like she always did.

The burly
foreigner with the avid eyes and the red bear tattooed on his arm and the steel
studs in his lips was going to kill them.  He was already thinking it.
 
She
shouted through her gag, trying to warn the two black men. 
He’s already
thinking it!  You can’t let your guard down around him!  He’s waiting for you
to let your guard down and then he’s going to kill you and then
…
he’s
…

The look the
white man gave her before he shut the door told the gruesome story.  He knew
exactly what he intended to do with the two girls.  He knew it.  Kaley knew it. 
And even Shan probably knew it.  Everybody knew it except the two black men.  They
thought they had a deal.  They thought they were going to get something out of
this.  They didn’t know how this was going to end, but Kaley’s charm told her
that if she could help them survive then this would all go differently.

She tried to
reach out to them before the door closed, but the farther they got away the
harder it was to feel what they were feeling, thus it became impossible to
influence them at all.  The charm was too dim for that kind of connection.  If,
that is, Kaley wasn’t totally insane and only wishing the charm was all that
her Nan had made it out to be. 
It has to be!  It needs to be!  If we’re
going to survive this, we have to reach someone
—

When the door
shut, it came to her. 
Reach someone
.  All at once, she recalled her
cell phone.  It was still in the back pocket of her pants.  She looked across
the room, to where her pants lay on the floor. 
Stupid girl!  Stupid,
stupid, stupid!  You should’ve made a phone call when you had the chance!  You
couldn’t have made a sound but someone could’ve traced the call, maybe!  Now
your hands are chained up!  Good job, Big Sis!

A whimper.

Kaley looked
over at Shannon.  Her sister was sniffling and looking down at her lap
dejectedly.  A wave hit Big Sister.  Ultimate fear of the unknown.  Also…yes,
yes…Shan had a sense of something shifting unfairly.  Yes, hope had been
unfairly dashed. 
It’s not
fair
, she’s thinking
.

And there was
something else.  Deflation?  Yes, deflation. 
She’s thinking we’re not such
awesome ninjas anymore
. 
She’s thinking about what a stupid little game
it was
. 
She’s yearning
…
yearning
…
for
Mom
?
 
Mom,
the meth-head?  Mom, the woman who never remembers to pack her a lunch or give
her lunch money?
  Yes, it seemed that no matter how dedicated a mother was
to earning the Worst Mother of the Year award for the tenth year in a row, a
little girl would always crave her mommy.