Let Me Stay

“Bring our daughters home,” Fawn says, huddled with Helen and my mom in the living room.

“We will,” I vow.

“When did you become such a badass in real life, VG Hero?” Brando asks. He’s taken to calling me Video Game Hero due to the increasing popularity of Gettysburg.

“About the time my wife and unborn child were kidnapped by a fucking deranged foot soldier,” I reply, as I check the magazine of my Colt M1911. For the last few weeks, I have been working with Brando. Prior to that the only experience with guns I had were of the BB persuasion or in video games. Despite never having picked up a real gun before, I am surprisingly good at it. Brando calls me a crack shot, but I think it’s more luck and determination than anything else.

“Yeah, you’re a total fucking badass,” Bart says, chuckling.

I will bring my family home or die trying. I can’t even imagine what my life would be like with the alternative. One way or the other, I won’t be finding out.

Chapter 22

Brynn

Five days. We’ve been here for five days. In that time, I’ve learned that my bodyguard, Javier, was the inside man. He gave Aaron private details of my day to day routines. I don’t know why he did what he did, and I may never know. Aaron surely isn’t paying him more money than Brendan did for protection. He’s a low-level associate who recently got demoted lower than that. I’ve learned nothing of Joel, but I pray that he’s alive. Arabella and I are in peril of the worst kind. Every time Javier takes her out of the room, I panic. She comes back fine, a slap here and there, but they let her use the bathroom and feed her more than they do me, but that’s fine. I am starving, but he’s not really feeding me, which is probably for the best since my mouth hurts like a motherfucker anyway. Honestly, we’ve both had enough. I am not sure how much more of this I can take. I haven’t been lucky, but at least Aaron is careful only to hit me in the face, thankfully.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror, and I don’t recognize myself. My lips are split and swollen. My black eyes have black eyes. They are in all stages of healing. Verifiable rainbow going on there. I am pretty sure my eye socket is broken, but as long as he doesn’t hurt the baby or Arabella, he can do whatever he wants to my face. I still have no idea where we are, except that I can hear a train, which tells me nothing I don’t already know about New York. Yesterday was terrible, but today, Aaron is in a particularly bad mood.

My face hurts so damn bad. He pulled out a huge chunk of my hair. I look and feel like a monster. He’s bigger than me, but I have had enough of this shit. I can’t just passively take it anymore. I should be trying to escape, but I know that will hasten my death or whatever the end result is here. I am just trying to stay alive long enough to be rescued. My hands are bound together, but the metal chair I am sitting on is jagged. I saw my wrists back and forth until my hands are free, but I don’t even get a chance to hit him before he starts taunting me.

“Brynn, have you learned your lesson yet?” he taunts, his hot, garlicky breath right in my face. A wave of nausea hits me, but I manage to swallow it.

“No,” I respond stoically.

“We are getting closer, I feel it,” he says.

“Nah.”

“You really don’t want to test me.”

“No, I think I do. You are fucking insane, Aaron. It’s going to give me complete satisfaction to watch you die.”

Smack. I yelp as my cheek explodes in pain. Son of a bitch that hurts.

He throws chairs around the room he brought me to. It’s one I haven’t been to before. I guess yesterday’s room has some bad memories for him. I spit blood onto the floor as he takes a break from pummeling my face.

“Why won’t you learn?” he demands angrily.

“Can you just tell me what I am supposed to be learning? That might help me learn it faster. If you would just calm down, you have to see how irrational this all is. I didn’t even know you liked me growing up, Aaron. You never said who you were when you were stalking me. How could I have known?”

“You should have just known. It’s not magical anymore,” he responds.

“Then let us go. Find another woman to make magic with.”

“You don’t get it, Brynn. Other women are just as bad as you are. They succumbed a lot sooner than you,” he mumbles. Other women? Surely, he’s never done this before, but all signs point to the fact that he has. I shiver as he throws another chair against the wall. The metal on metal screeching sound makes my teeth hurt. Javier, the traitor, comes into the room, heading straight for Aaron. He doesn’t look at me, but he’s winded and not happy about something. Javier whispers something in Aaron’s ear, and then he loses his mind. He comes at me like an animal. I don’t know what he thinks he’s going to accomplish by hitting me like this. It’s certainly not going to make me fall in love with him. If anything, I want to kill him, but I am so weak from lack of food. Then it’s over just as quickly as it began. He goes through the motions of untying me, even though the ropes are broken. He’s crazy, but what would make him not even notice that they are already open? It’s weird. He just leads me back to the room Arabella is in, shutting and locking the door behind him.