Heroes 'Til Curfew

  Joss

  Home again. All of us, except Dad. It was the end of his second day at the hospital and he still didn’t know what was real.

  Do you?

  I closed my book, turned off the lamp and settled into bed for at least the third time, hoping that third time’s the charm thing was gonna work for me because reading really wasn’t. I didn’t usually need to read to fall asleep, but every time I closed my eyes it was all instant replay of what happened with Dad. I couldn’t stop seeing it. Couldn’t get it out of my head. Couldn’t stop thinking about what I should have done differently or how it was all my fault.

  Now that we were home, Jill was sleeping in Mom’s bed. I did that last time. All this time I’d thought that I got to sleep with Mom to make me feel better, but now I was pretty sure it was just because Mom couldn’t sleep alone anymore.

  Crazy how fast you get spoiled by that. Like sleeping alone is an unnatural state of being or something.

  Okay, this is good. Weird, random thoughts might be a sign of impending sleep.

  My phone buzzed under my pillow. Please don’t let this be another crisis, I thought as pulled it out. I don’t think I’ve got another fight in me.

  “I can’t sleep,” Dylan said.

  “Try getting off the phone.”

  “Were you sleeping?”

  “No.”

  “Because you miss me.”

  “I was reading.”

  “Because you miss me.”

  I smiled. I don’t know why I wanted to give him a hard time anyway.

  “Tell me what you did while I was at work.”

  “Nothing interesting. I watched Jill while Mom went to the shop to meet with the insurance adjuster.”

  “How’d that go?”

  “Jill’s a brat, she’s totally obsessed with the Barbie thing and determined to drag me down into her evil, plastic dominion.”

  “Aw, you played Barbies?”

  “Shut up.”

  “So what did the insurance guy say?”

  “Basically that he had the initial police report and was pretty sure we were going to be covered for the merchandise and the damages to the store itself. He took lots of pictures and told Mom we could start cleaning out and getting estimates for the repairs. Stuff like that.”

  “Great!”

  “Yeah. I don’t know if Mom was actually worried about it, you know, ’cause there’s been other stuff, but I didn’t know for sure so it’s good.”

  “Any news on your dad?”

  “Just that he’s still…not with it. Still violent. So they’ve got him sedated.”

  “Any idea how long he’ll be there?”

  “No.”

  There was a long silence where Dylan didn’t seem to know what to say. And I sure didn’t. But still, it was kind of comforting just to be quiet on the phone with him. To be lying there in the dark knowing that if I asked him to say something, at least his voice would be right there next to me.

  “I should probably let you go.”

  “You don’t have to.” I shouldn’t have said that. Maybe that was his nice way of getting off the phone. He’d gone from school to work and was probably tired. “I mean—”

  “Can I come over?”

  “I—that just seems really wrong right now.”

  “Yeah.”

  We were quiet for a few minutes. Still not awkward, the way it should have been, still kind of nice. I wondered if we could just leave the line open.

  “Could you meet me?” The sound of my voice surprised me. The content surprised me more.

  “Yeah, sure,” Nonchalance over enthusiasm. “Where?”

  “At the Warren.”

  “Um…”

  “What?”

  “Eric and Kat stopped by Casey’s earlier and…I kinda got the impression the Warren’s gonna be occupied.”

  “What? It’s a safe-house not a…make-out…den.”

  “Make-out den?” Dylan laughed.

  “I don’t know what you call it.”

  “Ummm, how about ‘love nest’?”

  “How about not.”

  “Yeah, okay, no making out at the Warren. Anymore? Or by people who aren’t us. We’ll put up signs tomorrow. Maybe some kind of anti-smoochies logo design.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I want to see you.”

  I almost sighed at the way he said it, all soft and low. How it made me a little light-headed, just for a second, and warm down to my toes. I really needed to see him.

  “How about at the shop?”

  “Your parents’ shop?”

  “Yeah. Maybe we could put in some clean up time.” You know, to make it seem less elicit.

  “Oh yeah, service project. That’s actually exactly what I had in mind.”

  “Shut up. Do you want to see me or not?”

  “You know I do. And you know I’ll pick up trash or whatever you want me to do. Damn you and your feminine power.”

  I was still smiling over that half an hour later when I got to the shop. Since the lock on the door had been broken, someone had installed a temporary latch to the frame and put a padlock on. It hung open.

  I went in, concentrating on shutting the door quietly and not tripping over any of the crap on the floor. Dylan’s arm snaked out of the shadows, grabbed me by the waist and hauled me up against him.

  I put my arms around him and held on. He was hard and warm and…so much just exactly what I needed. It was hard to realize how much. How much I just wanted to sink into him and forget about everything, and how much I wanted to sob into his shirt because I couldn’t forget any of it. But I couldn’t do that either. Not again.

  “I’m worried about you,” he whispered.

  “I can’t talk about it.” Because all these things that kept happening—the guilt, the regret, the fear, the unbearable weight of it all—were tearing me up inside. I had to keep pushing it down or I’d start crying and screaming until I couldn’t stop, until…

  Until it broke me. Like it broke Dad.

  He tipped my chin up and kissed me. Softly. Sweetly. His lips brushed over mine again and again, and all those things I was trying to deal with and not deal with just kind of floated back on a sigh. He teased me with his tongue, playful advances and retreats until I surrendered, opened to him. He gripped my waist and lifted me, pinned me between him and the wall, obliterating the difference in our heights and any conscious thoughts I had left. I didn’t care. I just wanted him to never stop kissing me. He pressed harder, the heat of the kiss spiraling deep, washing down my body. I was pliant, pleasantly, deliciously sedated by that way he had of blotting out the world for me and making nothing else really real anymore.

  “Well damn, that’s kinda hot.”

  Before I could even make sense of it, of the fact that Marco’s voice was there with us, Dylan was suddenly gone and I was pitching forward. I got a glimpse of him through dazed, half-open eyes, a thrash among two other bodies. Then blackness an instant before arms so strong they could only be Marco’s wrapped around me from behind. I gasped in surprise, in pain, and sucked the thin plastic of a bag against my face, cutting off my air instead of bringing more, sending me further into panic mode.

  I tried to go for a head butt and found myself slammed face first into the wall.

  “You’re gonna want to be nice to me,” Marco said near my ear.

  I blew the bag away from my face. He wasn’t holding it tight; it was to blind me, not asphyxiate me. “Well, that’ll be new and different.”

  “You know why we’re here, don’t you, Joss?” he asked. Then he went on because my answer didn’t matter, “Because you fucked me over good. You and your friends, but it was really you. You fuck me, I fuck you, right? It’s only fair. And I made your boyfriend a promise that I was going to have you under me. That he was going to watch. You remember that, D?”

  “I remember telling you that if you touch her I will fucking k—” the rest of it was cut off with a grunt.


  “You just keep your mouth shut. You’re in enough trouble,” Jeff told him.

  “Let’s take this to the back room. Where there aren’t any windows. Take it easy, guys, I want him conscious for this. Nate, if you’re just going to stand there, clear me a path.”

  When Marco pulled back from the wall, I tried to get my feet between me and wall to push back. But it was easy for Marco to increase the pressure around my chest, lift my feet off the ground and jerk me back before I ever got the chance.

  “Nice try, bitch, but there is just no way I’m letting you get away this time. Time for you to get what you deserve.”

  Between the pressure on my chest and the plastic bag it was a struggle just to breathe let alone, you know, struggle. I reached out with my mind, searching for things to throw at him, but in my mind the store was as it had always been, everything ordered, in place. This new landscape of destruction was so foreign to me that my Talent was practically useless. I concentrated on using it to increase the force of the kicks I tried to land on Marco’s legs as he carried me.

  “Notice anyone missing? Like my cousin? That’s because he’s dead.” Marco didn’t wait for me to ask. “What did you think was gonna happen when you started messing around with the Syndicate?” Behind us I could hear Dylan struggling with Jeff and probably Corey. In front of us I heard Nathan pass through the swinging doors just before Marco kicked them open and we were in the store room. He turned us to the right, toward the office.

  “What did you think was gonna happen?”

  Marco slammed my face into the doorframe. “I thought I was finally getting out of this town. They were my ticket. You destroyed that. Now Tony’s dead and they’re out looking for me, too. And I am so gonna take that out of your ass.” He pressed himself against my backside and I could feel how ready he was to punish me like he promised. I shuddered and fought the urge to vomit. “Get that desk cleared off,” he barked, a pause, then, “I meant just knock the stuff off. Blow off some of that dust, I hate coughin’ that shit. Corey, you got that?”

  “Yeah, boss.”

  “Right there, in the doorway. I want Dylan on his knees. Jeff, get over here and help the kid pull this desk out. Give us some room.”

  I was thinking, I can’t believe he’s actually staging. You were so off guard, you are so caught that he actually has time for staging. Castigating myself gave me a few moments when I could avoid thinking about what he was staging for. When I could not think about how useless I was right now, how helpless. How without my Talent I was really just a girl.

  What the hell kind of bullshit is that? Just a girl. Who took on Corey, Jeff, and Nathan blind-folded just a couple weeks ago? Come on, snap—

  The rest of my thought was annihilated. Marco took me by the throat, yanked me into the air and slammed me down on the desk. Pain and shock exploded through me. My limbs twitched and flailed as my body tried to figure out where it was, as I tried to turn my head to the side within the bag, find the place where there was air.

  “Get her shoulders. Hold her down tight.”

  Hands pressed down on my shoulders and upper arms and then Marco’s grip on my neck slacked off slightly, allowing me to turn, to take a series of short, careful breaths, trying not to pull the plastic in on my face again. It was like hyperventilating. My brain was going fuzzy and I was desperate to clear it, to start thinking like I was supposed to. I tried to bring my knees up to kick out, but too much of my legs hung over the edge of the desk and with my shoulders pinned I had no leverage. I started to, but the attempt was weak and Marco slapped me down.

  He climbed up on the desk. I could feel his knees clamping in along my hips, locking me down. He sat down hard on my thighs, the edge of the desk cutting into me painfully. I tried to twist, but there was no way I could buck him off. Inside, a voice was starting to scream. I tried to put it away, but I couldn’t shut it out, my brain caught somewhere between fight and panic, between this is so not happening, and oh my God, this is really happening.

  It wasn’t just in my head. Beyond us I could hear Dylan screaming threats and obscenities at Marco as he went at my belt. His voice was raw, horrible. There were tears in it. Tears on my face, sticking to the plastic.

  Dear God, this can’t be happening. Why can’t I move? Why can’t I fight? Why can’t I stop this?

  But could I ever stop it? Was this always where we were headed? The harassment, the blackmail, the kidnapping…wasn’t that all leading us here? I should have paid more attention. I should have…

  Marco’s hands snapped my mind back to here and now, sliding over my bare breasts as he pushed my t-shirt and bra out of his way. A nauseating wave of revulsion and humiliation crashed over me, crushing and unbearable. He squeezed viciously and I opened my mouth to scream, only sucking the plastic into my mouth again. I turned my head and sobbed as one of Jeff’s hands left my shoulder to paw at me and I struggled convulsively, not even thinking about what might work anymore, just full-on panicked flail.

  “Hold her down!” Marco growled, slapping Jeff’s hand away. “Wait your damn turn.”

  A hand clamped around my throat again, trapping the bag to my face, blocking all the air, squeezing and choking until I went still, on the edge of passing out. He eased off, just enough so I could turn my head and breathe, and leaned into me.

  “There’s something else you should know. I was gonna take you from your house, show you my new place since you brought the cops to my old place. We were gonna have this party there. But then when I saw you leave I figured you were gonna meet our boy Dylan, which saved me the trouble of having his ass dragged down there too. But since we were hangin’ out by your house anyway, and seeing as how you weren’t going to be there, I left some people there.”

  “Who?” I whispered, hating how Marco’s clothes were brushing my bare skin, hating how I was shaking under him.

  “Well, Angie, who’s not good for much once she decoded the security. And Curtis. I think you met him. He was going in to make sure your mom and your little sister were going to be asleep for a while. And we left at least part of Bella there. The rest of her is at home by the phone in case she sees something we need to know. And last, but certainly not least, we left Trina.”

  “Trina?”

  “Yeah. You’re good ol’, long-lost friend who’s been wandering through your dreams for the last few weeks, helping you guys remember things. Mostly she’s a bitch, but it’s been cool to hear about the kind of stuff you and D have stored away for her to play with.” He laughed. “Man, that girl really hates you. I mean, she hated you before, but now that Tony’s gone… And she’s got what’s left of your family at her mercy. Wonder what she’s doing to them.”

  “You son of a bitch, they’ve got nothing to do with you!”

  “And everything to do with you. So I just wanted to let you know that, in case, you know, you pass out or something and I don’t get around to telling you.”

  So I could feel even more helpless and frantic. Which I hadn’t thought was possible.

  “Hold her,” Marco commanded and he climbed off the desk.

  “Nathan,” I croaked, knowing the kid was the weakest link, “don’t let him do this. Please.” But he didn’t move or let up the pressure on my shoulder.

  Marco laughed, clamping my legs between his super-strong ones as he started to fumble with my jeans. “My boy Nate does what he’s told. Which is what you should have done,” he threw over his shoulder at Dylan. “It shouldn’t have gone this way, dude. You should be here on my right, waiting your turn. You’ve been way behind the curve on this one all along and now you’re just gonna have to sit there and watch the rest of us get a piece of this ass you’re never gonna have. But don’t worry, I’ll tell you how it is.”

  Marco’s fingers grasped my waistband and yanked down. It was so quick. I was ready to use the opportunity to get a knee up into him or something, but my bare ass smacked down on the desk and Marco’s legs were clamped around mine again before I kne
w it had started.

  Marco said something, but I didn’t even know what it was. I wept. I lay there, completely exposed to all of them, completely helpless, and all I could do now was cry. It felt like my mind was breaking, like I was losing the capacity to hold it together, to search for another opportunity to fail, to think like a fighter thinks, to keep blind, insane panic at bay.

  But you have to keep it together. A fighter fights. Always. You fight them all, for Mom, for Jill. For Dylan.

  But inside my head my thoughts were almost drowned by the voice that was screaming, no, no, no, getting louder, blotting out everything else.

  “Marco, come over here and knock this crazy son of a bitch the fuck out,” Corey grunted, winded from the struggle to hold Dylan.

  “He’s gonna watch this. All of it. That’s how I told him it was gonna be, so you do your fucking job.”

  I couldn’t see it, or hear it over Dylan’s screams or the ones in my head, but I knew Marco was unfastening his pants. His forearm came down across my legs, immobilizing me as he pushed his jeans down. He shoved my knees apart. There was absolutely nothing I could do to stop him. I could feel his hairy skin on the insides of my thighs.

  The screaming in my head got louder and more frantic and the part that was still thinking went off on a different track. I wondered how much it would hurt, how long it would go on. I wondered if Dylan and I could ever come back from this, or if we would even live to find out. If I would want to. And was it inevitable? Could I have made different choices, chosen a path that wouldn’t have landed me here, spread-eagled and naked on my father’s desk?

  The desk.

  For once I didn't pause to think how stupid I was, I just whipped the desk out from under us. We all went down hard onto the floor as I continued to swing the desk down in an arc that would connect with Marco’s head.

  It was gone. The strain, the weight of it in my mind vanished in almost the same moment that the guys started coughing and I felt a fine dust settle on my skin.

  Nathan.

  “You fucking bitch. What good did that do you?” Marco growled.

  “Come on, boss. Get in there and break that bitch.” It was Jeff.