Chapter 15
She takes care of me in the shower again, washing me, soothing me with her touch. She's especially careful around the tender area of my thighs and buttocks, making sure not to add to my discomfort. To my relief, it doesn't look like the skin is broken anywhere. My ass is pink with some reddish welts, and I'm sure there will be bruising, but there is no trace of blood anywhere.
When I'm clean and dry, she guides me back to bed. She's silent and so am I. I'm still not fully out of that strange state I was in earlier. It's as though my mind is partially disconnected from my body. The only thing holding me together is Lisa and her oddly gentle touch.
We lie down together, and Lisa turns off the lights, wrapping us in darkness. I lie on my stomach, because any other position is too painful. She pulls me closer to her, so that my head is pillowed on her chest and my arm is draped over her ribcage, and I close my eyes, wanting nothing more than the oblivion of sleep.
"My father was one of the most powerful drug lords in Colombia." Lisa's voice is barely audible, her breath ruffling the fine hair near my forehead. I had already begun to fall asleep, but I'm suddenly wide awake, my heart hammering in my chest.
"He started grooming me to be his successor when I was four years old. I held my first gun when I was six." Lisa pauses, her hand lightly stroking my hair. "I killed my first man when I was eight."
I'm so horrified that I just lie there, frozen in place by shock.
"Ruby was the daughter of one of the men in my father's organization," Lisa continues, her voice low and emotionless. "I met her when I was thirteen, and she was twelve. She was everything that I was not. Beautiful, sweet . . . innocent. You see, unlike my father, her parents sheltered her from the reality of their lives. They wanted her to be a child, to know nothing about the ugliness of our world.
"But she was bright, like you. And curious. So very, very curious . . ." Her voice trails off for a second, as though she's lost in some memory. Then she shakes it off and resumes her story. "She followed her father one day to see what he was doing. Hid in the back of his car. I found her there because it was my job to be a lookout, to guard the meeting spot."
I can barely breathe, unable to believe that Lisa is telling me all this. Why now? Why tonight?
"I could've told her father, gotten her in trouble, but she begged so prettily, looked at me so sweetly with her brown eyes that I couldn't do it. I made one of my father's guards take her home instead.
"After that, she came to see me on purpose. She wanted to get to know me better, she said. To be friends with me." There is a note of remembered disbelief in Lisa's voice, as though nobody in their right mind could've wanted something like that.
I swallow, my heart stupidly aching for the young girl she had been once. Had she even had friends, or had her father stolen that from her too, just as she had destroyed Lisa's childhood?
"I tried to tell her that it wasn't a good idea, that I wasn't somebody she should be around, but she wouldn't listen to me. She'd find me somewhere almost every week, until I had no choice but to give in and start spending time with her. We went fishing together, and she showed me how to draw." She pauses for a second, her hand still stroking my hair. "She was very good at drawing."
"What happened to her?" I ask when she doesn't say anything else for a minute. My voice is strangely hoarse. I clear my throat and try again. "What happened to Ruby?"
"One of my father's rivals learned that she was seeing me. We had just raided his warehouse, and he was pissed. So he decided to teach my father a lesson . . . through me."
Every little hair on my body is standing on end, and I feel a chill roughening my skin with goosebumps. I can already see where this story is heading, and I want to tell Lisa to stop, to go no further, but I can't get a single word past the constriction in my throat.
"They found her body in an alley near one of my father's buildings." Her voice is steady, but I can sense the agony buried deeply within. "She had been raped, then mutilated. It was meant to be a message to me and my father. Back the fuck off, it said."
I squeeze my eyelids together, trying to keep the tears burning my eyes from leaking out, but it's a futile effort. I know Lisa can probably feel the wetness on her chest. "A message? To a thirteen-year-old girl?"
"By that time, I was already fourteen." I can't see Lisa's bitter smile, but I can sense it. "And age didn't matter. Not to my father . . . and certainly not to his rival."
"I'm sorry." I don't know what else to say. I want to cry—for her, for Ruby, for that young girl who'd lost her friend in such a brutal manner. And I want to cry for myself, because I now understand my captor better—and I realize that the darkness in her soul is worse than anything I could've imagined.
Lisa shifts underneath me, and I become aware of the fact that my hand is now on her shoulder and my nails are digging into her skin. I force myself to unclench my fingers and take a deep breath. I need to get a hold on myself, or I'm going to burst out sobbing.
"I killed those men." Her tone is casual now, almost conversational, though I can feel the tension in her body. "The ones who raped her. I tracked them down and killed them, one by one. There were seven of them. After that, my father sent me away, first to America, then to Asia and Europe. He was afraid all that killing would be bad for business. I didn't come back until years later, when he and my mother were killed by yet another rival."
I focus on controlling my breathing and keeping the bile in my throat down. "Is that why you have a different accent?" My question comes totally out of the left field. I don't even know what makes me ask something so trivial at a moment like this.
But it's apparently the right thing to do because Lisa relaxes slightly, some of the tension leaving her muscles. "Yes. That's partially why, my pet. Also, my mother was from Thailand, and she taught me English from a young age."
"She was a model in her youth. They met in New York, when my father was there on a business trip. He swept her off her feet, and they were married before he told her anything about his business."
"What did she do when she found out?" I know I'm probably focusing on the wrong things here, but I need to distract myself from the gruesome images filling my mind—images of a dead girl who's a younger version of me . . .
"There was nothing she could do," Lisa says. "She was already married to him, and living in Colombia."
She doesn't explain further, but she doesn't need to. It's clear to me that her mother was as much of a prisoner as I am—except that she'd chosen her captivity, at least initially.
For a few minutes, we just lie there quietly, without talking. I'm no longer drowsy. I don't know if I'll be able to sleep tonight at all. The ache in my body is nothing compared to the despair in my heart.
"So is that what you do now? Drugs?" I ask, finally breaking the silence. It's not far from my original supposition that she's part of the Mafia or some other criminal organization.
"No," she says, to my surprise. "That part of my life ended when my parents were killed. I took the family business in a different direction."
"Which direction?" I remember her telling me something about an import-export organization, but I can't imagine Lisa doing something as innocuous as selling electronics. Not after what I've just learned about her upbringing.
She chuckles, as though amused at my persistence. "Weapons," she says. "I'm an arms dealer, Jennie."
I blink, surprised. I know a little—or at least, I think I know—about drug dealers, thanks to some popular TV shows. Arms dealers, however, are a complete mystery to me. I strongly suspect Lisa isn't talking about a few guns here or there.
I have a million questions about her profession, but there's something I need to know first, while Lisa seems to be in a sharing mood. "Why did you steal me? Is it because I remind you of Ruby?"
"Yes," she says softly, her voice wrapping around me like a cashmere scarf. "When I first saw you in that club, you looked so much like her, it was uncanny. Except you were older—and even more beautiful. And I wanted you. I needed you. For the first time in years, I was truly feeling. Of course, the emotions you evoked in me were nothing like what I'd once felt for her. She was my friend, but you . . ." She inhales deeply, her chest moving under my head. "I just needed you to be mine, Jennie. When I touched you that day, when I felt the silkiness of your skin, I so badly wanted to take you, to strip off those tight clothes you were wearing and fuck you senseless right then and there, on the floor of that club. And I wanted to hurt you . . . the way I sometimes like to hurt women, the way they ask me to hurt them . . . I wanted to hear you scream—in pain and in pleasure."
Her hand continues playing with my hair, and the caressing touch keeps me calm enough to listen. In the darkness, none of this is real. There's only Lisa and her voice, telling me things that a normal person would find frightening—things that somehow make me wet instead.
"I brought you here, to my island, because it's the safest place for you. My business associates are always looking for signs of weakness, and you, my pet, are a weakness of mine. I've never felt this way about another woman. I've never been so—" she pauses for a moment, as though searching for the right word, "—so fucking obsessed. Just the thought of another man touching you, kissing you, drove me crazy. I tried to stay away, to put you out of my mind, but I couldn't resist seeing you one more time at your graduation. And when I saw you there, I knew you felt it too, this connection between us—and I knew then that it was inevitable . . . that I would take you, and you would always be mine."
Her words wash over me like a warm ocean wave, bringing with it trepidation and a kind of unhealthy excitement. Some twisted part of me revels in the fact that I'm special to Lisa, that she's as helplessly drawn to me as I am to her.
For some strange reason, I feel compelled to reciprocate her openness. "I was afraid of you," I tell her quietly. "In the club, and then when I saw you at my graduation, I was afraid."
"Only afraid?" She sounds amused and mildly disbelieving.
"Afraid and attracted," I admit. This seems to be the night for revelations. Besides, she already knows the truth. Despite my fear, I desire her. I've wanted her from the very beginning, and nothing she's done since changes that fact.
"Good." She runs her hand lightly down my back. "That's very good, my pet. It'll make things easier for both of us."
Easier? I consider that statement. Easier for her, certainly. But for me? I'm not so sure.
"Did you ever contact my family?" I ask, thinking of her promise all those days ago. "Do they know that I'm alive?"
"Yes." Her hand pauses at the curve of my spine. "They know."
I wonder what she told them and how they reacted. I wonder if it made it better for them or worse.
"Will you ever let me go?" I already know the answer, but I need to hear her say it anyway.
"No, Jennie," she replies, and I can feel her smile in the darkness. "Never."
And bringing me closer, she holds me until we both eventually fall asleep.