CHAPTER 14: Curse

WARNINGS: This chapter contains graphic descriptions of violence.

1

Kellerman hung up the phone, and focused on the task at hand. The flames purring out of the stovetop burner licked at the blade of his knife. It grew pink, then orange, then red, like the face of a schoolboy flushing from a girl's gaze.

There was nothing about this Kellerman would enjoy. Just business. He had not joined the secret service so he could torture women in his kitchen.

Well. Almost nothing.

The face of the delivery boy, Michael, came back to him.

He'd enjoy him knowing he had been outsmarted. Knowing that every scream Sara would let out would be on him.

I didn't choose this, Kellerman thought, contemplating the knife. Frank Tancredi had been the one to seal his daughter's fate, with his damned pride. If you really thought about it, Kellerman was the person who'd had the least choice in the matter.

Tancredi chose to screw him over, and his employer.

Michael chose to try and break Sara out of here, instead of talking sense into the old fool.

Even Sara chose to sprinkle clues into their phone conversations.

But Paul? He'd been clear from the get-go what would happen if they tried to play smart.

When the knife was ready, Kellerman put it down on the stove and went back to the bedroom.

Sara stood where he'd left her, leaning against the wall. Her hair had dried back to its strawberry blond. It caught the light as he stepped into the room. He might have been looking at the reddened blade of his knife.

Beautiful.

The thought occurred to him, ridiculous, irrelevant, but there it was.

"It's time," he said.

She released a breath, rather less shaky than he expected.

Of all the things he'd imagined about kidnappings, before he, in fact, became a kidnapper, Paul would have never thought the victim would be the one to suggest torture.

He meant what he told Sara, earlier. He respected intelligence. Respected her.

What's my next move, Sara?

You torture me.

What was there not to admire in a woman with enough determination to make so strong a case for her life?

She peeled off the wall, and he raised a palm to stop her. "Turn around. I'll tie you up, first."

"That's not necessary."

"I think that's for me to decide."

Something flashed through her eyes. It happened, from time to time. Beneath that polish of good girl manners. An I'll kill you look.

She pivoted and faced the wall. Paul used zip ties, to bind her wrists behind her back. Less trouble than handcuffs. He didn't ask if she was ready. There was no such thing as ready when it came to torture.

"I take no pleasure in this. It might not mean much to you. But if your father had just done what he was told, no harm would have come to you."

Wrapping his palm around her joint hands, he turned her back around. Her eyes speared into him, so forceful that he didn't move for a second.

The realization took him by surprise.

Under different circumstances, I would have liked this woman.

Not that it changed anything for anyone.

2

Sara couldn't help but think it was absurd, when her kidnapper started a WhatsApp group voice call. Such calls were supposed to be for families who couldn't get together on Christmas Eve, a girl who called her sisters to show off an engagement ring.

Not this.

After spending so many hours in a locked room, an uncanny glow spread down her chest, when Lance opened the door, and walked her through the rest of his apartment. Spacious, clean enough you could eat off the floor. Every piece of furniture, from the bookshelves to the coffee table, looked like it'd been purchased out of an Ikea magazine. Pre-arranged decoration. Not the least bit of effort or personality.

She looked down as he prodded her onward, his thumb pressed against her inner wrist.

If only he'd let her walk by herself, let her sit down without wrapping a palm to her shoulder, this would be so much more bearable.

Then she saw the knife, scarlet against the stove, and a lump of lead went down her throat. Bearable? Who was she kidding.

Lance walked up in front of her again. Her eyes shot toward the ground before she could meet his. They'd betray the panic, rocketing through her stomach, the sickly-sweet taste filling her mouth.

"Look at me."

Sara wanted to comply.

It was the right move to make, now, the best way to boost her chances of survival. But she physically could not unglue her eyes from the tiling.

He waited. And waited.

Millimeter by millimeter, she straightened her neck, until she was looking into his horrifyingly banal face.

"There's a few things we should get out of the way, before I make the call. When I talk to your father, and the people he hired, I'll be forced to get—in character."

A shudder broke down her back. He seemed not to notice.

"First, I want to present my apologies. On behalf of my employer, and this country. This is not how prisoners of war should be treated."

He paused, waited for her to acknowledge what he had said. Participation still matters to him. Even now. Now especially.

But Sara could not think of a thing to answer.

"All right," he nodded. "You won't need to talk to your father. We'll get to business almost immediately. When it happens, you should feel free to scream if you have to. The walls and floor are insulated. Actually, it'd be better if you did scream, Sara. So everyone gets the message."

He grabbed the knife with one hand. Took her phone with the other.

Somewhere, inside her, a voice cried out there must be a way to stop this. It would not happen. I'm not a prisoner of war, this man isn't a soldier.

Surely, she wasn't about to get branded like a farm animal, in this kitchen that belonged in an ad for dish soap. Torture was the stuff of spy movies, the sort of thing she'd be happy to denounce on anyone's behalf, because Sara could never stand that end justifies the means logic.

Funny how a word that had never entered her vocabulary—torture—became the fabric of every breath she drew in.

Lance swiped play, then moved in behind her. Was it worse, not to see him, not to see it coming?

"Hello?"

Her father's voice at the end of the line. It cracked, like a cobweb pattern blooming across a sheet of glass. Beneath it was fear, and ice, and numbness. In a way, Sara had never felt so close to her father's emotions. Maybe it was all in her head. Yet she could sense, in this instant, the rage of his heartbeat. To him, this was happening on another layer of reality. He had not spent twenty-four hours locked in a room, with Lance as his only companion. Had not been fork-fed like a child, had not felt the threat of death with every fiber of his being.

What an inconvenience, to a busy man like him.

Sara sensed this, just as she sensed how her father resented her. Suddenly. Brutally.

Not because she had put herself in this situation. But because she existed and made it possible for this to happen to him.

She closed her eyes.

"Governor," Lance said. "I assume the men you hired can hear us. Officer Burrows, and Michael—I didn't catch a last name. You can talk to them when we're finished, but for now, I don't want them to intervene. I'm speaking to you, governor. All right?"

"Uh—all right."

Lance sighed. "Well, I'm not going to hide how disappointed I am. You'd think a man of your rank would have a semblance of intelligence. Or maybe it's motivation you lack. You take a man's daughter, you don't expect he'll need more motivation than that. But you're something else, aren't you? Let me ask you a simple question. Do you want your daughter to live? Or not."

A beat of silence, while Frank scrambled for his thoughts.

He must hate this. Having his dignity dragged through the mud. Not being in control.

Goosebumps spread down Sara's arms at the prickle of Lance's breath in her neck. He rolled up her blouse, gentle, but must not be satisfied with how much skin he laid bare. A long snap as he tore her blouse open, opening a rectangle down her back.

Sara felt the fabric dangle in the front, her breasts heavy. She hadn't gone without a bra since her teens.

"I—of course I do."

"I believe you," Lance said. "Let me tell you what else I believe. That your daughter is not as important to you as your career."

"You son of a—"

Sara heard the blade come into contact with her skin, before she felt it. A sizzling sound, exactly like a slice of bacon hitting the pan. Then she smelled it. Fried pig. Barbecue season. All in a split second.

Before she felt it.

The flat of the blade melting through layers of skin. Epidermis, dermis, muscle. A pain that didn't explode, but that washed over her like a river of hot gold.

She heard the scream, too. It had to be hers, though it never registered as her own.

"Stop, please, stop!" her father yelled into the phone.

Lance took the blade away, but not the pain. That's the magic with burns, a teacher told her, in her first year of med school. They keep digging into your flesh—keep burning, even when you let go of the source of heat. A burn is like a curse. It sticks to your skin.

"Don't interrupt," Lance said. "I haven't made my point yet. It's important we understand each other. As I said, I think you value your career more than your daughter's life. I'm not passing judgment here. Blood bonds are overrated. What is she but a stranger, who shared your house for eighteen years? Even back then, you probably saw as little of her as decorum allowed. Am I right?"

Silence.

He touched the tip of the knife—just the tip, this time—to her shoulder blade. His breath tickled her ear, "That's your cue to scream, Sara."

She did.

Frank hurried, "Stop! Stop it."

"I ask questions. You answer," Lance said. "The rules are simple, governor. You think you've got them down yet?"

"Yes."

"All right. So, I was saying. You avoided your daughter. She made you uncomfortable."

"Y-yes."

"You're not much of a children person, I take it. All that love, coming from a little girl—you didn't know what to do with it. It must have made you even more uncomfortable than if she were just any girl. She worshipped you—all children worship their parents. And you were just trying to live your life, keep your head on your shoulders. That wasn't what you signed up for. You wanted a bankable family so you could look human on an election bulletin. Maybe if her mother had lived long enough to take care of her, and you hadn't had to leave it to hired help, that would have been easier."

Silence. "I don't—I don't know what you want me to say."

"The truth. For a change."

He pressed the blade flat against her shoulder. That two-dimensional world of pain opened wide before her again. Those doors that stayed open, even when he would remove the blade, through which ghouls would keep creeping to gnaw at her flesh.

"All right! Please, please. It's all true. What you said. All of it."

"Right," Lance said. "And that was before she grew up, too. When her only crime was to live in your house and depend on you. But then she grew up, didn't she? Before you knew what hit you, you had a junkie and a criminal on your hands, and boy," he laughed, "that was not the family you wanted voters to think about, was it? So when I say your career is more important than your daughter, I'm not being cruel, governor. I believe it. And, more to the point, you believe it. After all, it's your life's work. Your legacy. She's done nothing but get in the way, from the beginning."

"I—yes."

There was never a moment when Sara felt the sting of those words, burning deeper than the blade. Never a moment when she thought, He's just saying what Lance wants to hear, playing into his hand.

She knew he meant it.

Worse, she realized, as she heard the words out loud, that she had always known it. That abyss where affection should be had always lived in the house, between her and her father. They both ignored it. Both went through the motions, pretended that black hole didn't exist.

How had Lance, who'd never been a witness to any of it—how had he put precisely the words on what neither father nor daughter had ever named?

Lance nodded. The smell of pig flesh in the room was unbearable now. Sweat had broken out over her entire body, so thick it pearled down her eyelashes when she blinked.

"Good," Lance said. "I appreciate your honesty. Now, let me tell you something, governor—you can correct me if I'm wrong. You went into this, thinking you could save both your daughter and your career."

"Yes."

"That's where you surprised us, you see. You should have panicked. The thought of your daughter in our hands should have stopped any rational thought from coming in. You should have been willing to do anything to get her back—it's what my employer counted on. Except that's just what you feel about sacrificing your career, isn't it, governor? That's what makes you see red. Your Achilles' heel."

A sour breath, followed by, "Yes."

"Now, I'll tell you something you don't know, because through the stress of it all, you aren't thinking clearly. This whole situation—it's a little surreal to you. Not to Sara."

Her name in his mouth made her queasy as the smell of burning flesh.

"To you, I'm just a voice on the phone, governor. But let me assure you, I'm very real to your daughter. Aren't I, Sara?"

He covered the phone with his palm and glanced at her. Took in film of perspiration on her skin, how white she'd gone.

"Try not to faint," he said. "It's almost over."

Words floated out of reach, insubstantial. He's very real, Dad. He's the realest thing in the world.

And in truth, he was.

She could write a whole essay about it—how the people who hurt you became your God. The sun that you orbited around. Lance walked into a room and he was all that mattered. She would live or die because he willed it.

There wasn't even room for anger, just now, through the fog of torture and her body quitting on her. No thoughts as to how she would love to blaspheme this particular deity, to turn apostate and burn this church to ash.

Not yet.

Right now, there was only the fire.

She managed, "Dad—"

But the rest plummeted down the funnel that pain had opened up, sucking dry her energy reserves.

Lance sighed, a father who watches his kid struggle to put the basketball through the hoop and fail miserably. Well, his face said, at least you're trying.

"You know," Lance spoke into the phone, "it's a shame you never took the time to get acquainted with your daughter. She is much smarter than you give her credit for. Let me tell you something else. You may think you care about your career more than her. But seeing as you're not thinking too clearly now, I'll straighten out a few things for you. This moment here, governor, is going to be with you every second of your life. When you give press conferences, when you sit at your desk, when you shower, when you eat, when you go to sleep, when you dream. You will never forget what it felt like to hold that phone and hear me hurt your daughter. To hear her scream, and not know just what I'm doing to her. To picture it, and hope you're wrong, only to hear her scream again and send all your thoughts into mayhem."

She felt the heat of the knife getting nearer.

Knew it was coming, before he said, "I'm going to hurt her again, governor. Just once more. Because I want you to feel it melt into your soul, and I want you to tell me if you believe me. When I say this was the mistake of your life, the one regret you'll take to the grave. I want you to imagine how you'll feel if this is the last time you hear her voice. If you make me kill her—how big of a regret will we be talking, do you think?"

"Please! I believe you. Stop, and I'll do anything you want. I'll—"

He pressed the knife between her shoulder blades. Sara felt the hands of giants grab her and pull her into a whirlpool all made of fire.

This must be what it's like to be a penny, laid on the train tracks, when the wheels come crashing down and flatten it up.

Torture. Why in hell had she suggested torture?

I should have let him kill me. I should have stabbed that piece of underwire through his eye, so he'd have to shoot me right there. Anything but this.

Lance drew back, and she felt her body collapse onto the chair, soft as a ball of microwaved bread dough. He walked up in front of her and put the knife on the stove.

It had to mean he was done. Please let him be done.

Yet she couldn't take her eyes off the knife. Would not have looked at it differently if it had been a viper.

"All right, governor. So, I think we can agree now, this was—what did I call it? The mistake of your life."

A beat of silence. It seemed to Sara, even her father's voice had blanched. "Yes."

"Good. Then you're sorry, I take it?"

"Yes."

Lance nodded. "I'll confess something to you, governor. I'm sorry, too. Not for you. You deserved to have that happen, in my book. You brought it on yourself, on all of us. But I am sorry, for your daughter."

He made eye-contact with Sara.

She had no control over what he saw in hers. It was hard to think past the burns, eating through her flesh and muscle.

"I was starting to think I was the only one who wanted her to get out of this alive," Lance said. "Believe me, I don't enjoy hurting her." His jaw hardened. "But if you don't do as I say? If you say or do anything to make me think you're trying to play me again, I will do so much worse. You do know things could get a lot worse for Sara, right?"

Her father swallowed, at the other end of the line. "Yes."

"You have enough imagination to picture what I have in mind, or do I need to get graphic?"

"There's no need. I'll do anything you ask me to. Please. Don't hurt her again."

Lance drummed his index over the edge of the stove. The glint of his military ring kept Sara into focus. I can't pass out right now. No matter how much her body wanted to, no matter that fever was washing down her in hot flashes. Lance needed her awake, and she needed to cooperate. Or die.

"I know you have people, watching the neighborhood. Have them leave."

"Done. Consider it done."

"At eight o'clock this morning," Lance resumed, "you'll release a statement, announcing your intention to veto the reform on gun control. No more stalling. When the bill gets to your desk, next week, you'll do as you promised. I'll keep Sara with me until it's signed. Do we understand each other?"

"Yes."

Lance sighed. His eyes on Sara as he did this, like they were both in on that sigh. The way two people stuck in an elevator might partake in frustration, It's taking forever, isn't it?

"Here you go, governor. Glad we can see eye to eye. I wish you hadn't forced your daughter and me through such an unpleasant time." Before Frank could reply, he said, "Put the delivery boy on the phone now."

A voice spoke—it sounded to Sara like a pool of black paint. Such a strange quietness, in a time like this. "This is Michael. I'm not with the governor at the moment."

"I see. Still in Palmer?"

"Yes."

A smile split Lance's mouth open. It didn't look like he was even aware of it.

Sara shuddered. In that fairytale where the wolf dipped his paw in flour to fool the lambs, this must be exactly how the wolf smiled when they finally let him in.

"Did you think about what I asked you?" Lance said. "Did it feel personal?"

There was not the slightest difference in Michael's voice. Yet Sara found herself sinking into its depths. "Yes."

"Good." Lance walked up to the window and lifted the drape. The night was pitch black. The torture must have lasted five minutes, at most. "Make your people back off, now. I'm watching. If you trick me, if you leave anyone behind—"

"No tricks," Michael said.

Seconds weaved into minutes.

Sara's heartrate refused to slow down, and she couldn't take her eyes off the knife, bright orange like a Halloween pumpkin. Her clothes clung to her skin, drenched so bad she might have showered in them.

And the pain.

Like a curse, truly. Burning, and burning, and burning.

Her mind kept flashing to how she'd treat this on a patient. Ointments. Dressing. Skin grafts.

Lance walked away from the window, apparently satisfied the street was cleared. "Good. We'll talk again, governor, when it's time for the announcement. I'm sure you'll be eager to keep me updated, so I can make sure of your goodwill."

"Yes. Can I—could I talk to my daughter?"

She heard, then, that he could not say her name.

He's ashamed.

If I survive this, he'll never want to see my face again.

It flashed through her mind the feeling was mutual.

If she had been in her father's shoes, and it had been a stranger's life on the line, anyone at all… she would have saved them. In a heartbeat. How do you choose your career over another human being?

His work, his legacy, his reputation. Her whole life had been worth less to him. Her whole life.

Lance glanced at her, and something passed between them. Like he could tell what was on her mind. A taste of bile rose up her throat. Any connection with this man was detestable.

"She's not really in a state to talk right now," he said. To spare her? To annoy her father? "Of course, if you need more confirmation that she's alive, I can just grab that knife and—"

"No. No, please. I don't need confirmation."

"Just what I thought. Goodnight, governor."

He hung up. Sara's blouse was a bit loose now, from being torn in the back, and she could tell it revealed too much cleavage, because of how Lance's eyes stayed fixed to hers, as if held by an invisible line.

"I'm sorry we had to go through this, Sara."

"Yes. You said that."

He offered a benevolent smile, like she was being witty. "You must be in a lot of pain. You can relax. Sleep, if you manage. I'm going to pack a bag. We have to be gone before dawn."