Protect

2. Rue

2

Rue

I wake up in the paltry light of an unfamiliar room. My head aches as I push myself up from a pallet — actually, it looks like it’s just a couple of scratchy wool blankets on the bare cement floor. I’m alone in the room, but I hear noise and see light coming from underneath the door just a few feet away.

Voices, strange ones.

Then with a strange, whole body jolt, I remember the crash. The blood on my hands. Crawling out of the car. Two lifeless bodies inside the SUV.

I never even found out for sure whether or not Dryas was alive. The thought of him being hurt, of him being dead, shocks me to my core. He always seems so strong to me.

The concept that he could have died knocks my breath from my lungs, like a band is wrapped tight around my chest. I look down at myself, tears pricking my eyes.

What if he’s gone? Whatever things I had to say to him slosh around inside my head.

I’m sorry.

I should have told you about Father Derrik sooner.

My body misses yours, aches to be held and cared for the way that only you could.

Several long breaths are the only thing that keeps me from bursting into tears, here and now. The survivor in me tells me to be quiet, not to attract attention. The longer I am left by myself, the better I’ll fare.

I take one more calming breath, pushing Dryas and the crash aside in my mind. It’s hard, almost impossible, but I need to think clearly for a little while.

If I assume that Father Derrik has me, where would he have taken me? I recall vaguely that he said he was going to take me to a brothel, but I don’t remember any more than that.

I look up, spying a window across from me. Getting slowly to my feet, I faintly feel the remnants of whatever drug Father Derrik injected me with. They make me feel slower and my movements are clumsier.

Walking slowly over to the window, putting one foot in front of the other, I look out the window. It looks down on a street, ill-lit and deserted. Wherever we are, it’s not Interlaken.

I squint. The street has a sign in French, which narrows it down a little. I’m in France or Switzerland. Pressing my hand against the window’s glass, it feels cold. So, I’m somewhere northern, then.

Looking over my shoulder to check that I’m still alone, I try to open the window. It’s locked though, of course. No one in their right mind would put the girl they just abducted in a room with more than one way out.

I hear footsteps approaching. Scrambling back to my blanket, I slump on the ground and feign sleep. The door swings open, light pouring across my face.

There is a repressed sigh. “She will be awake soon.”

He sounds faintly Slavic.

“Yes.” My blood turns cold; Father Derrik is still very much present, it seems. “She looks so peaceful like this, don’t you think? Not at all like the rebellious b***h, I know her to be.”

Inside, I’m roiling, fear and anger and hate mixing to create an altogether new emotion. Outside I might seem like an angel to Father Derrik and his flunky, but my muscles are tensed, my fingers ready to become my claws. The new emotion sparks something in me, threatening to ignite and burn everything it touches.

The footsteps come nearer, a shadow falling over my face. There is the distinct absence of creaking leather. I hate the fact that I have heard Father Derrik walk enough to know that it’s not him. A man crouches down to inspect me more closely.

I smell the sourness of old alcohol on his breath. It’s everything I can do to keep still as he skates his touch up my arm. “What will you tell her about us when she wakes?”

Father Derrik clears his throat. “That you are keeping an eye on her. That you are in charge of her, too. That she will work for you—”

“Does she f**k?” the man asks, cutting Father Derrik off. I almost suck in a breath; Father Derrik is not someone to be toyed with or interrupted.

To my surprise, Father Derrik does not seem to mind. It makes me wonder if there is some power dynamic that I don’t understand at play here. “Yes, she is very amenable. Whatever your other girls do, she will do.”

The man crouched over me traces his hand down my hip. I try not to scream, but I’ve almost reached the breaking point for me.

“None of the girls do it by choice,” he admits easily. Cold fingers wrap around the back of my neck at his casual tone, like the girls he mentions are nothing to him.

He stands up with a grunt. “Come and get me when she is ready to go.”

His heavy footsteps recede, but Father Derrik stays. I hear the creaking of his leather shoes as he comes to stand over me. Panicking, I play dead.

Please, God. Don’t let him know that I am awake.

I squeeze my eyes tight, which I think gives me away. When he speaks, he sounds almost amused.

“How much of that did you hear, hmm?”

Then he kicks me with all his might. Pain explodes through my ribs and chest. I can’t help but open my eyes and curl into a little protective ball, tears blossoming.

“There you are!” he declares, leaning down toward me. His face is torn up, black and red and looks like he’s been hit a dozen times. Then I realize that I did that, back in the wreckage of the car. He grabbed at me, and I kicked him savagely. A small puff of bravery rises inside my chest.

He leers at me. “God, I love bringing you around. Did Dryas love it as much as I do, I wonder?”

Whatever was inside me deflates like a balloon. Repressing a sob at the mention of Dryas’s name, I try to huddle away from Father Derrik. I realize at that moment that I have lost my fear of him as a man of God; I might well have stopped believing altogether without quite knowing it.

Right now, at this moment, all I see is a bully in a clerical collar standing threateningly over a woman with nothing left to lose. I never had much in this world, but losing Dryas is like being cut free of my moorings. Whatever small things that once held us together are gone, and now without him, I am wild and windblown.

“I bet he did.” Father Derrik chuckles to himself, peering down at me.

At that moment, all the rage and hatred I feel for the man boils up in my chest. I sit up suddenly, lunging forward and grabbing his arm. I spit in his face.

“Nique-toi,” I tell him, releasing him with a grunt.

His slap comes immediately, hard enough to turn my head and make my jawbone crack. “Don’t you dare talk down to me! Don’t you know who I am?” He grabs me by the back of my neck, pulling me upright and shaking me. His face is contorted with the same kind of rage that I feel. “I am the mouthpiece of God. Do you understand? Your tiny brain may not get that, but I have control over whether or not you see heaven, you f*****g heathen!”

He grips my neck so tightly that I can barely breathe. All I can do is let out a strangled laugh. Whether or not I see heaven is between God and me. Father Derrik has nothing to do with it, that much I am certain of.

His eyes bulge out of their sockets. The second he lets go, I inhale deeply, the fire in my belly growing hotter by the second.

“Fraud!” I accuse, pointing at him. “You don’t speak for God—”

Father Derrik loses it completely then, yelling and wailing on me with unchecked punches to the face and chest. He is brutal. His reddened, swollen face alien to me as he lashes out. I cry out, a little shocked by how much it hurts, which only makes his punches harder.

I crumple at the third and fall to the floor on the fifth, but that doesn’t stop him. He just starts kicking me, pain flaring brightly with every single blow he lands. Tears stream down my face. I curl into a ball once more, trying to protect my head at the expense of my inner organs and my torso.

When he is done, he spits on me and limps out of the room, slamming the door behind him. I am left gasping for breath; every single inhalation hurts, every exhalation is torture. Crying isn’t even an option anymore. I just lie on the floor, sobbing jaggedly, amazed and angry at just how much my body can hurt.

Eventually, the pain ebbs a bit. I realize that Father Derrik split my lip and probably blackened one of my eyes, due to the swelling I experience later. Dragging myself back to my pallet, I huddle under the scratchy wool for warmth and try to sleep.

When the door is thrown open again, it’s the other man. Short and thick, the man waddles over me. I can see that he brushes his hair into a rather elaborate comb-over and wears an expensive suit. He squints down at me, then turns his head back toward the door.

“Derrik!” he screams, beginning to turn red. His accent is light enough that I still can’t identify it precisely. He talks to someone I can’t see. “Get that f*****g priest in here.” He goes back to glaring down at me. “We have to go. Can you walk?”

I am certain that in the right conditions I could walk just fine. But I shake my head anyway. The man’s brown eyes grow hard.

He scowls at me, then he turns and thunders out of the room, leaving the door wide open. I can’t see him, but I can hear him well enough.

“Just what the f**k do you think you were doing?” he accuses.

Father Derrik mutters a reply. “She provoked me.”

I try to move a little closer to the doorway, wincing in pain. My right lower back hurts; it might be my kidney that I feel aching right now.

He growls back. “She is merchandise! My merchandise! Do you expect that anyone will pay for bruised, broken fruit? Eh?”

A strange sound escapes my throat, a low whine combined with a sob. That is how he sees me: as something to be sold or rented out, to whomever he wishes.

“She’s a little b***h. And besides, she’ll heal just fine,” Father Derrik grumbles.

“You better hope so, because you will get nothing until she does. And half of what I would normally pay for the first month after that. You’re lucky I will even take her, to be honest. Most men would not bother.”

Father Derrik is silent, which prompts the other man to stomp back into my room. “Igor will help you out to the car. Do not cause him any problems, or your current state will be the least of your worries.”

He leaves me again, closing the door this time. I shiver and wait to see what happens next.