Behind The Hands That Kill

TWENTY- SEVEN

Pushing up on my toes, I reach above for the key hidden over the basement door. “I left the front door unlocked about twelve hours ago,” I say, sliding the key into the knob, “and someone almost wanted me bad enough.”

“Oh?” Naeva cocks an eyebrow, watching me with intense curiosity.

I open the door and reach out to flip the light switch on the wall; light floods the carpeted steps leading down into the basement. The voice becomes louder. “I need to take a piss, you fucking bitch!”

Naeva stops on the second step and just looks at me, her face all twisted up with confusion and concern.

I jerk my head back casually. “It’s all right,” I tell her, insisting she continue to follow. “He may’ve worked the gag out of his mouth, but there’s no way he’s getting out of the ropes.”

“Who is it?” Naeva whispers, still immobile on the second step.

I take her by the hand and lead her down the last ten steps, and we make our way into the basement.

Naeva’s eyes widen, and she gasps quietly. “My God,” she says, her hand loosely covering her mouth, “it’s Apollo Stone.”

Apollo is bound to an old wheelchair; ropes are tied around his arms and wrists and the chair’s frame; his legs and ankles to the folding leg rests. His feet are bare and the only clothing he wears are his form-fitting boxer briefs. He has muscle-defined runner’s legs, and a physique like the God Apollo himself. But this Apollo, being tied to a dusty wheelchair in nothing but his underwear and colorful language, isn’t doing his divine namesake any justice.

“Come on, girl,” Apollo insists, with the backward tilt of his head, “I gotta piss. Get me a soda bottle or somethin’. Don’t even have to untie my hands—you can hold it for me.” His mouth turns up on one side.

Naeva can barely take her eyes off him.

“Why—how is he here?” she asks, without looking at me.

Apollo snorts.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he says, looking Naeva over with comical disappointment. And relief. “This is who you brought to keep an eye on me while you’re in wetback country?” He throws his head back and laughs.

I ignore him.

“Victor was right,” I tell Naeva. “When Apollo and Artemis found out I was still alive, they wasted no time coming after me.”

Naeva glances around the dimly-lit room, probably looking for another wheelchair with Artemis tied to it. But all she’ll see are a few water damaged boxes piled in one corner, a rusty crotch-rocket motorcycle frame leaning against a wall, two miss-matched end-tables pressed against an old water heater. But no Artemis Stone.

“Or, Apollo came for me, at least,” I correct myself, and then I look at Apollo. “No sign of Artemis yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Right, Apollo?” I smirk at him. “Or did your sister abandon you? Leave you here to rot like you deserve?”

Apollo smirks right back at me.

“She’s doing what she has to do,” he says. “She’ll come for me soon. And when she does, she’ll finish the job she started—how’s that scar feelin’, anyway? It’s not lookin’ any better.” He smiles. “It never will.”

I grin. Then I reach up and touch the still-healing scar across my throat with my fingertips.

“Actually, I kinda like it,” I say. “It’s proof that I’m not easy to kill.”

“Well don’t forget,” Apollo says with a gleam in his eye, “that Artemis has one just like it.” Then his smile spreads, and he adds, “Seems you have a lot in common with my sister. Near-death experiences. Matching scars. Victor Faust.” If he was trying to get under my skin—of course he was—then it worked. He’s used that against me a couple times since I dragged him down here. But I always openly ignore it.

I move closer to him. “I look forward to the day I can face her fairly,” I say. “Just me and Artemis. No rules or ropes or bars between us. We’ll see how similar we are then.”

Apollo bites down gently on his bottom lip, and his dark eyes sweep over me like a man mentally savoring his sexual prey before he eats it. He smiles with intrigue, and moves his tongue slowly in-between his lips. “Y’know, Izabel,” he says, “I’m all for my sister getting what she wants, but I’d never really want to kill you myself. It’d be such a waste. I can think of a hundred things I’d rather do to you.”

“Is that so?” I say, continuing to move closer; every step I take dripping with sexuality and purpose. I stop right in front of him, and I lean over, grabbing the arms of the wheelchair in my hands; I purposely let my breasts fall before him, barely covered by the thin white tank-top I’m wearing. “Tell me what you’d do to me, Apollo Stone.” I lean over farther, to tempt him further.

And he takes the bait.

His eyes stray, and he looks into my shirt—I look down at his lap, clearly able to see the hard bulge growing behind the spandex-like material of his boxer-briefs. He looks into my eyes, wanting me closer, and so I give him what he wants and I lean in so close I can feel the warmth of his breath on my mouth. “I want to switch places with you,” he whispers, “and throw your thighs over the arms of this chair, and then spread you open with my tongue—slowly—before I fuck you with my fingers.”

“And then what?” I whisper.

“And then I’ll shove my fat cock down your throat, and fuck your mouth until you puke.” It was meant to offend me, I know, but I can’t be offended by someone I don’t give a shit about.

Grinning, I lean away from him just slightly, and then look across the short distance at Naeva, whose eyes are wide with shock, and repulsion. “This is what I’ve had to listen to the past twelve hours,” I tell her, shaking my head.

Then I pull back my fist and send it crashing into his face; blood trickles from both nostrils—his nose is already broken, courtesy of me during the first hour after he woke up in the wheelchair.

Apollo laughs as blood streams down over his lips and into his mouth. He spits a little on the floor.

“Do what you want with me,” he says. “I kind of enjoy it anyway. Say, when are you leavin’? I’m looking forward to that meatless piece of ass taking over.” He smiles at Naeva, showing his bloodied teeth.

She makes a horrible face.

Making a face myself, I wipe Apollo’s disgusting blood from my hand onto my tank-top.

“I wondered why you had blood on your clothes,” Naeva says. She glances back at Apollo. He puckers his lips at her and kisses the air. She looks away from him quickly. “What are you going to do with him? Are you going to tell Victor that you have him here?”

“No,” I answer immediately. “Victor will just kill him. I want him alive. I’m not done with him yet.”

“She likes me,” Apollo tells Naeva, wriggling his eyebrows. “Look, I really need to take a piss. And when are you going to feed me? I could do with a burger and some fries.” I start to walk back toward the staircase and he calls out, “You can cook can’t you? I don’t want any of that cheap fast-food bullshit!”

Naeva follows me up the steps.

“I have someone coming to take over for me while I’m in Mexico,” I tell her.

Apollo’s voice carries up the stairs.

“I changed my mind!” he calls out. “I want a steak! Medium rare! A side of homemade mashed potatoes—keep the skins on! Some macaroni and—”

I close the basement door, shutting off his voice. Most of it anyway; I can still hear him muffled through the walls and the vents, and I’m suddenly wishing I hadn’t forgotten to put the gag back into his mouth.

“Who’s going to watch over him?” Naeva asks.

She follows me into my bedroom. I sit back down in front of the vanity and get back to work on braiding birth control pills into my hair. From the corner of my eye I see my cell phone screen light up, indicating a call. I ignore it and let it go to voicemail.

“I hired outside help,” I say. I see Naeva, in the reflection of the mirror, sit down on the foot of my bed. “They’ll be here in an hour to take him to another location. In case Artemis shows up, which I fully expect that she will. Sooner rather than later.”

“Sarai?”

The concern in her voice makes me look up and pause what I’m doing.

“Yeah?”

She hesitates, maybe searching for words, and then asks, “I don’t know you outside from what I’ve heard about you through Brant, and I know the girl I knew all those years ago when I first met you is long gone by now, but I don’t have to know you to see that you’re deliberately pushing my brother away.” She points at the door, indicating Apollo down the hallway. “He has people looking for Apollo and Artemis. You have one of them in custody right now, but you don’t want him to know. And then the whole thing with you going to Mexico alone.” She glances at the floor, then back up at me. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m not judging you, I just don’t understand what you’re doing. I…I guess I just…”—her gaze strays again, her expression clouding over with a deep-rooted pain, it seems—“…I guess I just can’t imagine pushing away the man I love for any reason. When you find that one person you know you were meant to be with, to live and die with, you do just that—you live and die with him. For him, if you have to.” I know she means well, but the only person she’s thinking about right now is that man, Leo.

I turn around on the little stool to face her instead of her reflection; I drop my hands from my hair and place them into my lap. “You’re wrong, Huevito,” I say softly. “The girl you knew all those years ago, is sitting right in front of you.”

She looks at me for a long moment, seeming in search of her own understanding of my words, or rather the ones I refuse to say, and then I turn around and go back to braiding my hair.

“We leave for Mexico in five hours,” I tell her. “Are your tubes tied?”

It takes her a second; perhaps she’s surprised by the question, but she answers, “Y-Yes.”

“Good,” I say. “Now, I’m gonna need you to hit me in the face.”

“What?”

Snapping on the last tiny rubber band around the end of a braid, I get up from the stool and walk toward her.

“I need you to hit me in the face.”

“Why?”

“Because I’d rather it be you than Ray—he doesn’t seem the type to wash his hands after he takes a piss.”

After Naeva beats the shit out of me—she’s stronger than I expected—and I rip her clothes and rough her up a little myself, I spend the next five hours telling her everything she needs to know, and the role she needs to play. I admit, I was worried about her tagging along in the beginning, but after only a short time, I realize she needs no training. Naeva is, unfortunately, even more experienced than me when it comes to underground Mexico.