Lily
My feet pound against the polished hardwood floor of the hallway as I march toward some unknown destination. I can’t think straight. My mind fills by the second with hate and loathing for that man. I try to be nice. I try to make the best of the situation we’re both stuck in, and what does he do?
Fucking threaten me!
I swear to God the man has a one track mind. Someone’s difficult with him? Threaten them. Someone’s kind to him? Threaten them. Someone’s merely existing in the same world as him? Threaten them.
What a jackass! Fucking barbarian.
Halfway around the second floor, I stop, unsure where I am in the house. “I’m sure he’d love it if I just got lost in some study or something and he never had to deal with me again,” I mumble as I look around for where to go now.
It’s the middle of the goddamned day, so it’s not like I want to sleep. Not after being tied to that chair for God only knows how long. I want to stretch my legs and move around. I want to breathe in the fresh air of a beautiful September day. Unlike Cason, I’m not an old bastard who needs to nap during the afternoon. Some mob guy he is. He probably falls asleep during a hit.
My brain swirls with questions as I head toward the door to go outside and enjoy myself while I can. Who knows when he’ll change his mind and tie me up to a goddamned chair again?
Do mob guys do hits? What is a hit anyway? That’s killing someone, isn’t it?
I shake my head as these questions clog my thoughts. What do they matter anyway? I’m definitely not a hit. Am I? No, I can’t be. I’m not important enough. Either is my father. He’s just an old man obsessed with his plate collection. Too bad he was too stupid to understand you don’t take a loan out with mobsters.
Not that he’s the one suffering. He and those fucking plates are safe and sound, while I get to spend time with the crankiest hit man ever.
Suddenly, I stop on the stairs as a terrible thought pushes every other one out of my mind. My father is safe, isn’t he?
I turn around and run back to Cason’s room. He’s still lying back against the pillows on that enormous bed, his eyes now closed like he’s asleep. I don’t care. He needs to wake up and tell me what’s happened to my father right now.
“Is my father okay? I need to know.”
For a few seconds, Cason doesn’t open his eyes. Fuck, is he really asleep in the middle of the afternoon? How old is this guy anyway? My father naps in the afternoon, but he’s in his fifties. I didn’t think Cason was that old, but I’m beginning to think he just looks good for an old guy.
Creeping across the floor, I stop a few feet from the bed and yell. “Cason! Wake up! I need to know if my father’s okay.”
My screaming doesn’t startle him, oddly enough, and he slowly rouses, opening his eyes to glare at me. “Why the fuck are you screeching like a fucking animal?” he asks in a calm voice, utterly wrong for the moment.
“I need to know if my father’s okay. You took me to ensure he’ll pay back the money he took, right? That’s how this goes, isn’t it? Nobody went over to the house and hurt him, did they?”
“That’s not how it goes. People in my business don’t hurt people. We kill them,” he answers flatly, like all of this concern rushing out of me bores him.
“Stop being such an asshole! Just tell me if my father’s okay or not! Try being a decent human being for two seconds for once. Is he okay or not?” I scream, tears forming in my eyes as I grow desperate to get a straight answer from this guy about the most important person in my life.
My emotional explosion seems to unnerve him, and he stares at me like he doesn’t know what to say. It’s an easy fucking question, jackass. Is he okay or not? This isn’t rocket science or brain surgery.
I want to strangle him for every second I stand there waiting for some coherent answer that will tell me what I need to know. Finally, he nods his head and shrugs. I’m asking about someone’s life, and this guy shrugs. I can barely contain how much I hate him right now.
“My boss wants the money Harry owes him, so I’m sure he’s fine.”
Even though his words filter through to my brain and I know my father’s okay, I still can’t stop the whirlwind of emotion inside me. Hearing the answer I’d hoped for doesn’t calm me at all. I’m still just as furious as I was before he told me that. I want to hit something. Someone. I want him to feel as terrible as I just felt for the last few minutes when I didn’t know if my father was alive or dead.
“You know, none of this is okay. Taking someone as a hostage to get your stinking money. Hurting people like you do. Acting like what you do is fine because the people you hurt deserve it. Well, I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything to you or your boss. I don’t deserve this, and I don’t deserve to be tied up or threatened all the time or any of it. And the fact that you think I do shows there’s something wrong with you.”
The entire time I’m unraveling right there in front of Cason, tears stream out of my eyes and down my cheeks, making him turn into a blurry, watery version of himself. I can’t see how he reacts because the tears make it impossible to focus on his expression, but I don’t care. I watch to make sure he doesn’t get off the bed and lunge at me or point that damn gun of his at me again, but other than that, I don’t care how he feels about what I have to say. I don’t care because at least I know my father’s okay.
I also don’t care because this person sitting on the bed in front of me—this hazy, watery thing with no feelings and no heart—means nothing to me.
If he has anything to say to my outburst, he doesn’t voice it before I spin on my heels and storm out of his room. I run down the hallway, still blinded by tears, and take the stairs by twos to get the hell out of that house and out into the fresh air and only freedom I have now.
My emotions stay limited to my screaming at him and crying until I get outside, but it takes only seconds for them to completely spill out once my feet hit the soft grass in the front yard. It feels so cool against my skin and so perfectly natural, unlike the rest of my existence at that moment, that I collapse onto the ground as my emotions overwhelm me.
Squeezing my eyes closed, I still can’t stop my tears from coming as thoughts of my father sitting in our little house wondering what’s happening to me mix with memories of my mother and how much I wish I’d had more time with her. If I had, maybe I’d know how to be the kind of person who could handle what I’m going through instead of bumbling around in the dark, unsure of how to deal with Cason so he doesn’t finally follow through on his threats and kill me that one time I say the wrong thing or look at him the wrong way.
I don’t know how to be the person I need to be to stop someone who thinks it’s okay to take a person hostage, threaten them, and tie them up like a bunch of unwanted papers you set out for the garbage. Maybe I’m too young. Maybe I’m not smart enough. I don’t know.
All I do know is I have to find a way to make it out of this alive. The problem is how?
“You know, they treat that grass with chemicals.”
Lifting my head, I see the person who said that, and it’s not Cason. I quickly scramble to my feet as the tall man with dirty blond hair standing there watching me smiles.
“I didn’t mean you had to get up. I just figured I should mention that. You know, in case you didn’t know about the stuff they put on the lawn.”
His gaze drifts down my body, so I follow it and see I have a few blades of grass stuck to my pants. I brush them off and look up to see him still smiling at me.
“Who are you? Do you live here?”
“Nate. I’m one of the security team here. We stay in the shack at the front of the property. I was just coming up to find Cason. Is he in the house?” he says very politely.
“I have no idea where he is,” I answer far less graciously than this Nate person deserves. It isn’t his fault that I hate the man he’s looking for.
My rudeness ends our conversation, much to my regret, and Nate’s smile fades away. Instantly, I regret how I’ve acted toward him and apologize.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it like that. It’s just…” I hesitate to tell the truth of my situation, but if this guy works here, he’s probably seen someone like me under the same conditions before, so it won’t be any surprise to him.
“You know, I’m not here as a guest,” I say, finishing my idea with something far less obvious than I’d intended.
I want to tell the truth—that I’m being held against my will—but I remember how Cason acted when I tried to get help from that lady at his apartment building. Better to choose my words far more carefully this time.
Nate doesn’t answer for a long moment before smiling once more. “I know why you’re here. Don’t get your hopes up. I’m not going to help you get away. I value my own life far too dearly.”
Immediately crestfallen that he’s just another Cason, I turn away and mumble under my breath, “How heroic. Good to know chivalry isn’t dead out here in God’s country.”
I leave yet another person who doesn’t give a damn that I’m being held against my will and walk off to explore the property. Cason’s warning about the electrified fence around the perimeter never leaves the front of my mind, but I enjoy the ability to at least have some measure of freedom.
It’s not true freedom, but for the time being, it’s all I have, so I plan to make the most of it.
For two hours, I behave like a true child of nature. I walk across the cool grass, loving the feel of every step I take. I climb a large tree for the first time in my life and sit on the branch to look out over the landscape like I assume boys do when they climb trees. Power surges through me, like I’m the ruler of some tiny kingdom containing only me and the nature surrounding that tree, but that power feels better than anything I remember in a long time.
When I grow tired of ruling from my branchy throne, I climb back down to Earth and roll around on the grass. So what if they use chemicals on it like that Nate person said? I don’t care. The softness of the grass feels good against my skin.
And anyway, this may be one of my last days to enjoy grass and trees and fresh air, so why not take advantage of every precious second I can to revel in all of it? That’s the truth I can’t escape from in those hours alone wandering around the grounds. If my father doesn’t pay the money he owes Cason’s boss, I’ll be dead at the end of seven days.
That reality colors every blade of grass I touch, every branch I cling to, every breath I take into my lungs. It ruins me, and then it strengthens me.
Cason will kill me at the end of this week if my father can’t pay the money back. I understand that on my travels around the property, and now as I walk back to the silent house I’m to spend my time in for the rest of that week, I accept that fact.
He will kill me. He’s threatened it more than once already, and I have no illusions that he’s a man who will do anything other than what he must. No amount of sweetness or tears will help me.
So I come to a decision out there in nature where no one tells me to shut up but still I say nothing. I will give him what he’s wanted from me since he dropped me into the back seat of his car. He’ll get his silence.
Nate is nowhere to be found as I walk up the stairs after looking through each room for some sign of him. Not that I expect him to be here. It doesn’t matter if he is. He’s already made it clear that he’s no one who will help me, so he can stay wherever the security guys belong.
My curiosity about Cason and if he’s still in his bedroom nearly makes me check. It’s my nature to be that kind of person. I don’t know if I’ve been that way since birth or if losing my mother and having to take care of my only remaining parent made me that way, but I’ve always liked to know where everyone in my life is at all times. It’s made me a careful and doting friend, probably a smothering one to some people.
As much as I hate the idea that someone like Cason is in my life, I can’t escape that truth either. For good or bad, he is, and that makes me want to know where he is.
I don’t check his bedroom, though. I won’t be able to keep silent if I see him, and that’s what I need to do now. So I walk past his room and peek into the one next to his, cracking the door just a few inches to take a look.
Unlike his room with its blue-green walls, this one’s walls are painted a cream color and the furniture is a light wood. The bed and windows have been decorated in a brown and black geometric pattern that seems far more masculine than the room Cason chose. The rectangles and triangles make me uneasy with their sharp edges, so I close the door and move on to the next room.
As soon as I open the door, I see pale pink walls and white wood furniture. The rug in the center of the dark hardwood floor is a matching pink, and I run in to feel its softness on the soles of my feet. Whoever decorated this room with its pink walls and matching draperies and bedspread had to be a woman or know what women love.
I spin around on the soft pink carpet, spreading my arms out wide and closing my eyes at how welcoming this room feels compared to the one next door with its jagged edges. I’ll stay here with my silence, far enough away from Cason to avoid him but close enough to hear when he comes and goes.
As much as I don’t feel tired in the least, I throw myself onto the bed and relax in what may be the most beautiful bedroom I’ve ever been in. Some of my friends had rooms like this in their homes when they were little girls, but I never did. My room remains the way it was my entire life with its tan walls, brown carpeting, and twin bed I’ve slept in since I moved from my crib.
Closing my eyes, I revel in the feel of the king size bed I now get to rest on and let my mind wander to a place where I’m not a hostage of Cason’s, he’s not in my life, and my father and I are safe and living in a home like this. He wouldn’t have to worry about having to sell any of his belongings to afford things, and he’d get to be the man he’s always dreamed of being with his collectable plates and the prestige that comes from owning them.
And then, just as my brain succeeds in pushing everything awful out until only my fantasy about that future remains, Cason’s voice rings out, ripping me back to reality.
“Lily, where are you? Answer me.”
I don’t want to answer him. I don’t want to speak to him. I don’t want to give him that so he can complain that all I do is steal his precious peace and quiet.
He doesn’t knock, instead flinging open my bedroom door and stomping in like some invading barbarian into my pink sanctuary. I stare at his face with all the disgust I have inside for him and his intruding on the only happiness I’ve had since he took me from my home.
My nature is to ask him what he wants since he’s standing there looking at me, but I promised myself I would give him that silence he’s berated me for over and over. So our gazes lock while neither of us says a word. It’s strange and awkward for both of us, and finally, he gives in and breaks the silence.
“I called your name. Why didn’t you answer?” he asks with more than a hint of impatience.
I want to tell him I didn’t care to answer him, but I say nothing and simply shrug. It’s far more difficult saying nothing than I imagined, and more than once my lips part to let the words out before I catch them and swallow them down, entire phrases in my throat nearly choking me.
He wanted silence. Now he can have it.
