19. Nikita
Nikita
It’s been an hour since Cupid’s message appeared, an hour since I watched him rape a woman I thought was Savanna, and these sixty minutes have been the longest of my life.
Every nightmare I can think of torments me, and my only consolation is knowing that Cupid wants me to see what he has planned.
He’s not going to hurt her when I can’t see it and know there’s not a goddamn thing I can do to stop it.
Damien forced me into the bathroom after I got sick so I could get cleaned up.
He was quiet while I went through the motions of brushing my teeth, barely registering anything I was doing.
As soon as I was done, he handed me another drink and a sleeve of crackers and then parked his ass back on the barstool next to mine.
Even after an hour, every ten minutes or so, he nudges the crackers towards me, reminding me that I need to eat one. I chew the dry Saltine, not tasting it before swallowing it down. It seems to appease him, but I know he’ll be nudging the bag again in a few minutes.
Max sits on my other side, and between the two of them, they’re dead set on making sure I don’t dehydrate or get lightheaded from lack of calories.
My dad stares at his screen, not saying anything, the only sound the clicking of his keyboard.
He hasn’t stopped working since he got here, and everyone else is still waiting for news.
There’s a vigil-like quiet in the apartment that’s starting to drive me a little crazy.
We’re all anxious for news, and when the software finally finds a match in the archived photos, I lean closer, desperate for a breakthrough.
“There’s a match,” I say, and my dad quickly jumps up to come stand behind me, watching the screen as the others crowd in.
The image isn’t the highest quality, but there’s no denying he looks almost identical to the reconstructed images that were made.
“Matthew Calder,” I say, finally putting a real name to the fucker I’ve been hunting.
I want to punch my screen, reach in, and rip the smug smile he’s giving the camera right off his face.
I quickly run a search on him, not surprised when shit starts pouring in.
I read them aloud, each new discovery worse than the last. It starts with charges of theft that were eventually dropped and then underage drinking and a few pranks on campus, many of which involved him hacking into places, but it all collapsed during his senior year.
He was accused of assaulting a young woman from the Kappa Theta Rho sorority.
Before he could be arrested, he disappeared.
“What else?” Damien asks, looking at me instead of the screen. “How did he end up teaching here?”
“Because even then he was a fucking coward,” my dad says. “He went to ground, bought himself a new ID and resurfaced decades later. He’s been hiding right under their noses.”
I keep digging and soon discover his parents died in a car crash during his junior year.
They were wealthy, and he made sure to empty their accounts before he fled.
There’s no way to know what he did during those years of hiding out, but the first legitimate mention of Andrew Ellison is from a college yearbook in upstate New York twenty years ago.
He worked as a professor, teaching introductory education classes.
I find a brief wedding announcement for him and his wife, and then it’s a steady progression of him working his way up.
Ten years ago, he was offered the position here.
“I bet you anything he didn’t even earn his degrees,” my brother says. “He probably faked them along with everything else. He’s been teaching for decades, and this whole time it’s been a complete lie.”
I want to keep digging, but that same message box shows up on my screen, making me forget about everything else.
Still want your girl after I’ve had her? She’s very tight, Niki. Of course she won’t be after I’ve had my fun.
Luka leans down to whisper what it says to his brother, because I can’t force the words out of my dry mouth.
Cupid doesn’t know that thanks to Sasha I know it wasn’t Savanna on that bed earlier.
His words still fill me with a white-hot anger, though.
I click on the link, sucking in a breath when Savanna fills my screen again.
She’s back on the bed, chained to the frame and curled up on her side so I can’t see her face.
She looks so small and scared, and it’s only the slight movement of her body as she inhales and exhales that keeps me sane. She’s alive. That’s what I focus on.
Even though I know it’s pointless, I try to trace the video feed.
I’m not at all surprised to find it’s useless.
Cupid didn’t do all this just to fuck it up right at the end.
He’s been planning this, and as much as I hate to admit it, he’s smart, and he doesn’t make mistakes.
I study the room she’s in, going over every inch of it, trying to identify where she is, any clue that might help me, but it’s a room that could be anywhere.
“Fuck,” I growl, pissed at myself and reaching the end of my rope.
“You can do this, brother,” Max says.
I run a hand over my face, mentally exhausted and drowning in guilt and rage.
None of it doing me a damn bit of good. I mentally run through everything I can think of.
I even contemplate calling up Miss Francis to see if she remembers a Matthew Calder or knows of any dank basements nearby, but then I remember Savanna saying she’d moved to Florida right after graduation and only recently returned when her mom got sick and needed help.
When Savanna changes positions, I watch her, noticing every movement she makes as my eyes run over her, trying to visibly see any injuries. My hands curl into fists when I notice her mouth. It’s not the clearest image, but I can see the dried blood on her lips and chin.
“She’s bleeding,” I say, feeling my brother’s hand on my shoulder.
“She’s alive,” he counters. “You will kill him for what he’s done.
He’ll pay for this, but right now you need to focus on the fact that she’s alive.
When I was chained in that fucking room with Talia, it drove me crazy that I couldn’t get her out of there, that I was helpless to protect her, but I kept reminding myself that she was alive.
That’s all that matters right now, Niki. ”
I know he’s right, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I watch Savanna, knowing I’d give anything to save her, and I’d gladly change places with her if I could. I would do anything to spare her this.
Soon she becomes jittery, but then it turns into a constant wiggling, and I know exactly what’s going on.
My heart drops at the sight of her trying to get comfortable with a very full bladder.
At one point she lets out an annoyed grunt and kicks her leg up at the ceiling.
It takes me a second to realize she’s pissed about the constant bright light in her eyes.
It makes me think of her migraines and how sensitive she is to light when she has them.
I’m so worried about her that it takes me longer to connect the dots than it should. When I do, I look up from my screen and meet my dad’s eyes.
“I have an idea,” I tell him, “but we’ll need to bring her parents in.”
“What is it?” he asks, while my Uncle Roman asks from across the room, “Her parents?”
I swivel the barstool so I can see everyone sitting around the living room. “Her dad works for the utility company. He’s been with them for over thirty years. He’s a distribution system operations supervisor,” I say.
“And what the fuck does that mean?” my Uncle Vitaly asks, but he’s not the only one who looks confused, and I know they’re worried I might be cracking.
I point back at the screen, but then I notice what Savanna is in the process of doing and quickly angle my laptop so no one can see her struggling to shimmy out of her pants. I keep an eye on her, making sure she’s okay while I explain what I’m thinking.
“There’s a light in her room. We have no idea where the fuck she is, but if her dad can cut the power off, we can take it zone by zone and see when her light goes out.” I hesitate before adding, “If it goes out. She might be outside of the city and too far away for it to matter.”
“She’s not,” my dad says. “She’s here, Niki. She’s close. He wouldn’t have had time to take her that far away.”
I hear Savanna murmuring to herself while she squats beside the bed, and I know without even having to hear the words that her shy bladder is kicking in.
She’d refused to pee in front of me this weekend, said there was no way in hell she could do it with an audience.
When I hear the soft, relived laugh she gives, warmth floods my chest. I’m so fucking proud of her.
“Are you sure we can trust them?” my Uncle Matvey asks. “We’re all willing to do whatever it takes to get her back. We just need to know what all you want to tell them.”
“Yeah,” Luka says. “This is a big secret for people to keep. You think they’ll do it?”
“They will. They’ll do anything for Van, and she’s very close to them.
We both want them in our lives. I don’t want her to have to lie to them.
” When I hear Savanna say my name, all my attention goes to her.
She’s asking me to come find her, and my eyes sting at my failure to do what she’s asking.
When she starts pretending to talk to me, telling me about the crush she had on me, I grab my earbuds and put one in.
It’s not anything anyone else needs to hear.
While her voice fills my ear and my heart slowly breaks into a million pieces, I look at Sasha and say, “I need Cindy. Van’s parents love her and know her.
I can’t leave my computer, and there’s no way in hell they’re just going to get into a car with any of you.
They will if Cindy is there telling them it’s okay. ”