15. Chloe
Chloe
T he car ride is more awkward than ever. Perhaps even more awkward than when I was soaked and zip tied.
There’s so much tension in the air, it’s cloying, making it hard to breathe.
Zack’s not said a word to me since we left the bar.
He keeps skipping through his playlist, not settling on anything for more than a few seconds.
Every time he goes to press the button, I swear he’s reaching for a pill, but he resists each time.
“Why won’t you tell me what your connection is to the video tapes?” To whoever Kat is.
Honestly, I’m scared to find out who she is. What if she’s his girlfriend waiting for him back home and he’ll leave me to go back to her once his mission is complete?
“Because it’s none of your business.”
“It became my business when you killed two men in front of me!”
“For fuck’s sake, Chloe, why do you care so much? It means nothing to you.”
“Because I care about you!” I shout .
He curls his lip as he looks at me. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re just some whore, spreading your legs, and ready to suck any cock you can get your hands on to protect yourself. You don’t know what it means to truly care about a person.”
His words hurt more than anything I’ve been told before. Because ultimately, he’s right. I didn’t start out having sex because I wanted it, but I learned how to utilize it to protect myself.
Before, I would shut my mind off and endure, but with Zack, I left my mind open because I wanted to experience it not just with him, but through him.
I thought he felt the same. That connection we felt barely an hour ago meant something. Whatever pain he’s holding onto is forcing his hand, making him shut me out.
“You don’t know anything about me. What I’ve had to do to get here,” I snap back just as harshly as he’s choosing to speak to me.
“Then indulge me. Tell me your twisted little story and see if you can thaw my icy heart. Remember, it might save your life. There are only a few hours left until dawn.”
He’s just being an asshole and hanging that deadline over me to mess with my head. I don’t believe for a second he’ll really kill me.
If I let him in, then perhaps he’ll return the favor.
“I told you my mom left me at the convent when I was sixteen.”
“Kids get abandoned all the time. That’s not going to sway me.”
I take a breath and end up inhaling his scent. How can someone so full of disdain toward me make me feel so secure?
“It was fine there for the first few months. I missed Mom, but knew it wasn’t her fault. She got really sick and couldn’t look after me by herself anymore. Rather than put me in the system, she thought me being safe within a convent until I turned eighteen would be best.”
She wasn’t to know what the place was really like. To her, religion was a good thing. It kept her going on the bad days when her body was working against her and she spent days in bed, moaning quietly from the pain. All she ever did was try to protect me.
“I never got to see her again after I arrived there. Whenever I asked if I could visit her, the Fathers would tell me to have faith and that I’d see her someday, but nothing ever came of it. I never stopped asking. I’d been there just under a year when I was sent to one of their chambers.”
“Wait, Fathers? As in priests?”
“Yes, Zack. Not my real Father, obviously?—”
“You’re positive you lived at a convent?”
I nod, unsure of what he’s getting at.
“Chloe…If it was, there shouldn’t have been any priests living with you.”
He clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I was the one who lived there, not him.
I find myself getting annoyed with him for thinking he knows more about my own life than me.
When I don’t continue my story, Zack says in a surprisingly gentle tone, “Tell me what happened when you went to his chambers.” He chews on the last word like it’s filth in his mouth.
I’m reluctant to tell him, but this is my chance to finally get through to him.
“His name was Father Stone. I was hopeful that this was finally the moment he’d say I could see my mom again.
But when he sat me down next to him on his bed, I knew my world was about to shatter.
He told me that my mom had passed away. She had a severe autoimmune disorder that weakened her heart.
An infection had rapidly spread, and there was nothing that could have been done to save her.
I was heartbroken, and he held me as I cried.
” Hot tears burn the backs of my eyes as I get stuck in the memory.
I can still vividly recall the way he held me too tightly and for far too long.
The stale smell of him was something I had to get used to, and quickly.
Zack stays silent as he listens. His knuckles are white on the wheel.
“He told me that my mom had gone to heaven, and that I could see her there one day. If I was good. His hands…His hands never went anywhere inappropriate. Not at that point. But the way he touched me…” I shake the memory away.
“It was a few days later that they came for me the first time. For the start of my initiation to become a Sister. They made it sound so special.”
Before then, my naive young mind thought the other girls were being taken for extra prayer sessions or confessionals with the Fathers.
It was only once they started regularly choosing me that I realized it was at the same time each week that the selection would happen.
Every Friday night, they’d pick the girl who needed the most saving.
Who needed her faith restored. It makes me sick to think about it now, but also so fucking angry.
“So, yes, Zack, I did what I had to do to survive because I was a child when they first raped me, and when nothing changed as I became an adult, I did worse things for them. Each time, I lost a part of myself, but also found something else. Something dark and twisted. I held tight to it no matter how much it hurt.” Spreading open my hands on my lap, I study my palms. The crescent scars that run deep.
I curl my fingers inward until my nails match up perfectly with the lines.
Then I look back up at Zack, my anger fading.
“I didn’t fall for their lies, but what else was I supposed to do other than kneel for them and pretend to accept what they were saying?”
“You could have fought back!” he snaps angrily.
I scoff. “Just like the woman on the video fought back? Like Kat did? That’s why you’re doing this.
If she had, you wouldn’t be fighting for her now.
Not everyone gets a chance to be a hero.
Sometimes going along with what the villain wants is the only way to make sure the end of your story doesn’t get cut short. ”
A tear drips down his cheek and catches in the moonlight. He’s crying?
This man who is so comfortable around death and pain is crying. For me or for someone else?
“Who are you hurting for?” I ask him, placing my hand over his. “Whose pain are you carrying?”
Zack looks at me, shocked, his lips parting, and I know I’ve just sliced him wide open.
“You don’t have to go through it alone,” I add softly.
Before he can answer, lights fill the car from behind us, and the rumble of an engine cuts through the silence.
The cops?
“Make a scene, and this is over,” Zack snaps as he adjusts his grip on the wheel and keeps one eye on the rearview mirror.
I look behind us, but can’t see anything through the glare of lights. “I don’t think it’s the cops. The lights are white and there are no sirens. Maybe it’s just another random driver? ”
Zack casts a glance my way. There’s no smugness or loathing this time. He looks almost scared.
The lights move, and a motorcycle comes into view along the road next to me. Another does the same on Zack’s side of the car. I recognize the faded emblems on the riders’ jackets from the bar.
Were they waiting for us?
“What do they want?” I ask, panicked. Zack gives me another look that I can’t figure out.
“Sit back and keep your head low.”
They’re the first people we’ve seen on the road all night. I suppose Zack’s luck had to run out at some point.
They rev their engines, and the one on Zack’s side gestures for him to pull over. Zack flips him off and speeds up.
My stomach is left back on the road as we race away. They catch up quickly to us though.
The one on the driver’s side reaches into his jacket, and I scream when I see a gun.
Zack grabs the back of my head and shoves my face between my knees. “Stay down!” he shouts as a shot goes off. “Shit, shit, shit!”
The car spins out of control. My screams drown out the screeching of rubber. Zack takes his hand off me. I lurch forward as we come to a sudden stop, and brace my hands against the dashboard. No airbags? Shit. That could have gone worse.
I do a mental check of my body and don’t feel any pain other than a sting on my palms. When I sit up, I see Zack’s forehead bleeding where it’s hit the steering wheel.
“Your head. Are you alright?” I reach out to inspect the wound, my fingertips hovering just above it.
“It doesn’t matter.” Worry is deep in his eyes as he scans over my body. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fi—” I scream again as my door is yanked open, and I’m dragged out by my armpits.
“Get off her!” Zack roars loud enough to shake the heavens. He reaches out for me, and our fingertips brush before I’m ripped away from him.