Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
EDIE
A familiar voice calls my name. “Edie! Oh my God, Edie! Wake up!”
I don’t know if it’s an hour later or a day later that I become conscious. I’m lying sideways on a cold, hard floor with something soft under my head, like a sweater, and all I know is that I just want to sleep through whatever nightmare this is.
Gentle hands shake my shoulder frantically. “Edie! Please! Wake up!”
I feel like I’m in a dream, like we’re back in school, and Mary’s bugging me to get up. “Sto-op,” I complain, my head pounding.
Gentle fingers pat my cheek, then more urgently. “Edie, Edie, Edie! Oh God, what did he do to you?”
I force my eyes open through the fog. A face swims into view, one I’ve been searching for desperately. For a moment, I think I’m hallucinating.
“Mary?” My voice breaks. My heart nearly stops. “ Mary ?!”
“Oh, thank goodness!” Mary’s voice cracks with emotion. She’s crying, her eyes red-rimmed and wild. “I thought you were—I didn’t know if you’d?— ”
“Is it really you?” I struggle against the handcuffs digging painfully into my wrists, desperate to touch her, to make sure she’s real. “How are you here? Where is here?”
“That psycho cop brought you in unconscious. I’ve been going out of my mind!” She’s trembling, her hands fluttering over me like she’s afraid I might shatter. “What the hell is happening? Why are you here? You’re the one who’s supposed to be safe!”
Blinking, I pull myself up to sit against the wall, my head spinning. Dim light filters through a filthy window at the far end of the place, beyond the bars that surround us. The reality of our situation crashes down on me.
“We’re in a cage,” I whisper, the horror of it sinking in. “Both of us.”
“That jackass’s basement,” she says, her voice cracking as she pulls me into an awkward hug with my hands still cuffed. “I’ve been here for weeks, but you—oh, Edie. Why are you here?”
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” I manage, tears streaming down my face. “I was so scared you were dead.”
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry—” Her voice breaks into a sob.
“Stop with the sorrys. Are you okay?” I ask, scanning her for injuries. She looks thinner and her skin is sallow, but she’s whole.
She laughs bitterly, wiping tears from her cheeks. “Aside from being trapped in this hellhole for five weeks? Aside from watching that creep walk in dragging my practically lifeless little sister? I thought he killed you!”
“Mary.” I wish I could hug her back properly. “I was so scared I’d never see you again.”
“How did you get mixed up in this?” Her eyes are wide with terror. “He showed me pictures of you with those men?—”
“Looking for you. It’s a long story, but I’ve been searching everywhere.”
“He said—” she choked on the words. “He said you were working for him now. That you were with those men because of me. That you went out to talk to the girls on Garrison to find me because I didn’t take your call on my birthday, and he caught you in a sweep and made you his bitch.
He says he’s making you prostitute yourself to disgusting, cruel mafia guys because of me and you go home crying and you’re flunking out?—”
“Mary, he’s messing with you.”
“But I saw the picture of you looking miserable in a butt-ugly skin-tight dress you’d never ever wear with a hairdo done like a sad clown 1980s news anchor at some bar. He says that’s how you dress now?—”
“And you believed him? That I dress like a sad clown 1980s news anchor now? You have insulted my fashion choices in the past, but seriously?”
She sniffles and laughs through her tears. “But the picture—I know what I saw.”
I shift my shoulders around, trying to ease the pressure. One of the things they don’t tell you about wearing handcuffs behind your back long-term is that it’s really painful for your shoulders. And my injured wrist is throbbing like crazy.
“Those handcuffs look tight,” she says.
“Never mind about that,” I say. “What happened with you?”
She tips her head against the wall. “I’m sorry I didn’t take your call.”
“What happened? It was your birthday.”
“I know. I was so drunk and so baked, and I couldn’t deal with talking to you like that.
But then I felt like an asshole the day after.
I couldn’t call because I knew I was making bad decisions.
I promised myself I’d straighten up and call you with good news for once, and then one day turned into the next. I was such a shit!”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I have everything to apologize for. I really wanted to have cleaned up my act the next time I talked to you. And I was starting to—ten days I was sober—and then I was at this shelter in New Haven, and this guy showed up. He was in uniform, telling me that you’re in trouble, and then he tricks me and brings me here.
I’m so sorry, Edie. And you ended up having to do all this stuff for me. ..”
“There’s no amount of stuff that I could do that would repay you for the way you saved my life growing up. You gave up your childhood to care for me. You gave up everything?—”
“That is so not true,” Mary says.
“It is true. I survived because of you,” I say. “You saved me. You took every kind of bullet for me.”
“Edie, no?—”
“You made everything better, and not one day goes by that I’m not aware of the sacrifices you made. I’ll never repay that debt. Not ever.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says. “Saving you saved me.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“Fuck off if you don’t believe me,” Mary says. “Taking care of you kept me from going off the deep end. If there’s any debt to pay, it’s the one I owe you.”
“Disagree,” I say.
“Disagree with your disagree.”
“Disagree with your disagree with my disagree.” We go on like this for a while. It’s an old game.
She holds up a dingy plastic water bottle. “You thirsty? I could pour this in your mouth. It’s drinkable. He gets it out of the sink over there.”
“As long as you don’t dribble it on me,” I say. “Sad clown doesn’t like water on her.”
She snorts and carefully pours it into my mouth. “That guy’s a real prick.”
I wipe my mouth on my shoulder the best I can.
“There are some bits of truth to what he told you. I did go looking for you, and he did scoop me up and make me sit with some mafia men wearing that horrible dress. But I didn’t have sex with somebody gross, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
“You promise?”
“Promise. But... I did have sex with somebody I met there, and if I could do a chef’s kiss right now, I would. And that’s all I’ll say on the matter.”
“Wait, what?” She blinks. “You had sex with somebody from the mafia?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“You? And a mafia guy?”
I shrug.
Her eyes go wide.
“What? Don’t be so shocked.”
“Edie, you hate criminals.”
“Not all criminals. Apparently.”
“Ohmigod. He told me you had to blow ten men at once?—”
“Excuse me? Absolutely not true. And gross!”
Mary gusts out a breath of relief. “I wanted to kill myself!”
“Well, now I want to kill him.”
“Get in line,” she says.
I hoist myself up to standing and kick at the bars, finding the spot where the bar meets a crumbly-looking wall.
“Don’t bother. I’ve tried. Every which way.”
“Fuck.” I awkwardly slide back down to the floor. “Seriously, these cute cowboy boots? But you believed my new fashion is sad clown 1980s? This is what you believed?”
“No, the boots are good.” She lowers her voice. “Do you have any paperclips in your pockets or an underwire bra on?”
“No, why?”
She looks around. “Check out what I’ve been making.” She pushes away some crumpled papers and pulls out a long, skinny, gnarled stick with a bend at the end like a shepherd’s crook.
It’s maybe four feet long and rigid but sort of fragile .
“I made it out of dried celery and chicken bone and gum. It’s wrapped with threads from my socks and some of my hair.”
“Ummm... I guess it’s nice? Maybe just not my style.”
“Fuck off.” She hides it again. “Sometimes he leaves his keys on the bench over there, and if I get it long enough, I feel like I could hook them and let myself out.”
“Wow. That’s actually kind of amazing.”
I can’t feel my fingers on my right hand. The wrist he injured is probably swollen up like a balloon, cutting off the blood supply to my hand. It hurts, and I’m getting worried. Could that do permanent damage? Could I literally lose my right hand?
“Seriously want to kill him,” I say.
“I’m so glad you’re okay. You have no idea,” Mary says.
“Well, I don’t have a gross pole made of dried celery and my own hair, but other than that...”
“That gross pole is gonna get us out of here.”
I give her a solemn look. “We’ve seen his face, Mary.”
“I know,” she says softly. “He’s completely unhinged. You have no idea.”
“I have some idea.” I stand up again and go to the bars, staring hopelessly out at the dank basement. Bender is an outright sociopath who probably killed Darren, but it doesn’t seem like a helpful detail to add.
“Hey.” She comes up to me and pokes me in the shoulder. “We’ll figure this out. We’re the Flying Frittatas.”
I manage a smile at the stupid name we used to call ourselves. Blast from the past. “Where did we even think of that?”
She shakes her head.
“Frittata,” I say.
“Forget frittatas—a mafia guy? You?”
“I know.”
My right-hand fingers are all pins and needles now. It hurts.
“Miss Straight-A Proper Girl? You are into a literal mafia guy?”
“Yeah. Luka. He’s hot and wild and brilliant, and we have fun together, and he’s a caveman and a gentleman?—”
“Ohhhh, hold on. Luka Zogaj? Bender’s brother Luka?”
I nod. So it’s official. Darren was right, and Bender knows.
“Bender is obsessed with him! He talks about him constantly. Luka fucked up his life or something.”
“Nothing like how Luka’s gonna fuck up his life once he finds us,” I say bravely, even though I have no reason to think Luka would be able to find us. “He’s gonna fuck him up so hard...”
Footsteps sound out, coming down the stairs.
Bender appears.
I back up—I can’t help it.