15. Kingsley
15
KINGSLEY
I smell. This much I know. And I reek of savage desperation, my mind a blur after three days of trying to mentally scheme my way out of this cell. I can see this is one situation I am not easily going to get out of. Tate isn’t coming for me, and I wonder if I will be relegated to this cell until the end of time.
There is only so much I can do to hold them off, but I know that eventually something has to give. There is only so much waiting they can do. I don’t answer any of their questions, don’t eat their food, and flat out refuse a change of clothes by shaking my head. I am too afraid to even open my mouth, fearful that my tongue will betray me. I have no idea what they want, but it would seem I am some sort of curious specimen to the men that hold me here. Obviously, whatever it is they want links back to my father. I just don’t know how.
So they wait patiently. And wait. And then wait some more. Until finally, the gig is up. One of the men – Marco, I think his name is – frustrated beyond words, is ordered to take me forcefully for a shower. I can see him mentally high fiving himself at the victory – it had been three days in the making. And before he has even made his first move to grab me from the bed, he tells me we should start with the hat and he raises his arm and knocks the damn thing off my head.
“Motherfucker!” he curses, and I sit in stunned silence as I feel my carefully wrapped bun unspool rather ungracefully and fall heavily against my shoulders and down my back. I don’t know who is more surprised, me or him. And then after the shock, there is relief, as Marco stands watching me quietly, his thoughts running at a hundred miles an hour. Dante turns back from the cell door and now looks at me in confusion. The hair isn’t enough to tell him who I am, but it is the start of something bigger with more questions that need answering. I lift my hands to my glasses, bringing them down slowly, my eyes connecting with Dante’s.
I wonder what – if anything – will change, now that he knows who is sitting in the cell. I wonder how the conversation will turn, what is expected of me versus what I will give. I never imagined that we would meet again, and never in a million years had I envisioned meeting under such circumstances. He obviously doesn’t know who I am beyond the fact that I was a woman he once rescued from the wrath of a motorcycle gang. Yet now here we are, facing one another, the look on his face telling me he is just as shocked to see me as Marco is.
Of course, I’d known who he was all along. From the moment we were in the cell and he brought me that tray, his mask long gone, and tried to get me to talk. I knew exactly who he was. I’d known all along. I just didn’t have the information I needed to make an informed decision on whether or not I should show my hand. This was the only card I had, and I had intended to keep it close to my chest until I had exhausted all avenues. But now my cards have been revealed. And all I can do was make the best of a bad situation.