31
Harper
T he next morning, I wake up with sore eyes and my throat feels raw from screaming.
I feel hollow and empty inside. I turn onto my back and stare at the ceiling.
I hear Alessia on the other side of the door talking to a man, I guess it’s Elio by the sound of it.
They are talking softly but the tone is troubled.
I get up from the bed and sneak over to the door to hear them better.
“…Not now, she had a rough night and I can’t break her heart again. I don’t know if I even have the strength to do that at all. I just got her back and I know I’ll lose her if I tell her this now.”
“She needs to know that Anna is dead,” says Elio.
All the color leaves my face, images of Anna flash by before my eyes and the love the little girl radiated. Anger bubbles up inside me and before I know it, I pull open the door.
“NO! T AKE THAT BACK!” I fly at Elio and press him against the wall. He may be bigger than me but I don’t care. My arm presses against his throat,
“Take… That… Back!” I snarl at him.
Sympathy and regret are visible in his eyes. He puts his hands on my shoulders and I press even harder.
“I… can’t,” he brings out stuttering from the lack of air in his lungs. “I wish I could, Harper.”
“Harper…” Alessia whispers behind me, “Let him go, we’ll talk.”
I soften my grip on Elio and he pulls in a breath.
“What can you possibly say, Alessia? What can you say that will justify a little girl being dead? SHE WAS THIRTEEN ALESSIA! THIRTEEN!”
I sink to the floor and cry; sobs wreck my body. I’m so angry and hurt I don’t know what to do with myself. Elio crouches beside me and puts his arm around me. That snaps something inside of me and before I know what I’m doing I dive away. I turn around and my fist hits him square on the jaw.
“Harper!” Alessia exclaims.
Elio looks at me with a look of surprise.
“Good, so there’s still plenty of anger in you. Hold onto that, you’ll need it.”
His condescending tone causes the last bit of restraint I have in me to snap as well, and I lash out at him again. This time I hit him on the nose, blood drips out.
“Ouch that hurts like a motherfucker,” he growls.
He doesn ’t do anything back and undergoes my blows as I hit him again and again until my fists hurt and bleed.
Alessia pulls me off him and I scramble out of her hold, shrugging her off before I run back into the bedroom and lock the door behind me.
“HARPER, OPEN THE DOOR!” Alessia shouts at me.
“NO! Leave me alone!”
“You have every right to be angry right now but we need to talk about this!”
“No, we don’t! Leave. Me. Alone!”
I get back into the bed and cover myself to try and drown out Alessia at the other side of the door.
She keeps wriggling the door handle as if it will magically open on its own.
After ten minutes of pounding on the door and telling me to open it she leaves, finally giving me the space I want to drown myself in the darkness that filled me last night.
I let it swallow me wholly and completely; no light can find me here anymore.
That light has been blown out by everything, Anna’s murder at the hands of Gianni and Manchini, the countless times they’ve raped me and cut me with their knives, the terror of not knowing if I would come out of it alive.
It should have been me…
It should have been me …
Anna had her whole life ahead of her…
I am not worthy of this life anymore!
I throw back the covers and grab the sleep medication off the bedside table.
I pop the bottle open and let a few pills slide out of it onto the palm of my hand.
Five pills… Will that be enough ? Will it be enough to make me feel nothing ever again?
I bring my hand to my mouth and let the pills fall into my mouth.
I take one deep breath in before I swallow them and lie back down.
I stare at the ceiling and wait for another kind of darkness to envelop me.
Alessia
“Two days, two days she has locked herself in that room and won’t come out. She hasn’t eaten anything that I know. She won’t communicate with me, my cameras have her lying in bed the entire time. I can see her moving around but other than that she does nothing.”
“And do you think it’s healthy to watch her through your cameras?” The shrink, intended for Harper, raises his brow at me.
“No, but you would too if your girlfriend was kidnapped and raped.”
The shrink’s raised brow softens, but his voice remains steady. “I understand the concern, but surveillance might not be the solution here. Have you tried,”
“I’ve tried everything!” I snap, my voice ricocheting off the walls.
“I’ve knocked. I’ve pleaded. I even left her favorite tea outside the door, hoping she’d come out. Nothing works.”
The shrink folds his hands neatly on his lap.
“She ’s been through an unspeakable trauma. You’re trying to protect her, but she needs space to process.”
“Space?” I interrupt, leaning forward.
“She’s had space for two days. I can’t just sit here and do nothing!”
He sighs, his eyes steady but unyielding.
“Sometimes, ‘doing nothing’ is exactly what someone needs. She’s back in a safe environment now. She knows you’re here. That’s enough.”
I bite down the retort clawing at my throat. What does he know about enough? Enough is watching the person you love spiral and not being able to catch them. Enough is hearing her muffled cries through the door at night, knowing you can’t stop the nightmares.
“I’m scared,” I say finally, my voice breaking despite my best efforts.
“What if she… what if she’s not okay?”
“Being ‘okay’ isn’t a straight line,” he replies, his tone softer now. “It’s messy. She might never go back to who she was, but that doesn’t mean she can’t heal.”
“She’s stronger than you think,” the shrink adds, almost as an afterthought. “But so are you.”
A knock sounds at the door before Elio steps through.
“Uhm Boss, can I have a second, it’s kind of urgent.” His face is covered in bruises where Harper hit him the other night.
“Yes of course…” I turn to the shrink, “If you could give me a minute, I’ll be right back.” He nods and I leave the room.
“What is it?” I snap at him.
“Alex and Vinnie are back, and they brought you a little present.” The grin on his face is pure evil.
“They found him?” Hope blooms in my chest. This might finally be over; we can get our closure. I try not to hope to much, afraid to be let down but it’s impossible and with the way Elio’s eyes shimmer with delight I can’t help myself.
“We’ve got him Boss… He’s in the basement. Alex and Vinnie roughed him up a bit but there’s enough left for you to play with.”
I can’t hold myself back and pull Elio into a big hug.
Elio laughs and returns my hug, putting his arms around me in a fatherly way.
“That’s not all,” He says as we break our hug.
“Tell me!” Anticipation coursing through me.
“Gianni was with one of the guys that did the most damage to Harper, they brought him in as well.”
“No… fucking… way! They got them?” I can’t wrap my brain around it! The man that has been a constant torment in my life for the past sixteen years and the man that raped and maimed my girlfriend are both downstairs. I lean against the wall trying to figure out how to go about this now.
“Go downstairs and wait there for me, I’ll join you in a few minutes.”
“Okidoki, Boss” Elio chirps as he turns around and walks way. It almost looks like his has a little skip in his step. I shake my head and laugh at the sight of a grown man happy to go kill a guy. Only in our world does shit make sense.
I open the door to the room the shrink is still waiting for me and peek my head around it.
“Sorry Doc, I need you to leave now. Something important came up that needs my attention.”
The shrink stands and walks toward me, his expression shifting from calm curiosity to a guarded wariness.
“Something important?” he repeats, stopping just short of the doorway. “You’re certain this can’t wait?”
I nod, my grip tightening on the edge of the door.
“It really can’t. Let me walk you out.”
He nods and follows me towards the elevator. As soon as the doors close, I let out a sigh of relief. That’s the first thing I had to take care of.