22
Lia
“You have exactly three seconds to give me that file. Three… two…”
“Okay, okay!”
The pudgy man with his toothbrush moustache raises shaking hands to the sky, speaking English with a thick French accent. “Please, please. I’ll tell you. Just give me a second. Give me a second to think. Oh, putain de merde…”
“No swearing,” I tell him, nudging my bazooka at his chest. “Not even in French. I’ll start the countdown again. Three… Two…”
“Okay! Fuck! I mean... Darn! I mean… Please tell me the name again. Please. I’ll find the file.”
Large tears squeeze out of his eyes, giving me a sudden feeling of déjà-vu. Vaguely, I remember someone who liked tears. But I can’t think who it was. It’s probably just one of those strange dreams that have been haunting me lately. I cast the thought aside.
“Her name is Jane,” I say.
“Okay.” He wipes his brow. “Jane… that’s not a lot to go on. Don’t you remember anything else?”
I grit my teeth in frustration. “No. I don’t. I don’t remember anything.”
“Okay.” He lets out a choked sob. “There must be thousands of Janes in this database. You can’t tell me her last name, or when she was born, or anything…”
“She’s Irish. A baby, a newborn. She came to this hospital with a gang of masked bikers. I don’t know why, or when, or how. That’s the only thing I’ve learned, and I want you to tell me what was on that file. And don’t you fucking dare press that button.”
I wave my weapon at the emergency button he was on the verge of pressing, then turn around, pointing it at all the people who are already quaking on the floor of the waiting room.
“Jane. Okay, Jane.” The receptionist types away on the computer, the screen filing down a very long list of Janes.
“I just don’t… I don’t know where to start,” he groans, when I point the bazooka back at him. “This is going to take a long time.”
“I don’t have a long time,” I threaten him. “You’d better find it now.”
“Okay… newborn Janes… I’ve reduced the list to less than one thousand names… newborn Irish Janes, okay, that’s better… okay, if she was your daughter…”
“I didn’t say she was!” I fume.
“Oh.” He furrows his brow. “Isn’t she?”
“I…” I pause, hesitating. “Yes, I think so.” Painful flashes burn my mind and I sink to my knees, shaking from the intensity of the sudden memories.
“Uh… are you okay?” The clicking of the fingers on the keyboard pauses. Another click, a different sort of click, and I know he’s pushed that button.
I know it, because the more my mind has unraveled, the more my senses have sharpened. The lightest sound thunders in my ear. The lightest touch burns me. Sometimes, it feels like I can taste the particles of pollution that hang heavily in the air.
The cold metal of the bazooka has become my anchor in the darkness. I’ve committed every one of its ridges to memory, the kind that’ll stay—muscle memory. I’d be lost without my weapon. I’d be lost without the hunt for that someone named Jane. Why am I hunting her? Could she be my daughter?
I stand up abruptly. “I didn’t tell you to stop! Keep searching!”
Too late.
The man is staring at some point behind me in clear relief.
I whirl around, trying to aim the bazooka, but it’s heavy, and before I can, two police officers wearing helmets and bulletproof vests surround me. They’re pointing guns at me.
Well, crap.
One of them barks at me in French, and in the moment it takes for me to decipher his words, something hard falls against the back of my head.
I groan and keel over onto the floor.
_
Where’s my bazooka? Fuck! They got my bazooka!
I’m lying in darkness, on a somewhat scratchy surface that feels like the inside trunk of a car. My wrists are cuffed, but I still manage to wriggle around until I’m convinced of it: they took it.
Fuck!
The car stops, and I hear several people speak to each other in a mix of French and English. It reminds me I’m in France, and I must be in those police officers’ cars. It eases my anxiety to be able to remember all that. It’s a lot more than I sometimes remember.
The trunk opens, and I blink into the sun, expecting to see the faces of the policemen who arrested me. But instead, staring down at me is… a black hole.
Oh, fuck.
I don’t think I’ll be able to forget those masks as long as I live. I’ve seen them before. I think they took my Jane. And now… they’re back for me.
I don’t have time to react before the black mask reaches his hands toward me. A terrified sob escapes my throat, and he drags a finger up and down the side of my face, wiping away my tear.
“Hi, crybaby.”
The word jolts through me. Crybaby.
“What... who are you? I don’t get it.”
“That’s okay, baby. You don’t have to get it.”
He pulls me out entirely and throws me over his shoulder.
“Hey!” I cry out, anger taking the place of confused fear. “I’m not a sack of flour! Put me down!” Smack. “Hey! Asshole! Give me back my bazooka!”
I feel him shake under me, and I can tell he’s laughing at me. It makes me furious. I’ve killed people. I don’t know how many—a whole lot. And this asshole thinks he can spank me. This asshole thinks I’m funny.
I kick against his chest angrily, trying to hurt him. I want to hurt him so bad. But he must be made of pure metal or something, because none of my kicks do a thing to him. He doesn’t try to stop them, either, his hand merely digging itself into my ass.
And then his fingers find a spot on my butt cheek, and… pinch.
Oh, fuck. It hurts, but that’s not why my senses are on fire. I’ve never experienced such an overwhelming sense of déjà-vu before.
Tell me who owns you. Who owns you, Lia? Tell me who owns you!
“Lia…” I breathe, just as the masked man tosses me in the front seat of a car.
He pauses, his fingers threading through my hair. And then he murmurs, “Good girl.”
Those words should have me seeing red, but as he walks around to the other side, I suddenly really want to be his good girl.
“Let’s go home, baby,” he murmurs. “Ready to go home?”