11. Louise
T he suppressant melter mist has only just begun to lose its potency—my wits and senses returning to me slowly rather than all at once.
I close my eyes but only see Frank’s stormy blues alight with manic glee, his tongue flicking out to catch a bead of my saliva mixed with his cum at the corner of his cruel mouth.
“Don’t get me going again, Sweetheart.”
That growl—low and menacing; pooling heat between my legs.
Groaning, I roll onto my side—back on the futon in the dingy gray light of winter morning, bleary sunbeams sweeping across the floor from the smudgy clerestory windows cut into the upper wall of the container unit.
The likelihood that Dennis or the cavalry are coming for me feels more and more impossible with each passing hour.
“Good morning Loulu!” Sébastien’s voice booms from the narrow pass-through window in the galley kitchen—the smell of burnt coffee slowly being joined by the scent of cooking bacon.
I only curl tighter against myself under the spare flat sheet I was provided for sleeping after last night’s turn in the interrogation room; the loud burbling of my stomach calling more to the sizzling bacon than in response to Seb’s greeting.
“How does our guest of honor prefer her eggs, eh?” he sing-songs, twirling about the small kitchen with ease; dropping slices of bread into a beat-up toaster, turning the rashers of bacon on the stove, pouring small, mismatched glasses full of the expensive ‘not from concentrate’ orange juice.
The defiant, willful part of me that has been determined to survive this ordeal at all costs warns me not to negotiate with these terrorists—no, that’s giving them far too much credit—these hackneyed vigilante morons.
Still, the hunger pain in my stomach is undeniable—and if I want to keep my wits about me, I’m going to need to keep my strength up. You never know with these bozos, at any moment—I might be able to find an opportunity to slip free like before.
“Over medium,” I snip back tersely, sitting upright on the futon—the sheet draped around my shoulders. “And some of that cheap ass coffee while you’re at it,” I add, nearly gagging as I catch a whiff of my own intense odor.
“Cazzy!” Seb shouts to no response.
“Ay! Caz-zy!” Seb shouts again, ducking out of the kitchen to toss a balled up paper towel at Cazimer’s head—still glued to the pillow, his mouth hanging open as he snores softly.
“Ay! Glandu!” Seb bellows as he gives the edge of Caz’s bed a swift kick—shaking Caz into wakefulness—his hands rubbing the sand from his eyes as he struggles to adjust to the bright room.
“What!? Is there a raid?” He stumbles to his feet, looking frantically from Seb back to me.
“No raid, just time to wake up and stop being such a lazy layabout!” Seb snips, turning his back on us to go back to breakfast production in the kitchen.
“Just because you stayed up too late dicking around on your computer doesn’t mean you get to sleep all your responsibilities away today, eh?
” he scolds, clucking his tongue as he re-emerges from his short order cookery to provide Caz and I mugs of coffee laden with sugar and powdered non-dairy coffee-whitener.
Caz groans—taking the cup from Sébastien before slumping into his desk chair.
As soon as Sébastien disappears from view—Caz’s nose wrinkles and he gives a shudder before looking at me accusingly.
Sébastien rounds back into the room—balancing three plates on his arms.
“Scrambled with cheese for Cazzy.” He passes the first of the plates to Caz—then disappears down the hall, gently pushing both Frank and Quentin’s doors open with a foot to make his breakfast deliveries before returning down the hall with two new plates on his arm and a pair of juice glasses pinched together in his other hand.
“Two over medium for the lady.” He leans down and places the plate on my lap—a plastic spork stuck into a hunk of homemade breakfast potatoes standing upright between my eggs and bacon; the glass of orange juice making a low thud as he places it on the ground at the edge of the futon.
As soon as he’s leaned in close enough to pass me my plate—Sébastien’s face contorts as though he were suddenly in pain.
“Is that—?” he mutters incredulously, leaning in closer to me before giving a tentative sniff.
“Eugh, my goodness—you haven’t had a wash since we nicked you from the Diamond Center, have you?” He gags—recoiling as if he’s touched something hot.
“I most certainly have not—as you well know, I’ve been held captive by you fucking morons for nearly a week now and you’ve barely let me wash my hands after taking a shit.
” I laugh, grabbing the spork from my plate, amused by their surprise at my ripeness when they’re the ones who’ve treated me with less care than the family pooch.
Seb and Caz exchange leery glances.
“For all I know—I’m growing moss under this shit,” I laugh dryly, pinching the oversized t-shirt I’ve been in for days—my hair falling in greasy strands around my face.
“She’s got a point,” Frank’s voice booms from the hallway. Caz, Seb, and I nearly jump out of our skin at the sound of his commanding baritone.
“You two can take care of making sure our little Lucky Penny doesn’t slit her wrists in the bath or escape,” Quentin adds in a chipper tone, slipping a pair of expensive looking sunglasses onto his face.
“And where are you two going—Maman et Papa?” Sébastien snaps back like a petulant child—his massive arms folded in front of his chest as if he’s preparing to throw a tantrum.
“Q and I need to make some arrangements—including but not limited to getting some clothes for our dirty Penny,” Frank smirks, his eyes falling on Louise hungrily.
“We’ve got places to go, people to see, Sweetheart.
Can’t take you anywhere looking like pigpen in Cazzy’s old gym clothes.
” He winks at me and I return the sentiment with both of my middle fingers a blown air kiss.
“Be nice or I’ll only buy you ugly shit at ValuVault,” Quentin sniffs, lifting his nose high in the air like some sort of snooty show dog.
“Now, now—let’s all behave, shall we?” Frank turns up the collar of his worn leather half-trench, sidling up to the door to the outside.
“We’ll be back in an hour, two at most with some fresh clothes for our little morning star, and some supplies to make the trip to Safehouse C,” he explains carefully as Quentin impatiently fusses with the cuffs of his shirt through the bottom of his felt jacket sleeve.
“If we don’t return after two hours; take Louise and book it to Safehouse D.” Frank warns, like a father telling the kids to behave for the babysitter before leaving for the night.
Seb and Caz say nothing, just nod dutifully—even if I can tell by the anxious ticking in both of their jaw muscles that they’re using the entirety of their willpower not to talk back to Daddy.
All three of us watch as Quentin and Frank sweep out of the apartment before Seb rushes in to lock the door behind them—slipping the door chain into its slot before pulling the dirty dishcloth from his shoulder with a heavy sigh.
“Finish up your breakfast, eh? I’ll draw the bath—Cazzy—you’re on kitchen cleanup.” Seb stretches, a cat in a beam of sun from the overhead windows, tossing Caz the dishcloth.
“Aw what?” Caz groans.
“Don’t whine to me. I’m not your maid or your mother, mon petit fantome ,” Sébastien teases, his full lips pursed—his face so close to Caz’s that it looks as if they might kiss.
As if the two of them have only just remembered that I’m sitting here watching—Caz gives Sébastien a playful shove, threading the dishcloth around the back of his neck like a gym towel.
“Fine, fine—I’ll clean up. How are you planning on chaining her to the tub? There’s not a whole lot of options in there.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Sébastien shakes his head dismissively. “Just come in once you’re done with the dishes. I’m going to need an extra set of hands to wash her hair, ok?”
Both Caz and I give Seb strange looks at this—to which he responds by snatching my empty plate from in front of me, placing it on top of Caz’s before unceremoniously hoisting me from my place on the futon by my upper arm with his impressive strength.
Seb drags me down the hall, past the powder room they’ve been having me use—a tiny bathroom where the door stays wide open, even when I’m on the toilet, with a tiny pedestal sink below a small, flaked foil mirror hanging on the wall.
Seb pulls me past the two dingy bedrooms where Frank and Quentin have been sleeping and into the full bathroom at the end of the hall.
A modern minimalist affair; toilet, sink, and stock tank tub/shower with a very psycho-killer-esque clear vinyl curtain bunched together at one end of a curved bar hanging from the ceiling where a rickety exhaust fan squeaks gently overhead and a long dead houseplant sits in one of the recessed clerestory windows beside a dusty bottle of lavender bath salts.
He snaps the toilet seat closed and motions for me to sit.
I take a seat, eyes fixed on Seb as he begins to run the water, crouching low with his back to the far wall as he dips a hand beneath the cascade from the tap.
Satisfied that the water is running hot enough, he jams a rubber stopper into the tub’s crude drain. Water drips from the black ink tattoos on his forearms; a scorpion, an eight-pointed star made from two overlapping squares, a rose in full bloom, and the skinniest of crescent moons.
I can tell that the suppressant melter has truly done its damage; my thighs pressing together as I look at those muscular, inked forearms.
“Alright, no funny business,” he sighs, removing the ball chain with the steel handcuff key from around his neck before reaching into the back waistband of his pants for his gun, the click of him disengaging the safety echoes against the rush of water in the small, tiled bathroom.
He tosses the key to me and I catch it from my place huddled on the closed toilet seat.