Page 35 of Savage

“You reminded me that we’re runnin’ a race.”

“Shouldn’t I remind you of shoes then? I could be Nike or Puma? Now that’s a bad-arse name.”

He sighs. “You’re wasting time. Tell me what you know.”

“Where do I even start?”

“At the beginning. Before you were taken. Did you see anyone, hear anything? You were a couple blocks from your house, right?”

“How did you know that?”

“I saw it on the news. CCTV saw you get off the train at around 9:00pm. A woman was interviewed by the cops, said she walked a ways with you before you reached her door.”

“Rachel. She’s two blocks before me. She’s a student too; we shared a class that night, and it ran late. We caught the later train. I walked Rachel to her gate, like I usually do, and then I headed for home. Only I never made it. I didn’t hear anyone behind me. I didn’t see anything suspicious. I just hurried along the footpath, and then I was pulled back into a little laneway between a set of row houses. He covered my mouth, and stuck a needle in my neck. I remember seeing a garbage bin in front of me. I reached out, and pulled it over—glass shattered as the recycling spilled out. That’s the last thing I remember before I passed out.”

“And when you woke up?”

“I was in the warehouse. They didn’t have the chair at first. The room was empty. I was suspended from a beam in the ceiling by chains, stripped naked and freezing. I could feel the cold winter air coming up from under the door. I don’t know how long I was out; it was still dark outside. Or maybe that was just the blindfold over my eyes.

“The Priest was the only one there the first time. At least, I think he was alone. In the beginning, they’d blindfolded me. His was the only voice I heard that first night. I can still remember it, you know? When I close my eyes, I hear him whispering in my ear. ‘And if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their conquerors and say, “We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly.” My nostrils flare as I fight back tears. “1 Kings, 8:46-47. Do you know how I know that?”

Biker shakes his head.

“He’d recite those verses; every time.” A short, humourless laugh escapes me. “I never knew what it meant, but I think I’m starting to. And then he’d tell me that ‘we were all sinners and that it was time to atone.”

“They ever use their names in front of you?”

“No. They called him Father. That was it.” I swallow back the lump in my throat. “The Cop liked to wear his full uniform when he fucked me, and you already saw the Dentist in action.”

“What did the Priest do, that first night?”

“What do you think?”

“I think this will all be over a whole lot quicker if you tell me everything you remember. I can’t find these guys if I don’t know exactly who I’m looking for. There are hundreds of churches in Sydney; that’s a lot of fuckin’ clergies’ doors to bust down. And the Cop could be anywhere; he could be anyone. How do you know the uniform was real, and not just part of his M.O.?”

“He was a cop,” I say, resolutely. “His weapons, the rigid posture. He had special patches sewn onto the sleeve of his uniform. And a duty belt.”

“You can buy that shit off eBay,” he says, leaning forward on his elbows again and piercing me with that narrowed gaze. “How do you know for certain that he was a cop? Do you know the weapons were standard police issue? Did he have a badge? What did the patches on his shirt say?”

“I’m sorry, I was a little distracted by the knife he held to my throat to pay too much attention to the fucking patches on his shirt,” I shout.

The biker sets his jaw. A muscle in his cheek ticks, and his eyes glaze over as he clenches his right hand into a fist. He doesn’t like it when I yell. He’s going to have to get used to it.

“I know this might make you a little uncomfortable, but I need to know this shit, so I don’t wind up serving a sentence for killin’ a cop who had nothing to do with your abduction.”

“A little uncomfortable?” I spit. “You wanna know what’s uncomfortable? You wanna know exactly what they did to me? He fucked my arse until I bled out all over the floor. Then he raped me with his baton while the fucking Priest egged him on. They tied me to a post and beat me senseless. The Priest liked to quote bible passages, and call me a whore as he raped me over and over until I begged for him to kill me. Until I promised to repent for sins I never fucking committed.

“The Dentist liked to knock me out and wake me up in the middle of an extraction. He liked to hold my mouth and nose closed until I was choking on my own blood, and passing out from oxygen deprivation. And that’s just the stuff my brain hasn’t repressed.” I snap.

“Calm down, Indie,” he says, his hands raised in a warding gesture.

“Calm down? Fuck you,” I say. “You want me to give you information that tells you for certain that he was a cop? I can’t do that. I don’t know the difference between a real uniformed officer and a fake. But I know in my gut he was a cop. Just like I know that priest is out there somewhere, sitting in a confessional booth, hearing the sins of his congregation, and drizzling holy water over the top of babies’ heads for baptismal rites. I know I wasn’t the first girl they’ve done this to. And unless we find them, I sure as fuck won’t be the last.”

My breath comes in short, hard gasps. My hands shake and tears sting my eyes. Frustrated, heartbroken, and so full of rage I can taste it in the back of my throat, I stand, and instantly regret it. I dash for the bathroom and manage to get the seat up before I spill the contents of my stomach into a porcelain bowl that looks as if it hasn’t been cleaned since it was installed.

The biker’s shadow looms over me. He stands in the middle of the tiny room, probably not knowing what the hell to do. I vomit again, and again, and then I pause, leaning over the bowl. Hot tears sting my face. My hair is yanked back. I cry out and skitter away from his touch, wedging myself as close to the wall as possible. “Don’t touch me. Don’t fucking touch me.”

He backs away. “Just tryin’ to help, little spitfire.”

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