Page 55 of Roma Queen
This is a dangerous play. It’s going to pay off, though. Ithasto. Baiting’s a common tactic in a cage fight. Taunt and mock your opponent to the point that they’re incensed with rage, dropping their guard and leaving themselves wide open for you to step in and knock them the fuck out. I’ve never done it before. Never needed to. I’ve always considered it a weak, dishonorable trick, but like Lazlo said…what about this situation isfair?
Lazlo freezes. Doesn’t react. A tide of red creeps up his neck, letting me know just how furious he is, though. “You really are brave, Pasha. I’ll give you that. To risk her safety by saying such things to me… If you’re not careful, I might decide I don’t want to call off my attack dog.”
I ready myself. Glancing at the screen out of the corner of my eye, my heart stumbles in my chest, momentarily paralyzing me with fear. They’re not there anymore. Zara and Garrett. They’re fucking gone. I have to swallow down my own screaming panic, forcing myself to trust my own instincts.Zara’s okay. She’s fine. She’s not dead.“You didn’t tell him to kill her, you lying piece of shit,” I growl.
“You’re sure? Are you one hundred percent positive? If you’re wrong, will you be able to live with the consequences? Will you be able to live withyourself?”
He’s so fucking arrogant. I’m going to enjoy making the motherfucker scream. “Yeah. I’m sure. You’re not the type to give away a prize after working for it for so long. And besides…even if you had told your little stooge to cut her from ear to ear…he’d never fucking do it.”
“Oh?” Lazlo cocks his head to one side, puzzled. “I’ve known Garrett a hell of a lot longer than you. Ibuilthim, Pasha. He is an extensionofme. If I tell him to do something, he does it without fail.”
Shaking my head, I begin to move forward. “Yeah, but you missed something during all the time you spent watching Zara on those monitors, you fucking psycho.” Every molecule of my body is vibrating with energy. Every nerve ending is firing. Every scrap and fiber of my being is demanding that I do it, that I act, that I end all of this now. I take a shallow breath, reining myself in, and a deadly quiet suddenly settles over me. The killing quiet.
“Enlighten me, please, Pasha. Tell me,” Lazlo sneers. “What did I miss?”
“The moment when your attack dog fell in love with the girl.”
I launch myself, and Lazlo reacts. He lifts the gun and fires, but I’m not where he’s expecting me to be. I’m to his left, ducking around a chair, half shoved underneath a desk, and I’m throwing the wrench…
I don’t try to hit him with it.
I hurl the heavy piece of metal upward, and it hits the single strip light mounted to the ceiling. The light shatters, sending sparks showering down on us…and the room plunges into darkness.
FOURTH
The man is angry at the boy. Tired of him, he says.
The boy doesn’t know how to make it better. So long as he swears not to make a peep, the man lets him sit in the living room with the sound turned down on the television, or sometimes he’ll let him read a book, but the man rarely comes to visit the boy in the night anymore.
Another boy lives in the box. Archer. Archer is an older boy with bright red hair, and whenever the man goes into the box with Archer’s food, there’s always a lot of banging and shouting. Most of the time, when the man comes back out, there’s blood on the crotch of his jeans, and his eyes are wild and rolling like the mad dog that lives in the apartment below us.
The world outside the window of our apartment is blanketed in snow. Across the city, sirens wail at all hours, competing with the early morning birdsong and the rumble of the evening delivery trucks making drop-offs to the deli on the ground floor. The boy wants to go outside and play in the snow more than anything, but the man has forbidden it.
He tells the boy he has to stay inside, warm by the fire, or there will be trouble.
The boy doesn’t like making the man angry, and so he does as he’s told. The man leaves the boy on his own in the apartment now. He goes to the park alone, and the boy is sad. He misses walking beneath the trees, and watching the birds, and getting cotton candy when he makes the man happy.
At the end of the week, the man opens the door to the box, and he says he’s taking Archer to the park. Archer doesn’t want to go. The red-haired boy is kicking and screaming, and the man hurts him and makes him go to sleep.
The boy watches out of the window as the man carries Archer down the steps to the building and puts him in the back of the van, feeling slighted that the man chose the other boy. Why should Archer get to go to the park? Hasn’t the boy done everything that’s been asked of him?
The boy knows where the man keeps a key to the front door. A secret key, hidden in a tin in the cupboard, behind the dried spaghetti and the molding bread. Determined to go outside, he takes the key and makes his plan. An hour to play in the snow. There’s nothing dangerous about that.
The conjured dream quickly becomes a reality. Outside, the world is white and strange and wonderful, and the icy chill of the wind on his skin makes the boy feel like he’s coming to life. The boy runs and slides and skids and whoops. He makes sure to be back inside long before the van skids to a halt outside the building, and the man comes running back into the apartment. Alone.
The boy wonders where Archer has gone.
The man doesn’t tell him. He grabs hold of the boy by the throat and smashes his head against the wall. “Did you think I wouldn’t know? Did you think I wouldn’t find out? That crazy bitch downstairs told me what you were doing, running around out there with no shoes on. You saw her, didn’t you. You spoke to her”
The boy denies both charges.
“Lies! Fucking lies. All you do is lie,” the man rages. He drags the boy into the living room and forces his mouth open, jamming his fingers inside.
It’s difficult to pinch hold of the boy’s tongue, but the man manages in the end.
The edge of the knife isn’t as sharp as it could be, but the man makes do with the tools at his disposal. “Can’t tell any lies if you can’t speak at all now, can you?” the man spits.
The pain is furious and unrelenting.
