Explicit Instruction (17 page)

‘That was
different; you don’t know where we are.’

‘Those women are to be sold as stock by you and your cohorts. What’s your cut of the profit?’

‘It’s not like that,’ he said through gritted teeth.

‘What is it like?’

‘You better be careful.’

‘Or what?’ she asked on an exhaled laugh. ‘I’ll be held prisoner? What’s next? Rape? Torture? Death?
It seems to me that those things are in the cards anyway. Trusting you hasn’t done me any favours. I got some good sex out of it, that’s it.’

‘You think I haven’t protected you?’

When he walked away, Flick slid down the wall, and found her feet.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Yours is the only side I hear. And I never know when you’re telling me the truth.’

Rushe paused by the bed. ‘If I tell you what’s happening, you’ll be at greater risk.’

‘Greater risk of what? My father will give you the money
. But five million is not a debt I can clear by marrying his senior associate.’

‘Five million isn’t a fraction of what you’re worth.’

‘I don’t think anyone is worth any amount of money. People shouldn’t be bought and sold like cattle.’

‘There are at least twenty guys on the property,
and three times as many guns,’ Rushe said. ‘I’m not running this operation alone.’

‘I didn’t say you were
. But you are here, and you can walk away anytime that you want.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘What good would that do you?’

‘What are you going to do when I’m gone? Keep scaring people into repaying debts they’ll never be able to cover? Breaking legs, and torturing people at Victor’s request?’

‘You don’t understand.’

‘No, I don’t,’ she said. ‘But when I see the truth, when I look past the man I romanticised it scares me. You’re a criminal. And when you want to offer me comfort you want to have sex with me. I want you to feel something. I want to know that you’re capable of genuine human compassion or empathy.’

‘I don’t argue with women,’ he said
, marching toward the exit.

‘Fine.
I don’t need you to argue with me. Tell me when my father’s come up with the money.’

‘Whatever,’ he said
, and slammed out of the room in a move so typical of him.

Flick
might have told Rushe that she didn’t need him to argue with her, but she had wanted to yell at him some more. Now beyond the stage of denying her feelings, Flick hated the ache in her gut at the sense she’d been duped.

When
Rushe had scared the others off by claiming her as his own, Flick had really believed that he wanted to protect her out of a fundamental goodness. Her belief had been that his desire for her developed later; that their intimate escapades had been serendipitous and not premeditated. But now she wasn’t so sure of that, or of anything.

No one would spend time with men like these in this place, and do the things required of them by a man like
Victor, without first having some malice. Threatening people for money, or selling them for sex was depraved, no two ways about it. Had she made Rushe into something he wasn’t? But what would be her motivation?

As the horrible notion that Rushe
may have been right about her misplaced trust in the first place, Flick managed to get to sleep. Though she only became aware of her slumber when something startled her awake. The darkness of the room was absolute, but a shuffling sound became a hushed laugh.

‘Don’t know where to fuck first, it’s like Christmas,’
Skeeve whispered.

‘I get
to go first, this bitch is gonna get it good.’

Flick
took an extra few seconds to place the second voice, but when she did her blood chilled – it was Shiv. The bed shifted, but she smelled Skeeve approach before she felt him. That nauseating odour crept up over her.

‘Pick a hole, we’ll do this together,’
Skeeve said.

When
Skeeve’s tongue made contact with the side of her face, Flick didn’t hesitate to throw back the covers, and smack him in the temple with the wide heel of her shoe. The bad guys hadn’t offered her a weapon, so she used the ones she’d brought with her.

A
n agonised wail told Flick that she’d hit her target, and Shiv let out a string of curses. Pouncing to her feet, Flick braced to defend herself, but couldn’t see from which direction the assault was going to come. Then the game board changed.

T
he overhead light came on, and all of the players were temporarily dazzled. A silenced shot rang out and someone screamed.

Flick had no time to recover from her disorientation
. In the interval it took her to process Shiv writhing on the floor clasping his blood soaked leg – the one she hadn’t shot – a third figure had crossed the room and dispatched a gibbering Skeeve with one punch.

‘Move,’ Rushe said
, from the foot of the bed.

Rushe
. Rushe was the one who’d turned on the light, and shot Shiv, and knocked Skeeve out cold.

‘What?’ Flick
asked, still on her feet on the bed and braced with a shoe in each hand, ready to fight.

‘You sleep in your clothes?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she answered, looking down at her jeans and heavy sweater provided by Victor. ‘I don’t trust anyone here.’

‘Good,
you finally heeded my instruction. Now move.’

‘How did you know—‘

‘I told the guard to let me know who wanted in and when,’ Rushe said. Storming around the bed, he grabbed her wrist and hauled her down.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked when he took her from the bedroom into a darkened
corridor.

‘I told the guard to beat it
, but he’ll be back eventually.’

‘I know what that means,’ she said
, having no choice but to run and keep up with him as he pulled her along.

Rushe took her through a door and down some stairs
. Flick realised this was the main entry lobby. But it was derelict with falling plaster and cracked tiles, and water dripped from the gaps that foliage forged.

‘Where are we?’

‘Victor got work done on one wing. He says renovating the rest is on the agenda but he doesn’t have the money. The building doesn’t belong to him. It’s a squat.’

Draggi
ng the heavy front door from its frame seemed redundant when Flick noticed broken windows on either side – which might explain why all the other windows she’d seen were covered up.

The
number of exterior stairs reminded her of entering the building, but it was only after Rushe threw her over his shoulder, and ran across the wide gravel drive to the overgrown lawn that she realised what was going on.

‘We’re making a break for it,’ she said
, thankful that she had kept hold of her shoes.

Rushe was grumbling something
that she couldn’t decipher, and Flick had to quell her urge to shriek when he stopped abruptly and opened a car door, which he then proceeded to toss her into. Flick hadn’t yet righted herself, but Rushe was in the driver’s seat navigating without lights.

‘We are,’ she sighed. ‘You’re breaking me out... are you?’

Rushe continued to mutter for a few more seconds. ‘Yes, what did you think? That I was taking you to the highest bidder?’

‘Di
d my father pay you?’

They
lumbered through a broken gate onto a deserted road, but after three more turns Rushe put on the lights and merged into traffic.

‘You think I’m screwing
Victor over to take the money for myself?’

‘I don’t know what you’re doing,’ she said
, putting her feet in her shoes.

‘You wouldn’t have sex with me,’ he grumbled. ‘You were that pissed at me.’

Flick replayed his words and their conversation that afternoon. ‘You’re breaking me out, defying your boss, walking away from the money—‘

‘It was never about the money.’

‘Because I refused to have sex with you?’ she asked. ‘You have no idea what it is to be soft, of the degrees of comfort and emotion. Something shitty happened, and your way of processing that emotion was to demand sex from me. When I refused to submit, you realised the strength of my distaste at the situation... I’ll tell you Rushe, you’re not a man who does things by halves... Are they going to come after me? Will I be running for the rest of my life?’

‘No.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I have a plan,’ he said.

‘Of course you do. Can I be let in on this plan?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘You wouldn’t understand it,’ he said.

‘Of course not,’ she said, folding her arms. ‘I’m just a walking vagina.’

‘With a hell of a mouth.’

‘You are coming with me,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘I was never
involved with the trafficking,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why but I need you to know that.’

‘I’m not letting
you go back there. I won’t.’

‘Let me worry about that,’ he said. ‘I have something I have to do tomorrow. At daybreak you get in touch with your father, he won’t have to pay anything for your life.’

‘We could extort the five million and buy ourselves a private island.’

Rushe drew his e
yes from the road. ‘Very funny.’

‘At least now I won’t have to marry one of his business buddies. But you could have broken me out before the video call, you know, before I had to admit to the mess I’d got
ten myself into.’

‘You want me to take you back and make him pay the ransom?’

‘No,’ Flick said. ‘So what’s the next part of the plan?’

‘Everything hinges on me getting to this meeting tomorrow, without running into the cops beforehand. I get there and that sets the wheels in motion. If I can’t do that
, it’s game over.’

‘Ok,’ Flick said. ‘What’s the meeting?’

‘I’m not telling you that.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m not going to put you in that kind of danger.’

‘Are we meeting with a murderer?’

‘We are not meeting with anyone,’ he said. ‘I am going to the meeting alone.’

‘What are you going to do? Tie me to the steering wheel?’

‘No, I need the car. I’ll tie you to the bed.’

‘What bed?’ she asked
, and when he drew his eyes around to her again Flick didn’t miss his intention. ‘I haven’t consented to sex.’

‘I didn’t ask.’

‘But you will,’ she said. ‘I haven’t consented.’

‘But you will,’ he snarled
, and her hands fell into her lap.

‘Because you broke me out? I might be thankful
, but that doesn’t change what was going on back at Victor’s place.’

‘You don’t know what was going on there,’ Rushe said. ‘Don’t judge what you don’t know – you said that. Follow your own advice.’

‘Rushe, don’t you feel remorse?’

‘I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life. I’ve done despicable things that would make you ashamed of me.’

‘Is that a no?’

‘But never like that, at
Victor’s, with the women, I wouldn’t...’

‘Tell me,’ Flick said,
stretching for his hand, but he swept it around the steering wheel, out of her reach.

‘We’re not the same,’ he said. ‘You can’t understand my world any better than I can understand yours.’

‘But—‘

‘Unless you plan to
practise giving head, keep your lips together,’ he grumbled. ‘Sleep, you’re giving me ear ache.’

Flick had plenty more to say
. But his stern expression focused on the road made her think that he had things other than her on his mind. Leaning over, she kissed his jaw then settled down in her seat. While he didn’t look at her Flick noticed his hands relax on the steering wheel. She’d give him time now to stew; she’d have time to question him later.

Flick put the rocking of her body down to the motion of
the car, until an especially intrusive hand jostled her. On opening her eyes, she was bumped again.

‘What?’ she yawned
, settling herself away from his rude gesture against her door.

‘Take your clothes off.’

‘Sure, ok,’ she said, cuddling her hands into her chest trying to get comfortable again.

‘I mean it. Now.’

This time it wasn’t a shove, it was a grab, and he pulled her away from the car door. ‘We’re outside,’ she said, registering that they were still driving along a darkened road. ‘It’s cold.’