"You must be fucking with me right now." Ne jamais faire confiance à un homme séduisant mom used to tell me. What a liar. Forsaken the day I spilled those apples on that sidewalk.
"Acting like you don't already know me, like the first day we met, do you really blame me for it?" His voice is plain, as if everything is perfectly balanced, but his attitude makes it clear that the situation is slipping out of his control. I see how the image of his fake self, the one I actually liked, dissolves, and the worst part of being betrayed again and again isn't the worst part, but seeing who made it happen.
"I blame you for everything, Gabriele."
He walks towards me, gripping my jaw with one hand "You should be the one blaming yourself." The thought of him enjoying me like this makes my fist crave his face. "And yes, I lied; I lied so well that Gabri seemed real; it was incredible."
Gabriele never existed. I never saw the man who bought me an overpriced energy drink or the man who put his jacket on my shoulders when it was pouring outside. I also never had that empty conversation with a guy while walking on sand, whispering sweet nothings, and sharing the same cigarette.
There was just the son of a bitch who planned the murder of my whole family.
A sudden noise makes his hand leave my face, and it is nothing but a muffled buzz from a small device he has in his pocket. He starts pushing buttons to stop the ringing, but it doesn't want to cease, and then it hit me. Listening to the high pitched sound, I found blank spaces in between, a pattern.
Morse code
N I S H A_B L A I S E_F O U N D_C O L L A B O R A T E_ S T A Y_ A L I V E_N O T_ H A V E_D O C U M
He smashed the device before the message ended, and I let out a relieving sigh, comforted by the sudden quietness and the cryptic message I just got. Angelo stares at me like a mad man, and with a snarl, he directly looked at me. "That was a morse code, wasn't it?" He's a liar and a killer, but definitely not dumb.
I shrug my shoulders "Maybe."I've dealt with many mad men, and now he is just one of the many.
"I think you know what I'm going to ask you to do, do you?" I nod, but I remain silent, causing him to smash a fist near my chair. Suddenly, his hand grasps a knife he had hidden in his pocket and he touches my neck with it, softly, not cutting me but successful into turning my stomach. "Spit it out Maverine" My pride is too bruised to please him, but I remember what they told me. Collaborate with them.
"Nisha is here; we don't have the documents." I skipped the part where they said they found me of course. His hair falls on his face, and the knife now is pressed to my neck harder.
He smiles skittishly "How should I know you're telling the truth?"
"I'm not the liar in here; the role's already taken." I look at him dead in the eyes. He smirks for a quick second, then takes a phone out of his pocket. He dials someone, pinching the bridge of his nose. I hope he's stressed. Dumb fuck.
"Iuliano, sta stronza non sa un cazzo dei documenti—già provato, stessa risposta—i suoi cagnolini hanno mandato un codice morse e hanno detto di non averli—certo che non li credo, ma allo stesso modo non mi sembra stessero mentendo, affari personali—ne sei sicuro?—manda Giacomo" [This bitch doesn't know shit about the files—already tried, same answer— her puppies sent a morse code and said they don't have it—of course I don't believe them, but at the same time they didn't seem to completely lie about personal matters—are you sure?—send Giacomo down here to help me.]
Another guy pops at the door after not even two minutes, panting. He must have ran here. He puts his hair up, coming closer with the knife. He takes the knife, and I panic, but after I see him cut the strings at my feet and torso, it leaves me confused. I look at how he takes my hands, still tied, and drags me out of the room, where I almost fall on my half numb feet. I already forgot how to walk? I don't protest; I don't make sudden moves; I follow silently and let myself get dragged by this guy I've never seen before. or, better said, did at the event.
We enter an office, where I sit on a small couch, supervised by two brothers.
The blonde guy who flirted with Nisha is leaning on the desk in front of me, and I suddenly feel quite inferior under his eyes. His eyes fierce, glasses shiny, and his chin up. "We finally meet formally." I lean back uncomfortably, overlapping my legs as I fight with the urge to scream out of frustration. This is all but formal.
"Good morning to you too," I respond seriously, my eyes rolling back as I almost faint from the smell of roses. It makes me vomit. "Just to keep the formalities going, could you please get those rose scented candles out of this room? I'm about to throw up," the blonde nods, signing with his head to his brother's to get them out. He must be the older brother; authority is written all over his face.
As he makes his way to open the window, he starts muttering a low 'good to know.' "So, my brother informed me about the code; how were you able to decipher it?" I stare at the ceiling, confused, but when I remember what happened ten minutes ago.
"I simply learned it as a kid." He turns around and stares at me as if I'm stupid. I heel his eyes burying me down under earth, and the only thought that comes to mind is: If him and Nisha have a kid, that kid will have traumas.
"Interesting quality to learn for a kid. Then tell me, why would a kid want to learn such a strange language?" Now I'm the one looking at him as if he's stupid.
"to be prepared for any eventuality." I simply say. He gets annoyed if I respond too soon. He comes back in front of me.
"Prepared for what exactly?" he says with a hard r, making his strong Italian accent come out.
"Either for the day I would meet those who murdered my entire family or for a science project, you choose. But just so you know, I didn't go to school," I say, looking forward without letting my voice quiver or sound vulnerable. The right end of his mouth turns upwards, and he whispers more to himself than to me, 'I assumed.'
I'm about to jump him.
"They turned out to be useful in the end; not really the exact people, but the descendants of them would do." Their last name gave their whole identity away. May I never forget that day that haunts me in my nightmares, flashbacks, thoughts, and actions. "But of course you're not here for a therapy session; you have something I need."
I smile "I overestimated your understanding skills; you guys don't really grasp the fact that we don't have those files. I would tell you this in Italian, but I'm not really skilled in the language." I might have gone too far, sounding too cocky for someone with their hands tied and a knife at their throat. What made me understand that? The back of his hand kissed my face roughly two consecutive times. I should thank Angelo for that pill; I'm completely numb.
"Angelo portala via" [Angelo, take her away]. Angelo took my arms, and he led me out of the room, greeting his brothers with a nod. We go down the stairs when suddenly he puts a hand on my back. I flinch so hard that I lose my balance, falling to the ground—or so I thought I would end up.
His hand grasps my arm, rescuing me from passionately kissing the concrete.
"Punch me, slap me, kick me, but do not ever touch my fucking back again," and I sit on the cold chair again. He just looks at me, and after that, he escorts himself out of the room, not tying me down anymore. What a day
~
I'm still alive, and I don't know if I like it or not.
I'm killing ants with my thumb as I form a rare type of scoliosis on the floor, and my newly cut hair is currently in a state where all of its strands are pointing in different directions, making me look like a psychopath in an abandoned mental hospital. Suddenly the door opens, but at the moment, exterminating ants is the only thing that peaks my interest right now. What forces me to look at him is his own hand gripping my jaw to face him directly. He must have some sort of fetish for gripping my face
"You need to come with me; you either follow or I make you follow me." His strict tone creeps me out, as do the ghosts of the ants I've killed, but I don't reply, walking behind him towards the same study. A camera and a pair of strings speak before the other men do, and I cannot help but sit on the wooden chair as I get tied up to it.
"Now, all you have to do is tell your friends you are alright and that they should hand in the documents before you turn into food for ants and worms six feet under "
Ants: the revenge
I stare at the camera, and when the blonde guy waves to start, I try to stop laughing at my own joke and form a plausible message that satisfied both parties.
"Well, hello guys, I'm here tied up on a chair, and I know Blaise will joke about this, but I wanted to say that I'm fine; the concrete is pretty uncomfortable, but I cannot have a bed for some reasons. I named two ants after you before I caressed them too hard and killed them—"get to the point," Angelo hissed, pointing a gun towards me. Rude—well, they won't release me until you give them those files we spoke about the first night here, and I hope you guys are doing alright. Nisha, please don't have panic attacks; we'll get out of this situation." The guy filming abruptly stopped the recording, and a sudden cold wave perturbed me: am I going to see them again? Am I going to die before we meet? Before two guys took my arms, I suddenly stopped them, saying, "Wait, I have a question."
No one moves, and I continue as the older guy signs to go on "What happens if they don't have what you want?". The look they shared killed the small hope I cultivated
"Most probably, we'll send you and your crew to the judgment day early," a bible joke, funny. I stop those two from taking me away. "Please let me have twenty minutes with you; I really need answers." He shook his head at my pathetic exasperation, and out of fury, I started tearing up. Fuck my body responses
"You definitely won't have this privilege. Toglietela dal cazzo" [take her the fuck away]. Angelo and Giacomo proceed to take me with all their strength away from there, and as I try to get out of their grip, I start tearing up even harder, fury persuading me. They throw me in the basement again, and after they lock the door, I start bawling my eyes out.
When I'm sad, I cry; when I'm angry, I cry; when I'm nostalgic, I cry; and when I feel absolutely nothing, I fucking cry. It's not out of sensibility or weakness, but it's either this or I do something I will definitely regret later.
I slide down the wall, and I feel a slight relief when the bumpy wall scratches my back. I get up and I start moving my back up and down the wall, and as my skin starts hurting at the point to not bear it anymore, I stop. I sit down.
Ten, twenty, or thirty minutes pass, but I cannot fall asleep. The white walls are too bright and the concrete is too spiky to soften, but something else makes me wake up again.
The door opens again slowly, revealing a person that wasn't supposed to be there. "Are you the grim reaper?"
"Not too far from it," Angelo whispers as he closes the door without making any noise. He sits down on what was my chair, and he dismissively says:
"Twenty minutes only".
Qui es-tu?