Octavia was so drunk that the room had taken on a welcome glow at the edges. She stood still, fighting the to-and-fro sway the vodka had given her, while Alex disappeared into the bathroom. The faucet sounded.
Her room had been one end of a spectrum: sparse and new and unmarked. Devoid of character. Nick's room had been the other end: bursting. Unwashed clothes, wrinkled magazines, and a complete DVD collection of James Bond movies. Alex's room fell somewhere in the middle: he had the same basic pieces of furniture, but some were upgrades. The dresser looked like antique oak, complete with a beveled mirror. In the spot where Nick's room had a TV, Alex's had a tower full of stereo equipment – everything from an MP3 docking station to a turntable. His collections, CD and vinyl, were housed in milk crates along the wall as if he'd never finished unpacking.
Octavia went to the neatly-made bed and leaned against it. On the side table, a small picture frame was turned on its face.
Alex returned with a glass of water. "Please, make yourself comfortable."
She pulled back the comforter to find equally soft black, flannel sheets. It was heaven against the bare foot she slid in. She settled into a position halfway between sitting and lying down.
"Here," he added. Alex waited at her side of the bed while she drank. The aches and scratches in her throat came alive against the water.
Octavia pointed to the tower of electronics and said, "Could you...?"
"I'm sorry, I don't have a television like Nick."
"No," she said, and clanked a tooth against the glass from laughing. He thought she was so drunk that she couldn't tell the difference between a stereo and a television. "Could you play some music?"
"Oh."
Octavia finished as much of the water as she could, setting the glass down next to her. The small speakers of the docking station came alive with the sad, gentle notes of a piano. A man's voice sang along in a language she didn't recognize, adding to the melancholy.
"Sigur Rós," Alex said, by way of explanation.
Behind the piano came an organ, and a small tinkling of bells, and the song was a sunrise captured in audio. Octavia sank into the bed and let the room spin. If the vodka hadn't been fast at work, like a hot blanket across her shoulders, she would have grabbed Alex and begged him to help her leave. He might have done it. He seemed upset enough.
But then, she'd done enough begging. When had Victor accomplished anything by asking?
When Alex turned from the stereo tower, she patted the bed next to her.
"Oh, no," he replied. "I'll sleep on the floor."
Octavia shook her head emphatically. "I won't sleep...right away."
To his credit, he hesitated before climbing into the bed. He sat next to her, but on top of the covers. Their shoulders touched. When she looked up at him, she realized how close they were – she could see the creased skin at his neck and then his hair, which curled beneath his ears. She could smell him and feel his warmth. Then she was a little more awake than she would have liked.
"You shouldn't get hooked on anything while you're down here," Alex said. "I mean, you get it and it's great, but you don't know when you'll be able to get it again."
"Like cigarettes?" she asked.
He frowned. "I'm not trying to lecture. I just didn't know alcohol was a problem for you."
She wanted to say, I think of it more as a solution, but instead pulled the covers up around her and ignored him. The notes from the piano stretched out, dreamlike.
"I think I know what happened tonight," Alex said.
Please, she thought. Please don't ask me to talk about it. The scratches in her throat were overshadowed by a knot and then the threat of feeling. It was the reason alcohol was such a great solution: it would wipe away the last hour and even soften the fallout. She looked up into his eyes and dreaded hearing him say the vile word that would describe what was done to her.
"I forgot," he said. "I have something for you." He abruptly rose from the bed to retrieve a bulky item from a dresser drawer. Then he was back on the bed, setting a familiar scrapbook in her arms. "I should have given it back sooner."
It had suffered some hard living: the white, plastic cover was scuffed in several places, and some of the gold trim had worn off – but it was a gorgeous sight. Octavia flipped it over in her lap and opened to the last page she'd been working on, the male model selling sunglasses. There was a surge of familiar fear – what if Victor had seen it? But more than that, as she ran her fingers over the plastic sheath, she admired the woman who had clipped the picture and saved it anyway, despite the fear. She had been wrong about Alex. "Thank you," she said.
"I won't lie and say I understand what makes it valuable, but it's obviously important to you."
Octavia turned the pages, admiring the pristine houses, the unblemished families. Women in impeccable makeup. She smiled at the couple on their autumn picnic. They didn't issue any new warnings, at least none that Octavia could hear in her current state. "It makes me happy," she said. "It gives me hope for the future."
"You have something against your own photographs?" he asked.
Octavia closed the album, then pointed at the frame laying on its face on the bedside table. "Do you?"
"Well, maybe I do."
She raised her eyebrows, one hand hovering over the frame, and Alex nodded his permission. Her nerves threatened – there was a chance the picture was of his uncle. When she looked, it was not at all what she'd expected. A young couple from a 70s era picture: the woman was blonde and bare-legged and stunning in a Halloween costume that made her look like a female robin hood. Next to her was a tall, dark-haired mate wearing a multi-colored poncho, a sombrero and a giant, faux mustache. They grinned, standing arm-in-arm. "Your parents?" she asked.
Alex nodded.
"Are they...?"
"They're alive," he replied.
An unexpected relief. "You don't have anything more current?"
He smiled, lifting the frame from her hand and setting it over on his side, on the floor. "Maybe I'm like you. I just want to look at the best version of something."
"Do they know you work here?"
"Yes and no. Dominic recruited me right out of high school. He told them he was enrolling me in military junior college out of state and frankly, I think they were relieved. You might not believe it, to look at me now, but I had a bit of a rebellious streak."
"But they didn't mean for you to do this," Octavia said.
He shrugged. "I tried calling. I called several times to tell them, early on. I snuck out, I used payphones."
She frowned. "They didn't believe you?"
Alex hesitated, running a hand through his hair, choosing his words. "I hadn't always been kind, when I lived with them. I certainly wasn't honest. And my story sounded insane, so that didn't help. I mean, I was furious at the time, but I don't know that I would have believed me, either. They were probably glad to be rid of me."
Octavia pushed her album to the bedside table, then turned back to Alex. Her anxiety was fading into something else. She reached out clumsily and found his hand with her own on the covers. It was warm and strong, and the outline of it began to blur. "I would have missed you," she said. "If it were me." The words felt complicated and came out mushy. The alcohol had really saturated.
"Octavia," he murmured.
It was hard to keep her eyes open. Alex was talking from the end of a long tunnel, but at the same time, he whispered the words like a secret, straight into her ear.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you tonight."
She laced her fingers in his, watching the room go dark.
#
Alex waited until her breathing had leveled out and her grip slackened before sliding out of bed. He turned off the music. At the dresser he removed a pair of cotton slacks, then shut himself in the bathroom to get ready for bed.
There was a kinship between them. Alex hadn't been able to explain why he was drawn to her, but neither one of them had experienced much of the real world. It was the reason he struggled to lead his co-workers. Their lives had been well underway when Dominic had approached them; there had been fledgling careers, girlfriends, wives and even children. Alex was stuck in perpetual motion, waiting for his life to begin.
It was the same for Octavia, waiting in Victor's apartment and scrap-booking a hopelessly optimistic life that might never arrive. Icing her hands at the sink. Then, being kidnapped by strangers. Sleeping underground, in a locked room, with a strange man's cologne on her neck.
God, his own uncle. His flesh and blood.
When Alex approached the sink to brush his teeth, the room finally went full tilt. He grabbed the edge of the counter top before he could fall over. An unbearable heat rose from his gut and spread over him like fire. He was sweating, even though he'd already removed his dress shirt, and the cotton slacks clung to his skin. He was panting, hoping the air would help the ill feeling pass.
There was sharp cramping, followed by the helpless feeling that he would have to let this – whatever it was—wash over him.
Alex stepped back, doubled over, and vomited into the toilet.
#
Octavia stood near the edge of the crowd while Victor worked toward his fifteenth straight win. He was unstoppable – a reality she was just beginning to face – and she watched with equal parts awe and horror while waiting near the row of windows at the front of the boxing club. Victor had invited her because this streak had made him bold. At least it was a graduation from waiting, bound to the pull-out sofa. This was an opportunity.
Only in hindsight could she see how careless she'd been. How little time she'd spent scanning the crowd, searching out what she'd hoped would be her savior, her lifeline. It had been selfish. With a cursory glance at the cheering crowd, she pinpointed him. A tall, lanky student with blond hair shaved almost to nothing. He wore a red North Central College sweatshirt.
Why had she chosen him? He looked strong enough to be protective, perhaps, without so much bulk that he looked menacing. Her criteria had not been strict. Octavia had already decided not to tell him the truth. For one, it would take too long; but also, he would think she was crazy. The method she used would have to be fast and effective.
"Hello? I'm sorry to bother you." She was quick to wrap her fingers around the crook of his elbow, and squeezed the soft cotton covering his bicep. The student turned, eyes wide but welcoming. "It's just that I've got an emergency and I don't have a car here. Could I trouble you for a ride?"
"You need a ride home?" he asked. His eyebrows rose, curving. Octavia squeezed in close, pressed up against him under the guise that the crowd was too noisy to hear over, and hoped that all of her effort – the makeup, the hair, and the near-death grip on his arm – would bring him around.
"I really do," she replied, and smiled the best she could. A nervous glance up at the ring didn't help matters: Victor had stopped to full-on stare at her. It cost him a strike to the mouth. Before the student could follow her gaze, Victor had returned to pummeling his opponent. There wasn't much time. It had gone easily, in her head. "Do you have a car?" she asked. Please, she thought. Please, God, you have to help me.
"Yeah, of course, but don't you want to see who wins?" he asked. He grinned, silly and care-free. He had clear skin, a sweet disposition and his entire life ahead of him. Her grip tightened. She wanted to hold on forever, to ride his proverbial coattails into eternity. Octavia shook her head, hoping that this unpracticed bit of flirting hadn't stunk of desperation. She already knew who would win.
The crowd grew silent. It hadn't happened that way in real life; there, the noise had exploded because Victor had just flattened his opponent in a combination of punches that had rendered him unconscious. But here, in retrospect, the shouting of the fans sounded like nothing because Octavia had turned her face to the stage and locked eyes with him, and sound had ceased to hold meaning.
Victor came over the ropes in a frenzy.
#
Alex woke up from the yelling. It didn't make sense; Octavia had nearly polished off an entire bottle of Smirnoff. She should have been sleeping at a depth between 'horse tranquilizer' and 'death.' He got up with an ache in his back from sleeping on the floor and there she was, bucking and rolling across the bed, arguing with no one. Her forehead was slick with perspiration.
"Run," she moaned.
Though it was foolish, he resisted the urge to look around the room. "Octavia," he began, and touched her shoulder. It was useless. She was tangled in damp sheets and thrashing. Had she been sleeping like this in her own room? He took both shoulders in his hands and tried jarring her awake, but her response was more struggling.
"Octavia!" he barked. He gave her one last, solid shake and her eyes snapped open. She gasped like she'd just hit surface, like the whole night she'd been dragged under by the currents. "You were having a nightmare," he said. "Are you okay?"
She was struck dumb a moment, panting, propped up on her elbows. She cast a distrusting glance around the room.
"Nothing happened. It was just a dream."
Octavia pushed herself up until she was almost sitting and hooked her arms around him. It was sudden, intimate. Alex rubbed her back where the sweatshirt clung, warm and damp, her feverish warmth pressed against him. Inconveniently, his body was responding to it. She said, "I thought Victor was coming for me."
"He isn't," Alex replied, trying to politely extract himself from the hug. "He doesn't even know you're here."
The embrace went stiff, then ended. "What did you just say?"
He'd done it. He'd worried himself for almost two weeks that she would discover it on her own, hear it from someone else or – worst case scenario – encounter Victor in person. Octavia swung her legs over the edge of the bed, cringing with a surprise of pain, and got up. "You had a lot to deal with..." he said.
"I thought he was dead. You let me think he was dead." She talked more to herself than to him as she closed the distance to the door, where she fumbled with the lock.
"I was trying to do you a favor."
She wheeled on him. "You want to do me a favor? Kill him. If you want to do me another favor, stop lying to me. But the favor I want most of all, right now, is for you to open this door."
Alex came to the door, bought what time he could unlocking it.
"I wanted to believe you," she said under her breath. "Stupid."
"Where are you going?"
"My room."
"You said you didn't want to stay there, that it wasn't safe."
When he opened the door, she ducked under his arm and shuffled into the brightly lit hallway, shielding her face with her hand. "It doesn't matter," she replied. "Victor's alive, Dominic has keys to everything. None of these rooms are safe."