Page 69 of Beautiful Savage
I surface when the SUV crunches onto gravel and stops. The engine cuts. Doors open.
They pull me out. Same formation, one at each arm. My legs barely work, muscles like water. They half carry me across what feels like a wooden porch, old boards creaking under our combined weight. I smell cedar and mildew and hear birds nearby.
Through a heavy door that opens from inside. The acoustics change. Concrete floors, high ceilings. Cold air that makes me think of Gunner's apartment kept at sixty-eight degrees, how I complained while secretly loving the excuse to press against his warmth. Through the gap at the bottom of the hood, I glimpse concrete stained dark in patches, fluorescent lighting that makes everything look sick.
Down a hallway. Other voices pass. At least two more soldiers. One says "room ready" to my escort. There must be six men or more in this place.
Another door. Then stairs going down. Wooden, twelve steps. One soldier holds me against the rail while I stumble through the descent. At the bottom, a metal door.
The basement. It's colder here, like concrete that's been wet for years.
They walk me ten more paces and stop.
"Going to put you in a chair," one says. Calm but experienced. "Don't fight."
They lower me into metal that doesn't move. It must be bolted to the floor. They cut the zip tie behind my back, and my shoulders sing with relief before they retie me differently. One wrist to each chair arm. Ankles to the chair legs. Four anchor points. I'm furniture now.
The others leave. Their footsteps fade up the stairs. I'm alone with the one who spoke.
He steps in front of me. Through the hood, I see his boots. They look military, black and polished.
Then he pulls the hood off.
I blink in sudden light from a single bulb hanging on a wire. The room is maybe twelve by fifteen feet. Concrete walls, exposed joists, one metal door. No windows. Just this bolted chair and a video camera on a tripod four feet away.
The soldier stands beside the camera. Early forties, military short hair, a scar along his jaw crossing an old burn. His face uncovered because he knows I'm never leaving this room to identify anyone.
He pulls out a printed card and takes a position where he'll be partially in frame. His eyes are flat, empty, professional.
"I'm going to record now. Don't speak unless I tell you. Look at the camera or at me. Don't close your eyes."
He reaches over and presses record. The red light glows.
He reads in a monotone that makes every word worse:
"Gunner. The woman in the chair is Daphne Gilles. You let her go. We will not."
You let her go.Not that I left. That he let me go. To protect me. The truth of it constricts my chest.
"Four hours from this recording at five PM Monday afternoon, you will surrender yourself to the location named in the package delivered to your phone. You will come unarmed and alone. You will bring the dossier, all encrypted copies, all dead man switch arrangements terminated. You will provide proof of termination."
The ultimatum continues, precise and terrible. They know what Gunner means to me, what I mean to him, or this leverage wouldn't work.
"If you do not arrive at the location with the package fully terminated by five PM, the woman in the chair dies on camera. The recording will be sent to her father. This is not negotiable."
The soldier finishes reading. Looks at the camera for two seconds, then reaches over and turns it off. The red light dies.
He picks up the camera and tripod. "Someone'll be back. Don't try anything."
The metal door closes. His footsteps fade up the stairs.
I'm alone in a basement with a single bulb humming overhead and the mythology finally, completely cracking apart in my mind.
Desire destroys what you love.
My mother's voice, but for the first time in nineteen years, I hear what's underneath it. Not wisdom. Not warning. Just fear. A woman dying of cancer, trying to protect her daughter from appetite because appetite was all she had left and it wasn't enough to save her.
The voice changes. From my mother's clear tones to something thinner, more desperate. Then it fades, like someone slowly turning down the volume on a recording that's played too long.
