“So you sold me.” The words come out flat. Emotionless. “You drugged my cocoa and let strangers rape me in my sleep.”
“You didn’t know!” Spittle hits my arm and I wipe it away, mouth drawn in disgust. “It wasn’t—they paid well, and I made sure they didn’t hurt—”
My hand cracks across his face and the impact jolts up my arm.
It’s nowhere near enough.
“I did it for you,” Bryan says in a hoarse voice. “To keep a roof over you head. It’s…” His eyes narrow, flicking to the side. “We can stop. These videos, we can use them for blackmail. Fund your university courses. My retirement. I promise… no more… but it’s already done. You just need their info and we’ll make them pay. We’ll finally have real money.”
The disconnect leaves me reeling. I walk away, opening the pantry, sweeping food out of my way.
Cans dent the floor, a few rolling, the sound ominous as thunder. Behind the cereal boxes, my fingers find the cold metal of the safe and trace the keypad. “What’s the combination?”
“You don’t understand.” Bryan screams again and singed meat hits my nostrils. His anguished cry tapers into low sobs.
“Tell her the fucking combination!”
Bryan sobs out four digits and I type them in, the safe door releasing with a dull thunk.
I lift the bottles close enough to read, tossing my prescription aside, keeping the two in his name, labelled Ativan. The first is nearly empty, the second not yet opened.
An echo of bitterness coats my tongue. I slow, swaying on my feet, and Damien is there, his arms around me, keeping me upright. “What do you need?”
“Bryan’s sleeping pills.” I hand him the medication. “I want him to take all of them.”
“Ophelia. Sweetheart, please—” Bryan’s voice pitches higher. “You can’t… Please just call the cops. I’ll confess everything. I’ll go to prison.”
“I can gag him again,” Damien says. “You don’t have to listen.”
“That’ll make it hard for him to swallow.” I manage a wan smile and kneel in front of Bryan, nose wrinkling at the sharp odour of urine. “You can swallow these willingly”—I rattle the bottle—“or I’ll leave and let Damien continue with the car battery.”
Tear patter onto my arm as Bryan shakes his head. “No.”
“If you won’t choose, I will.” My voice drops half an octave, softens. “A choice is more than you gave me.”
Damien sets a water glass on the floor, guiding my hand so I know where it is. I shake out the first pills and feed them into Bryan’s mouth, grimacing at his wet lips, the blubbering snot from his nose.
He immediately spits them out and the crackle of the jumper cables comes again as I push them back into his mouth. “Swallow or this will become a lot more painful.”
My legs grow sore from crouching, then from kneeling, fingers wet with his slobber as I continue feeding him the pills intwos and threes, pausing in between, anticipating the tricks he uses to hide them because I’ve used them all.
Soon it’s not Bryan’s rebellion I’m fighting, but the challenges from his body as the pills take effect. Eyelids fluttering, his head becoming heavier, body slumping against the bindings. Weakening swallows.
I shake him awake between doses, Damien helping pour water into his mouth, forcing his unconscious body to swallow.
And finally, the last few sit in his mouth, slowly dissolving. His gag and swallowing reflexes gone.
I don’t feel horror. I don’t feel satisfaction. It’s just a task that needed to be done.
“Help me untie him.”
We work efficiently. I free him from the chair and Damien takes his weight, holding him poised above the floor, then dropping him. A crunch of cartilage to explain his already broken nose.
Damien wipes down the car battery and leads, returning them to his boot, and I wipe the empty pill containers and water glass, donning kitchen gloves before I press them into Bryan’s limp hands, leaving only his prints on their surface.
I rely on Damien as we wordlessly stage the scene, his eyes picking out all the details I’d otherwise miss. Prompting me.
When everything tells the story we want, Damien holds me on his lap, my head resting against his chest while we wait.
