5 - If I can’t finish this off, give Trips the signal and let him take over.
Part of me wishes I were the kind of person who could do this alone, could protect him from another death on his hands. But for once, I understand my limits. This might be one of them.
“If I tap my leg—”
“I’ll jump in.”
I flatten my palms against his chest, the lump of the rope pinned between us a reminder of what’s next, as I bask in one last moment of comfort. Then I pull on my persona, popping onto my toes, dragging down the handkerchief, and pressing my lips to Trips’.
He plays along, even though this isn’t the kiss we want, letting me tug his lip between my teeth, the hint of a laugh in his eyes as I let my grip show to our audience, like if this were a less dire situation, he’d find my antics hilarious. Then I let go, my heart racing with fear, a grin plastered across my face. “It’s not your blood I want right now,” I say, loud enough for everyone to hear.
He chuckles, but I can tell it’s fake, the same as I know his eyes are locked on me, not because he wants to jump me, but because he’s watching for the moment I fall apart, knowing I’m so damn close to the edge.
Leaving the handkerchief around my neck, needing my face on display to keep up my persona, I stretch the rope in front of me. I focus on it instead of the man I’m going to torture, trying to imagine it’s nothing but a jump rope, nothing but a toy I’m offering a spoiled kid on a long, humid summer afternoon. “So, you want to play?” I ask, my chipper nanny-voice tight in my throat.
The man I’m not looking at huffs out an almost laugh, too worried to make the noise properly. “I mean, I was enjoying you with your boy there. Not my thing, not really, but beggars can’t be choosers, as my mom is always telling me.”
“You’re right. Beggars can’t be choosers,” I reply. Then, remembering my first lessons with Trips in the middle of the night, teaching me what parts are most vulnerable in his bedroom back home, I pick a spot. I whip the rope at his knee, like it’s a game of jump the snake instead of an instrument of torture.
He snickers, letting me know I didn’t get him cleanly, and I go for a different tack. I knot the end of the rope, over and over again until it’s the size of my fist.
“I wasn’t much for baseball, but I almost killed a man with what amounts to a bat, so this should work better,” I explain, just like I would to a kid I was watching, if I were teaching them about the fine art of damaging human flesh. That weird thought tells me exactly how close to the edge I am, so I stand, swinging my ball on a string a few times, getting a feel for it, before looking at his knee and whipping it at him again.
This time, he grunts when it hits. So, something. I grin, like I’ve won a prize, but quickly let it disappear, keeping my lips locked as I try not to vomit. But I know I can’t put this off any longer, so I whip the ball at him, up and down his front, picking tiny points of him to focus on, pieces, targets, not a person at all.
I hum to myself, trying to block out the sound of his grunts and whimpers, the tuneless pitch of it the least of my worries. After a while, I can’t look at him anymore, so instead, I spin with my makeshift weapon, pretending that I’m dancing withribbons or some other foolish thing, like I did when I was a kid.
Sweat drips down my face, my eyes stinging, my arms shaking from exhaustion. I stop, panting, the ball still swinging at the end of my rope. “I’m tired,” I state, half-truth, half act, half-crazy from whatever this division of self is doing to me.
With careful steps, Trips inches to me, slipping the rope from my grip, kissing my sweaty forehead. “I’ll do the rest,” he whispers, tilting my face so I can see his eyes, see the fierce need he has to protect me. I nod into his hands, forcing another fake smile to my face.
Without the rope, I have nothing but the sting across my palms to focus on. It’s clear I’ve hurt more than just the thing I’m carefully not looking at, but also myself. I can’t think about any of it right now, though. Instead, I point my fake smile at the guard, staring at him until he looks away, humming more of my tuneless song as I try not to hear what Trips is doing.
He slips his hand into mine a few minutes later. I let him pull me from the room, out into the bitter cold. The air tastes sweet after the stench of the cabin, the cold welcome after the effort I put in. He leads me down the stairs, tramping through the snow to a faucet on the side of the building, the snow melted there from some unknown heat source.
I blink, trying to get back to myself, realizing that for once, we’re alone. “Trips?” I whisper.
He turns me face to face, resting his forehead against mine. “You’re okay, Crash. You’re okay.”
“I’m really not.”
He huffs out a pained sound between a laugh and a cry. “Neither of us is. But we will be.”
“How many days?” I ask, just wishing I had something concrete to hold on to.
“Twenty, and we’ve done what we set out to do,” he answers.
A startled thing, almost like a chuckle, comes from me. “So, you don’t just count minutes?”
“This one seemed important enough to keep track of.” He pulls back, his thumbs brushing my cheeks. “We’ve got to get clean before we get back in the car.”
“Out here?”
He nods. “Falk will bring us a change of clothes in a minute.”
He doesn’t want to let go of me, and I don’t want him to either, but I force myself to step back, out of his reach, stripping off my long sleeve shirt, then my sweats, leaving me shivering in the snow. Trips swallows, then mirrors me, both of us in our underwear as the winter wind licks at our sweat-stained skin.
His breath makes clouds in the air between us, mine joining his, before he bends down, turning on the winterized outdoor spigot. The garden attachment at the end makes for a weak shower as he runs it over his body. Once his skin glistens in the dim light, his hair plastered to his forehead, darker than I’ve ever seen it, he hands me the hose. “Careful. It’s cold.”
