Austin Camacho - Damaged goods

At the living room door they paused again to listen.

“Wait here,” Hannibal said. “One little thing to do.” He crept across the floor to the sofa. The prize that had started all this was there, hidden in the material underneath. He knelt beside the couch, working his hand through the small hole he had made. Soon, the case would truly be over.

And then the world exploded in a sonic burst that froze the blood in Hannibal’s veins. Missy held the doorknob as if it was all that supported her. Hannibal could see two inches of blackness between the edge of the door and the wall. Rod must have turned the alarm back on in the basement and then reset it while Hannibal was unconscious. By opening the door, Missy had changed them from escapees to prey.

“Time to move,” Hannibal said, leaping through the door, dragging Missy by her wrist. Adrenalin drove him down the street toward his car faster than the girl was prepared to run. She stumbled behind him, only just remaining upright.

The night air burned Hannibal’s lungs as his free hand dug into his pocket for his keys. The moon was a spotlight singling them out as the only things moving on the street that night. Missy’s white underclothes glowed like fluorescent targets for anyone who might want to sight in on her. Hannibal prayed that Rod, once awakened, would first call the alarm company to prevent a police visit.

Ten feet from his car, Hannibal pushed the button on his key fob that unlocked the doors. He had not looked back but once in the driver’s seat he was pleased to see that no one followed them. He was staring a Rod’s house because he was parked facing it. The street was too narrow for a three-point turn around. Hannibal heard the throaty roar of his engine and glanced at Missy. She was staring in surprise at Mariah, still asleep in the back seat. His nose told him that she had vomited back there, probably without ever waking up.

“She breathing?”

“Yes,” Missy said. “But she’s a mess.”

“We’ll deal with that later. Right now, crouch down. We’re driving past the house.”

Hannibal slapped the Volvo into first gear and popped the clutch. After the briefest squeal of tires the car jumped forward. Rod’s front door opened as they approached. Hannibal looked over Missy’s ducked head and locked eyes with Rod as he raced past. Even in that brief contact he could see the naked hatred behind those dark eyes.

Seconds later Hannibal was driving down a narrow street with only occasional streetlights. In the yards just behind the lights he could see vegetation growing wild. On each block he spotted a pile of trash near the curb. This was not, he thought, the best neighborhood in Virginia Beach. In fact, the area he was in reminded him of his own neighborhood in Washington. He turned to Missy again, but she was bent over the seat leaning into the back.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Strapping her in.”

“Good idea,” Hannibal said, stopping at an unmarked corner. “Any idea where we are?”

Missy settled back into her seat. “Got a pretty good idea. Go left I think. That should take us to the beach again.”

Hannibal nodded and made the turn. He thought he saw the lights of another vehicle in his rearview mirror, but it would be pure paranoia to think it could be Rod. He considered how he would explain his evening to the police, and which of these young women would back his story. Missy had already been unexpectedly helpful. His next day might have been very unpleasant if not for her having both the courage and the caring to free him.

“You look so unhappy.”

Missy’s comment caught Hannibal off guard. “I was thinking of what I woke up to back in the house. I’m really sorry I let that happen to you.”

“Not your fault,” Missy said. Here eyes drifted right, away from Hannibal. “I asked for it, really. And it wouldn’t have been so rough except, that, well, Rod wanted to take me as a virgin.”

Hannibal glanced right, swallowed, and then focused straight ahead. “You were a virgin?”

“Well, in that hole anyway.”

“Oh.”

“The drugs made it easier. I’m still a little numb all over.”

It seemed clear to Hannibal that she was a lot more comfortable with this conversation than he was. His rearview mirror was still clear, but he made a couple of aimless, spontaneous turns just to be safe. He could imagine someone seeing the White Tornado’s radiance in the moonlight. He tried to focus on driving but after a minute the silence seemed too heavy to carry.

“So why’d you do it?” Hannibal asked.

Missy stared out her window into the deep darkness. “A man like you could never understand. Giving up control of your own life is so liberating. That’s what being a subbie is all about, after all.”

“No.” Hannibal shook his head. “I mean, why did you help me? It seemed pretty clear that you were under Rod’s spell.”

“Oh that.” Missy looked at Hannibal and he saw a coquettish manner that had escaped him until then. “He only whipped up on you because you tried to help me. It was my fault you got stomped. I didn’t need that guilt.”

It was cool enough in the car, but the air was still and stuffy, prompting Hannibal to turn on the air conditioner. “Okay, so you let Rod dominate you, but you decided to do this against his obvious wishes. That kind of tells me that you’re too strong a girl to be someone’s submissive slave.”

“Oh no, I’m definitely a subbie by nature,” Missy said with a smile. “I like being told what to do by a strong man. I like being devoted to pleasing someone else. I like having rules I must obey.”

“But you left.”

She watched the moon for a moment. “You know how people take orders in the Army? It’s kind of like that. They choose to follow, but only if the leader can lead. For me to sub to a man, he’s got to be a Dom I can trust and respect. Rod is a strong man, but what he did to you just wasn’t right.”

Hannibal nodded in the darkness as they rolled to a stop at another corner. “This goes into a dead end,” he said to himself.

“Hang a left here,” Missy said. “You know, when I met you I thought you were in the life. Now that I know you’re not, I’m kind of confused about why you got involved with Rod.”

“Long story,” he said, making the turn. The rambling beach houses had given way to smaller structures, each still with its deep front porch, but the houses themselves were shoved too close together for comfort. Older oaks and ashes arching over narrow sidewalks made the streets look even more claustrophobic.

“I guess you were just destined to meet,” Missy said, as if it were a random thought.

“Is that the kind of defeatist crap you pick up on the streets these days?”

Missy’s laugh was light, like a southern belle in one of those old movies Hannibal’s mother used to watch. “Actually it’s straight out of philosophy class.”

“Some community college bullshit?”

“Actually I’m a sophomore at Wesleyan,” Missy said. “Physics, with a minor in chemistry.”

“Sorry. I just never imagined you for a co-ed.”

“It’s okay,” Missy said. “You’ve probably just never seen one in her underwear.” She laughed then, to Hannibal’s surprise, and he smiled along with her. He thought he saw the beach in the distance and sped up just a little.

Hannibal didn’t know why, but for a second he could smell Rod on her. “Rod talked about having a destiny. You don’t believe all that destiny crap, do you?”

“No, not really. I do believe in karma.”

“Karma? You mean like, if you do bad things, bad things will happen to you?”

“Something like that.”

“Yeah, well I don’t think it happens by itself,” Hannibal said. The water glistened in the distance, but he didn’t see the taller buildings that crowded the shoreline. “In fact, Rod’s been a bad guy for a long time but he seems to be made of Teflon. Nothing sticks to him. He just goes along hurting people, but nothing bad has happened to him yet.”