4. Mina

FOUR

mina

Escaping the house is the most anti-climactic thing I’ve ever done. I probably could have escaped a long time ago. The thing was, I didn’t want to. Once Brian brought me back from Japan, all I wanted was to be with him. I didn’t care about the rest of the world or what was beyond the walls of the Pleasure House. I only cared that he was with me.

Once everyone’s asleep, I change into all black, grab the keys, money, and bag of weapons, and slip out of the house. The wall alarm is armed, but… I know that code too.

When I reach the garage with all the extra cars in it, I push the button on the key fob. The nondescript muted gold sedan’s headlights flash a couple of times along with a little beep. Brian once told me this car blends better than black. With black, he says you always look like you’re with the government, and it makes people uncomfortable and more on guard—kind of like when you’re driving down the road and a random police car is behind you.

I happen to know Brian also has this car in black, so I can only assume that sometimes he wants people to think he’s with the government. It’s an odd intimidation tactic, but Brian isn’t just about the torture and blind rage. He’s a strategist. The people at the house only see Brian for the destruction he causes. They don’t appreciate all the planning before the demolition.

I stop for the night at a small motel and sleep.

I don’t dream.

When I wake, it’s like I closed my eyes for a split second, open them, and it’s morning. I hate those nights. I’d almost prefer disturbing dreams, then at least I feel like I actually slept instead of simply watching an abrupt scene change in a movie.

Half an hour later I’ve showered, dressed, had a quick drive-thru breakfast—while navigating traffic—and made it to the row of boutique stores at the address I was given.

I’m browsing the first of the boutique stores, looking for the blue egg and realizing I made a huge rookie mistake. Maybe all-black would be appropriate for the actual confrontation with Matsumoto, but wandering around everywhere in it… just looks a little… off.

I was at least smart enough to separate a few of the hundreds from one of the rolls of cash. The only thing that would look worse than skulking around a high-end boutique dressed like an assassin while appearing to be casing the place, would be to also pull out a giant roll of bills. I’m not the most subtle of Queen Pins, here.

Given my wardrobe situation and the realization that I don’t know how many stupid clues this motherfucker has or how much he plans to drag out this torment. It might be wise to have other clothes.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this back at the house, but I was too focused on getting out, saving Brian, and killing Matsumoto. And I’m not sure what it says about me that my thoughts have turned more to killing Matsumoto than the former. I love Brian, but there’s a big part of me that believes he can take care of himself. Or maybe I just don’t want to believe he’s truly human and breakable like me. I want to believe nothing else can ever harm him, and nothing is strong enough to take him down.

He’s gotten this far without me. Surely this isn’t the only sticky situation he’s been in. So right now my biggest fear isn’t that Brian will die, but that he’ll free himself and kill Matsumoto before I can do it.

This sounds insane even in my own brain. It wasn’t that long ago that I was the damsel in distress. I was the captive. I was the one at the mercy of someone else hoping for a rescue I somehow knew wasn’t coming, and then it did. I haven’t been the same since that moment.

When we got back to the house and I was settled, Brian went to punish the girl who caused me to be taken. And I didn’t care. I didn’t care about her screams. I didn’t care about her pain. I didn’t care because something in my emotions switched off, and something else switched on. It’s like my body, mind, and soul, shifted to a backup generator. The pain and fear got muted and the anger got turned up to eleven. But with the muting of the pain and fear came muting of other emotions—including good ones.

The things that could touch me before, suddenly couldn’t. The things I used to feel, I no longer did. I’m still wading through this fog of anger and desire for vengeance, but the other feelings, they don’t work quite right. I think I know what Brian meant when he said he wasn’t sure if he could feel a real normal feeling or if he could love. I’m not sure what this means for me, for him, for us. I’m afraid if I lose the better parts of me, it will spell doom for both of us.

Even so, a part of me is grateful for this muted place inside me, this simmering rage, this thing that means I’m not scared to follow this trail of breadcrumbs to the man who wants to recapture me and hurt me. Because I plan to hurt him. He thinks he has the upper hand because I’m scared. But I’m not scared. I don’t know if that’s stupid or dangerous but I’m not scared of him.

The only thing I fear is that I could lose Brian. As long as that doesn’t happen, I’ll be okay. I don’t know if I’ll ever fix whatever broke inside me. But somehow, I’ll be okay. Eventually.

I shake myself out of the memories and grab some casual clothes in my size… some jeans and T-shirts and a lightweight sweater because it’s pretty breezy out. When the first things I try on fit, I leave them on, and go out to the front with the rest.

If there’s an egg in this store, some random child has likely already wandered off with it. I try not to let that thought drag me down as I put the pile of clothes on the counter. I rip the tags off what I’m wearing and hand them to the sales girl. She gives me that look that Julia Roberts got in Pretty Woman the first time she tried to shop, but she rings it all up and puts it in a bag anyway.

“$488.62,” she says, snidely like she thinks I can’t afford it and will have to put things back since I didn’t bother to look at price tags. I’m on an Easter hunt, not a bargain hunt. I mean yeah it’s not cheap, but it’s not Dior, either. This lady needs to get over herself.

I pull out five hundred dollar bills from the black pants I carried to the counter. Now she looks at me like she suspects I’m a drug dealer, but she takes my tainted money and bags everything up for me without comment.

She doesn’t even tell me to have a nice day.

I search the next three shops on this row. No blue egg. Next I come to a bakery. I could use a donut and coffee. I really am starting to worry something has happened to this egg I’m supposed to be looking for. Or maybe Matsumoto has sent me on a wild goose chase so he can get the jump on me like the last time I wandered free from my gilded cage.

This thought gives me pause. I drop off the bag of clothes at Brian’s car, slip a clip-on holster onto the inside of my jeans, and conceal a .380 handgun. I’m not sure if this caliber would drop a full grown man or his thugs, but it’s what I can easily conceal and it doesn’t have too much kick. A .22 barely kicks at all when it fires, but at too much distance it carries too much ricochet risk. I’ve paid attention as Brian has given me these little nuggets of weaponry wisdom.

This time when I walk back into the bakery, I have significantly more situational awareness and far less obsession about a stupid egg that may not even exist.

I can’t believe I’m such a little idiot. That must be what Matsumoto is doing. He just wants to send me all over the place so he can take me unaware. If Brian knew I was being this stupid, he’d probably kill me himself.

“Can I help you?” a much nicer girl than the one at the boutique says when I reach the counter. I find I need that coffee and donut even more than before I made this startling realization. I scan the display case, trying to make up my mind, when a reflection catches my eye and I look up to see a small blue cake shaped and decorated like a Faberge egg.

I’m sure my eyes are comically wide, and the girl probably thinks it’s just sugar-lust taking over.

Matsumoto said Faberge-style egg, so I naturally expected something made out of metal or ceramic… a decorative piece. Not food. And maybe it’s a coincidence. I mean it is almost Easter, after all. A fancy decorated egg cake in a bakery right before Easter isn’t exactly an unlikely event.

“Is that egg cake for sale?” I ask.

“It’s $19.99.”

I’m so glad I brought a bunch of money with me. Between filling up the gas tank, breakfast, the clothes, and this… I’m already punching close to $600. And I still have plenty if the opportunity for bribery comes up.

“Great, can I get that and a coffee to go, please?”

The girl boxes up the egg inside a small white cake box, fixes me a coffee in a to-go cup, and gives me a wrapped up fork and knife like she thinks I plan to just dig in now. I pay, thank her, and carry the package back out to the car.

I take a quick, furtive glance around the parking lot… looking for obvious government-looking black cars. The last time Matsumoto took me, that’s the kind of thing they were driving. Brian’s totally right about this. If kidnappers really want to blend, they should drive rusted-out Honda Civics. Nobody ever suspects the rusted-out Honda Civic. But it’s like they want you to know they’re bringing your doom with them. So non-descript black sedans are the favored stalker car. At least for the active, powerful criminal element, like Matsumoto.

Even if he doesn’t plan to pull me off the street in broad daylight, he could have someone watching me and my progress. But, I don’t see anything suspicious, so I settle into the driver’s side of Brian’s car and lock the door.

I take a sip of the coffee, as though caffeine could settle my jangled nerves, and carefully open the white box. I have a moment of self-doubt as I wonder if I’m about to feel really stupid, smashing and destroying a cake for a non-existent secret message. I decide against smashing into it with my hand like a lunatic and instead use the knife to cut down the center.

About half an inch in, I meet resistance and use the fork to dig into the cake like I’m digging up a dinosaur, brushing the moist part of the cake away as though it’s so much dirt.

I’m surprised when I find there actually is something baked inside—a long aluminum foil wrapped tube. It’s almost the entire length of the cake. I pull it out and remove the foil wrapping to find a glass tube, like a test tube. There’s a long scroll of paper containing a message far longer than I would have believed could have so compactly fit inside this cake.

I’m tempted to eat the cake. It was so beautiful, and it smells divine, but I’ve had breakfast. I won’t starve, and the idea has suddenly popped into my head that the cake could be drugged.

I don’t think Matsumoto would murder me with poison. That’s a woman’s method of choice. He wants me alive and punished for daring to be freed from him. But there could be a sedative in the cake which only makes me easier prey. And I’m still worried the entire Easter Hunt may be a distraction from something else.

Since I don’t trust my self-control on this, even in the face of possible sedative, I take the cake back across the street and dump it in an outdoor trash can, really hoping that move was smart and not paranoid.

To console myself for my loss, I go back inside the bakery, order a little bunny cupcake with pink buttercream frosting and chocolate cake.

“Back for more already?” the girl says.

I wonder if she knows what was hidden inside the cake. I doubt she was the one who baked it in, and even if the egg cake was drugged, the rest of the bakery’s offerings should be safe.

“It’s for a special event but it just smelled so good, I wanted something for myself now.”

“I’ve been there,” she says. She puts the cupcake into a small white cupcake box, I pay her, and go back to the car.

I fortify myself with sugar and caffeine before carefully removing the rolled up paper from the glass tube.

Mina, it is good of you to join my Easter Hunt. The prize for successful completion is Brian’s life. But unfortunately, the price is your freedom. You must care a great deal for him to make such a sacrifice.

The rest of Matsumoto’s long winded note just gives me directions to a lingerie shop, what to say to the person and that there will be a package for me there.

It’s not that I wanted to go on a scavenger hunt for this psycho, but it seems clear to me that he really doesn’t know how they work. There are supposed to be clever clues, not boring directions to each location. I feel like an executive assistant running errands.

Though I shouldn’t complain about this. After all, the last thing I need is a set of complicated clues I might not figure out while the clock ticks on Brian’s life. There could be any number of cultural differences that could make riddles not translate from his brain to mine, and it’s the last thing I need.

At the lingerie store, I give the stated code phrase, “Someone is holding a package for bunny.”

No, I’m not kidding. That’s the lame code phrase. If I didn’t already want revenge, if this man hadn’t already destroyed me, I’d be tempted to kill him just for sending me all over the city collecting these stupid eggs.

The girl behind the counter smiles and bends down to collect a shopping bag from the ground. It’s white-and-black striped with the stores’ logo across the front and black tissue paper popping out.

I thank her and take it back to the car. Inside the bag I find a black leather corset with pale blue ribbons criss-crossing at the back. And a pink Faberge-style egg. This one looks to be painted ceramic and has a hinge that can be opened.

Inside is another short note, leading me to the next location. This asshole sends me to a separate department store or lingerie store, making me ask for a package for bunny. Each package has a piece of an outfit and another egg.

They are all high end stores, and I can’t help but be disgusted by how Matsumoto flaunts his wealth while gloating about what he thinks will be his triumphant recapture of me. I’ve given up on the idea that he has henchmen waiting around to take me.

Over the course of the day I collect a garter belt and a light green egg, stockings with seams and a pale yellow egg, black lace panties with a purple egg, and finally black high-heels with an orange egg. Aside from the luxury lingerie and that first bakery egg—which set my expectations for this fiasco way too high—this has been the most boring Easter egg hunt of my life.

Inside the final egg with the shoes, I’m instructed to meet him at his temporary home, in the basement, wearing only the contents I picked up on the hunt. I make a pit stop at a craft and fabric store for some supplies.

I park in an empty parking lot on my way outside of the city proper to make some alterations and change clothes. It occurs to me that maybe he didn’t give me real clues or a real hunt beyond that first egg because he thinks I’m super afraid. Maybe he didn’t think I’d come on the hunt at all and he’d have to extract me.

I think he must get some satisfaction out of the possibility that I might wring my hands and cry and pace and have a panic attack or three before finally deciding to spare the house and offering myself as tribute.

He obviously doesn’t believe I have the constitution to handle all the lady-brain taxing riddles and clues he could have given me. Or maybe this is just the extent of his cleverness. Either way, I don’t think Matsumoto is prepared to deal with the new and improved me. But I’m excited to introduce myself.