Chapter 12

Chapter

Twelve

I t is rather unnecessarily dramatic, the way you snatch me.

Right off the rooftop terrace, in broad daylight. Just past ten in the morning, in fact.

I am reclined on a lounge chair, my feet up, sunglasses on, clad in a robe and a bikini so revealing I'd never wear it out, only here, at home, for Logan, or alone on the roof. I am reading, sipping herbal tea, enjoying the sunlight of what promises to be one of the last warm days we will have for some time. Cocoa is beside my chair, her chin on my thigh, snoring.

I hear a helicopter, and think nothing of it. This is New York, there are helicopters going overhead all the time. But when the volume of its whumping rotors grows, I become curious. Sit up, look around. Cocoa's ears prick and twitch, and she too seems disconcerted. Growls deep in her chest. I watch as the hackles on the back of her shoulders lift.

Something is amiss.

I wrap my thin robe around myself and cinch it closed, tie the belt. Set aside my mug. Clutch my cell phone, ready to call Logan if needed.

The rotors are close now, but the aircraft itself is still somewhere out of sight. Cocoa spots it first, and barks at it. But not the bark she has for another dog, or strangers, or squirrels, or birds. This is her fierce, defensive bark, frightening and feral. The helicopter is swooping low over the rooftops, moving fast. Too fast. News and medical helicopters, even the few police ones I've seen, none of them have flown thus, barely clearing rooftops, scudding with precise and unerring speed toward this rooftop.

And I know.

I am in motion as soon as I realize who is in that machine, but it is too late.

The helicopter flares to a stop barely a dozen feet overhead, the down-blast of the rotors nearly flattening me. A door slides open, and two ropes drop to the rooftop. Cocoa is a brown blur of fury, moving stand in front of me, teeth bared in a snarling rictus. Black-clad figures slide down the ropes, and one levels a handgun of some sort, aims it. There is a quiet thump, and Cocoa whines, collapses. I cry out, grab for her, find a dart protruding from her neck. Hands grab me. I fight, thrash.

A gloved hand goes over my mouth, silencing my scream before it can leave me. The hand is replaced by a gag, a length of cloth tugged between my mandibles and tied tight.

My cell phone is tossed aside.

I am lifted off the ground. My hands are wrenched behind my back, and something hard is wrapped around them with a zzzzzhhhhrrrrippp , binding them painfully together. My vision is obscured suddenly, something thick and black draped over my head. A black bag, or a pillowcase, something totally opaque.

Terror claws at my heart.

More ropes are tied around me, but this time in a kind of impromptu harness, under my armpits, around my thighs near my groin on both sides, back up around my armpits, low around my waist beneath my belly, again and again in a swiftly and expertly woven pattern that assures there is no pressure on any one part of my body as I am hoisted off the rooftop. Up, up, up. I am glad in that moment for the bag making it so I cannot see myself being lifted off the ground.

I dangle and sway in the air as I am brought up and up. Hands grab me, pull me in, set me down. Untie the rope harness. Sit me down, and buckle me in, a five-point harness, click-click—click—click-click , all centered over my torso.

The noise of the rotors is deafening.

Perhaps thirty seconds have passed, total, since the aircraft halted to hover above me.

No one speaks. A door closes and the noise of the rotors is quieter. I feel the helicopter resume forward motion, and then it is banking. Even without the use of my eyes, I can tell that we are moving with horrifying speed through the canyons of the city.

I am still wearing my sunglasses, I realize. It is an odd thing to notice in such a situation. But it just reinforces the speed and precision of the snatch.

Perhaps twenty minutes of flight, at most, and then I feel forward motion become downward motion. I feel touchdown, a gentle bump. My harness is unfastened, hands lift me and set me to my feet. Hands guide me across what I guess may be another rooftop and through a doorway. I hear a door close behind me, and the sound of the helicopter is muted.

The hands on my biceps guide me, turning this way and that, and then halt. Elevator sounds. A brief downward journey in the elevator car, the only sound that of my captor's soft breath. I am nudged forward, and I take three steps. Hear the elevator door close behind me. A sense of wide space, echoing of my breath within the bag, my bare feet shuffling on some kind of cool hard floor.

"Here she is, sir." A deep, accented male voice. European accent, of some kind. German, possibly. I am not sure.

Then your voice. "Thank you, Kai."

"Of course, sir."

"I've added a bonus, to ensure that you and your men remain... discreet."

"Discretion is the byword of our business, Mr. Indigo."

"It had better be. You wouldn't want me to have to buy your silence through... other methods."

Kai's voice, behind me, is cold. "That would be unnecessary, and ill advised, sir, even for you."

"Good-bye, Kai."

"Auf wiedersehen." Bootheel-clicks recede.

Silence. I can only breathe through my nose and fight panic and fear, and hope my knees do not give out.

I feel you.

In front of me. Close, so close I can feel your body heat and smell your cologne.

"I apologize for the dramatics, Isabel."

I would not say anything even if I weren't gagged.

You breathe, just breathe. Looking at me, I assume. And then I feel a touch. Hear you inhale. Your nose, sliding along the curve of my neck. Your fingers, then, tracing the V opening of my robe.

"What are you wearing beneath this, I wonder?"

You loosen the knot, tug the belt open, and the edges of the robe slip aside. Your fingertips brush down the sides of my throat, to my clavicle, along my breastbone. Gentle, tender. Your fingers shake on my flesh. I am breathing hard past the gag. Blinking furiously in the darkness within the bag blinding me. You nudge at the robe, and it droops off my shoulders, baring me. Now the scant coverage of the bikini leaves me feeling utterly naked.

"Ah..." An appreciative sigh. "So lovely, Isabel. Far too lovely to be covered."

Snick.

A terrifying sound. Metallic. Sharp.

Something thin and cold touches my chest, my cleavage, right between my breasts. I stop breathing. Hold completely still.

The sharp edge does not pierce or cut as it traces the outline of my breast. A quick jerk between my breasts, and the string holding the tiny cups of the bra is severed. My breasts fall and sway loose.

I resume breathing then, but now my breathing is ragged with fear.

The blade tickles lower. Down my side, to the knot at my hip. Another quick jerk, and the string is cut. The bottom falls around my feet, and I am naked.

Gagging on my panicked breathing.

"Hush, Isabel. Be calm. You know I'd never hurt you." Your breath, your voice, a whisper in my ear. "I couldn't mar such perfection."

Your presence recedes.

I hear a click , the snap of a camera shutter. Ticking of smartphone keyboard keys. The bloooop of a message being sent, and received.

Bbbbbrrrrriiiinnnnggagg! Your ringer, so familiar, the old-fashioned metallic blat of a rotary landline phone from decades past.

"Logan." A pause. "Calm down, Mr. Ryder. As you see, she is unhurt. And she will remain unharmed. But if you leave your office, you will never see her again. No, you idiot, I won't kill her. I will merely... keep her. I have, as of this moment, every intention of returning her to you in the same condition I received her. The photograph is merely proof of life, I suppose you could call it. I'm not going to hurt her. Nor you, for that matter, although I do have eyes on you, and those eyes are in possession of a rifle, capable of putting a bullet between your eyes from a mile away. Remain where you are."

Another pause, as you listen. I can hear Logan on the other side, yelling, tinny, distant.

"What do I want? A moment with Isabel, that's all. To talk. Just she and I."

Logan's voice.

"I will have her returned when we are done with our conversation." You sigh, a sound of long-suffering. This is pure Caleb, calm, in control. "Your dog? She is unhurt as well. The dart merely contained a dose of sedative. She will wake up in a few hours none the worse for wear. And now I must let you go, Mr. Ryder. Remember, stay where you are. Stay in that very room, if you please. Do not leave for anything. In fact, it may be best to not even stand up, for now."

And then you are in front of me, again, close enough to smell.

Silence, for a long, long time. An eternity, in which you are there, in front of me, not touching me, not speaking. I don't know what you are doing.

And I can only endure it.

At long last, I feel your hands tugging at the hood. Removing it.

The light, even with sunglasses still on, albeit askew, is blinding after the total darkness.

I blink, and feel you adjust the sunglasses so they sit properly on my face.

My robe is still draped behind me, hanging from my bound wrists.

You are impeccably dressed. Three-piece charcoal pinstripe suit, tailored to fit your trim waist and wide shoulders. White button-down, a crimson tie, knotted but loose around your throat, topmost button undone. Hands in your hip pockets. Just eyeing me.

I glare back. Pretend to bravery I do not in any way feel.

"Isabel. Oh... Isabel. You are, as always, lovelier than ever." You step closer. Closer, yet. I am unable to slow my breathing, then, when you press up against me. Inhale against my throat once more. Back up, run your palm up my side. Cup my breast and release it. "Pregnancy suits you, I must admit. It adds a softness to your already full figure."

I am still gagged. I want to vomit at your touch. It is an immediate and instinctive reaction. And surprising.

Yet... welcome, considering my former addiction to you, my former susceptibility to your sorcery.

A tear escapes, slides down my cheek, appears beneath the rim of my sunglasses.

You reach up, wipe it away with a thumb.

"I'm sorry, Isabel. I'm sorry for all this. I..." You turn away, scrub your fingers through your hair. "I couldn't help myself."

Back to me, then. An abrupt whirl, two harsh paces. The hand still in your trouser pocket flies up and out, a black something clutched in your fingers, and then there's that horrible snick as a blade snaps open. I stumble backward, screaming past the gag.

You grunt in irritation. "Oh, shut up and hold still, would you? I said I would never hurt you. Surely you understand that much, at least."

It's a quick, efficient move, the way you slide the flat of the blade between my cheek and the gag. Twist, so the blade bites into the gag and parts it. I feel a sting, however, and you frown. Lick your thumb, and wipe at my cheek where the tip of the knife, razor sharp, nicked my cheek.

You lean in, kiss the wound.

I flinch away. Work my jaw.

Tears blur my eyes. "What do you want, Caleb?"

"You heard what I said. To talk, that's all."

"You could have called me."

You laugh. "Oh no. That wouldn't do at all. You and I, our history? It deserves so much more than a mere phone call."

"But this?" I am cold with fury; you hear it in my voice.

My hands are still bound. The robe hangs from my wrists. My breasts are bare, my core exposed, and my thighs tremble with the furious, fearful knocking of my knees. I do not know any longer what you are capable of. Anything, I think. Anything at all.

You still have the knife out, and you spin the blade in a circle on your palm, a casual demonstration of mastery and familiarity with the weapon. You approach. Your motions are those of a predator, smooth gliding steps of a panther, a prowling lion. Your eyes rake my body. You move around to stand behind me, slink your knife-wielding arm around my neck, trace my cheekbone with the dull back edge of the knife. Your other hand toys with me, flicks at my nipple, cups my breast, smooths down my rib cage, flattens possessively against my hip.

"You are my siren, Isabel." Your voice is a rough murmur against the shell of my ear. "Your body sings a song I have never been able to resist. Yet I am not so fortunate as godlike Odysseus that I can bind myself to a mast as he did to resist his siren. I have only my will, and where you are concerned, my will is entirely insufficient."

I still have not even registered where I am; I look around, trying to not even allow myself to process your words. Not your home, not the cavernous penthouse at the top of your tower. This is somewhere new. Windows all around, a mammoth, gaping, totally empty space. Windows, and light. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls, showing Manhattan in all four directions. Behind me, an elevator shaft. The only feature of the entire room, which is the footprint of a skyscraper. Tens of thousands of square feet in every direction. Bare concrete underfoot.

"Did you hear me, Isabel?" You tap my cheekbone with the tip of the knife, gaining my attention.

"Yes, Caleb." I step forward, pivot in place. "Or should I call you Jakob?" It is a test, to see how violently you react. It is a dangerous game, I think.

But you do not react. Perhaps you didn't hear the last part. I do not know. You move up close to me, so the tips of my breasts crush against the front of your suit coat. You lean in, as if to kiss me. Brows furrowed, eyes tormented, but lucid. Instead of kissing me, you touch your forehead to mine. I don't dare move, because you still have the knife, and you are reaching past me with it. Around to my back. I am not breathing, not moving. Don't even blink as you breathe on my cheek, touch your ear to mine, your chin to my shoulder. Looking over my back, watching your movements as you slip the knife blade between my wrists, and... flick.

The plastic binding my hands together parts, and I am free.

The robe pools onto the floor.

You close the knife blade. Pace in caged-tiger circles around me. Pocket the weapon. Gazing at me. Your eyes, my God your eyes, they are haunted, blazing with pain and need. Your mask has slipped, Caleb. The emotion within you is a cauldron. No... a caldera, crumbling to reveal an active volcano beneath, ready to erupt.

Your chest rises and falls heavily, as if you have recently run a marathon. You are gazing at me as if I am the source of all life, and you are a dying monster, ravening in the shadows, hungering for the sweet morsel of life just beyond its reach.

I remain utterly motionless. Watching you pace in circles around me. Naked. Vulnerable. Terrified. Confused.

And then you move up behind me. Touch my spine. Trace each knob downward. Feather your palms, yes, lovingly over my bottom. Cup my hips. I do not move. I hate your touch. Hate it. But you are manic, unbalanced, and I fear you. So I must allow it, I think. I want to go home to Logan. I want to feel the baby in my belly grow.

As if reading my mind, you press your front to my spine, and your fingers dance around my sides, between my ribs and my arms. Your palms flatten against my belly. It has begun to bump, just a tiny little bit.

"Is it true?" You murmur this, ever so gently, in my ear.

"Yes."

"How far?"

"Thirteen weeks." My voice shakes.

"And you do not know if it is mine or his?"

"No. There is no way to know. Not until after the birth." There is, actually, but my doctor said the procedure came with risk, and wasn't worth it. I agreed. But I'm not about to say this.

"I don't suppose it matters." You turn away from me. Pace away, long quick angry steps.

And then back. Kneeling in front of me. Eyes wide, wondering. You press ten gentle fingertips to my belly. Gently, reverently.

"But... if you carried my child inside you... ?" You breathe this, as if it is too wild a notion to be believed. " My blood, beating within you. My bloodline, growing in your uterus."

"Stop, Caleb," I whisper. "Please, just . . . stop."

"If it were mine, what then?" You stand up. Stare down into my eyes.

"I don't know. I don't know what then."

"I have tried to let you go, Isabel. Time and again. I try. But I just... cannot." You turn away again, as if ripping your gaze from me, painfully. Rub the stubble on your jaw with a palm. "I can't. And now that you're pregnant, now that you may have my son or daughter growing inside you—how can I let you go?"

I risk a step closer to you. "You have to, Caleb. You must . It is all there is to do. Find it within you, Caleb. Please."

"I can't!" This, desperately. Shouted, spittle flying. "Do you have any fucking clue what I've been through because of you, Isabel de la Vega?"

"No, Caleb, I do not. How could I? You've lied to me at every turn. Hidden the truth from me. Locked me away from myself, from my life, from my past." I breathe out slowly, trying to regain some measure of calm. "You knew me, didn't you? Before the coma? Before the accident. You knew me."

Your gaze sharpens. Slices into me. "You've remembered something, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"Tell me."

" You tell me , Caleb."

A frustrated sigh. You turn away, snatch my robe off the floor. Bring it to me, hold it open for me. I slide my arms in, and you tie it closed, reluctantly, reverently. You have never behaved thus. As if I am something precious.

Always I felt like just... a possession. A watch you were jealous of, but that held no real emotional value to you. As if you possessed me merely so no else could. Owned, but not cherished.

This, the way you look at me now, the way you touch me now... if you'd shown this side of you all these past years, perhaps there could have been something for us, between us. But it's too late. Too late.

You cling to the belt, the knot, for several long moments, and then, as if physically forcing yourself to do so, you release the belt. Breathe in, out, again, and again. Just staring at me. As if plumbing the depths of my soul through my eyes, seeking something.

And then you turn away, walk the many paces to the window. Assume that familiar pose, one arm barred horizontally on the window, your forehead resting on your arm, in the crook of your elbow. Other hand lifted to the glass, fingers tapping a rhythm. Weight on one leg, the other knee bent.

Staring into the past.

I put my back to the window a few feet away from you, sink to sit on the floor.

"You were just a girl when I first saw you. Fourteen, not yet fifteen, but nearly. You were in the process of blooming from an awkward girl into a lovely young woman. I knew, the moment I saw you, that you would be... stunning. A Helen of Troy, a woman for whom armies would go to war. But then, you were just a girl. No tits, hair in a sloppy braid, staring wide-eyed at the big bad city, this place, this modern Babylon. You were with your parents. I knew you'd be stunning, because you looked just like your mother, and holy mother of God, that woman was gorgeous. More than gorgeous. A woman to kill for, to die for. A true Spanish beauty. Long thick black hair, firm, dark, unblemished skin even at her age, forty or so. Eyelashes so thick you could almost hear them as they swept against her face. And her body, your mother, Isabel, she had the body of a goddess. Your father was a damned lucky man. He was rather handsome man, himself, however. A little older than her, I think. Forty-five, nearly fifty, perhaps? Going a little silver at the temples, but it gave him that distinguished air, you know? Tall, straight, strong. A good bit of stubble, not quite a beard. You were between them, your mother on the inside, you, and then your father nearest the street. All three of you were fresh off the boat, so to speak. You were literally clutching your visa in your hands, still. You'd gone straight to Fifth Avenue, like all the tourists do.

"I passed you. But that moment, when I first saw you, I will never forget that moment for as long as I live, Isabel. You looked at me, and you saw me. Your face told the tale. You thought I was handsome. So I smiled at you, and you ducked, looked away, blushing, giggling. I saw then how beautiful you would be. And I knew, once you came of age, that I would have to have you. But not until you were of age. I was no pedophile, no predator of young girls. In my world, I had men like that... eliminated with extreme prejudice. If a man came to me looking for young girls, he would vanish. I would see to it. I had no patience for such filth. Did not, and do not."

You tap the window, fall silent for a while. I wait, knowing you will continue. Needing you to continue.

"I was a pimp then. There is no other word for it. But I was good to my girls. I took care of them. Kept them off drugs. Fed them, clothed them, gave them somewhere safe to do live and do business. Made sure their clients were clean, and not rough. Made sure no one abused them. And I never took advantage of their services myself. At least, not without paying for it like anyone else. I was not a good man. I am not, and never have been. Never will be. But back then? I was... bad. I was on the rise. Twenty-five years old and so very angry at everyone, at life. I was making money hand over fist. I was hungry for respect, for success. I was ruthless. If someone got in my way... well, they regretted it. But I had standards. Rules. A code. All of my girls were at least eighteen, and they knew, each and every one of them, what they were getting into. I never coerced them or forced them. I made sure they were loyal to me and only me, yes, but... they were not victims. And you... I'd never seen anyone like you. You were sweet. Innocent. Young, then, too young. But you... you saw me, Isabel. You looked right at me. And you didn't do so with fear or disgust. Not like everyone else. You should have. And if you'd been able to see what I truly was, you would have. But I was selfish, and I liked the way you looked at me.

"I kept tabs on you, on the three of you. Nothing nefarious, I just... kept track. You went to school in Brooklyn. Your father worked at a jewelry store, a little place owned by a very distant cousin, I think. Or a friend of a distant cousin. I don't remember anymore. Your mother worked for a hotel, cleaning rooms. It was demeaning work for a woman meant to be an empress, but she did it with vivacity and determination. For you. So you could have shoes and clothes and some money to spend. Your father and mother both worked very long hours to put a roof over your heads and food in your bellies, which meant you were much alone. You had no friends that I ever saw. You never left school with anyone, you never met anyone outside of school. Once school let out, you would go to the library. But you'd stop for a snack on the way, at the same bodega every time. You liked your sweets. You'd get a Coke, and a Snickers bar. I had the feeling, when I watched you, that you got these things as a form of rebellion, that your parents wouldn't approve, which is why you did it. You'd stay at the library for long, long hours, reading. I never knew anyone to read so many books as you. You'd just sit in the stacks, nose in a book, from when school ended until late at night. Your father rarely came home before midnight, and your mother nearly that, and they'd both be gone a few hours past dawn. Seven, eight at the latest. You were... very independent. You'd take yourself to school, take yourself home. I assumed you made your own breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Always alone."

"It sounds as if you kept very close track of me indeed, Caleb."

You do not bother to turn, to look at me. "Oh yes. It was unhealthy, and I knew it. But I couldn't help it. My work suffered. I fucked up a rather important deal because I was watching you rather than doing my due diligence. But I couldn't help it."

"Why? What was it about me?"

A sigh. "Just... you. Everything. I do not know if I can explain it, even now. Something in you spoke to something within me. I was impatient for you to grow up, for you to be... ready for me. I never interfered in your life, nor that of your parents. I wanted to. I wanted to drive you to school so you wouldn't have to walk. I wanted to feed you. Stop you from eating trash. A body like yours, or rather a body such as I knew you would have one day... it deserved better treatment than you were giving it. You were just a teenage girl, so you knew no better. But I wanted better for you."

Another sigh. Knuckles tapping on the window. Toe tapping on the floor.

"What was it about you?" you repeat. "What is it about you now? I don't know. I'd never even spoken to you. But I... knew you. I knew you. I knew the books you liked. Classics, fiction, philosophy. Hemingway, Voltaire, Rousseau, Sartre, Tennessee Williams, Hawthorne, Shakespeare, the Romantics... you read so much, so widely. You possessed so much intelligence, so much raw beauty and potential. I wanted it all. I wanted to... shape you. It wasn't sexual, not then. As I said, I am not a predator. Not of that sort, at any rate. If I was not, as I have already said, a good man, I was not so depraved as to prey on fourteen-year-old girls."

"I believe you, Caleb," I say. And I do. I do not know why, but I do.

You turn, finally. "You believe that?" Eyes narrowed, jaw muscles flexing, a breath. "You believe that I never meant you harm? That I did not then, and do not now?"

I must consider my next words carefully. "I believe that you were not a predator of young girls. That is what I meant."

You hear what I do not say, however. "But you do not believe the rest?"

"Given all that has occurred between us, it is difficult. You shot and nearly killed Logan—you meant to kill him. You kidnapped me out of my home. You tranquilized my dog. I was bound and gagged and blindfolded. You have mixed truth and lies and omission for so long that I do not know how to believe anything you say."

You frown at me, stare at me. "I suppose I cannot fault you for that." You brace your spine against the glass, cross your arms over your chest. "But believe, if you are able, that everything I'm telling you is the truth. Nothing left out, nothing false."

"I will try."

"That is all I ask."

"I have a question, though."

"What?"

"Why now?"

You let your head thud back against the thick glass, let your eyes slide closed, as if summoning an answer from deep within. "It is time. For many reasons."

"How illuminating." My voice is flat, sarcastic.

You snarl. "You wish the truth?"

"Yes—"

"Then do not mock me, Isabel. Do not forget who I am." You pivot, resume your earlier pose, leaned against the window, facing out, but now with your arms still crossed. "We met for the second time by accident. If you believe nothing, believe that. I hadn't meant to ever come face to face with you again until you were at least eighteen. But then, I believe it was the day after your sixteenth birthday—you saw me in a café, and approached me. I tried to be rude, hoping you would go away. For your own good. I was not ready for you, nor you me. But you were persistent. You sat down at my table, ordered an espresso and a pain au chocolate . You carried on as if we'd always known each other. You told me your name, and asked me mine."

You pause for so long I wonder fleetingly if you've fallen asleep. But you continue, only now your voice is so low I can barely hear you. I move closer.

"You are responsible for Caleb Indigo, you know. I've never told anyone that, but it's true. You asked me my name, and I panicked. I didn't want you knowing who I was. I didn't want you finding me, find out that I was a pimp, and a former prostitute myself. It wouldn't have been hard for you to find out. None of it was secret. I don't know. I just... panicked. When I was a prostitute working for Miss Amy, there was a man. A client of hers, and thus, of mine. He was a vicious, brutal son of a bitch. Completely cold. Never gave away anything. Nothing. His name was Caleb. He would show up for an appointment with me, and he would just... use me. I was never a small or weak person, but he—" Your voice cracks. You suck in a breath. "I envied him his ability to obscure all of his emotions, all of his thoughts. When you asked me my name, his came to mind. So I told you my name was Caleb. ‘Caleb what?' you asked me. You were wearing the blue dress. You know the one. Indigo. Not just blue, but indigo. And thus, Caleb Indigo was born."

"That is difficult to believe, Caleb."

"I know. But yet it is true."

"The original Caleb. What happened to him?"

You make a sound, somewhere between a grunt, a growl, and a hum. A strange sound. Animal, rather than human. "I killed him. After Amy died and I went into business for myself, he came looking for me. I refused him. He tried to force it, and we fought. I won. Made sure no one would ever find him. Although a man like him, I don't think anyone would ever look."

"So you told me your name was Caleb Indigo."

"Yes. Because I was... I didn't want you to know Jakob." A brief silence. "So then we began meeting at the café. Once a week, twice. Sometimes more. I continued the charade of being Caleb. Acted out a persona that wasn't me. Pretended to an emotionless fa?ade I did not feel. Never told you anything about me. I never touched you. It was clear you had a crush on me, an infatuation. I tried not to encourage it, and even made it clear you were too young. But I couldn't make you stop coming to our café, and I couldn't stay away, knowing you would show up looking for me. You made advance after advance on me, and I turned you away. Made you angry, time and again. But always you came back. You couldn't stay away and neither could I. This went on for months. And during those months, I found the Caleb persona useful. I pretended to be Caleb more and more. Caleb was... calm. Cool. Powerful. I could hide behind him. He wasn't the orphan, the homeless boy. He wasn't a whore. He wasn't weak. He was in control . I liked being Caleb."

A pause, a breath, and you clear your throat. Begin again. "And then something unforeseen happened."

"The car accident?" I asked.

"No, not yet. That was later. This was..." You breathe slowly in and out several times. "I was alone, late at night. Out walking. I'd been drinking. I didn't drink often, but that night I'd had a deal go wrong and needed to unwind. So I went to a dive bar far from anywhere I normally visited, and got drunk. Very, very drunk. I was stumbling home, and there you were. Walking home from the library. Of course, the library had closed hours and hours earlier. But you'd take the books you'd checked out to an all-night diner nearby and get a cup of coffee and sit and read. The waitresses all knew you, and they let you stay as long as you wanted. I walked by that diner. You'd just walked out, and you had your books in your backpack, and you were wearing... God, this outfit I would never have let you leave the house in. A short skirt, sandals, and a blouse that showed too much cleavage. You'd grown up in the two years I'd spent watching you, the months we'd spent talking in that café. Sprouted breasts, started wearing a pushup bra. Of course, even at sixteen you didn't need one, but you had no one to tell you no. Your parents loved you so much, but they had to work endless hours, because New York is an expensive and merciless mistress. So there was no one to tell you to put on different clothes. I remember that night. More vividly than any other night in my life, I think. I was behind you, and you... I don't know. You felt me, I think. You turned around, and you saw me. You seemed happy to see me. It was the best feeling, that joy in your eyes, meant for me."

I do not like where this is going. I do not like the hesitance in your voice. I am silent, still, frozen, as if only my ears function.

"We walked together. I remember the moment you took my hand. It was so innocent. But yet... so sinful. We were crossing a street. It was nearly midnight, and the sidewalks only had a few people on them, in that neighborhood. We were only a few blocks from your apartment building. I remember it. You put your palm to mine, and our fingers just... wove together. I think I stopped breathing, because I knew I should let go, but I was drunk, and I didn't want to. I let myself pretend we were just... two people. We held hands, and walked, and talked. Or rather, you talked and I listened. You were normally a quiet girl, I think, except with me. You saved all your words for me, it sometimes felt. Poured them all out on me.

"But then... you changed everything. For me, and for yourself. I stumbled. Tripped on a crack in the sidewalk, and—somehow, somehow—I ended up holding you in my arms. I'd fallen against the wall of an alley, and you were in my arms. You smelled good. You were so close. Your eyes were large, and I couldn't look away. And then you kissed me. You kissed me . And that was your undoing. You might have escaped me, if you hadn't kissed me. But after I'd tasted you, tasted the coffee on your breath, tasted the virginity in you, I knew. I just knew. You were mine . Sixteen, a virgin, and destined to be mine.

"I tried to resist you. Even after that. I pushed you off me, said something vulgar and demeaning, something about how I didn't fuck na?ve little virgins."

A pin could prick the silence. A knife could flay it. A word could shatter it.

He tasted sour, the way Papa's breath sometimes smelled, late at night. But this was different. This was Caleb, and I was tasting him. Kissing him. And he was kissing me back! It was beautiful. It was right. He was finally seeing me. His hand was on my waist, just above my hip. I wanted him to touch me where I'd never been touched. I leaned into him, pressed my chest against his, pressed my hips against his. Without words, I begged him to touch me. To show me how to be a woman, the kind of woman he wanted. He moaned, deep in his throat. It felt as if the moan were coming from deep within the earth, as if the ground itself were making the sound. His fingers tightened in my skin, gripping my waist. His tongue touched my teeth. I whimpered and opened my mouth, so I could taste more of him, so he could show me how to kiss with tongue. It was my first kiss, and it was everything I'd ever dreamed of. My first kiss, with Caleb! Oh, oh, oh... his hands were moving now. Downward. To my hips. Yes! YES! I whimpered again, and then his hands were palming my bottom, lifting me, pulling me harder against him. And I felt IT. A thick, hard THING between us, pressing into my belly. It felt so big, so hard, and I wondered what it would look like. I knew what sex was, of course. I knew how it worked. I even knew I was supposed to put my mouth on him down there and suck, and it was supposed to feel good for him. A blow job. Girls gave men blow jobs. And men did things like this, what he was doing to me. Holding my bottom, his fingers gathering the fabric of my miniskirt so more and more and more of the flesh of my buttocks was bared. I wasn't wearing panties. A dare, to myself. I LIKED it, too. It felt wrong. Naughty. But so good, the way my thighs rubbed together, the way my privates felt every draft of air as I walked. The way I had to sit carefully so no one realized. I was a good girl, but I didn't WANT to be good. I was invisible at school. No one noticed me. I had no friends. No one even picked on me. I just wasn't there. I wanted to be seen, to be noticed, to matter. I used to matter, before we came here, to this country. America was not what I thought it would be like. Not as clean, not as magnificent. Not as wonderful. Mama and Papa were always gone now and never had time for me. No one had time for me, except Caleb, and he'd made it clear I was too young for him. So I tried to grow up faster, for him. I listened to conversations about sex, looked things up on the Internet. Learned to curse in English. Today, I didn't wear panties, because maybe he'd notice, maybe he'd realize I wasn't a little girl. And he had! He'd noticed! He was kissing me and touching my bottom—my ass —and I felt his cock . Maybe he would have sex with me. I wanted him to be my first everything. My first kiss, my first boyfriend, the man who took my virginity.

He had my skirt up around my waist, one hand huge and warm and rough against my butt cheek, gripping it. The other... oh God, oh God, oh God... it was moving around between us. Inches from my privates. I'd touched myself there, of course. Made myself feel amazing sensations. Made things explode inside me, like something was coming apart in my privates, in my belly. Maybe he'd make me feel that. Or even better. I felt his finger, right THERE, nudging ever so gently against the edges of my privates—

But then he stopped.

He grunted roughly.

"You're not wearing any panties." It wasn't a question.

"No," I whispered.

"Fuck."

He'd never cursed like that.

"What?" I asked. Tried to kiss him again, wanting him to keep going. Keep going!

But he shoved me away. Hard. I nearly fell to the dirty ground, and he stood there, leaning back against the wall, the hand he'd been touching my privates with pressed to his face. He was staring at me. His eyes were narrowed to slits, and his chest was heaving up and down as if he'd just run a race.

"You're a virgin." Again, it wasn't a question. I heard the liquor in his voice. But he was lucid, coherent.

"Yes. But I'm ready. I want this. I want you , Caleb."

Your eyes go dead. I don't know how else to think of it, other than that they just go... flat. Empty. Hard and cold. You stand up straight, shove your hands into your trouser pockets. Arrogance radiates off you in thick, palpable waves. You take a long step toward me, stop so your face is less than a foot from mine, staring down at me with those eyes like cold dead chips of stone.

"I don't want you, Isabel." You deliver this calmly, easily. I know it's a lie. "I don't fuck na?ve little virgins."

My heart twists, and my eyes sting.

"I tried to be nice about it, but you just don't get it, do you? You're so na?ve! You actually think I'd fuck you? I wouldn't even let you suck my dick. So just go home. Okay? Go home, and grow the fuck up, stupid little girl."

And then you turn and walk away. You do not stumble, do not waver or sway. You turn the corner, and you're gone, and I manage to hold back the tears for a moment, two, and then they pour down my face. I feel the pang, the ache, the hate, the twist of the knife in my heart.

I turn and go home, replaying every moment, repeating every word you said to me.

"I didn't mean it." You whisper this. Never have four words felt so porcelain. Especially from you. "I didn't mean it. But I had to make you... stop. Make you go away. Before I ripped that skirt off your delectable, too-young, sixteen-year-old ass and fucked you there in the alley. You were all woman. Sixteen, and a woman. But yet, still a girl. So na?ve. So innocent. Yet so hungry to be worldly. The makeup you put on when you came to see me, you caked it on. Too much of your mother's perfume. I pretended not to see you as you would approach our café, but I always saw you. You would stop at the corner, and fluff your hair, tease it out. Tug your shirt down and push up your tits. Pull your skirt up to bare more leg. As if seeing more of your skin could tempt me any more than I was already tempted. You were just pouring gasoline on a wildfire, but you didn't realize it. I was Caleb, and Caleb never gave anything away. Caleb did not feel. So you never knew just how close you came, that night, to being fucked up against an alley wall like a common slut. I fantasized about it, about that night. Fantasized, dreamed of what I might have done differently. How I might have held on to your ass and lifted you up around my waist. How I would have slid my cock into you and fucked you so hard it would have hurt you. A virgin, you were, and you would have bled all over me. I'd never fucked a virgin before, and I wondered how tight you would feel. I'd fucked so many women, so, so, so many. All of them older, more experienced. Thirties, forties, and beyond. Or younger women who'd already been initiated into the world of hard and fast fucking, the way I did it. You would have cried, maybe. Then I could have kissed away your tears and fucked you gently, to show you that I could." You speak reverently, using words I've never heard from you, expressions and turns of phrase and inflections that I didn't know you knew. You are fading between being Caleb and Jakob. "I jerked off, thinking of all the things I wanted to do to you. I fucked my whores, pretending they were you. But I stopped going to the café. I stayed away from Brooklyn, where you lived. I stayed away. I stayed away, Isabel. For you, I stayed away."

I believe this. It frightens me, so I believe it. You wanted me, sixteen-year-old me. And I wanted you, twenty-nine-year-old you. But you stayed away from me. Because you wanted to fuck me so hard I would cry. You stayed away. I wish you had succeeded.

"And then the accident happened. It was in Manhattan. I still to this day do not know why you were there, in Manhattan. What you were doing. It was late. Past midnight. Cold. Wet. A fall day, a few months after the kiss. I was good, I was being good. Staying away. Keeping you safe from me. Keeping you out of my world. I was walking. I liked to walk, back then. I would walk to get something to eat, I would walk to meet clients, I would walk just to walk, so I could think. Of you, most often. Walking out the desire to find you and take you home and keep you. I didn't wait for the light. There were no cars, and I was preoccupied, so I just crossed, as I have a million times. But a car, an older green Impala. I remember the car. The rust on the front left wheel well. A crack in the windshield, low, near the base. A rock chip that spread, most likely. I froze. The car was barreling toward me, too fast to stop. That moment, it changed everything. If I'd just moved, if I hadn't frozen... things would be different.

"The driver hit the brakes, swerved to try to miss me. The back tires hydroplaned on the wet cement, and the car kept coming toward me, this time sideways. I saw him, your father. Behind the wheel. I saw his mouth moving as he swore, or yelled, or something. I saw your mother in the front seat beside him. Screaming. And I saw you. In the back. I saw you.

"Why did it have to be you? Of all the millions of people in the fucking city, in the whole fucking world, why did it have to be you ? Why you?"

Why me, indeed?

You seem to choke on your words, on your breath. Scuff the toe of your fine Italian leather shoe against the concrete floor. "It would have been okay. I threw myself out of the way at the last second, and your car missed me, spinning through the intersection. But a pickup truck came through the intersection right then, from the left. T-boned your car. You were sitting behind your mother, or it would have killed you. It sent the car flying, rolling. I saw it. I fucking—I watched your car go tumbling like a goddamned Matchbox toy. The truck—I don't even know what happened to the truck, or the driver. Never bothered to even find out. I threw myself out of the way, but I got clipped by the truck as it went past. The side mirror hit my head and knocked me out. When I came to, your car was upside down a hundred feet away. It wasn't even recognizable as a car anymore. There was glass everywhere, and blood. I picked myself up and went over to your car, looked in. I saw your parents in the front—" You stop. Breathe carefully. "That's the only time something I've seen has made me vomit. Everything I've done, seen, been through... but what happened to your mother and father in that wreck was... awful. There are no words. But you weren't there. You weren't there. The backseat was empty. I don't know if you crawled out, or were thrown out. Still don't. I found you a good quarter mile away. Crawling on your belly. Bloody, incoherent, but crawling with this unstoppable determination. ‘ Ayuda me ,' you said. ‘ Ayudalos .' Help them. ‘Mama, Papa... ayudalos .'" You whisper the last three words, as I may have. Desperate, broken. "I picked you up. Carried you to the hospital. There were so many other accidents that night that things got lost in the shuffle. Paperwork was accepted half finished. The ER was a nightmare on earth. People bleeding, paramedics coming and going, ambulances everywhere, nurses just trying to get people into triage. It was a fucking battlefield. They took you from me. Asked about insurance and I said I'd pay cash, no insurance. That's all they cared about. I filled out your name, address, what little information I knew. Told them I was your boyfriend."

"So the mugger . . . ?"

"A lie."

"I don't understand."

"I know." You let out a breath. "When I came back the next day, you'd been moved out of the ER, out of the ICU. I still don't entirely know what happened. Reports got mixed up, I don't know. They did the surgery on you, and you seemed to be healing. There were so many accidents that night, other stuff, shootings, a stabbing, a million different patients, a million different people and families and investigations. Yours got... shuffled. Lost. Missed. I don't know. The car was totaled, and your parents were unrecognizable. Their dental records weren't in the system because they were from Spain; there was no ID in the car. Lost in the wreckage, forgotten at home. Just another John and Jane Doe, dead in a car accident, with no family to ask about them, no reason to look, not when there were murder victims and whatever, mysteries to solve. And you... you were alone. You went under the knife. You had your head shaved, all that beautiful hair shaved off. A nine-and-a-half-hour surgery, with no promise you'd recover. I came back the day after your surgery, and you were fine. I mean, not fine, but alive. Awake. Not really coherent, but alive. I don't know if you didn't remember the accident, or if you were too scared to ask about your parents, or if you were just in a daze from the anesthesia... I don't know. So much I don't know. Maybe the surgery was never actually successful and the fact that you weren't really lucid was a symptom of something wrong in your brain. They made me go home, and when I came back the next day, you were gone.

"I went nuts. They had to sedate me, and when I woke up again, they told me what had happened. That you had gone unconscious, internal bleeding, put into a coma to preserve brain function. The bleeding had been stopped, but you weren't coming out of the coma. I sat by your bedside for a week. They made me leave. Six security guards physically and literally carried me out, put me in a cab, and told him to take me somewhere else. I don't remember much after that. Days, weeks maybe, I don't know. Just... gone. I went on a bender, stayed drunk. I don't remember any of it.

"When I finally dried out, I went back to the hospital. You'd been moved again. This time to a long-term care facility. No one knew anything about you there except your name. And you were just a body in a bed. There'd been so many different floors, so many different nurses and doctors, charts moved around, whatever, by the time you were moved to the hospice, no one knew how you'd even gotten hurt. Or about me. I showed up claiming to be your boyfriend, and they let me in to see you. I bribed them, honestly. A nice little stack of hundreds, a sob story about how I just want to see my girlfriend. If you believe a lie, everyone else believes it too. I really did just want to see you. That's all I cared about. They let me in, and I sat down beside you, and I cried. I came back every day after that. Every day. I filled your room with flowers. I brought in a CD player and played music for you. I read books to you. I..."

Another timeless, endless, fraught pause. A pregnant silence. Your shoulders lift, and you let out a breath, as if you'd been holding it despite all the words you've spoken, more words than I've ever heard anyone speak all at once, let alone you.

"Jakob died in that room. Jakob starved to death. Wasted away. I ignored everything. When the various men and women who helped run the various parts of my little empire came to me, concerned that I was squandering everything I'd worked so hard to build, I sold it all off. Everything. I set all my whores free, as I told you. Set them up with houses and jobs and money. Piece by piece, Jakob vanished. There was a time, then, while you were in the coma... it's just... emptiness. I was no one. You've spoken of being no one, Isabel. And I understand what that feels like. All too well. No one knew my name. No one cared. You were in a coma, and it wasn't likely you'd ever come out of it. You were the only person on the face of the earth who knew me. Everyone else was... gone. Not dead, but they knew Jakob. And Jakob was gone. Months... it was months that not one person spoke to me, not one person said my name. The staff of the hospice was efficient, but they had a thousand other patients and you were just a half-dead girl in a coma with a crazy, unresponsive boyfriend. They ignored me. I kept to myself, so they just let me come and go as I wished. I slept there, many, many nights. I slept there— Jakob slept there, and at some point Caleb woke up in his place."

I dare to break the spell woven by your tale. "How—" My throat seizes around the words. "How long? How long was I in the coma?"

The glass of the window echoes your words. Reflects them, with your image, back to me.

"Four years, three months, and nineteen days."