Chapter Fifty Four
1241 Words
NINA
“I will get you your goddamned money okay? Just give me a few days and you will have it...No, no Jerry…Hello? Hello? Bah!”
My father had picked up a nasty habit when I was kid. He discovered the world of blackjacks and chips. The first time he won he raved about it, took his friends out for drinks and enjoyed himself. As anticipated, he blew through his fortune in one weekend. Instead of paying bills, fixing his beat-up car and refurbishing the house; he had snorted cocaine and tipped strippers. When the money vanished, he craved more. He gambled again only this time, he lost. The money he had used to gamble had been from a drug sale. His inability to pay the piper had placed a target on his back. I had been twelve years old when I saw how dangerous the drug world could become. Men covered in ski masks had broken into our home and trashed it. They had beaten up my father to a pulp but somehow had spared me the agony. They instructed me to show them our safe. Amidst my fear, I had laughed. We had no safe, my father had absolutely no savings. The men in ski masks had then disappeared as swiftly as they had appeared, empty handed but filled with satisfaction. They had successfully managed to instill the fear of God in my father. I had spent days nursing my father back to health.
If I had been smart, I would have seen that as an opportunity to escape. When he fully recovered, he accused me of not protecting him. He bellowed at me for not offering up myself to his assailants. He said that I did not care for his life and that frankly, I was useless.
Then he beat me to a pulp.
The gambling had stopped for a while after that incident. My father stopped receiving threatening calls from his boss and our lives assumed a relatively normal course. With time I forgot about my father’s debt, until three months ago. Apparently, my father’s boss had been incarcerated. The police had caught his shipment entering the country through a port. He had been sentenced to fifteen years in prison but for some reason, he had gotten out early, way too early.
The phone calls had started again.
My father became paranoid. He began double checking locks, he barricaded the windows and he refused to let us leave the house. He became more irritant, everything enraged him. One time, I had caught him strangling Seth. At that very moment, when I saw my father’s burly hands around Seth’s fragile neck, I knew I had to get us out of there. Staying was not an option.
My father would either wind up killing us or his boss’s goons would.
* * *
“I cannot believe this worked…”
“Are you saying you had no faith in me?”
“No, I am saying I didn’t think it would work…It was a ridiculous idea!”
“Well love, I had no doubt in you whatsoever. You are as beautiful as you are witty…”
I averted my gaze from Rupert as a blush creeped up my cheeks. I did not understand him. One minute he seemed aloof and now he was offering me endearments? Tamara’s words made their way to my mind, she had practically implicated that Rupert had no real interest in me. Maybe she had been mistaken? But hadn’t he known Rupert for a longer period of time?
Are you seriously thinking about your crush right now Nina?
My inner voice was right. This was not the time or the place to be gnawing over my romantic feelings. We all had a mission, a goal.
Seth.
Yes, Seth was my priority. I had to find a way to go back to my own time, to my own life. Seth needed me. I could only imagine what he was going through. Had my father gone through with his plan? I swallowed the lump of tears in my throat. Without me there, who would stop my father from doing as he pleases?
“Love, do we have to do this all the way?”
My thoughts hit a brick wall. The truth was, there was nothing I could do about Seth at the moment. All I could do was focus on this particular mission, see it through then receive my end of the bargain.
“If you stop, we stop moving…Think of it like a bicycle…”
“A what?”
A hefty sigh escaped my throat, I kept forgetting where I was. Rupert was complaining about working the pseudo pedals I had fitted within the submarine. They were responsible for our movement underwater.
“But my feet are tired…Surely there is a better way to do this. I mean Guzman’s feet are larger than ours. Perhaps he could do this tedious task while we rest…”
No response.
“I mean that is your ability, right? Your body size? While the rest of us have real powers, fascinating powers, you are simply a beast…just a mere animal…”
I could slice the tension with a knife. Once again, I found myself wondering about their past. Clearly, they had been close before. What had changed?
“Human, how do we know we are headed to the right direction?’
I shifted uncomfortably to hoist my body to the hole on the roof of our makeshift submarine. I had carved a piece of sturdy wood to form some sort of kaleidoscope. With that we could see where we were going. The space was tiny meaning I had to wiggle my body in between Guzman and Rupert in order to return to my original position.
“I will keep checking, just pedal forward…”
“Or perhaps he could swim underwater? He is taking a lot of space here and I am afraid the air is running thin…”
“Perhaps if you kept quiet the air wouldn’t run thin…”
I could tell Guzman was agitated, I could also tell he was trying to control his anger.
“Guzman is right, save your breath Rupert…”
“You are on his side now?”
I bit my lip, refraining from addressing Rupert’s bizarre question. The last thing I wanted was to be wedged in between those two mages.
“Leave the human out of this Rupert…”
I could feel Rupert stiffen behind me, he stopped moving his legs.
Just great.
“Rupert, we need to work as a team so please keep pedaling!”
“Ask him what he did…”
“Now is not the time you fool…”
“Please guys-“
“Tell her what you did! She thinks she can trust you, that she can rely on you but we both know you cannot be trusted…”
No response.
“You won’t tell her? Fine, allow me-“
“Rupert please…”
I was about to interrupt once more when Rupert whispered,
“Tell her that you killed the love of my life…”
- Writer
