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I freeze.
What is he doing?
“Stand up, sweetheart,” he says, gesturing towards me as he prompts me to rise to my feet.
I’m shaking uncontrollably already, and it takes me a few moments to stand up. Even still, I’m somewhat hunched over, crossing my arms over my chest.
I do not trust him at all.
“You’re letting me go?” I ask, my voice barely a squeak as I’ve hardly spoken with anybody since I arrived here.
“Don’t get head of me. I want you to choose who in this room is going to be set free,” he replies. “It can be anybody that you choose.”
I’m confused and somewhat devastated that I can’t leave, but if he’s really offering me the opportunity to let someone go, then I can feel like my time here wasn’t all for nothing.
The choice is difficult, but I pick the woman that I had been speaking with about my pregnancy, even if she understood very little of it. Over the past few days, I’ve been able to pick up on her location in the room based on where her voice comes from. She’s had enough taken from her; if I can give her another chance at life, I need to do that.
“I choose her,” I say, pointing towards her as she sits cross-legged on one of the beds.
“Interesting choice. Alright, you heard her. She chose that one,” Luka says to his main assistant, who promptly pulls a gun out of his jacket pocket and aims it at her.
I scream as the blast pierces my ears, but the visual of the woman’s skull being cracked open by a bullet.
I don’t even feel the impact of the concrete on my knees as I fall to the floor, weeping uncontrollable as I watch the woman’s body slump over the side of the bed. Her head hangs listlessly, pouring blood like deep red wine over the floor as her body twitches.
Even though I can’t hear, I can see Luka directing both men to collect the woman’s body, which is likely why he had chosen two men in the first place.
I should have known this would end in disaster.
They drag her carelessly across the floor, leaving a trail of sticky black from her head until she’s out of sight.
I can’t stop crying. I couldn’t stop crying if God himself told me to stop.
Why has Luka done this? Hasn’t he made our lives hard enough already?!
After the woman’s body has been removed from the room, the two men saunter back in, walking straight towards me and uncuffing me from the radiator.
I could kick and scream, but I’m completely numb all over. They drag me by my arms, and the sensation of being pulled around like a ragdoll unlocks the not-so-distant memory of being picked up by Akim for the first time.
Akim.
What happened to us?
Why is this happening to us?
Luka slams the door behind me as soon as I’m beyond the threshold. The men try to put me on my feet, but I falter.
“That would have never happened if you didn’t try to run away, you fucking bitch. Now you need to live with that for the rest of your life,” Luka growls, his face only inches from mine.
I can smell liquor on his breath, but it doesn’t even matter. He would have done this completely sober, unprompted. The fact that he hid behind alcohol is just a testament to how much of a coward he is.
I know it’s not true. I know that he would have tormented these women all the same. Even still, part of me feels responsible. I’ll lose sleep over this for years if I even have years left. Day after day, I become less convinced.
Luka almost continues his tirade of accusatory remarks when his phone goes off. “What the fuck?” he mutters to himself, taking the phone out of his pocket and unlocking it.
I watch the color drain from his face.
“Ohfuck,” he mutters.
