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“My face,” he sputtered, hyperventilating. “My face.”
“You have three seconds to tell me where Kusma is before I cook the other side of your face.”
“I ... he’s ...”
“Three, two, one.”
I jerked him up.
“No!” he screamed. “Please, no! I will take you to him. I know where he is. Please stop.” Sobbing, he choked out, “I will take you to him.”
33
Sophia
My knuckles were white as I clenched the steering wheel, my gaze constantly flicking to the rearview mirror where Ron sat slumped over, his hands and feet bound by zip ties. His clothes were covered in blood. Justin sat next to him, behind me, with a gun to his head.
Ron’s face was almost unrecognizable, as well as absolutely revolting. One of his eyes was swollen shut, the thin skin around it puffed like an overblown purple balloon. Dried blood trickled down his nose and out of the corners of his mouth.
But the side of his face was the worst. The first few layers had been burned off, and what remained was an oozing fire-red patch of flesh that looked like it was melting off his skull. It reminded me of a Freddy Krueger mask.
Justin had updated me while we laid a tarp in the back of the SUV before throwing Ron inside. Apparently, Justin drew the line at shit-pants.
As Justin had suspected, Ron worked for Black Cell. After I’d escaped Russia, my father hired Ron to find me. When he did, he assigned Ron to Falcon Creek to keep an eye on me, while simultaneously recruiting young male misfits from Anchorage and the surrounding area to join the movement. According to Ron, my father planned to travel to Falcon Creek to personally escort me back to Russia. He never did.
Ron swore up and down that he was not the man who kidnapped me, though Justin and I were both certain he’d tipped off whoever did.
But I didn’t care about any of that. I was about to see my father for the first time in three years.
I’d spent hours preparing for this reunion during my weaker, wine-fueled moments after I’d escaped. I think deep down, I knew that someday he’d find me. In front of the mirror, I’d practiced what I would say, how I would react. What I would do.
For a long time, I practiced forgiving him. Saying those three little words that, according to the mounds of self-help books I’d purchased, were supposed to set me free.
They didn’t. News flash: It’s all a lie.
The truth? There are some things, like a father raping his daughter, that are quite simply unforgivable. There is no gray area, no debate. It is unequivocally the worst, most unforgivable act of humankind.
So, where did this leave me? Spitting words of condemnation into the mirror that I knew would bounce off him like cotton balls.
A man who is capable of such deviant behavior has no emotional capacity to feel guilt, remorse, or to worry about petty things like the afterlife. These men will keep going, keep spreading evil, keep destroying lives until someone stops them.
I looked into the rearview mirror. “Justin?”
Ron hadn’t spoken in thirty minutes. I was beginning to worry that he was dead, which would have been a worst-case scenario considering he was our guide for this little field trip.
“What if this is a trap?”
“Then I’ll fight through it.”
“No.Wewill fight through it.”
He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You, Sophia, will do exactly as I say. This is very important. Do you understand?”
I swallowed the knot in my throat and nodded.
“Trust me,” he whispered.
I drew in a ragged breath. “Okay.”
