I wish he had killed me instead. Broken another bone. Shot me. Anything seemed better than what he did. I fought him at first, to get him to lose his grip on my ankles. I kicked, hoping at the very least the heavy soles would connect to his person and injure him. I felt his hand on the back of my neck. He squeezed the sides of my neck with his thumb and middle finger. I struggled to turn myself over under his grip, under the odd feeling of the blood slowing to my brain. He lessened his grip on my neck, on my broken ankle, for just long enough I could get on my back before he reattached himself.

With my free leg, I aimed to kick him in the stomach. I stopped myself when I felt something sharp against my neck that came with the lull of his pressure on it. I stopped putting up a fight, trying to put up a fight. I closed my eyes, crying harder as he unzipped my jacket. He pushed my shirt up. Undid my jeans. Regrettably, I opened my eyes. My body wasn’t my own lying there under him. I wasn’t even convinced my soul was still attached to my body anymore. I could see his every moment as if it wasn’t coming from my own eyes. He pulled my jeans, underwear down to my knees.

He forced himself into me. The pain overcame all my other sense, and it only fueled my tears. I thought it couldn’t get any worse, until he pushed something larger in me. I closed my eyes. I wasn’t here. He wasn’t sliding in and out of me. I wasn’t making choked sounds I’d never heard before, never knew a human could make. But I couldn’t think of any place I wanted to be instead. My mind went blank with the pain. So I stayed in that agonizing moment. I didn’t know how long I laid there, each second ticked by in excruciating agony. And all my dulled senses came back with the warmth I felt on my stomach.

I laid there, the metal no longer pressed up against my throat. I curled up on the floor, my hood pulled over my hat, after he wiped me off, tugged my underwear and jeans back on my hips. He zipped my jacket back up, climbed back into the bed, as if nothing had happened. I buried my face into my hood, shaking, sniffling at what had just occurred.

He made it clear I couldn’t leave, whether by my own means, or by calling on help from others. I could still feel his hand gripping above my left knee, pulling me closer to him. I rubbed at the spot his hand had been, hoping the feeling would go away. That was all I could do to comfort myself. To alleviate the icky feeling I had control over. At some point, my hand slowed with the fear draining my energy, the dehydration from my crying giving me a splitting headache. I let myself fall asleep.

Only, I dreamt of the whole thing. Even in the dream there was nothing I could do. Put up a fight, and get my throat sliced. The fear of death was greater than the fear of what he had done. I wasn’t ready to die, not when he knew of my sisters, so I laid there. Motionless and sobbing. Broken. Ruined. Tarnished. I shouldn’t’ve had to go through that. Nobody should have to go through that.

It felt a punishment worse than death. Of knowing that he could do that to me whenever he wanted and there was no mental, physical strength I possessed to get him to stop. I was under his rule, at his mercy. His marks were all over me. Even when I awoke with my whole-body sore from sleeping on the floor, I could still feel the throbbing pain from what he had done.

I stared at his boots in the dark. My arms went limp in his hands as he pulled me into a sitting position. I was done putting up a fight. There was no more will to pretend to live inside me. He wanted me docile. He had me docile. I kept my eyes trained to the ground, submitting to him as the superior power. He helped me to my feet. It took a few tries for me to stay on my feet. There was no strength left in my legs, and the moment I was on my feet, they wanted to crumple under me.

He had to mostly hold me up for me to stay standing. He sat me on the bed, ordered me to stay put. I didn’t move, not even to turn my head around to watch him leave the door. There wasn’t much I could do. I pushed down the thoughts of using the landline to call emergency services again. It only made me scared that he’d catch me in the act, force himself on me again.

So I sat with my hands at my sides and my head tilted to my knees. I wanted to cry once more whenever the bits and pieces came back into my memory. I was able to blink most of them back; I could feel how dehydrated I was. I didn’t want to make myself feel any worse by letting more tears run down my cheeks. In the haste to call for help and what had ensued, I forgot why he had originally left last night. To get me some water. I finally brought my head up and saw a bottle of water next to the landline.

He wouldn’t get mad if I leaned forward to grab the water, right? I didn’t want to upset him, go against his order of staying put. I didn’t want it to happen again. I waited for him to come back, tilting my head back down, wiping at my eyes to keep any tears from escaping. I heard him before I saw him. The key jingling in the lock, the door opening. It never fully closing.

His footsteps were muffled on the carpet, but I heard him pause for a few seconds before continuing the walk around the bed. He held the crutch out to me, and I grabbed it, tucked it under my arm. He held me up on the other side. We walked awkwardly to the door, shuffled out single file, then continued our march to my car.

The sun had yet to rise when I climbed into the passenger seat. He took the crutch from me, replacing it with the bottle of water from the nightstand. He put the crutch in the back seat, then climbed into the driver’s seat. I leaned my head against the window as he drove. Nature seemed to fall away the closer we got to the city. Until we were surrounded by concrete buildings and bad traffic.

Even after the clock read past nine, the traffic was still so congested. I wasn’t sure where we were going, what he was looking for. But we had the world to find it as it moved an inch every three minutes. I could see his irritability rising each time he glanced at the clock, willing the car in front of us to move to no avail. It was slow; eventually he appeared to calm down as we neared wherever it was he wanted to be. Which had to be near wherever Margot was. He turned into a parking garage, paid in cash, parked in the first spot he found.

He dug around a bag in the backseat, grabbing things I didn’t fully see in the rearview mirror. He slid the crutch out, closed the door. The passenger side door was opened, and I took the crutch from him. I didn’t like the idea of having to walk to the streets of New York City with a crutch, a broken ankle, and a bullet wound, but there was no point in me protesting. We would be walking to Margot, and there would be no discussion about it.

It was almost as slow going walking as it was driving. People gave us a berth when they saw the crutch tucked up under my arm. Yet Mathias gave me no help as I stumbled along. He stayed next to me, matching my pace. However, as long as I could stand on my own, I was secondary to him in his mission to talk to my sister. He kept his black mask pulled over his nose, his hat pulled low on his head, his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets. He tried to be as inconspicuous as possible in a city that didn’t care who anybody was.

I think that was most walking I had done in my life. I always took bikes, buses, cars for granted. I always assumed I’d have access to them, and in the cases where I’d have to walk, it was never all that far. He’d grab ahold of my arm when we crossed the street to hurry me along, but otherwise we took it at my own pace. Even in a city where weird lived, I figured the site of a grown man carrying another over his shoulder would cause too much unwanted attention.

We stopped outside a building that had nothing special about it. It looked like the ones next to it. I would have never guessed that a fashion shoot would be taking place somewhere inside. “Let me do the talking,” he said. I followed him inside.

I stayed at a bit of a distance to him. It was just enough that we looked like we were partners, but not enough for him to worry about me getting away. He talked to the security guard, claiming he was a private investigator who needed to talk to Margot about a case he was working; and that if he would be so kind to tell him what floor she was on.

He motioned for me to follow him, and we walked to the elevator. Being stuck in a box with Mathias felt like torture. I prayed that the elevator would get to the fourth floor faster, and that I could get out. It deposited us right in the middle of the flurry of the shoot.

Margot was standing in front of a white background, flashes of light going off as the photographer took her pictures. These weren’t the circumstances I’d have wanted to see her again under. Yet just being able to see my sister after so long made me want to run up to her and hug her. To mess up her perfectly styled black hair as if I was still her older brother from our school days. To tease her, to tell her I love her, and I’d beat up anyone who dared to hurt her.

And all too soon, she stepped away from the photographer, walking elegantly to Mathias and me. I kept my head down. I didn’t know what she’d do, say, if she saw me. If she was going to give me away, I wanted it to take as long as possible.

“Ms. Sardou,” Mathias greeted, extending his hand; she took it, and they shook. “I’m a private investigator who was asked to find your brother.” He dug a notepad and pencil out of his pockets. “Can I ask you some questions?”

“«Do you speak French? »” She asked. “«My English isn’t good. »” Mathias nodded, repeated what he had said. “«Yes, but my brother and I don’t speak often. »”

“«Okay, »” he said. “«When was the last time you spoke to your brother? »”

Margot blew air out between her teeth. “«Ten years ago. »”

He wrote down her answer in his little notepad. “«Did he say where he was going? »”

She shook her head. “«No. But…I have his photo. He’s seventeen. »” He said he wanted to see it. She pulled out her phone and started scrolling through her photos. When she found the photo, she held it out for him to see. “«This is him, »” she said, pointing to me.

It was a photo of me and Anne sitting on the front steps of our house. Our hands resting on our knees, our bodies bent forward a bit. Mathias asked if he could hold her phone, and she let him. He zoomed in on my face. Stared at it. He turned to me as my stomach dropped. Forced my head up and held the phone by my face.

“«Shit, »” he said with a bit of a laugh as Margot said, “«Yves?! »”

«Fuck, » I wanted to mutter, and I resigned myself to whatever horror Luis would subject me to. My only comfort was that it couldn’t be as bad as what Mathias had already done to me.