Mathias dragged me away before Margot could get another word out. He had handed Margot’s phone back to her, pulled me into the elevator. He kept one hand wrapped tight around my bicep. He used his other to call someone, Luis, probably. He said four words, “«I have him»…okay,” then hung up, pocketing the flip phone. When the elevator reached the ground floor, we walked side by side, only until the entrance door closed. He took the crutch from me with his free hand, effortlessly threw me over his shoulder.

Wherever Luis wanted him to bring me, time seemed to be of importance. He walked quickly, giving anybody who even thought of staring at us a glare of malice. My will to live started to leave me again as I held onto the back of his jacket. There was no point in trying to get away, in trying to act like I wasn’t the man they were looking for. Margot. As long as Margot was safe—as long as all of my sisters were safe, Mathias, Luis, they could do whatever they wanted to me.

I was too aware of his hand positioned high on my thigh. It only made me think of last night. I wanted to cry again, I felt the tears start to well in my eyes. But then I blinked them away. I wasn’t going to cry while thrown over his shoulder in the middle of New York City. No matter how much I wanted to. I pushed those memories down. It was still too fresh for me to have the comfort of forgetting, of repressing them.

He threw the crutch in the backseat first when we made it back to my car. I was put in the passenger seat, him slamming the door shut. I strapped myself in as he got into the driver seat. He let out a laugh as he took his mask off. “I gotta thank you,” he said, “for making my job easy. ‘Cause I don’t work in people.” He started the car, started driving to the exit of the parking garage. “Shame, though, started to like this Soren fellow.” I grew cold, disgusted at his words, and he let out another laugh as he finally pulled into the traffic. “«But fuck! You’re Yves Sardou! »” This was the most talkative I think I’ve seen him, slipping between French and English easily. “I’m gonna regret letting monsieur Luis have you,” he said unnervingly calm.

I pushed myself as far into the door as I could. I heard the locks click as the thought of getting out, stumbling down the sidewalks back to Margot ran through my head. I looked at his face, at the huge smile on it. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. My body was screaming at me to get away from him. Every thought that floated through my head was how I could get away from him. How I could lose him on the streets of the city when I could barely walk.

That terrifying smile of his never left his face. I started to wonder if his mouth hurt. If he was ever going to stop smiling. The smile he held was more than that of being happy he had his target. There was something else mixed in. Something I surely didn’t want to know. I think I was close to melding with the car door as I kept myself away from him.

Most of our trip was spent getting out of New York City’s gridlocked traffic. While most would get annoyed or frustrated at the slowness of everyone before him, that smile never faltered. I caught him mumbling to himself every so often, as if in amazement. And I wondered what was so amazing about me. I made my life stealing other’s. I had no friends, even if I wanted them. I spent my days playing pretend. I wasn’t wonderful, I wasn’t someone to be in awe at.

I brought my eyes away from him. Stared out the windshield, holding myself. Dread kept creeping in me, no matter how many times I pushed it down. Not knowing where we were going, not knowing what would happen to me once we got there, ate at my sanity. At my emotions. The tears I held back fell, fanned only by fear. I wiped at my eyes, whimpering quietly in my little corner of the car. I was vaguely aware of him telling me to stop crying, that if I was going to cry, I might as well wait until Luis got ahold of me. His misplaced comfort did nothing to calm me. I only wiped the tears that fell harder, faster, trying to get myself under control. I was a grown man. I shouldn’t be crying this much.

It gave me more solace when I started to piece together where we were going. Boston, if my observation skills were to be believed. I started to notice him taking exits towards Boston, and as we got closer, the sky darker, we seemed to be heading towards the harbor. Every old movie about the Italian mafia I watched as a kid started to come flooding back to me. I’d go out with a brand-new pair of cement shoes. Drown in the harbor. They might as well just tie my hands and hold my head underwater. I couldn’t run from them anyways.

The traffic in Boston wasn’t any better than in New York City. If anything, it was more dangerous as people tried to fit their cars into spaces too big for them. But he kept on, heading even closer to the harbor. It was only a few minutes after the sun set that he pulled up outside an old storehouse. The water within walking distance opposite it. This was it. This was the moment I’d meet my doom. I sent one last prayer asking whatever may be up there to go easy on my soul as Mathias got out of the car. That it’d watch over my sisters, too, when I was dead and gone as Mathias opened the passenger door. And finally, that Mathias and Luis got what they deserved, as he pulled me out forcibly. I barely had time to get an amen out in my head as he pistol-whipped me once again. The black crept in, a comfort over whatever Luis was going to do to me, as Mathias caught me.

Yet it was short lived, my mind filling in the darkness with things I didn’t want to see. Of him touching me, gentle, tender, but a warning all the same. Don’t do anything I don’t like, it caressed. And it changed, back to that motel room. Back to my crying, my screams, my fighting. Only for it to be in vain, his grip tightening around me. I relived it, as if still in that daze. It dissolved with me coming to, however I kept my eyes closed, wanting to drag out my last moments as much as I could.

There was a drowsy curiosity in me once. Tissues stuffed up my nose due to a head cold, I laid on my bed, with my laptop on my stomach. I watched whatever seemed interesting in that moment, when the question dawned on me on how two men would do it. Having nothing else better to do, I had looked it up. It looked ungodly painful, off putting for me at the thought of using my body that way. It was comforting, however, that I knew I would never need to do that. Women got me all hot and bothered.

If only I would have known that it would happen to me regardless, maybe I could have prepared my mind better. Maybe it wouldn’t have hurt as badly. If only I had known my manhood would be forcibly stripped from me, and there was nothing I could do about. It didn’t feel good, unlike what those posts I found during my head cold deep dive. Even under circumstances where I consented to that, there was no way it would feel good. I pushed those thoughts away, back into the deep darkness of my brain. I tried to think of anything else, anything to keep me from crying and showing that I was awake.

It was the picture that gave me away, I finally grasped onto. My memory about that day was hazy. A class assignment, I was almost positive that was what it was. Margot needed to take candid photos. She caught Anne and me out on our front steps, talking about something or other, smoking because we thought no one else was home. It was Anne that voiced why Margot couldn’t use it. She didn’t want the teachers to see us smoking, so she deleted it. Posed us in a way that both Anne and I accepted. Never thought she’d keep the photo after all these years.

“«He’s late. »” Luis noted, bringing me out of my thoughts. This was an opportunity, I realized. I could sit here, listen, find out any and all information on what they were going to do to me, why they wanted me. I could turn myself into someone useful, someone they would need to keep alive, at least for a little bit longer.

“«I want him, »” I heard Mathias say. My hair stood on end listening to their conversation as they waited for that mystery person.

A lighter sparked in the silence that ensued, then Luis spoke. “Oh, «is he the student? The one from your high school? »”

“«Yes, »” Mathias answered.

“«Okay, »” Luis said. “«If he doesn’t need him after. I don’t care what you do with him. »”

“«Thank you, monsieur Luis. »”

There was a long, heavy exhale before the silence was filled again. “«Why do you want him? »”

“«Because… »” Mathias trailed off for a second or two. “«Because I like him. »”

“«Matias, »” Luis started, “«really? I think this is puppy love. You’ve liked him since your first year of high school. Eleven-year crushes don’t exist. »”

“«Semantics, »” he answered. He stopped mid thought, they both did. “«I hear him. »” He repeated that it was all semantics as I heard them start moving around.

This was it. If I wasn’t killed by this mystery man, if he didn’t need me after this, Luis was going to give me to Mathias. He’s liked me for eleven years, he went to the same high school as me. This information had only made me more uncomfortable in the chair I was tied to. I didn’t remember anybody who looked like Mathias at my high school. There was always the chance we never talked to each other. A one-sided crush since his first year. Whatever I had done during high school, I must have certainly left an impression on him.

I hoped that the mystery man would need to have me in his custody. It was preferable than being killed or in Mathias’, but if it came down to it, I would grab ahold of Mathias’ gun and pull the trigger. Anything would be better than experiencing that again.

Light footsteps echoed somewhere outside. They started to get louder, heavier. A door opened, closed. The footsteps stopped, only to be replaced by a different cadence, one I knew all too well. Mathias was walking towards me. He stopped right in front of me. “«Time to wake up, »” he said close to my ear. I continued to pretend to be unconscious. I’d drag this out as long as I could. “«Yves, »” he grabbed my hair, pulled my head up, “«we have company. I know you’re awake. »” I swallowed, opened my eyes, it was time to get this over with. There was no point in dragging it out any longer.