“Oh, so that’s what this is!” Lena yelled. “This is you having to do stuff. So why the hell am I here, Patrick? Why are you having me along for your stupid games?!”
She had finally got to him. He had been backed into a corner, and simply trying to dance his way out of it wasn’t going to work. Unless he was prepared to earn more of her wrath than he already had, he would have to pony up an actual response.
“Because I need a hostage, you idiot.” he finally said, in a completely different tone than before. “You’ve messed things up for me and your precious Grandfather. And now, once again, I have to fix everything while holding your hand through all of it. Well, I’m not going to, this time. For once, you are going to carry your own weight and figure something out while I go out and fix the rest of it.”
“Oh, fuck you!” she yelled. She didn’t have any follow-up to that, but she said it anyway.
“Sure, sure.” he said, blowing her off, “Whatever you say, Lena. I don’t want to be here anymore than you do, but I’m here. So, let’s just follow our orders, okay? You go schmooze with your boyfriend, do drugs, and I’ll do all of the work. Then, you can return to our country with everything just peachy as if nothing even happened.”
“I know about Vivika.”
Oh, she really shouldn’t have said that. She really shouldn’t have. But she had wanted to for the entire ride… desperately she had wanted to feel the poison-soaked utterance escape from her mouth to hit him square in the face. Miraculously, the words not only felt just as amazing to say as she had hoped, but they seemed to even have the desired effect. He looked stunned… whipped, even.
“…oh.”
“Yeah, ‘oh’.” Lena menaced.
“That… she shouldn’t have…” he verbally flailed, “She… that… Lena, it’s…”
“I’m telling Matt.” Lena said. “The second I see him, I’m telling him. I’m going to tell him everything about it, in every single detail. And then we’ll see what happens.”
“Y-you shouldn’t… you shouldn’t do that.”
“Why? Why shouldn’t I? How did you think that this was going to work out? That she somehow wouldn’t tell me, and that I wouldn’t do everything I could possibly do to make you suffer for it? What could you possibly have as a backup plan? You raped my friend, you lowlife piece of shit. And now I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure you suffer for it.”
“I seriously wouldn’t do that,” Patrick said in a positively freaky tone. “Just you remember, you wretched little bitch, Vivika is on that side of the Wall, and you are on this one. I have both of you as leverage, and that means I can make one of you disappear quicker than you could possibly imagine. The only reason you are alive is the same reason we are headed into the West: to broker a meeting. If you tell Matt anything, I’ll kill you. If our negotiations don’t go well, they’ll kill her. And if you don’t play my game exactly how I want it to be played, I’ll make sure I see her long before you do.”
“You know what I think?” Lena responded, blankly. “I think Matt already knows. Which means that Mr. Collins already knows.”
“What of it?” Patrick responded, swallowing.
“…and you know what else?” Lena continued, ignoring him, “I think Grandfather knows to.”
“…well, that doesn’t…”
“And I know Grandfather. I know how he feels about rape, and I know how Matt and Mr. Collins do, as well. I think you are backed against a corner and you think I’m going to be your trump card against all of that. But you know what? I know you too, Patrick.”
“Oh what the hell do you know about me?!”
“I know that you aren’t as smart as you think you are. But more importantly, I know you are just smart enough to realize who’s really in control. I know that whatever Grandfather has in store for you, it’s nowhere near as bad as it would be if you laid even a single finger on me. I know that the second we get to the venue, Matt and Mr. Collins will protect me and you will be powerless. I know you are meeting with Matt, and I know that he knows what you did to the woman he loves. And you know what? I’m looking forward to seeing who beats the shit out of you first… and who picks up whatever is left of your stinking carcass and finishes it off.”
“You’re god-damned right I raped her!” Patrick screamed. “She had it coming! And you know what? I don’t care who knows! Because you aren’t the only one on this side of the Wall now. Now I’m over here too—the HVA can’t touch me. If things go sour, I can hold out as long as I need to, and I’m far better equipped to do that than you are. What’s better, I have a hostage: you.
“If you think for one second that I’m letting you out of my sight, or out of my control, you’ve got something else coming. And if you think that was the last time I’m prepared to make an example of some worthless little bitch, you haven’t realized who you are locked in a van with, in a strange and foreign country where little girls like you and Vivika disappear every single day. This is the West, you pretty little idiot… no one here cares what’s happening to you. And once this is all over, I’ll show you, so that you never forget.”
Vivika and the Dragon Lady stared at each other, as the two sat across from one another in the small cafe. Vivika was trying to decipher Dragon Lady’s expression. It was an odd facial contortion; yet it seemed to be her natural expression. It was like her mouth struggled for congruence with those eerily wide and freakishly dead eyes. Whatever the expression was, natural or otherwise, it clearly said any number of terrible things.
“Well, now.” Dragon Lady began, “Here we are.”
“Is that supposed to mean something?” Vivika responded impudently.
“I suppose it doesn’t mean anything convicting, no.” she responded without the slightest inflection.
“Why exactly are we here, then?”
“Reasons.”
All things considered, it was pretty obvious why they were here. After Lena and Vivika had opened up to each other, they had both walked to Little John where Patrick and Dragon Lady had been waiting. Patrick wordlessly picked Lena up and drove off as quickly as he could, leaving Dragon Lady to babysit Vivika. Perhaps ‘babysit’ wasn’t the correct word, however. After the events that had transpired over the past few weeks had approached the crux of today, well, it was clear that both Lena and Vivika were bargaining chips.
Thus far, Dragon Lady seemed to be an amiable person, at least in regards to Lena’s description of her. Vivika had half expected to be removed to some torture cell where Dragon Lady would, I don’t know, perform vivisection without anesthesia or something similarly terrible on her—she certainly seemed like she was someone who would. Yet, thus far, Dragon Lady didn’t seem to care all that much about her. It wasn’t like Vivika was even an annoyance to her. It seemed… well actually, it wasn’t all that clear how it seemed. Dragon Lady was exceptionally hard to read.
“Can we…” Vivika began, “That is…”
“Can we what, dear?”
“I don’t know. I’m just trying to make conversation.”
“Probably not the easiest thing to do, I’m assuming?”
“No. It’s really not.”
“Had a strange few days, I take it?”
“I think that’s fairly obvious.”
“I’m not just talking about the bruises, dear.” Dragon Lady said, motioning towards Vivika’s face. “I’m talking about all of it. Do you want to talk about it?”