Page 84 of Requiem

From the crib, David is starting to become agitated.

“Mama!” he calls to me, peeking through the slats of the crib. In another second he’s going to pull himself up to a standing position and once he does that, I won’t be able to get him back down to sleep. I turn back to Jeremy and put a hand on his arm, meeting his gaze squarely.

“Please. Just do this for me and I swear I’ll go with you without a fuss. Please. You know me well enough to know I’m not lying,” I plead.

He scrutinizes my face, as if he can see something written across it that will confirm what I’m saying to him. At last, I see the acquiescence in his eyes.

“Alright,” he mutters, reaching around me and sticking his hand into the bag. He pulls the bottle from its pocket and hands it to me. “You have thirty seconds.”

“Thank you,” I say sincerely.

He lets go of my arm and I rush to the crib and help my son to lie on his back again. He smiles up at me. I put the bottle in his mouth and his chubby little hands latch onto it as he sucks happily. I brush the hair off of his forehead and watch as his eyelids grow heavy.

“It’s okay, baby,” I whisper. “Everything is going to be just fine.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t count on that this time,” Jeremy mutters from right behind me. He grabs my upper arm and pulls me from the crib while pushing me toward the door.

I swipe at the tears, which are running down my face again, looking over my shoulder every inch of the way down the hall, through the living room and to the front door, where we stop short.

“I’m dead serious, Jules. Don’t even think about sending a signal, making a run, screaming, anything.” He holds up Natalie’s key ring for me to see. “I can be back in this apartment and snapping his little neck before you can even get someone to notice you. And you know I’ll do it.”

“I understand, Jeremy,” I assure him quietly. “I just don’t know if I can get through the lobby looking like nothing’s wrong.”

“Yeah, well, we’re going out the back, so that won’t be a problem.”

“I – I don’t have a key for that elevator …”

“I do,” he cuts me off as he opens the front door, sticks his head out and looks both ways down the hallway. It’s silent.

He gestures for me to step out ahead of him. I do, and before I know what’s happening, he’s ushering me all the way down and into the service elevator, which he does, indeed, have a key for. We’re out of the building in under two minutes. There isn’t anyone back here in the alley, but I look up and around, hoping the security camera will catch me and the security guard will notice. But no one comes as we approach a nondescript white commercial van.

“Where are we going?”

“Right here,” he says, pulling the back door open. He nods for me to get in. When I look over my shoulder one last time, he gives me a rough shove. I scramble inside on my hands and knees, him following close behind me, pulling the van doors shut and securing them from the inside. Then he turns around and gestures to a mattress I hadn’t noticed.

“Lie down on your stomach.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

I do as he says.

“Jeremy, you don’t have to do this,” I plead desperately, but he doesn’t respond. I hear the rustle of a plastic bag, and then I feel his weight next to me on the mattress.

“Put your hands behind your back,” he orders.

“What?” I repeat.

“I’m not going to keep repeating myself, just do it the first time I tell you or I’m going to get pissed off. And you know what I’m like when I’m pissed off, Jules.”

I do. I put my hands behind me and he pulls them together roughly before fastening my wrists with a zip tie.

“Ouch! It’s too tight,” I complain as the plastic bites into my skin.

“Oh, come on, Jules. You can’t fool me! I remember how much you like to be tied up,” he teases me as he repeats the process with my ankles.

I have no response, I just bury my face in the soft pillow in front of my face. But he doesn’t allow me that luxury for long. Without warning, Jeremy grabs a handful of my hair and yanks my head up with one hand, while holding a cotton bandana in front of my face with the other.