I felt like there was a screaming silence in the room, and I needed a much stronger distraction. I dug out my smartphone and the earphones I always kept in my handbag, and turned up the volume on Eddie Vedder. I went back into Dom’s bedroom and curled up on the armchair by the window, no longer attempting to read. I just listened to Pearl Jam and watched the clouds drift in the afternoon sky.
That was probably a poor choice; Tan and I had shared huge childhood crushes on Eddie (though really, I think hers was only a copycat of my own). But listening to him kept her with me in those endless minutes at Dom’s place. Still, I didn’t look for a different artist; Tan had every right to be there. I needed her there; she was there.
Finally, after what felt like ages and ages of purgatory, I felt a tug at my ear, and Dom was there, pulling out my earphones and pulling me up into his big strong arms, burying his face in my neck. I just hugged him back, not saying anything, letting him tell me what he needed to when he was ready.
“Got him. We got him, baby.”
I lost it. I did. I just cried. He held me, and I cried.
# # #
Dom called his Pres to give him the update and let him know about the party and the hard drive with the evidence he found. I overheard him speak of the video of “the girl,” and I knew he was talking about Tania.
After a few more minutes, Dom hung up the phone and turned to me. “Hey, babe, I gotta run out. Pres is callin’ church. That’s a MC meetin’ for all the brothers, so I gotta be there. You okay here? Might take me a couple hours, maybe more, maybe less. Okay?”
“Yeah, Dom. I’m okay. You go. Ride safe, okay?”
“Always do. Listen, I put a copy of the video on the computer, so if you don’t want to see it, don’t look at the ‘sick bastards’ folder, okay? But there was other stuff, too, in there; I’m bringin’ it all to the meetin’. But I wanted to have a backup copy of everythin’, too. Just don’t look in that folder, babe.”
“Okay, thanks. I won’t. You go. I’ll be fine.”
He kissed me, hard and quick, and held my eyes a moment. Then he grabbed his stuff and took off.
In his absence, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I wandered around his space for many minutes, unsettled, kind of bored and antsy.
I thought about what we’d discussed about me moving in with him, and I got motivated. I needed something to do, and I needed some normalcy. I needed not to be living in fear. I needed to do something positive.
So I left a note on the kitchen counter, telling Dom where I had gone and when I’d be back, and then I Ubered a ride back to my place to pack up some of my essentials and gather what I’d want for at least the next several days.
I had only been there only about a half hour, throwing stuff in bags and more carefully packing up my necessary bathroom products while jamming out to some favorite tunes, immersed in the mindless comfort of the beats. But I was feeling good, empowered, alive. It was a feeling bordering on happy.
And then I was jarred by heavy pounding on my door. Whoever it was, was also laying on my buzzer. Rude!
I jumped over some stuff to reach the door and threw it open, not even thinking about who it might be. Stupid. It was just a stupid move.
Of course, it was the sick bastard himself, Fielding. Shit.
He was pissed. Seething. Waves of evil were pouring off him, aimed directly at me.
As soon as I recognized him, I tried to shut the door right back in his face, but he had already shoved his foot inside to stop that process, and the door bounced back a little. He shoved it open wider, straightened to his full height, several inches above mine, and entered my space like the raider that he was.
“You little cock-sucking bitch. Don’t think you aren’t going to pay for what you did.”
I backed up as fast as I could, keeping an eye on him but also trying to use my peripheral vision to locate anything I could use as a weapon to hold him off. Nothing appeared immediately obvious. I thought speech would be my best option for the moment.
“You deserved it, you bastard.”
“You don’t seem to understand who I am, or what I can do. But you will, I promise you.”
And he pulled something out of his pocket, stuck his arm toward me, and fucking Tasered me. For what seemed like forever. I dropped hard. It was like I was completely overtaken by electrical pain in all of my nerves, and my muscles all contracted at once. I had absolutely no control over my body. I wasn’t even sure I was still breathing. Everything was pain, and then I’m pretty sure I passed out.
I don’t know what happened next, or the exact order of things, but when I came to, I found myself stuffed into the trunk of a car, darkness all around me. The smells of oil and gas and dirty socks filled my nose. I was aware of the rumble of the engine. I slowly realized the discomfort of having my arms tied behind me at my elbows and wrists in a tight, scratchy rope, and my protracted inability to control any of my limbs. My mouth had also been duct-taped. If my breathing had evened out before that awareness, it went back into panic mode with the renewed consciousness of my helplessness.