Packback
8. Remonstration
It was November and Mike and Jack would be eligible for probation in six more months. I was actually a little concerned that they might be released earlier. I looked into home security systems. The income from my videoconferencing software would pay for a lot, all the bells and whistles, but I didn’t like my choices; I felt they could be controlled a lot more transparently and in a much more integrated way from my computer, with a lot less involvement by the security company. When they explained what the installation would entail it sounded like a root canal for our house, with minimal scalability. I asked for another leave of absence from the spaceport to put together a security ecosystem of my own, and they granted it—they were making a lot more from my teleconferencing software than I was, and I think they sensed me sniffing down another market disruption. It took me until February to put enough together to test, and I tinkered with improvements for another three months after that. Some of the security protocols I implemented made their way into the next version of our teleconferencing software. Revenue and my royalties for that system tripled due to increased interest from security-conscious clients.
Meanwhile, we had wonderful holidays. My parents were usually overseas, ostensibly diplomats although I knew better. They were extremely apologetic about missing our wedding. They came for Thanksgiving, as did Megan’s mother and sister, who still couldn’t stand me, but at least they recognized that Megan was much more well-adjusted now than they’d ever known her to be before. They hadn’t met Mike but acknowledged that I must be an improvement.
It was a really sweet holiday. Greta and Flake, Graciela and Josh, Firencia and Doe and their husbands, Graciela’s younger brother, Glyn and some eye candy has-been action-hero actor who wasn’t as tall as he’d looked on-screen, Brit and her boyfriend, who were even more goo-goo eyed than Graciela and Josh, Peri and a starstruck grad student from UC Irvine. He’d been one of the slaveboys not named Enrique who Graciela brought to Mammoth, and while that whole scene was over for Graciela at least for now, I could tell that Peri had him firmly under her beautiful thumb. She gave a sly little wink to let me know she knew I knew. I think he might’ve been under some hypnotic compulsion to be close to orgasm for as long as their visit lasted, and I bet he was wearing the same cock ring, buttplug, and nipple clamps he’d been wearing in Mammoth. He seemed to have trouble keeping his breathing steady.
Greta was pregnant and radiant, and I’d never seen Flake so happy. My parents seemed blown away by everyone and everything, and were extremely interested in the security system I was working on. When I explained why I was doing it, they said they would talk to some people at the embassy.
Megan’s mother and sister returned for Christmas. Her sister’s name was Molly and their mother was Andrea. I guessed they might be working themselves up to ask if they could move in—their life in Ohio seemed joyless, and I think seeing so many extremely happy women here was finally making an impression. Christmas dinner included Greta and Flake, Graciela and Josh, and Peri with a different date, a graduate instructor finishing up his dissertation but apparently in the same Peri predicament as the last one. New Year’s Eve was just Molly and Andrea with Peri, Megan and me. I mentioned to Megan and Peri what I suspected Andrea and Molly might be thinking, and that I would welcome their move here. Megan concurred.
Peri sat them down in the other room with Megan after dinner but well before midnight. I was pretty sure I knew what was happening and figured it might take a while, so I retired to my office and worked on my security systems until Megan sidled in close to midnight, carrying two champagne flutes. I think I might’ve been in there four hours. We clinked glasses, had a sip, then she tasted champagne on my tongue and I tasted sparkling water on hers, then our kiss got much deeper.
“Come out, honey, it’s almost time. We’ll toast,” Megan gasped after a minute. We walked down the hallway, an arm around each other’s waist, Megan’s head on my shoulder, my nose in her soft, fragrant hair. She wore 3-inch heels, so was quite a bit closer to my height than usual. Just a glance at Andrea and Molly in the living room told me they were deep in trance. Peri wore a mischievous smile.
“I’m not a psychotherapist yet,” she said, “but I know how to do this much. Andrea, Molly, what would it take for you to trust Scott?”
Both women were silent for half a minute until finally Andrea said “I can’t.”
“Molly?”
“I would need to live here with Megan,” she said.
“Do you want that?”
A puffed exhale. “Yes.”
“How about you, Andrea ... would you like to move in with Megan and Scott?”
“No.”
“What if Molly moves in with them? Would you want to live with Megan and Scott then?”
“I don’t want to lose both my daughters to any man,” she said.
“What if Megan and Scott had another small house built on the property, perhaps over the garage? It could be your safe space.”
“I suppose that could be OK.”
“Molly, how would you feel about your mother moving into a carriage house here while you moved into Megan and Scott’s house?”
“That would be nice.”
“Megan and Scott, how would you feel about Andrea and Molly moving in here?”
I looked to Megan. “I would like that very much,” she said.
“I would also like that very much,” I said. “It would be nice to have Megan’s family together here, we have plenty of room. I could get started on a carriage house right away. Andrea could move into the main house until it was ready, or she could come once it’s finished, especially if she needs time to close her affairs in Ohio.”
Megan smiled significantly at Peri.
“In a moment, Andrea and Molly, I’m going to wake you from this lovely trance. You won’t remember anything you said or did or heard while hypnotized, only that you drifted off a little and feel very rested and relaxed. You’ll feel like taking a deep, calming breath. Wake when I snap my fingers.”
“Yes, Miss Peri,” they said together, which made Peri smile.
[SNAP]
Megan gave her mother and sister half a minute to breathe. They smiled at each other.
“Mom, Sis, Scott, our family’s about to get bigger,” Megan said. “I’m pregnant.”
This was news to me. Now I was the one who needed the deep, calming breath. I looked at Megan, who had a single tear running down her lovely cheek. She nodded. I gathered her in my arms and held her close, breathing in everything I could of this wonderful woman who’d consented to become my wife, who I loved more than life itself.
“I love you so much,” I said, and kissed her soft and long. She melted in my arms.
My security system went live in mid-March, though I continued tinkering with it for months. After a couple weeks, it flagged something we hadn’t noticed: an unmarked van driving slowly past several times a day at irregular times. Someone from my parents’ embassy called to ask how my progress was coming. They were interested in using whatever my work might produce. I knew it wasn’t ready yet, but maybe the spaceport could help with that. I mentioned to the embassy guy that my system had noticed the unmarked van and he told me what I already suspected, that it might be surveilling us. My father called back an hour later and said they were sending a team, which turned out to be two chiseled and extremely competent security guys, both armed. The embassy was not messing around.
Peri took a particular interest in one of them, chatting idly with him for a minute while unobtrusively doing her magic.
“Ma’am, I’m special forces, and we’re trained to detect and counter any attempts to hypnotize us.”
Peri looked deep into his eyes. “I’m a very very good witch,” she whispered to him, then smiled and turned away.
My system alerted me the next time the van drove past, but of course the team already knew. They took photos of the driver and passenger with a telephoto lens and sent them for identification and analysis. The guys in the van turned out to be a druglord’s henchmen who had connections to prisoners in the same joint as Mike and Jack. The team scheduled an operation for the next pass-by, calling for FBI reinforcements and armored cars to block the street and evacuating several nearby houses, including Flake and Greta’s. The next time the van approached, the armored cars rolled out to trap it in front of our house while the augmented team drove and ran out to the gangster van in SWAT gear. The gangsters immediately hit the gas before it became clear they were trapped. Then they started shooting, but everything they could’ve hit on the street was bulletproof. The SWAT team shot out their tires, pinning them, and shot tear gas into the van. All four men inside poured out, outgunned, outthought and outmaneuvered, coughing and streaming tears, and were taken into custody. The SWAT team left the scene within an hour, cleaning up everything. One of the people in the van was on the FBI’s most wanted list. We would find out later what we already suspected: Jack had arranged a hit for when he got out of prison, but those four goons in the van having those criminal records made certain that Jack, at least, wouldn’t be getting out of prison anytime soon. Apparently he’d been heading up a gang there, but after this he got moved to high security. His family supported him until they learned the extent of Jack’s involvement with drug money. Mike got a visit from some fellow prisoners a few weeks later ... now that he didn’t have Jack’s protection after abusing and berating several of them for months, they beat everything but his face to a bloody pulp, though the only bones they broke were ribs and his pinky toes. Maybe he would get out soon but he wouldn’t be a threat for at least a few weeks, if ever.
April came and went. Flake and I filed a bunch more patents when my security system felt ready. The spaceport had already started work on turning it into a commercial product, forming a company specifically to brand and market my innovations. Several embassies would be among their first clients, paying big bucks. Peri and Steve, her new special forces friend, became more frequent guests, and it wasn’t hard to figure out that he was often in the same predicament as Peri’s previous dates. She smirked at me.
Mike was released from prison, though still confined to a hospital bed. Glyn and Peri scheduled a visit, going through channels to make sure everything was legit ... she was a psychotherapist, Peri was her student assistant, and they were going to evaluate Mike. Glyn had renewed her license since Mammoth. Megan and I stayed home ... there was no sense in us showing up since we’d been the people he’d hurt most in this world and that would’ve looked very odd. Glyn told us this would be a diagnostic visit only, that restoration like they’d done with Megan would very likely be much more difficult, but at least they would be able to figure out what sort of threat to us there might be.
Glyn and Peri learned the bad news after Peri put Mike under: Mike hoped to kill both of us. He didn’t have a plan ... he and Jack had been relying on Jack’s cohorts to help and that was no longer an option. He blamed us for all his troubles. We asked my parents’ advice and they got a restraining order issued. They also scheduled an FBI lawyer to consult with. Before he arrived, Megan and I consulted with Glyn and Peri on our own.
I could tell that Megan was getting angry, but I didn’t think her original reprisal plans were the right way. (Were they?)
“Can Peri hypnotize Mike to say that he plans to kill us at one of his parole hearings? And maybe provide details on how he’d hoped to do it?” I asked.
“We could ask the police lawyer, but I’m sure we can’t implant ideas, that would be entrapment.”
“But since we already know he wants to, could we just lower his threshold for blurting out whatever’s on his mind?”
Glyn looked thoughtful. “We could ask the police lawyer what would happen if Mike incriminated himself, though I’m pretty sure we already know the answer.”
“I don’t want any of that,” Megan said. “I want him to come at me, and I want to ... well, at that point I’ll be able to do anything I want to him.”
The rest of us went quiet.
“Is there anything we could do that could help him become a better person?” I asked.
Megan turned to me, her hands in fists, breathing hard. She closed her eyes and eventually her breathing evened out and slowed, like she’d pressed a ‘peace button’ inside herself. When her eyes reopened she relaxed her hands and flexed them. “You’re right, Scott. The worst thing he did to me was what he did to you. But what he did to you was so horrible that I can’t forgive it even after everything all of you have done for me.”
“I think he needs to be humiliated,” Peri said. “I can hypnotize him so he won’t be able to move. And then maybe you can show him your power, and between us we can make him never want to hurt another woman again.”
“I think more than one woman needs to help with this,” Glyn said. “And Scott, you should be involved ... he views you as the greater threat and a show of power from you will command his full attention, especially if several women can demonstrate similar power afterward. Perhaps Graciela can help, especially once Mike has been softened up. She has experience with some of this even if she and Josh might be ... delightfully exclusive these days. But there’s someone else I know, a former NFL cheerleader who’s also a black belt and a gifted dominatrix. I know she’s permanently changed the mindset and habits of several people in the past, even when they had no interest in changing. Her name is Shana. She’s a delightful little morsel, easy to underestimate just like some might underestimate our lovely petite Peri, but just as powerful in her own way.”
Shana joined us the next weekend. She was 5′1″, a stocky strong little fireplug of a woman, dark eyes, dark hair, darker lipstick and fingernail polish and eyeshadow, ample breasts stuffed shapelessly into a sports bra easily visible under her thin black shirt. She had a deviously intriguing smile. We told her our plans and she smiled more widely. She and Megan sparred a little, but Megan was so much better that Shana was plainly awed.
Megan had already started working with me on three taekwondo moves designed to overawe Mike. One was a spinning kick that she taught me to use on the dummy both at full power and curtailed to land more like a boxing jab, more than enough to get someone’s attention, but she also taught me to use it against her and to stop just short of striking, close enough that the ball of my foot would just touch her jaw. It took a lot of practice ... I really truly didn’t want to hurt her and the biggest challenge was getting the kick just close enough after a 540º horizontal spin when I needed to stick the landing with my other leg. The amount of trust she placed in me was humbling. When I was getting it close to correct she had me practice on Shana and then on Steve, who was close to Mike’s height. They all had to stand shock still the way Peri would make Mike do. Steve was mightily impressed by Megan’s skill and teaching ability, though he also wanted to spar with her to see whether she was as good with full contact as in no-contact run-throughs. Megan declined. I think she could’ve taken him, but she was pregnant even though she was barely showing, and you never know ... Steve was no cupcake. She did consent to sparring with minimal contact, wanting to see the sort of thing yet another martial arts discipline might offer. Steve was shaken by that experience, as I think all of us knew he would be—Megan, even nearly five months pregnant, was incredible.
The second move Megan taught me was designed to follow the first, rapidly hammering the jaw with the top of my foot up to three times, from the other direction as my initial kick but with the same foot, coming so soon afterward that the person I struck wouldn’t be able to fall anywhere but straight down. The third move had me jumping high to my other leg, raising and dropping the ball of my foot hard to my opponent’s forehead. Again, I went full speed against the dummy until I was hitting it very hard indeed, but the point was to do it to a live person Mike’s height who was frozen and helpless in hypnosis, fast and in sequence with the first two moves and just enough contact to overawe rather than blows that might cause anything from a concussion or broken jaw to permanent or fatal injury. I was feeling quite dangerous but knew better than to think I could rely on three show moves for more than a single opponent. Megan also taught me the rear naked choke, telling me I would surely use it.
In parallel, Megan taught Graciela a showy but incredibly effective jiu jitsu move that had her slipping behind and over one of her opponent’s shoulders and then down into an armlock that would utterly incapacitate him, me, or anyone else. She had Graciela practice on Josh with the promise of even more incredible sex than usual once their workout was over, which as you might imagine with someone as spectacular as Graciela was motivation indeed. Megan also taught Josh how to fall in a hold like that without getting hurt. Graciela could already hypnotize Josh just by wriggling her long beautiful fingernails the way she and Peri had at the Fugitive Lake restaurant, which she seemed to do rather often. Josh was living the dream.
Steve asked Megan if she would lead a martial arts seminar for his special forces teams. Megan said it would have to happen soon but that these taekwondo moves, as impressive as they looked, were probably not what a special forces operative needed to know. Steve told her his instructors would make that decision after she’d demonstrated whatever else she wanted to show. Megan placed one fist in her other palm and bowed to him that same way Master Kim had to her, the day she earned her first black belt. Steve returned that salute, which warmed my heart.
Mike recovered. Shana came over often, wanting to spar with Megan as well as to help script our subjugation of Mike. Glyn was spending a lot more time here, prioritizing us while she had a gap between her Hollywood projects, though she rarely shared our bed. She showed us the screenplay she’d commissioned based on Megan’s anger-management breakthrough that Glyn had helped so much with. Megan and I both had a few suggestions, things we didn’t like and things we wanted more of, wanting to see how a second draft looked before drawing any conclusions, but also not wanting anything to be completed until after this thing with Mike, which we sensed would come soon. Glyn sent our suggestions to her writers, telling us it would be a week or two before we saw any results.
Megan and I were walking on the beach and in the Laguna hills again. It was late May, almost summer, and we had our third straight PCT permit. These aren’t easy to get, but the National Park Service was sympathetic after what had happened to us that first year, basically reserving a permit for us until we finished the trail, which we hoped to this year. Megan would be hiking while pregnant, complicating matters, but she was as determined as I. Peri and Steve moved into our guest suite for her summer break. Shana began sharing our bed when she stayed overnight. It wasn’t the sort of sex she was accustomed to, but as it’d been with Firencia, trust and affection went a long way and we made each other happy.
Glyn and Peri visited Mike twice more. Once with his parole officer when he put on his well-behaved repentant mask, and once just the two of them for another “psychological evaluation.” Peri hypnotized him and learned the date and time he intended to strike: June 16th, a week before Megan and I intended to return to the Pacific Crest Trail. It would be just him and one other goon from Jack’s prison gang. Mike would have to pay for his assistance—by this point pretty much everyone despised Mike. His plan was to bring muzzled handguns to the trailhead, hustle us off-trail as soon as no one else was in a position to see, kill us, stash us until no one would witness us getting stuffed into their van, then dump our bodies somewhere they would never be found. Simple enough if their intended victims were unaware. Peri made him forget everything that had happened while he was hypnotized.
The other reason Megan and I were hiking was to establish a schedule of apparent vulnerability. Our house must’ve seemed like a hard target after a druglord’s experienced surveillance team got taken out there, but how dangerous could a young couple on a walk in the hills be? Well, Mike was about to find out. Megan and I practiced hand gestures and eye movements that had specific significance, to better coordinate our actions. We were taking a big risk, exposing ourselves and our unborn child to possibly getting shot before we were close enough to defend ourselves, to the point that as the date approached, Glyn and Peri and Steve, and really everyone who knew what we planned, finally convinced Megan to change her heartfelt wish to disable Mike on the trail. Instead, we would wait for them to show up and take them before we were visible at all.
Steve and Brock, one of his special forces friends, showed up in two full-sized panel vans at the trailhead an hour before we usually did and hunkered down in a sheltered hollow they’d previously found where they would be practically invisible. Mike and his hired goon showed up 45 minutes later, sat in their car, and waited maybe 40 yards away from the trailhead. Our seemingly innocuous car was borrowed, armored and bulletproof against any handgun. There were another dozen cars in the trailhead parking lot, which was about normal for a weekday morning. Mike and his goon stayed in their car while we got out and approached the trailhead. Glyn, Peri, and Shana were in their own car a few minutes away.
Mike and his goon got out of their car right after Megan and I got on the trail. We hurried as soon as we were out of sight. Steve and Brock ambushed Mike and his goon before they knew what hit them, disarmed, gagged and cuffed them. We all had earpieces so we knew exactly when it happened. Both were unconscious before they might’ve realized they were in trouble, immobilized in separate vans within a minute. Mike’s goon woke in a military jail, got a stern lecture explaining how all of this happened because Mike was a friggin’ idiot who couldn’t be trusted, and was released the next morning.
It is still absolutely incredible to me that when I first met Mike and Jack that same evening I met Megan, they were Pacific Crest Trail backpackers, who are usually among the nicest people you could ever want to meet. How had everything gone so wrong for them?
Peri gave Steve the deepest and most affectionate hug and kiss I’d ever seen her give anyone. Maybe she was ready for that long-term relationship after all. Then she and Shana got into the back of Steve’s van with a bound and gagged Mike while Steve drove us back to our house. Peri’s trigger in Mike ensured he would go into trance immediately. She implanted another to take him deeper while we drove back to our house and ensured that Shana could use them, too. We walked an oblivious Mike inside to our exercise room, then Peri snapped him awake, though he was frozen.
“Hi again, Mike,” I said. “Miss me?”
His body tensed as if he wanted to come at me like when Megan and I both took him down with basic aikido, then he trembled at the realization that he couldn’t move.
“You’ve got problems, Mike,” I said.
“Fuck you, asshole,” he said. I ran through the three taekwondo kicks Megan taught me, barely touching him, and when I looked at him again I could see his fear.
“Try that again when I can move, dickface,” he said.
“You sure you want that, Mike? I took you down before, hell, Megan took you down before ... do you really think things will be different this time? I’m much better now.“
Mike had a fair number of prison tattoos. I was pretty sure he was confident his experiences there had prepared him for a fight, and even more sure that despite whatever he might believe, they hadn’t.
“Try me, asshole.”
I nodded at Peri. This had not been in our script.
“Unfreeze,” she said a few seconds later. [SNAP]
He came at me. I faked the first taekwondo kick, hit him twice with the second, hard enough to rock him back but not hard enough to incapacitate him, then used one of the BJJ moves Megan taught me a few months ago to bring him down and get behind him, where I applied the rear naked choke Megan taught me. Despite his vigorous struggles he was unconscious in 15 seconds.
We removed his shoes and let him wake. With dawning realization, he got up and glared at us.
“Not very impressive,” I said.
“Hey Mike,” Megan said from just behind me. She stepped to my side. “I took you down once. Wanna try me again?”
“Fuck yes, bitch,” he hissed.
“I don’t know ... I’m six months pregnant ... do you think that would be a good idea?” Megan asked me.
“Your choice, my love,” I said.
“I think I can handle this loser,” she said, smiling. “Let him at me.”
I stepped aside. Mike started forward but hesitated when Megan raised one foot to his eye level, balanced effortlessly on her other leg, slowly weaving that foot between them, side to side.
Mike rushed her and she kicked him harder than I had but not enough to put him down. Then while he was gathering his wits, she kicked him again. And again. And again. Just with that one foot, back and forth like a cobra being charmed, except this time the cobra was the charmer. Every time he seemed ready to attack she kicked past the forearms he raised on either side of his head, left right, up down, front back, until eventually we saw his shoulders slump.
“Give up, Mike? You’re pathetic. Maybe you need to learn your place. Any one of us can teach you that but I would love to. You hurt Scott badly and I care about my husband very much. He’s the love of my life while you are the love of no one’s. He may not be as angry about it as I am, but I would love nothing better than to slice your balls off and feed them to you. Would you like that? I even have a knife I bought for exactly that purpose.”
Her kerambit was out. It looked like a giant claw. Mike kind of shrank into himself.
“Or maybe you would rather be taught your lesson by my friend Mistress Siena?”
Shana came out from behind me. She’d changed from her usual scruffy jeans and packed sports bra to a leather bodice and very short leather skirt. She’d said it was her usual dominatrix outfit, though she had more exotic outfits for clients who paid extra. I’d fucked her in it several times in a way she probably hadn’t been before. She had very nice breasts and this outfit showed them off wonderfully.
Mike rushed Megan. Megan used almost exactly the same BJJ move as I had to apply another rear naked choke, which put Mike unconscious in ...
“13 seconds,” Megan announced, grinning at me.
Mike woke, groaning. We’d removed his socks and let him come to his senses. He staggered to his feet and his stance gradually firmed. Shana was the only person anywhere near him.
“Hi Mikey,” Shana said, so much smaller and less physically imposing than he was, looking up at him. “We’re about to get to know each other very well. I’m going to help you become the man you should’ve been these past three years, or maybe your whole life. You’re very fortunate because I know exactly how you can become that man. I used to be an NFL cheerleader, can you believe it? Not my favorite job, but it was fun sometimes. I met a few men like you, and I helped some of them become better, too. I think you’ll like how I do it. Would you like to know how?”
Mike made a sound that was meaningless and irreproducible.
Shana wriggled her brief leather skirt down her short strong legs. She wasn’t wearing panties. She had the same brown lipstick on her bare pussy that she had on her lips. She pointed down.
“This is your holy of holies. You will never get to experience any part of it, you aren’t worthy. But if you’re a good boy you might get to experience other pleasures, experiences you will imagine and hope and wish to repeat for the rest of your life. And if you’re a very good boy, eventually you might get to experience some other woman’s holy of holies, and you will express the proper gratitude and appreciation if that ever happens, because right now, boy, you are unworthy of that happening ever again.”
Mike rushed her. Friggin’ idiot. She swept his legs and choked him out.
“13 seconds,” Megan said. “Well done, Shana.”
Shana bowed.
Mike eventually regained consciousness. We’d removed his shirt.
Steve stepped in front of Shana. “Hey asshole, wanna try another man better than you?” he asked. Peri was behind me—this wasn’t her sort of deal and she was tense.
Mike’s world was obviously already rocked, but I saw his body language change. Maybe he was thinking this wasn’t a woman so maybe Steve wasn’t another martial artist, just another musclehead like he’d slapped around while under Jack’s protection in prison. He dashed forward.
Steve punched. Mike went down in a boneless heap.
“One second,” Steve said to Megan, grinning. Megan put her fist in her other palm and bowed. Steve returned the salute, then bent to kiss Megan’s forehead and nodded to me.
He leaned down to Peri, behind us, though of course all of us but Mike saw. She reached her arms around him and then her legs, and he raised her up like that, whispering something the rest of us couldn’t hear. Peri let herself be carried in his arms like a bride over a threshold. She winked at me and blew a kiss to Megan, then they disappeared in the direction of Peri’s suite.
Graciela was dressed in one of her extremely revealing bikinis, a bikini she overflowed every bit as much as when I’d first met her. Our script had her next, before Steve jumped in because apparently us boys can’t keep ourselves from fucking with scripts. She was also supposed to be last, before Shana trussed him up and had Steve and me carry him away. I wasn’t sure if Steve was still available, but Josh was in the room, behind me, observing. He deserved it, having helped Graciela practice this many times.
Mike stood, shaking and whimpering, now in just his underwear. “Why are you doing this to me?” he asked, plaintively.
“Is that even a question?” Graciela said.
Mike’s eyes gradually filled with her. And of course he rushed, and of course she spun and flipped and wrenched and this time let him cry out his pain, a lot longer than anyone else had.
Graciela finally let him go, leaving Mike in a fetal position, weeping.
“Three minutes,” Graciela said proudly to everyone else still there, then swished to Josh and took his hand, tiptoeing to kiss him, her arms around him and his around her. They walked out together, arms around each other’s waist, and that was the last any of us saw them that day.
Megan’s sister Molly had been hiding behind a slightly opened door. She rushed out to embrace Megan in the biggest display I’d ever seen between them. Then she hugged me for the first time, her hips held well away.
“I think I get it now,” she said. “Please give me time.”
I patted her back.
I ended up walking Mike to a middle-row seat in Shana’s SUV. He wasn’t in any kind of shape to resist. He’d apologized to Megan, for everything. “You’re gonna be OK, man,” I said. “You’ll learn new things that you should’ve learned a long time ago, and then you’re gonna be better. Go with it.” I tied his elbows and wrists together behind his seat, and fastened his seat belt. He was still in just his underwear.
“Get ready for the ride of your life,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”
I never saw or heard from him or Jack or any of their former accomplices again.