Feather Bound (11 page)

My fingers grasped for the table. I was almost on my knees when Anton picked me up by the stomach and flopped me onto his shoulders. I screamed, screamed so loud it could have torn my larynx to shreds. No one came. I knew no one would. Anton slipped Ade's phone out of his jacket pocket with one hand and waved it in my face. The men. The bartender too. Anton had paid them all.

Slipping the phone back into his pocket, he swiped the keys off the table and strode over to the cage in the wall. My prison. He tossed me inside and shut the metal door in my face.

“What are you doing?” I clung to the iron bars, shaking and shrieking. “What are you doing? Let me out!”

Anton took a seat over by the couch and, with his foot, brushed aside the pile of feathers left behind by the swan. “I will.” He crossed his legs. “But not yet.”

I swallowed tears with each gasp. “Why? What are you going to do to me? How did you even get my sister's phone?”

“It's easy enough to have someone followed.” My fingers curled as Anton took out Ade's phone and turned it around in his hand, considering it like a work of art. “You know, I couldn't believe it when I saw you leave my loft. That feather you left behind.”

Blood drained from my face. So he'd noticed.

“It was yours. Who else's could it have been? The look on your face pretty much said it all.”

He dropped the phone back into his pocket. The iron bars slid against my sweaty palms.

“Swans.” He laughed, shaking his head. “To some people they're irresistible. Ralph Hedley caught one. New York has cages of them working in the shadows, just like every other city in the world. From the brothels to the streets. Been that way for as long as swans have existed.” Anton turned to the wall opposite me. It was carved into dark, interweaving boxes, dimly lit by little candles enclosed in amber glass. He was too busy admiring the flickering flames to acknowledge my screaming. “Do you have any idea why?”

I rattled the cage. “Please let me out!
Let me out
!”

Anton sighed. “Regular girls'll give you what you need, whether it's your garden variety sex, or something darker.”

That's when he finally looked at me, his blue eyes sanding my skin.

“But swans are different. It's the helplessness, the fact that once you have their feathers, you are in complete control of them.” When he licked his bottom lip, I knew he was speaking from experience. “It's not a Simon Says type of deal, of course. ‘Stand up, sit down,' no, it's not as if they'll obey my
every
command. But that's not what I want from them. It's the loyalty. Pure and absolute. It's not just that you own them, but that they understand themselves
only
as being owned by you. Once you take a swan's feathers, they belong to you completely and they know it. After that there's nothing the swan can do except give you all of them. Power, Deanna. Swan parlors, brothels and everything in between. Power is what they sell.”

“So if it's power you want, why not come over here and get it, you asshole.”

Not the smartest taunt, I know. My brain might have been completely fried by now, but I knew that I couldn't let him keep me in this cage.

Wait till he opens it.
I repeated the words like a mantra, my grip like a vice on the bars. Once he opened the door, I could knock him out and take off. My body was still sluggish, but I didn't need to be on top form. Just one blind swing – or I could scratch his face. Put out an eye, blind him, then tackle him. Anything, anything. Just open the cage…

“Come on, Deanna, don't be ridiculous. I don't want your feathers.” Once again, Anton laughed. “I already own you.”

“W-what?”

He got off the couch and sat on the table, facing me. “Most swans will do whatever it takes to keep their identities hidden. They know the cost of a leaked secret. I take it you're the same. I know you're a swan. I can do a lot with that information.”

My throat closed up as he leaned over.

“There are plenty of brothels that would love a pretty girl like you. Lovely skin. Hair that curls around your fingers. I'd earn a shitload of cash selling you to traffickers.”

Somehow I was on my feet. My muscles were working overtime, but they kept me upright. My back pressed against the brick wall behind me as I struggled to keep my balance.

“Hey, human trafficking is a worldwide multi-billion dollar business, you know. But when they find swans like you… boy, it's like winning the jackpot, isn't it?”

Tears blurred my vision, but I could tell he was walking towards me. I pressed my back harder against the wall, and one insane part of me actually believed that if I tried hard enough, I could go through it and fly away.

“Do you know what they'll do to you, Deanna?” His fingers curled around the bars, his eyes gray with an almost gleeful malice. “They'll drug you. Rape you. They'll pass your feathers around, force you to have sex with fifty men a day, maybe more. They'll put you in cages smaller than this and take turns.”

“Stop it!” I huddled in a corner, my stomach clenched, my arms tight around my knees. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening. It couldn't be. “Stop it! Please, please just shut up! Let me go, oh God let me go! Please!”

“Did you like how it felt? When those guys drugged you? When they had their hands on you? Did you like the feel of it, Deanna? The way they touched your back, your feathers?”

“Please…” I shook my head. “My dad…my sister…they'll be worried about me…please, please…”

“Oh, right. You want to go back home?” Anton leaned against the cage. “You don't want that kind of life, do you? No, you're too sweet for that. Right?”

Biting my lip, I forced myself to look at him, to look him square in the eyes. I hated every molecule of him. “What do you want from me?”

“Simple. I want you to destroy Hyde Hedley.”

An awful, sour taste slopped down my throat as I swallowed hard. “What?”

“Today, the new head of Hedley Publications fired my father. But that's not all.” He gritted his teeth. “That asshole has something on my dad. Something that could ruin him. He hinted as much at my party. He hasn't told anyone yet. Maybe he's still working on getting the proof, but I can't guarantee he'll keep his mouth shut once he does. I'm not old money, Deanna. If my dad loses his job, we could lose everything.” As if by instinct, he clutched his suit like a security blanket. “I don't know what the hell he has against my father, or what he's trying to get, but I don't have the luxury to care. And you: you're an old friend of his, aren't you? He said it himself at my party. He cares about you.”

The flowers, the Mariachi Band. The thousands of messages he left on my cell phone needing to know that I was OK. “No, that was…that was years ago. I don't even know him, now. Hyde isn't my… I'm just… I'm just–”

“Close enough to Hyde to sabotage him.” Anton smiled. “Ralph Hedley may have given his son the reins of his company, but the board still has the option to replace him with his legal guardian, which if I'm not mistaken is presently his uncle – my father. They're already a little insecure about Hedley giving his legacy to a nineteen year-old. But it's in his will. Not to mention they're all well aware of how smart that bastard is.” For a moment, Anton looked a little jealous. He shook it off. “But the one thing the board doesn't need right now is a scandal. Not while they're desperately trying to keep the Colemans from bolting.”

“C-Colemans?”

“The Coleman family. Come on, you know, Colemans? ‘Family starts at the home' Colemans?”

I recognized the slogan, but only because it came at the end of countless tacky commercials with smiling white nuclear families hanging out on their new patio sets or watching a movie on their new entertainment system – all courtesy of Colemans Department Store.

“The Coleman image is all about family values and wholesomeness and all that other bullshit they peddle to fatties in the Heartland. Ralph Hedley almost lost them once, what with all the rumors about his wife, but he managed to keep them on board by pretending he had a family of his own.”

Hyde.

“But Hedley's funeral brought those rumors back to the fore, thanks to that swan. The Colemans might ditch after all. That's a lot of money gone poof.”

I swallowed carefully, my throat dry from screaming. “So?”

“Hyde doesn't trust me enough to let me manipulate him, but you? He'll let his guard down around you. All you need to do is set him up for the mother of all falls. Something publically humiliating. Something that'll give the Colemans the incentive to finally leave for good. Then the board'll see just what a waste of skin he is; what a goddamned liability he is.”

Me? Sabotage Hyde? I could feel the feathers crushed between my back and the wall and for a moment I wondered what it would feel like to have countless hands ripping them off me. I just wanted to go home. I wanted to be back in my bed again, to have a normal life. Hyde didn't need some stupid company. What did it matter if he lost control of it or not? Me or Hyde. When I really thought about it, there was no contest.

So then why did my chest ache at the thought of it?

Whenever we were kids, Hyde's eyes would light up at the sight of me. They still did.

“When I asked him at the party, he told me you wanted nothing to do with him anymore. He also told me he was more than happy to oblige, but I think we both know that isn't true.” Anton flashed a devil grin. “Get close to him. Real close. Then ruin him. Simple as that.”

“We don't need to do this.” I heard myself say the words I couldn't quite believe were mine. “If you just talk to Hyde… make him see reason – I could help you do it. Maybe he'll give your dad his job back.”

Anton went deathly silent. “Oh. Oh. Just make him see reason. Right! That'll solve everything! You think so? You fucking think so?” Anton pushed off the cage and started pacing before kicking it with his leather shoe. “God, you know what? Maybe I should sell you right now. Right this fucking second. Would you like that? Huh?”

“No.” I shuddered violently.

“When they're done with you they'll throw your broken goddamn body in a gutter like trash. Do you want that? Huh?”

“No, please, no!”
He's crazy. He's a psychopath
! But he was right. He didn't need my feathers. He already owned me.

“Hyde hates me. He hates my dad, and he'd love nothing more than to see us all on the fucking streets tap-dancing for a Denny's coupon. No. You do what I say. Do what I say and don't you dare tell anyone about this or I will have you on the first boat to Russia. And maybe I'll destroy your family too. If I'm bored.” He swiped the keys off the table. “Do you hear me?
Do you
?”

Crying openly now, I nodded, burying my head in my knees until the sound of jangling keys made me lift it again. Anton was dangling them in front of me, teasing me with the promise of freedom. I let a few short breaths rake my throat before lunging for them, but the moment I did, he threw them back on the table.

“Anyway, even if you were to tell someone, it's not like anyone would take you seriously. And if they did? There are benefits to wealth, Deanna. You'd be surprised how fast lips close at the thought of an inflated bank account. As head of Hedley Publications, Hyde will be invited to hundreds of events in Manhattan. Plenty of opportunities for public disgrace. Find a way to make it happen and fast. I don't need to tell you what'll happen to you if you don't.”

Straightening his suit and tie, he strode up to the door, calm and business-like, because in his world that's all this was: business.

“Wait!” I scrambled to my knees. “Wait, let me out!”

“Don't worry. One of the girls will. In an hour or so.” He turned, leaning against the door frame with his Armani-sheathed shoulder. “Think of this as an opportunity to mull over what I've said.” He grinned again. “I'll be seeing you, Deanna.”

Then the door shut behind him and I was alone.

11

DESPERATE

 

The house was empty when I got home. I immediately headed for the shower. Water washed off the sweat and oil. Beads of it trickled down my hair, neck and back – a back bruised and sore, but bare: my feathers lay scattered in the custom-made steel cage built into Stylo's VIP room. My thoughts were there too, just as scattered, fragments of touches and words and sights bubbling up and dissipating with the steam.

I turned the shower nozzle to make it hotter. The water couldn't wash away the feel of hands, the thought of hands, the threat of hands. I made it hotter and hotter so that it would. It burned. I yelped and stepped out of the line of fire, twisting the nozzle, turning the shower cold. From one extreme to another. Neither helped. Crouching in the corner of the tub, I cried.

I thought of crying myself to sleep, but I realized I'd have to stop crying once my family came home. I couldn't tell anyone. But for now I cried and cried, and tried to wash it all away.

My family still hadn't come home by the time I went to sleep. That night I had a series of dreams that were more terrible than the ones I'd had after my mother died. I dreamt of faceless men tearing me apart from the outside in and the inside out. I dreamt of my feathers drenched in blood and sweat. I dreamt of living a life of hollow eyes and vacant smiles that should have been screams.

“Deanna?” Ade shook me so hard my head nearly came off my neck. For a second, I didn't know who she was. “Are you OK?”