A Long Way From Home

Chapter 3: In which the tables are turned

Abandoned Storage Facility: Buffalo, New York—Wednesday, 2:00pm


Layla tried to ignore the pain in her knees and hands. She was only slightly scraped, really. The grill would probably leave bruises in her sides, but she wasn’t too much worse for wear. There had been a meat cleaver among the utensils on the floor, which had cut her neatly on the upper cheek bone, a mere inch down from the corner of her eye. As she had fallen, one corner of the grill had created several rips in the side of the sack, leaving a long scrape on one arm, but allowing her to grab at the knife during the few moments the captor let her lay on the floor. It was this knife she held up towards the man, kidnapping horror stories racing through her mind. The man laughed.


“You wouldn’t,” he said. “I could do anything to you, you’d just whimper, right? Ha. Stupid rich kids—you don’t have the guts.” The mild pain from the scrapes were forgotten. This was a direct challenge.


“Try me and see,” she said, clutching the meat cleaver tighter.


The man laughed and stroked her cheek again. His hand moved down her chin to her shirt button. Taking a deep breath, Layla squeezed the finger in question and placed it up against the wall behind her. The man was still, waiting for her next move. She paused, Trina’s voice crying in her head.


”How could you, Layla?” Psh. Where was Viktor now? Still, she couldn’t let him call her bluff. She had to be in control somehow. She placed the knife inches from his finger, than raised it higher.


“You wouldn’t,” he gasped. Layla gulped. She couldn’t do it. How could she? But then she remembered his finger on her cheek, his laugh as he fingered her shirt button. She couldn't run, she knew that. He was far stronger and faster than she. What would happen if she gave up? She shut her eyes, the anger and confusion building up until she couldn't take it anymore. Then, with a strength born of pure determination and necessity, she lifted the cleaver.


Abandoned Storage Facility: Buffalo, New York—Wednesday, 2:03pm


THWACK! The pain was nearly more than Frank could bear. The little wench had cut his finger off! He hadn’t even really threatened her! Well, okay, he had but that was his job! He’d kidnapped her! What was her excuse?





What made things worse was the fact that the knife hadn’t gone all the way through the finger. It had stopped midway through the bone. He roared in pain once more as his kidnappee pulled the knife out and dropped it. She was facing the wall, and didn't even turn as she spoke, the cruel pleasure slipping in and out of her words.


“I told you. What touches me gets cut off. That extends to all parts of the body. So get away.” She held the cleaver in one hand and kneeled down quickly to pluck another one out from her left calf. Frank’s only consolation was that his attacker also had a wound. Several of them, in fact.


“That could scar, you know,” he tried to choke out, but the result was more like: “That could---WAAAAAAH!!!! OUUUUUUUCCHHHHH!”


She sent him a death glare reminiscent of the calendar hanging in his dentist’s office. “If looks could kill, women wouldn’t need frying pans,” a 50s woman said from the cover. If Frank were to remake the calendar at that moment, he determined that the caption would end with: “women wouldn’t need my meat cleaver.”


“Get out. And make sure you don’t touch me.” The girl commanded, pointing the knife at him threateningly. He tripped over the fencing: telling himself it wasn’t that he’d lost, but rather that he was planning his next step. As he tried to staunch the bleeding, a surge of pain and anger rack his body. Who the hell did this kid think she was?


As he headed towards the medicine cabinet, he caught sight of the grill, its lid now covering some of the utensils on the floor. He picked it up carefully, testing the weight. First, he told himself, he’d take care of the wench. Then he could get his finger fixed. Because the girl…the girl would pay.


Mansion: Toronto, Canada—Wednesday, 11:00 pm


Viktor hadn’t left the house all day. Could he really let go of Clarice? Should he tell Alex he didn’t want to go? He thought back to their conversation in the office.


“What if I don’t want to go?” Alex looked taken aback.


“Viktor, you’re not the most popular oar on the boat, okay? CD sales have been down, your last concert didn’t get anywhere near selling out, and frankly, management’s been putting a lot of pressure on me. You know how cutthroat they can be. Why don’t you go talk to them?”


The following conversation with the head of management was short and to the point. It all boiled down to: “You are not making us money. You will take this opportunity or we will sue you for breach of contract and wring the money out of you.” Coming from anyone else, the threat would seem laughable, but the management had power. That’s why artists died to be on this label. But if you weren’t in their good books, they had no trouble turning on you. Viktor thought back to Alan Rumsfield, the aspiring young artist who decided one day that he wanted a new concept: one with a deeper meaning than “let’s attract as many preteen girls as possible.” Last Viktor had seen him, he’d been bagging groceries.


What if he announced that he and Clarice were going out? He thought back to their conversation at the restaurant. “You’re asking me for commitment?” Clarice had asked, hurt and confusion and anger dancing across her face like candle-light. Viktor sighed. He knew what he wanted, but it was not just his decision to make.


***


“Hi, this is Clarice. I’m not in right now please leave a message you little—*beep*”


Viktor barely smiled at the message he’d helped her record, his knuckles as white as the paper he grasped in his hand. He took a deep breath and began to read.





“Clarice. This is Viktor. I know you’re home and you don’t really want to see me, but I need to talk to you. I’ll be over in five minutes.”


It took Clarice a good three minutes to open the door—an uncomfortably long time to Viktor who knew from experience that the longer he had to wait, the more upset she was. Finally the door opened a crack, and he could hear Clarice walking back into her apartment. He pushed the door open further and followed, swinging the door shut behind him.


Clarice’s living room was off to the left behind a small wall, a few steps away from the kitchen. Viktor took each step slowly, feeling the soft white carpet sink beneath his feet. She was sitting on the large grey couch in the living room, and Viktor took the opportunity to sit next to her. He grabbed her hand, despite her efforts to push him away.


“Clarice, please listen.” He choked out. He swallowed, unsure of where to begin. “I know I really shouldn’t start with a story about my ex-girlfriend,” he mumbled sheepishly, “but that’s kinda where it begins.” Clarice didn’t know the story of Victoria. How could she? Ex-girlfriends aren’t good conversation material when with the one you love.


“Essentially, we were going out, and we were really public about it, but she found it really hard. She didn’t like the paparazzi, and she kept getting in the tabloids for throwing what they called tantrums. We tried to stay together, but then I had to go overseas to film a movie for a year.” He leaned back on the couch. “I guess it was the combination of the long-distance relationship and the paparazzi constantly asking how the pressure is holding up and if she missed me dearly and all that emotional baloney they love so much. Maybe she just couldn’t handle it. She called me up one day and told me to break the news to the paparazzi. Like you said, the magazines forgot her within three months.


“It was okay, though, really. We had it coming anyway—we both had a lot of stuff in our lives and our relationship was just a bundle of stress.


“The thing is—” he paused, unsure of how to articulate his reasoning. Emotions weren’t the sort of thing he was good at explaining. “You’re special to me. And I don’t want to one day feel like I did then. That losing you would be okay. That it would make life better for both of us.” Did those ridiculously sincere yet cheesy words come out of his mouth? Viktor almost bit his tongue. It was like the dialogue of a Twilight movie!


Clarice looked taken aback. Her anger was melting, but only a little. “What’s your point?” Viktor took a deep breath.


“I thought about it these past few days, and I was ready to tell the world that we were going out. I figured it wouldn’t be a problem. I’m a singer, not an actor. I won’t have to worry about filming in New Zealand again.” He looked at her.


“But Alex wants me to try overseas markets. He says I could be the next Celine Dion.” He and Clarice both shuddered at the comparison.


“Clarice—”


“What do you want to do?” she asked, looking down at her fingers. “Are you asking me to wait for you until you come back or are we breaking up?” Viktor shook his head.


“I won’t be coming back. Not for a long time at any rate. Alex wants to enter the French market and then move to the Spanish and Latin American, eventually making my way across the world until I become a household name. The most famous non-Hollywood singer. No one’s ever tried it before, but that’s just how Alex likes it: completely impossible with fantastic benefits.” Viktor put his head in his hands.


“W-what does that mean? What about us?” Clarice’s voice shook a bit.


“If you want to break up, I’ll leave. If you don’t, I’ll try every trick in the book to get out of it. Personally,” he looked down at his hands. “I’d rather stay.”


Clarice sat silent for a long moment. “If I ask you to stay, what will that mean?”


“I’ll stay. And once that’s established, the world will know you’re my girlfriend.” She glanced at him sideways, disbelief in the lines of her mouth, but hope in the corners of her eyes. He grabbed her hand and tried to look as sincere as possible. “I promise.”


There was a long moment of silence.


“Please don’t go.”