Music Girl

Aravic pushed Sam right though a door and into one of the bedrooms. She could barely walk and toppled onto the bed. “You just going to leave me here?” she asked venomously.

“Of course not,” Aravic said shortly, opening the drawer of the bedside table and finding what he wanted; a roll of bandages, a syringe, and some Morphine X. He sighed, faced Sam, and asked the question. “Is that really Cynthia in there?”

“Positive,” she replied. Aravic’s stomach lurched unpleasantly, but there wasn’t a thing he could do. If he tried to stop the initiation, he would only end up dead and it would happen anyway.

He kneeled down in front of Sam and looked up into her beaten face. “What are they going to do to her?” she asked, her voice shaky.

“They’re going to –” Aravic stopped. He couldn’t bring himself to say it. Saying it would bring about a reality, a truly horrible reality. Aravic couldn’t believe he had been a part of this, yet he couldn’t walk away from it.

“Are they going to rape her?” Sam asked angrily, but strangely hollowly. All Aravic could do was swallow and nod.

“And you’re just letting them?!” Sam yelled suddenly, swinging her odd-pointed foot at him. He caught it by the ankle and she cried out in pain, the trace of a tear forming on the edges of her eyes. Aravic could tell it was broken.

“You’re going to need a hospital,” Aravic said quietly, adverting his eyes down to her foot.

“Answer me dammit! What has Cynthia ever done to you?”

“There’s nothing I can do!” Aravic burst out with sudden aggression.

“You always have a choice. And you’re choosing cowardice,” Sam spat distastefully.

“You want to know my options? Option One: Go along with the initiation, keep you out of harms’ way, and take Cynthia to a hospital later. Option Two: Go in there, try to stop it, get murdered, and then Cynthia gets raped anyways, and you too probably,” Aravic summarized heatedly.

“You could have just walked away,” Sam said reproachfully.

“I didn’t know they were going to be using Cynthia.”

“So if it wasn’t her, you wouldn’t be giving a damn? Or are you just pretending to care as some fruitless attempt to impress me?” Sam questioned ruthlessly.

“No, I –” But Aravic stopped. He didn’t know the answer to this question. Normally, he wouldn’t have given a damn. But this was different. Knowing what was going to happen made him sick. Was it because he had known Cynthia for a while, maybe called her a friend at one point? Or was he really just trying to impress Sam? Or maybe… there was some other reason. Could it be that he was changing? ‘No way,’ Aravic told himself, ‘I’m just feeling funny, that’s all.’

Sam had fallen silent now, sitting numbly on the aged bed. Aravic went to the bathroom to get a glass of water. Squatting down in front of her, he dipped some bandages in the water and began cleaning off her face. The blood from the knife wound had stopped boiling. Aravic wiped it away and gingerly touched it with his finger. She flinched away, but still didn’t say anything. When Aravic retrieved the syringe and Morphine X. Sam’s eyes flashed fire.

“What’s that for?” she asked edgily, eyes wide.

“I need to put you under,” Aravic replied, sticking the needle through the cap and sucking up some of the liquid.

“My ass you are!” Sam yelled aggressively. Aravic could hear her breathing slowly grow faster.

“Would you rather be raped?” Aravic asked coldly, holding up the syringe. When she didn’t say anything, he took her wrist firmly in his hand. Sam was shaking uncontrollably, her eyes and mouth closed so tightly he thought she might burst. Aravic slid the needle into a vein on her pale arm with difficulty because when the needle touched her skin she shuddered so violently Aravic thought she might break the needle. When he had finished injecting the Morphine X and pulled the needle out, Sam slumped forward onto his shoulder, completely unconscious. He laid her down on the bed and stashed everything back in the bedside table.

He went out through the bathroom into the kitchen, having no desire to go back into the office. Aravic grabbed a glass and searched the cabinets for what he wanted: alcohol. He pulled a big bottle of whiskey down and brought it back to the room. He uncorked it with Sam’s pocket knife and began to drink. He thought the usual loopy happiness would come quickly, but it never did. Instead, feelings of guilt grew so fast that before he knew it, Aravic was sobbing uncontrollably.

“I’m so sorry Sam,” he whispered hoarsely, “but I think I love you.”