Darla, Darling, Dearest

At least they hadn’t knocked her out. That was really all Darla could say about the situation that was positive. Her body ached from the tightness of the truck-rope, the fraying plastic fiber of it irritating every inch of flesh with the audacity to be both naked and bound. She was in a dairy barn, whose she couldn’t say (Darrow’s maybe?), hog tied on a folding chair next to a state-of-the-art industrial milker and tank. In the morning this room would be full of stinking cows lining up to be pumped dry so some kid in Topeka or Chicago or Kansas City or New York could eat cereal in about a week. The stink of the whole industrial sized herd never left these places. The florescent lights were both too bright and not enough to cover the facility. A single folding table and chair had been set up in front of her, made quaint by the vastness of the space needed to corral the whole herd.

She heard the door open and shut. Great. Now they had her under guard, or maybe a person she was on a first name basis was going to LARP as an interrogator. She raised her head to see Mike. Mike in full kit, that is. As he strode forward he jangled in the way only a soldier from the most decent empire to ever grace the face of this earth could.

Her jaw still hurt. The huge bruise forming there would probably make it even harder for him to realize that not three days ago this guy had considered her his best friend. At least they had sloppy applied bandaids to the massive scrape on her left shoulder. She looked up at her friend turned captor with a mixture of anger and defeat.

There was a knife hanging off his plate carrier. Mike gripped it, let it go, gripped it again. He began to pace. Back and forth and back. Grip, let go, Grip. Finally, after what seemed like a long deliberation he drew it. He held it up to the shitty dim old fluorescent in the room so Darla could inspect it. It gleamed on its edges, but was so pitted in places it was clear multiple sharpenings had not been enough to bring it back to it’s former full glory.

“This is my grandpa’s knife.” He spun it around his pointer finger and caught it, Darla was immediately reminded of a medieval entertainer doing blade tricks. “According to him, he killed a Nazi with it.” He ran a finger up the flat of the blade to the point. “Died when I was five, never got much about him.” Darla watched hypnotized as he drew the tip along his finger. Then stopped. “But I remember his eyes. Dead inside with the guilt of gutting a man in the heat of war.” Mike locked eyes with Darla. “Right now I’m mad enough at you, that I’m considering doing that to myself.”

Darla shivered. The knotted handkerchief was staring to make her jaw ache. The fiber of it coated her mouth and tongue, tasting the deep flavors of sweat and dye infused within. She struggled with it desperate to get it out- to make Mike realize their mistake- but it telegraphed things all wrong.

Mike slammed the dagger into the table and then laughed manically “Good! You’re scared.” He leaned forward enough that she could smell the booze on his breath as he stage whispered “You should be.” He leaned back. “Unless we get Danny out of you and your fucking cults clutches, you’re about as dead as a dormouse.” There was a brief silence as Mike stared into the knife he had lodged in Darrow's(?) folding table. Darla watched him still searching for recognition in his eyes.

“You know,” Mike started up again in a much lower tone “we take care of our own here.” Darla had to fight herself to not roll her eyes. “Cuz, unlike you goddamn city fuckers, no one else will.” He seemed… less angry, at her at least. “The government, the military, the banks, the colleges, hell even the charities. NO one.” She saw the pain written on his face as he shuddered violently seemingly in memory of something awful. “We had to do it on our own!” Darla’s mind rushed, trying desperately to remember what could have possibly set off Mike in this way. It hit her seconds before he screamed it in her face: “Two of my brothers died for this country!” The shuddering intensified, and Darla realized he was holding back tears as he slumped back into his own chair. “And for what?” His voice cracked as he covered his face. “James was blown up by an IED protecting the freedom of fuckers who didn’t want it.” Darla was Vaguely aware that Lavender might have issues with that framing, but she wasn’t certain what they would be. “And Ken died from cancer he got at K2!” The dam finally burst and his tears rained through his strong hands, wetting his scraggly beard.

Darla’s eyes softened at the sight. Mike would get like this every once in a while. There was a certain level of drunkenness that he had to stay at (not too sloshed, but down enough to let himself cry) for a long enough time (about an hour), and he’d start crying over his dead brothers. It usually took him several hours to recover, and she was usually there to comfort him. She realized with a start that this was why Mike had freaked out so hard about her disappearance. He needed her support, she had been the only guy he had felt comfortable being vulnerable to. She wondered how it’d play when he realized what a massive irony that was.

If only Darla could get a word in edgewise. She strained her tongue against her makeshift gag tasting the awful mix of cotton and use. She tried tearing through the shitty fabric with her canines. Just as her teeth were finding purchase on the hankie, Mike looked up from his man-cry. “Do you even know what K2 was? Or the burn pits? You're a fucking civilian.”

Yeah, and you’re a guy who knows exactly the optimum tire pressure on a APC, how to load and unload MREs, and can direct Colombian private military contractors (just not the type that shoot people). Fuck off Mike. You can’t fool Darla, you’ve told her all about how boring and stupid and unheroic your tour was.

“You couldn’t know the pain and suffering the military dishes out indiscriminately. You fucking big city fucks get told nothing so you can sleep at night, while out here we are forced to guard you and die because there. Isn’t. Anything. Else. Nothing! My job running tractors all day gets me 10 dollars an hour and the moment harvest seasons over I have nothing.”

Darla had had enough. She was sick of being called a city kid. Sick of being told the problems that she knew about all too well. She wanted to speak clearly to her friend, to let him know she was okay, to let him realize who his enemies really were.

She screamed.

The knot was ever so slightly smaller than how far she could open her jaw. The sound got out as her mandible ached from over extension. She tried to shape the raw vocalization into something approximating ‘Mike’. It was a last ditch effort. Maybe she could stop Mikes monologue and get him to realize who she was. Ok it was a long shot, but damn if she wasn’t going to try.

Mike froze as the scream died in her throat. It was a good sign, probably... maybe… ok she honestly had no idea. Before she could second guess herself too much, the scratchiness of the gag caught up with her and she was wracked with a coughing fit. Mike just watched her frowning.

She felt like she was running out of air from coughing. Every time she breathed in through her nose it would just be blown out into the knot. Of course, screaming her lungs out hadn’t helped either. She was hyperventilating through her nose, and began to feel a bit woozy. By the time Mike finally broke down to help, her her vision was getting spotty. His whiskey-tainted breath quickly brought her back. She wrinkled her nose as he cut the hankie off her face. She thanked any higher beings that might exist that he used his EDC survival knife, not his grandfathers bayonet.

He glared at her as he worked. “Being gagged too much for you?” He paused for a second as if realizing that maybe that was too nice for an interrogation, especially after crying in front of them. He wet his lips before hesitantly adding “Bitch.”

As the gag fell away Darla felt the air finally fill her lungs taking greedy gasps, and rolling her now tense jaw. She looked up at the man still looming over her, adrenaline still coursing through her veins.

“Where’s Danny?” Mike asked. His voice did little to hide the rage and pain and sadness and fear associated with maybe losing a friend. “Where’s my fucking bro!” He screamed in her face.

There are three responses to fear that the human mind seems capable of: Fight, which means doing whatever you can to destroy the thing, Flight which is basically just running away, and the runt of the litter- Freeze, where you do nothing and can’t move. For most animals, it acts like an algorithm: Run and hide, if you can’t fight, and if you lose freeze so the predator doesn’t go after other members of your herd/family group/what have you. For humans, who evolved to deal with more crises than just a tiger stalking you through the jungle, we kinda get our subconscious to choose. Unfortunately if you spend years of your life hating yourself, your subconscious internalizes this and starts picking the worst option.

Darla froze.

Mike’s heavy breathing was the only sound besides the hum of the fluorescence. All she could smell was the alcohol clogging up her nose at this point. Oh god why was the truck rope so itchy fuck fuck fuck. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. All she could do was look her ‘friend’ dead in the eyes as she forced herself to breathe normally.

She felt so trapped.

A rabbit in a snare as the farmer approaches. Resigned not to struggle, not to make a fuss.

How dare her unconscious betray her like this! She was so close to getting Mike to understand. All she had to do was open her mouth. All she had to do was speak.

And yet, she just sat like a goldfish. Jaw working, eyes wide, saying nothing, doing nothing.

Mike spit off to the side. “Nothing but a brainwashed cultist, huh?” He began to pace back and forth. “Probably into freaky sex shit too much that you’d die for your leader, right?” He paused, drawing himself up. “You know we are Christians here.” He laughed to himself. “I can’t commit to that.” His face darkened. “Not enough loving thy neighbor.”

Darla twitched as she tried her damnedest to speak, to say anything past the mental block. Instead her mouth hung slightly open as her breathing quickened to a running pace. She felt a tear dribble out of her eye.

“Aww you’re cryin’.” Mike said in a mocking tone. “Scared of what a big mean white man’ll do to you, you poor helpless waif?” He spoke bitterly. “Don’t be.” He looked off to the side like it hurt him to be seen that way. “I’m not gonna fucking rape you; I might slap you around a bit, but I sure as shit ain’t gonna kill you.” He looked like he was going to cry again “My mom raised me right. I’d never do anything like that.” Except join a war to kill and die for the State.

Darla knew he had kinda turned over a new leaf in finding war nauseating, but she was fairly certain he still believed in righteous violence. If Danny never emerged would she end up in one of Threshman's newly plowed fields? His eyes locked with hers.

“It’s just hostage fer hostage, simple as that.” Mike explained, as if trying to convince himself not to do anything to her in the lead up to negotiation.

“Fuck.” Darla muttered to herself.

“Yeah.” Mike acknowledged her.

“Too bad I’m having trouble speaking, or I’d give you a piece of my mind.” Darla whispered angrily.

“Well, y’did just tell me that.” Mike responded bemusedly.

Darla realized a little too late that she could talk again. She rushed through her mind trying to come up with a suitable way to prove to Mike that she was Danny. “I… uh.. Fuck… Mike! It’s me! I got ‘Setts, remember??” Not good enough. Mike just stared blinkeredly at her. “I called you two nights ago before I disappeared! Told you I probably had ‘Setts, you had been out joyriding with Raymond, remember?”

Mike’s face melted into a frown as he clearly tried to remember something. He looked to the side in full glare, trying to see through the concrete floor as its no-slip coating reflected the light in weird ways. Then his eyes widened and he raised his head. He turned to look back at Darla.

Mike bit his cheek, maybe to check if he was dreaming, maybe just a nervous tick. He began to pace again, stealing looks at Darla while starting to tremble again. “Shit, shit-shit-shit.” He was clearly distressed. “Fuck-shit-I’m sorry...” He haltingly began to walk toward Darla hand outstretched in placation, as Darla watched unmoving. “I’m sorry-I’m sorry- I thought it was a dream-I’m sorry-I’m sorry-Jesus fucking Christ-I’m sorry.” Tears were back on his face. “I didn’t know why you had your phone, God I’m such a piece of shit. FUCK I’m sorry.”

Darla spat to the side. It was hard to accept, hard to forgive. She stared at him with dead eyes. The eyes you give when you just got hit by some shitkicker to make ‘em back the fuck off. Mike wiped the tears from his eyes, and looked at her for the first time. “Jesus you look like your Mom, I’m a fucking Idiot.”

Darla fought down a smirk. She wanted him to know how bad he had hurt her. She wanted him to feel the pain of a friend turned completely against you. The queer rage of a prime wasted hiding. But she knew Mike, she needed him. She had to swallow her pride. Dignity was a luxury few Gimmes could afford. Take the high road, Darla. “Yeah, but we all are sometimes. Big misunderstanding, everyone gets hurt, you know how it is.” Darla felt a twinge of sadness over not being able to tear Mike a new one. She knew she could, but she needed everyone she could have on her side. The man could keep his pride, even if it was at the expense of hers.

Mike smiled “You don’t have to put on kid gloves with me, dude. I’d be pissed too if I got ‘Setts and then my best friend tried to ransom me for myself.”

Darla laughed “You know me too well man, how on earth did you figure out I was faking nice?” She let her expression darken “Now untie me motherfucker.”

“Oh! Yeah, shit.” Mike hopped to as he began sawing into the truck rope.

“Where’s Raymond?” Darla had been wondering about it since Mike had returned, might as well ask. The shift in tone led to both of them not noticing that the door had once again open and shut.

“Oh, uh...” Mike began in a low tone as his drunken fingers worked the tight black and orange cord. “He... he went to get Darrow, he’s the one that asked us to bring you here. Fabien was against kidnapping so its just us T-”

The bang echoed across the concrete barn. Even with the size of the place, the hardness of its surfaces caused the sound physically hurt, like fingers jabbed directly into her eardrums. The sound deafened her until she could only hear her tinnitus.

And there was Lavender holding her 9mm. Ear protection on, standing with her gun barrel down to avoid flagging. She looked like a tightly wound spring, radiating pure menace.

Darla could barely register what was happening when Mike began clutching his shoulder. His fall was thankfully broken by Darla’s lap. Darla was stunned as her lap began to dampen while her erstwhile romantic interest stood triumphantly over her friend.

“Wha- What the fuck

Lavender!” Darla was eventually able to get out. She felt so many things at the same time. At least she hoped that’s what she said, as she couldn’t hear herself.

Lavender looked confused. She gestured broadly as if to say “The guy kidnapped you?” and “You’re welcome?” She smirked.

“Did you notice that he was fucking untying me?” Darla shouted incredulously. “This guy is my friend, Lavender.” She felt like she was on the verge of hearing again. “You need to tourniquet him now.”

She watched in horrified silence as Mike twitched meekly trying to stop the bleeding while suffering the pain of having a bullet take a bite out of ones forearm. Looking back at Lavender she saw only contempt. The tinnitus seemed to be thinning enough to hear.

Only for her to be subject to a tirade. “Oh sure. I bet he was so sorry after fuckin’ stealin’ y’away from me! “ Lavender shouted waving her side arm wildly. “I’m sure he’s a totally reasonable militia chud, who totally wont fuckin’ shoot you in t’back when he finds out you’re a trans woman.”

Darla felt herself tearing up. “Jesus.” She shook her self refusing to make eye contact with Lavender. Still having to shout to hear herself, she launched trembling into a rant of her own. “This is your fucking problem.” Lavender tilted her head. “You always fucking act like you know Twin Crossings, even though you’ve never actually met anyone here.” Lavender grimaced, but then set to pulling Mike off and checking his wounds, keeping pressure on the shot area. “You grew up in a goddamn exurb of a major city… This?” Darla nodded her head to the side manically, indicating her surroundings. “This is the middle of goddamn nowhere.” She looked down. “Every exurb is crazy in the same way, every nowhereville rots differently.”

Lavender said nothing as she cut through Mike’s bloody BDU. Thankfully Darla had called right, and Lavender, like every responsible gun owner had a trauma bag as part of her Everyday Carry. She pulled quick-clot gauze from a little plastic pack that seemed to have been clipped in her bra holstler, and began applying it to the still bloody wound. She muttered just at the edge of Darla’s still damaged hearing. “How the fuck do you know Dostoevsky?”

Darla frowned, the tears dribbling down her face as she fought down sobs. Everyone fucking knows that Tolstoy quote you bitch. She bit it back- She had to get Lavender on her side of this. “Mike’s a good guy. He just got snookered by Darrow.”

“If he’s stupid enough to not put two and two together then fuck him.” Lavender spat as she got up and began to work on Darla’s rope where Mike had left off.

Darla couldn’t hold herself back anymore. She let out an ugly wail, entreating Lavender to compassion. “He fucking apologized! And was untying me. Can’t we at least take him to a hospital?” Darla shook violently as as the rope began to fall away.

“No babe let me remind you that he” Lavender, done cutting Darla’s bonds leaned back and began enumerating on her fingers “1. called us dykes, which may I remind you is a slur, 2. punched your goddamn lights out, and 3. fuckin’ kidnapped you!!” She huffed. “If I hadn’t read all the data provin’ Stockholm Syndrome was fake I would be accusin’ you of it.”

Darla was cold as she shook herself from the rope. Not bothering to stretch to get feeling back into her extremities, she rushed to Mikes side. “He thought we were a cult who just kidnapped the only friend who actually listened to his problems.” She dropped to one knee, checking Lavenders work- secure, and his pulse- weak. He probably lost enough blood to need a transfusion. “He just wanted to ransom me for me.” Thankfully he was breathing fine, probably just passed out from the pain.

Lavender laughed, Shocking Darla out of her rebuttal. “Well from where I’m standin’, y’got two options-” She pointed at Mike “Y’can call 911 an’ stand by Mr. Homophobic Beardo, while hoping Darrow doesn’t catch you in the hour it takes for the ambulance to get all the way out here. Since, you know, we’re absolutely in that fucks barn. I won’t be stickin’ around for it. Not gonna risk a gunfight over righteous gay violence.” She then jerked her thumb at herself. “Or you can come back to Triangle with me, and we can fucking sleep. Its like 3 am.”

Darla felt trapped, a rat in a cage rushing from side to side searching for an exit she knew wasn't there. She rubbed her eyes puffy from crying and looked at Mike. He was sleeping peacefully enough, and it looked as if the quick-clot took. She tried her best to estimate the amount of blood on the concrete floor of the barn- half a pint? Two? The difference would be critical to how fast he needed to go to the hospital. She winced and looked back at Lavender, standing confidently with her revolver pointed down. Darla was beginning to understand Clair’s warning about Lavender- she was definitely mid-level unhinged. The girl was starting to regret how much she had fallen for her.

“He needs medical attention.” Darla spoke plainly. “You can’t just shoot a guy and expect it to be okay.”

“Shouldn’ta kidnapped you then.” Lavender stuck her tongue out. Did… did she think Darla was flirting?

This was the first time she had had to stick up for herself against Lavender, and God it was hard. Not as hard as telling her disabled vet Pop to stop being homophobic, but it was bad. Her hands started shaking and she felt the tears welling in her eyes. Was Lavender really ready to let Mike die to blood loss? It felt to her like the blue fluorescents had dimmed to red and Lavender towered over her like a personification of queer vengeance reaching out with one hand and holding a gun in the other while her clothes billowed around her like a stained glass painting.

Darla was able to choke out, “We’re taking him back to the Ecovillage,” attempting to overpower Lavender’s aura of supreme authority. “He needs help, and if he forgives you, he’ll speak for us to the rest of the townies.”

Lavender frowned and looked into Darla’s pleading eyes. “Fine.” She grinned in her patented predatory way, and Darla’s heart sank. “He kidnaps us? Fine. We kidnap him back.”