Page 48 of Blue Velvet

She doesn’t talk back, and before she can object in any way, I close in on her, wrapping my arms around her to make sure I’m in full and complete control of her when I kneel down to unfasten the cuffs to free her from the chair. She struggles in my arms, but her efforts are half-hearted at best, confirming she has no real intention of trying to get away from me.

Because she knows she can’t. And, deep down, she doesn’t want to.

One of the cuffs is still locked around her left ankle when I pick her up to carry her over to the stairs leading to the basement. That’s when she starts fighting me. She’s struggling in my embrace, making it hard for me to keep my balance as I carry her across the living room. She’s small and doesn’t weigh very much, but she’s still a full-grown human being with a strong will and the vigor to match.

“No!” she shrieks. “Not back down there! Not yet! Please, let me stay up here for a little while longer. Please!”

I ignore her, only tightening my grip around her struggling body as I stagger down the stairs.

“Stop it!” I warn her, when she almost causes me to fall because of her silly attempts at fighting me off. “You’ll kill us both!”

“I don’t care!” she protests, and before I know it, I’m reminded that I failed to take specific precautions into account with her yet again.

Her teeth dig into my left shoulder. It’s bearable at first, but when she realizes this is not getting her anywhere, she intensifies the pressure on my skin, so much so that I’m sure she can taste blood.

I yell out, unable to fight my instincts as I let go of her. What happens next is something neither of us anticipated.

It’s one of those terrible moments that seem to happen in agonizing slow motion. She’s falling out of my arms, trying to stop her fall by grabbing for the railing on the side of the stairs. But there is no rail, only a flat wall.

I can see the expression on her face changing, overwritten by terror as she realizes she’s about to tumble down the stairs, and there is no way for her to catch her fall.

And just as her facial expression changes, so does mine.

Furious rage and shock turns to worry, as I see her toppling down the stairs.

“Ruby!” I cry out, reaching for her.

My hand misses her wrist by only inches, and I’m forced to witness a greater horror, watching her plummet head over heels down the steps. There’s nothing I can do but watch.

27

Ruby

He calledme by my name. He’s never done that before.

His voice still echoes in my head, that beautiful sound filling my heart as it fills my mind.

Ruby.

Ruby is my real name. I never considered taking an alias for my job. It’s a part of me, what makes me the person I am. Why would I take a different name?

Until now, he refused to call me by my name. He didn’t even want to hear it or know about it.

Those few seconds of free-falling seemed to stretch into an eternity. It seemed so long, in fact, that it allowed me enough time to envision what would happen to me once I landed at the bottom, the bones that would be broken, the possibility of having my head split open.

But it all faded instantly when he called out my name, and I saw him reaching out his hand in a failed attempt to save me from falling.

“Ruby!”

Nothing else mattered in that moment. Suddenly there’s no fear, my face fixated on his, seeing my name on his lips, but yet I doubted myself at the same time.

Did he really say it? Did he really call out my name? What does it mean?

A split second later, my mind is drawn back to reality, to me falling down the stairs. I helplessly flail about as I try to catch myself, stop the forward momentum of the fall, and swallow the sharp pain from my back hitting the wall, but I realize it won’t be as bad as I feared.

I’m lucky. The fact that I’m bouncing against the wall and trying to hold onto something that isn’t there, cushions my fall enough to allow me to take control, at least to some degree. I’m successful at managing to redirect my fall, no longer tumbling backwards but dropping forward, though I’m sure I’ve sprained my ankle in the process.

I land at the bottom of the stairs. My ankle is on fire, and the sensations coming from my thighs and calves confirm that my lower body will be a colorful rainbow of purples, black, and blue tomorrow. There’s a moment of complete silence, during which I sit on the floor, staring ahead in disbelief as I try to fathom what just happened.

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