Epilogue:
The Dark Duet
CJ Roberts
For Caleb’s Kittens
And their Tomcat
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EPILOGUE
There was only one thing the void wanted. Greedily tearing me apart, it asked for Livvie. It wanted my hopes, my dreams. It wanted my memories of her face. It wanted the laughter we had shared. “Mine,” the void had decreed. Only Livvie could make me whole, and as soon as I had realized it, I couldn’t stop looking for her. -- Caleb
CHAPTER ONE
I’m writing this because you begged. You know how I love the begging. In fact, you probably know too many things and know them far too well.
It’s been a long time since Captive in the Dark; today is Friday, February 8th, 2013. In May it will have been four years since I sat in a tinted sedan and contemplated kidnapping Livvie. I’m twenty-nine now and I finally know it for a fact. Sometimes I wish I didn’t because I have to face turning thirty in August. Livvie is eight years my junior, but you wouldn’t know it by the way she talks to me sometimes (I think she just likes getting a spanking). Livvie and I have changed considerably from the people you read about. However, because you begged so nicely, I will endeavor to tell you the story you want to hear.
Before I move on, a word about names. They were very important in Livvie’s books and it’s worth mentioning. Shakespeare asked, “What is in a name?” I can tell you—a whole hell of a lot.
Livvie is now named Sophia. She changed her name when she entered the witness protection program in the United States in exchange for her testimony against her kidnapper and rapist (that’s me).
However, you know her as Livvie and so I’ll continue to call her that for your benefit, but of course, that would beg the question: Who am I?
Am I Caleb?
Am I James?
I’ve often asked myself this very thing and have always come up with a different answer. Perhaps the only truthful answer is, “I am both.”
Caleb will always be a part of me—probably the largest part. I want to be James.
James is a 29-year-old from Oregon. He was raised by his mother and always wondered about his father. He grew up with respect for women but also a need to display his masculinity to make up for his lack of a father. He went to college but took time off before grad school to go and see the world. He met Sophia at The Paseo de Colon and fell instantly in love.
James never met anyone named Livvie. He never hurt her.
We know different. We know the truth. So, for the purposes of this story you begged me to tell—I am Caleb.
I am the man who kidnapped Livvie. I am the man who held her in a dark room for weeks. I’m the one who tied her to a bedpost and beat her. I’m the one who nearly sold her into sexual slavery. But, most importantly, I am the man she loves.
She loves me. It’s quite sick, isn’t it?
Of course, there’s more to our story than can be surmised in a few short sentences, but I’m at a loss for justifying my behavior back then. I assume if you’re reading this, I don’t need to make those justifications. You’ve already made your own.
You’re reading this because you want to know about the rest of the story. You want to know what happened that warm summer night in September of 2010, the night I met Livvie at The Paseo. It was the night my life changed all over again.
It didn’t happen exactly as Livvie said. She’s been very kind to me in the retelling of our story. The truth is far more… complicated.
Livvie would have you believe we kissed and it was all that needed to be said.
I wish it had been so simple. The part about the kiss is true. She kissed me. It had been a year since we touched. A year since I’d watched her walk away. An entire year since she killed for me and I repaid her by dropping her off at the Mexican border covered in blood. She kissed me and my head did swim. I can tell you unabashedly, it was probably the happiest I’d ever been before.
Then she slapped me. Hard. I think my head vibrated.
I remember holding my face together and thinking, “I’m going to jail now.”
“How could you?” Livvie asked. I could hear the pain in her voice and it gutted me.
I believed she’d moved on. She’d made a life and I’d come along one last time to fuck it up. It was the minute that would never end. In that single minute, I replayed Livvie’s and my time together in my mind and I berated myself for ever thinking she could forgive me for the things I’d done.
“I won’t run, Livvie. I’ll let them take me and you’ll never see me again.” I couldn’t meet her eyes. I’d been dreaming of her for so long, imagining her face smiling at me. I couldn’t bear seeing her disgust toward me. I didn’t want to remember her that way.
Slowly, the longest minute of my life ticked away. I couldn’t hear any sirens; there weren’t any men slamming me to the ground and putting me in handcuffs. It was strange.
“Never see you again? How stupid could you be? You can’t just walk into my life and expect to leave me again. I won’t let you, Caleb. Not this time.”
And if you can believe it… she slapped me again.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Stop hitting me!” Livvie was a blur. She hit me so hard my damn eyes were watering (I was not crying—eyes water. I think we all know I’m a badass and I don’t cry). After I cleared my eyes, I could see the anger in hers, the hurt… but also her longing. She longed for me. I knew it only because I could recognize her face as a mirror of my own.
“How could you leave me, Caleb? I thought… I thought you were dead,” she cried. She wrapped her arms around my waist and held me tight. It felt so good to have her in my arms again, I couldn’t think of anything but the feel of her against me.
“I’m sorry, Livvie. I’m so sorry,” I whispered into her hair. I couldn’t believe I was with her again. I can’t even describe it to you. Suffice to say, if I’d died in that moment, I’d have been fine with it.
We stood there for a long time. She held on to me. I held on to her. We said things with our silence we couldn’t put into words. I suppose that’s what she meant by, “it was all that needed to be said.”
I felt all the things I could only have felt with Livvie: hollow, and simultaneously, full to bursting.
“I’ve missed you, Livvie. I’ve missed you like you wouldn’t believe.”
I don’t know how long we stood there holding one another as tourists passed us by. We were simply another couple, enjoying the warm evening together. No one knew who we were or what we had been through to get to that moment. However, even in that elegantly prolonged circumstance, I knew it couldn’t last forever. I had many things to say to Livvie. I was afraid of the things she might have to say to me.
I felt her shaking in my arms, her shoulders quaking against my chest, and I knew she was crying. I didn’t hold it against her. She was more than entitled to her tears. I, unfortunately, couldn’t express myself in quite the same way. So much had happened to me in my life. I’d cried all the tears I had in me to weep. All I could offer was strength. I could be strong for her. I could hold her, rock her, and shield her from the dozens of eyes around us.