Chapter 119: 119 Cash House Phone, Part Two

Two weeks later James brought her a dress, a tiny slip of a thing, covered in iridescent sequins. He threw it in front of her like he was a dog bringing her a mouse he'd killed as a gift.

"What is this for?" she asked.

"It's a gift."

"What is this for?" she repeated, voice flat.

"You will come to a party with us, as part of our family. For some reason I need to prove that you're not dead. I don't understand why anyone would assume you were. Be photographed in this and people will stop bothering me."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "In this? This little scrap of fabric? People will think I'm your secret bit on the side that you're trying to show off. Think of the optics, James. Think of your wife's feelings when she sees me in this."

He threw his hands up. "What else can you wear? I don't understand why all you stupid women care so much about fashion."

She pushed the dress to the side, considering. "It's like a language. Your suits say one thing to the investors. This dress would say another. Bring me something that says I'm your precious family member. Something knee-length with sleeves. One of my mother's old dresses, if you haven't thrown them out. My father kept them in the archive room."

His eyes lit up with a manic fire. "Yes, that's it. You're so clever. I'll get that for you."

He grabbed her face and kissed her forehead. It took everything she had not to flinch.

"I am clever," she said, and knew it wasn't clever enough.

*

He brought her entire boxes of things in unsorted plastic rolling storage. She opened the first one and it smelled like mothballs. The clothing within was luxurious, beautiful. It wasn't just her mother's old stuff, either.

Angharad lifted out a black velvet blazer, the fabric soft under her hands, and checked it over. There was a slight split and fray at the shoulder seams, not that it would have fit her anyway. And on the care instructions, Moshe's name was printed in red letters. She folded it neatly on the bed.

The next item she lifted out was an old wedding dress, yellowing with age. She stood up with it to see it at its full length. It was ornate with lace but smaller and shorter than she'd expected, with a scalloped hem. She held it at arms length and realised she'd seen it before in pictures of her great-grandmother's second wedding. To think it had been cherished for so long.

Most of what remained in the box was her mother's old things. Angharad hadn't realised before how many clothes she must have had.

"People definitely had a lot of stuff back then," she said to herself, carefully picking things out and refolding them on the bed.

Multiple black cocktail dresses, creased with time; a beige thing with tons of tulle; a sequined skirt; a see-through floral thing in badly weathered polyester. One thing after another until she found a relatively plain gold lurex dress with no fussy prints or shaping, just a long-sleeved, high-collared number that flared out slightly below the knees. She crushed it in her hands and tried not to cry.

She didn't want to wear it because of the optics. She wanted to wear it because it was beautiful, and her mother's, and she would never get another chance.

Everything else went carefully back where it belonged.

Another box had her mother's old make up. It smelled like early childhood. What little Angharad remembered of her mother was her smelling like that setting powder and that perfume. The perfume she didn't open, but the powdered make up items she looked at. Undoubtedly expired, yet Angharad was willing to risk using them. It wasn't like she had any better options, and nothing about her situation was healthy, anyway.

There were lipsticks in a clear plastic pouch. Just a small selection, but peacock bright – a wild orchid pink, two tubes of peach, a vibrant blood red and even a reptilian green. She closed the tubes and put them back, too afraid to use them.

But the eyeshadow she could use, along with the old powdered blush.

She put everything she planned to use on the in-built shelf where a TV monitor once must have been, and everything else went back where it belonged in storage. It was enough to get to see the beautiful things her father had hoarded and cared for, the memories he'd tried to preserve.

*

Her reflection in the golden, mirrored doors looked sleek as she walked into the party. Sophisticated, mature, in charge. James grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her close.

"Don't ruin this for me," he hissed in her ear.

He gripped her arm so hard she was sure it would bruise. His wife, on his other side, said nothing.

He paraded them around. Every time she opened her mouth to speak her squeezed her arm and smiled like a snake ready to strike. The people at the party didn't care that she looked terrified. One of the guests looked suspiciously like a European dictator. Several people by the bar moved like they were armed.

What have you gotten us into? she wondered.

A shot rang out from above and hit someone in the room. James pulled her down to the ground as he tried to hide underneath a table.

Angharad's eyes tracked from the fallen body to the upper level window she was sure the shot came from. A figure moved with its rifle behind the blurry glass. She couldn't see that person's face but she was pretty sure she recognised her body language. It was the slight bounce to the step that gave it away.

In the chaos Angharad slipped away from James' grip. She ran upstairs, ducked through endless rooms, searching for her friend.

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Finally she could see her through a fish tank wall. No door to walk through and touch her but she could hear her voice, muffled through a grate.

"Is that you?" Freya asked.

"I won't ask why your country needs you to assassinate foreign dignitaries," Angharad said.

"I have to go before they catch me."

"Please," Angharad said, not ashamed of how frantic she sounded. "Come back and rescue me as soon as you can."

Someone dragged Freya's blurry figure away, a tall figure in a familiar uniform coat. Angharad slumped to the floor. James, out of breath and pathetic, found her before she could run away.

Downstairs he dragged her, and she stumbled to follow his long legs and excess speed.

Police weren't there yet, but a fashion journalist stepped in their path as soon as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Did you see anything?" the reporter asked. Ambitious, Angharad liked that.

"She saw nothing," James said.

"I was asking her."

"She didn't see anything you need to know about," he said.

Angharad made herself look as scared and small as she could. Hunched her shoulders over in a protective pose, widened her eyes, and turned her voice soft and shaky as she said, "Please don't hurt me again."

James, reckless in anger, dragged her out of the building before her performance could go on long.

*

He threw her into the car and drove her somewhere different, somewhere upstate. He wasn't any more gentle when he locked her in a room.

There was no food for days, and then he let her out only when she was tired, hungry, helpless. He had a group of guards following him. They led her to a dining hall. His wife was there, her blonde hair stiff with hairspray, wearing that strappy dress James had tried to force on Angharad. His children sat at the table, their faces contorted into smug snarls. A robot from the California office hovered behind the table, relentlessly cleaning the floor.

The guards pushed her into a chair.

"Eat," James said. "We're going to eat as a family."

There was meat and cheese lasagne on the plate in front of her. A deliberate insult. The scent of garlic was so strong it made her dizzy.

"I can't eat this," she said.

"Eat," he said.

Nobody else spoke.

Her head wobbled, heavy with hunger. All she could think, looking at the food in front of her, was of the food in Zapville, every bit of disgusting slop full of mysterious ingredients she couldn't eat. The way she'd thrown up for weeks until Jin had found her something bland that wouldn't set off her newly discovered garlic allergy.

And then all she could think of was the smell of vomit, and she leaned over and threw up on the plate, unable to help herself.

"Eat it," James insisted.

Angharad wiped her face with shaking hands. "I can't eat that."

He flicked his eyes at the guard behind her and then her face was shoved into the plate, and she was held down until there was meat sauce in her eyelashes and vomit in her hair.

She tried to push herself up and got shoved down again, until the plate slipped off the table and her body hit the floor.

"Don't do this," she said. "Don't do this in front of your children."

James waved his hands and the guards dragged her away. They hosed her down in the garden and then locked her in a different room than she'd been in before.

Angharad clutched at her chest and started to cry. He's going to kill me, she thought, and didn't know how to stop it.

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