Shameless

The ball was obviously a fantasy come true for Zascha. The Colonial mansion with its tropical décor and plush furnishings was the perfect setting - like something out of a storybook. She clung to my arm as we entered. Photos were taken, names announced, just like in the movies. I saw Monster and Ex gliding over the dance floor - I was a bit rustier than they were, but Zascha was an adept dancer - graceful and fluid. She could have made a broom look good. I got a mix of envious and confused looks. While I was a fixture on the docks, I was virtually unrecognizable without my shaggy beard and long hair. As for Zascha, Bobert had very deliberately steered clear of this level of society. We ended up seated next to consular officers, some of whom made strong effort to pry Zascha from me. But while they were a bit younger than I, Zascha refused to relinquish her grip on my arm.

We stayed until the last song played then we practically floated back to the boat - we even stopped for one final, barefoot dance on the beach under the full moon, to the sound of the waves.

That night there was a gentle knock on my cabin door. Zascha slipped in, almost silently. In the moonlight form the porthole,, I could see she wasn't wearing anything at all.

"Zascha, you don't have to do this for me."

She giggled softly "Shhhhh. I am doing this for me."

She had the softest, warmest lips. What started with gentleness quickly built to a desperate urgency for both of us. There were no crazy positions. No dramatic acrobatics. Not that the bed in the cabin would have been big enough for that. But we used every inch of that bed. We drifted off to sleep clinging together.

She was gone the next morning. Her new clothes neatly packed into a plastic bag, sitting on a shelf, as if waiting for her to return.

That evening started as a horror for me. I saw her and Bobert at The Reef. As I walked by, she cringed away from me. My heart stopped beating at all. Stone frozen.

Bobert caught it and gave a foul grin.

"Taught her a lesson or two? Good for you. She needs to know her place."

I wanted to beat him to death right there, I think I would have. But just at that instance, I caught a look from Zascha behind him - and she sent me a sly wink.

I realized why she did it of course. If Bobert realized how much we'd connected, he would never have tolerated me around them. But with him thinking I made her uncomfortable, he went out of his way to keep me around.

For the next two months, things were the same as they'd been before; except that my heart broke every time I saw Bobert with Zascha.

My hatred for him was building - I just couldn't understand why she would stay with him. Every time I ran into them, it hurt. I almost stopped going out at all. I couldn't go back to The Shack, not after the first time someone asked if I was going to bring Zascha back.

But if I quit going out, I felt like I'd be abandoning Zascha.

It was like that sore tooth you can't leave alone- you know it's going to hurt, but you just can't help it. I don't know how long I could have stood it before I fled or killed Bobert.

Before I snapped, everything skewed sideways.

I was staring at a bottle of rum just at sunset, after returning from a long rebuild, when I heard an odd sound. Somebody was trying to start Bobert's boat engine. Someone who obviously did not know what they were doing. It sounded like they hadn't turned on the fuel. Cranking and cranking, but not starting.

Bobert was an asshole, but he knew how to start a boat, and so did Zascha.

I grabbed a fish billy, my boat knife, and slipped out of my boat and across to theirs. The stairs were up, but the boat was still tied up on one end. If they did manage to get it started they would have serious problems. Idiots. I jumped from the dock and pulled myself over the gunnel. If someone was stealing the boat, my price for helping Bobert would be Zascha's freedom.

I slid across the mahogany decking and down the stairs. I could hear the murmer of voices down in the engine room as I turned into the main cabin.

And froze.

Bobert wasn't going to be cutting any deals, now or ever again. He was wired to the closet door. I very carefully did not focus on the red ruin that used to be a man. I nearly slipped in the tacky red tide on the floor.

My gorge rose into my throat as much from fear for Zascha as from nausea.

A low voice from the next cabin caught my attention - it was deep, growling and vicious. I followed it with club raised. A huge dark haired man with a collage of tattoos on his back was dragging Zascha, clothes shredded, and was forcing her onto the bed. Her impassive mask was in place, cornflower blue eyes mostly closed. He was uttering in what I assumed was Russian. I have no idea what he was saying, but it was hateful and dark.

I didn't stop moving, arcing my club down just behind his ear with every ounce of strength I had. I felt his skull give. He slumped over and I pulled him off of her. Her face was bruised, eyes almost swollen shut and her lovely lips were split and bleeding.

As I slid him to the floor, her eyes opened and she saw me. The mask fell away as I pulled her free and she clung to me for a long second.

She whispered into my ear "There are three more, they have guns. We have to run."

And we did, not stopping to grab anything.

My boat was too close - the first place they'd look - so we set off across the beach toward The Shack. We were over half way there when I looked back and saw the three figures racing across the starlit beach after us.

I practically threw her over the seawall and we lurched into The Shack. The place was pretty crowded and everyone stared at us; Zascha was damn near naked, battered and bloody. I was shirtless and covered in blood as well. They were stunned. Except Monster who simply glanced over his shoulder at us, registered our arrival and went back to sipping his drink.

I dragged Zascha through the room toward the bar and Pogo. Maybe I could hide her there.

"They're right behind us - they killed Bobert."

Pogo looked past me "And they have guns."

He was eerily calm.

I spun around to face the entrance. Three short-haired men, holding handguns, had followed us right in. They had caught up a lot faster than I thought.

I shoved Zascha behind me as they walked toward us, grinning - the one in the lead covering me and Zascha while the others kept an eye on the rest of the bar. Everyone was watching them intently. Except Monster who sat with his back to them, practically next to us, facing Ex. He was just studying his drink meditatively.

"We're just here for the whore and the asshole who killed Mitri"

He had a thick, almost movie-villain thick, Russian accent.

One of the men noticed Frank Rotuma and settled his gun at him - police uniforms are police uniforms everywhere. But Frank was never armed, and he held his hands up, fingers spread.

I didn't move as the grinning Russian came closer.

Frank looked up at the asshole that was centered on him.

He spoke in a measured tone, as if the words were getting heavier as he said them.

As if he were pronouncing a death sentence.

"Don't worry about me, boys. I'm off duty for the next eight hours."

I could see part of Ex's face. A very small, icy smile appeared.

In a hushed, cold, tone she whispered "Monster"

I've seen death - guys on the docks cut in half by cables or crushed by falling cargo. I stopped to help at a bus accident once. It was horrible and chaotic.

This was different.

I could see Monster's contemplative expression change and his mask fall away. An utterly emotionless, remorseless, Thing sat there. A horrible parody of a human.

He spun out of his chair, and in one graceless, liquid, effortless motion, he plucked the gun from the Russian's hand, tucked the gun barrel into his throat, pointed down to his heart, and pulled the trigger.

The other two were dead before they even registered the muffled thud as a shot. Monster simply stepped past the falling body and put a shot in the back of each one's neck, with the same peculiar downward angle.

As the last body fell, I caught a glimpse of Ex's face. A shining, bitter, pride was visible for a moment.

Monster's face remained expressionless as he ejected the clip and cleared the gun before dropping it on the last body.

He spoke one word in a sepulchral tone. "Clear."

I desperately didn't want to know what he was thinking, and for one chilling second I wondered what he actually saw through that clouded eye.

Then I felt Zascha'a hands gripping me from behind. I turned and collected her into my arms.

The Shack was utterly silent for a moment.

Loud Howard spoke. "Christ, Sergeant, if I'd have known you were going to take your time like that, I'd have fixed myself a cup of coffee. Almost fell asleep waiting for you."

His voice carried a ring of authority I'd never heard before.

Monster responded in his usual friendly voice, a voice I now knew was an act. "All due apologies Colonel. Had to wait until they closed up a bit to avoid making a mess. Didn't want to be banned from The Shack."

That explained the odd angle of the shots - he was trying not to make a mess.

Ex pivoted out of her seat and began working to pry Zascha away from me, scanning her injuries.

"We need a real exam, but she's in better shape than I thought."

She looked me over.

"No injuries on this one."

Pogo reached under the bar and pulled out a logo T-shirt and handed it to me to put on Zascha.

As soon as she pulled it on, she looked at me pleading. "My baby. My Kisa."

She explained as quickly as she could. Bobert had held her daughter at his house on their tiny island with a housekeeper and a security guard. That was why Zascha had never resisted him, why she'd never left. She did everything she had to do to save her baby.

Frank, grim faced and angry looked at us. "I'm still off duty, but I have a visit to make to that island."

Ex spoke up. "We'll come along."

So I took my boat out for the first time in a year and a half; she seemed to understand our urgency and ran like a dream. Frank knew which of the small islands was Bobert's and found it on the charts.

On the boat ride over, Zascha talked. Her husband had been a police officer in Saint Petersburg who had crossed the local branch of the Russian mafia. He had been murdered and she'd been kidnapped and shipped off as part of a human trafficking deal. She was seven months pregnant at the time, not the usual target, but her husband had really angered them. She was basically sold to Bobert. Or given as part of a trade, she wasn't sure of the details. Despite everything, Bobert had let her carry her baby to term. Because Bobert realized he could use the baby to control her completely. And so began her descent into a deeper hell than she was already in. She was allowed two weeks with her baby every month, but she had to be and do whatever Bobert wanted in exchange.

From what she'd overheard, the killers had come because Bobert had failed to deliver on a contract. They were the same people who had delivered her to him in the first place. It's a dangerous world and gun running is a risky business.

There was no resistance at the house - the housekeeper and security guard took one look at Frank and Monster and handed the two year old girl over with no argument. She was cute as a button and had her mother's cornflower blue eyes and golden hair.

Zascha scooped up Kisa and began to cry. It was the only time in all of this that I'd seen her shed a single real tear. With all the cruelty, abuse, and death, she'd never cried. Now her tears came in waves. I just stood there until Ex gave me a gentle push and I stumbled toward them. Zascha's tear streaked gaze settled on me and she was instantly in my arms with her baby.

By the time we got back to The Shack as the sun was coming up, I was carrying the Kisa, and Zascha was holding my arm with an iron grip.

Interestingly, the bodies were gone and Loud Howard and Pogo had just returned from a sudden fishing trip to the Deeps. Later we found the bodies, blood, bedding and mattresses were gone from Bobert's boat as well.

We couldn't be certain how much the housekeeper and guard really knew, but it didn't look like they knew much. Frank gave them 48 hours to be out of the islands forever. But they were looking at Monster when they agreed.

Zascha refused to leave my side.

Since Bobert had actually filed a marriage certificate, she now owned the boat and the little island. She promptly sold both. We were married pretty quickly - I tried to convince her to get a pre-nup, after all, she was pretty wealthy now, but she laughed in my face. She said I was too old to go out searching for a different woman, and I'd just have to live with her forever.

As if anyone could compete.

We have a small on-island house and a run a small fishing charter with three boats. Kisa is growing like a weed. Her little sister, Lily, is just starting to walk. Zascha insisted on the name.

Through all the hell Zascha went through, through all the humiliation and cruelty, Zascha's heart remained untouched. Because she was fighting for her daughter. She knew she could suffer any pain, any misery, for her daughter's sake.

For her daughter, she could be Shameless.

Her only moment of doubt had been when I accepted Bobert's offer to have her for two weeks, because in her own way she'd grown to trust me.

As broken and dysfunctional, as I was, I managed to be a better person for her. I ended up becoming the person she needed me to be.

Everyone here has to have a name, but people don't call her Shameless anymore.

They just call her what she so obviously is.

They call her Angel.

Post Production Comments: This was initially much darker. And, at least if I read it right, was kicked back for that reason. Rightfully so, I'll admit. I really, really didn't like Bobert and his end was much more graphic. And his mistreatment of Zascha was much worse. I think this version balances that much better without losing the impact.