Once I’m relatively clean, I reach for a pile of gray towels stacked beside the bathtub. Somebody has laid a gray bath mat over the dirt beside the bathtub - how thoughtful. I clamber out of the tub, as well as I can, groaning when I twist my body the wrong way. Sharp pain blooms where I know my IUD is trying to kill me, partially dislodged thanks to the psycho on the other side of the door. I’m momentarily engulfed by the violent recollection of him trying to pull it out of my unrelenting body in the first days of our captivity. Fuck.
I watch in horror as a thin thread of blood makes its way down the inside of my scrubbed-clean thigh, quickly turning into a large thread, and then a river that starts to drip down over my ankle and stain the bath mat.
Pull yourself together, I tell myself. Rome was shot. You’re worrying about the tiniest amount of blood in comparison.
It’s a lie, but one I have to tell myself if I’m going to focus on the task at hand: getting out of here alive.
I look around the tiny room, searching for a weapon of some kind. There are no handles on the taps, just two brass fittings where the taps should be. It’d probably do some serious damage if I could throw this guy onto one of the metal pipe ends that stick out of the wall, but I can barely lift my own arms right now, let alone a two-hundred-pound dude with a gun and a knife.
I wrap the threadbare towel around me, shivering like crazy. There are no clothes in here, nothing else to do. I walk across the dirt floor gingerly, trying to move as little as possible in case this dislodged IUD decides to kill me any faster than it already is. With shaking hands, I open the door that separates the bathroom space from the rest of this delightful little torture chamber I now call home. I don’t know what I’m expecting as I cross the threshold - a welcome party, maybe a couple of attack dogs waiting to tear me apart. What I see is a new king-sized mattress where the stained one was laying, just a few minutes ago, this one still wrapped in plastic. Sitting on top of it, two neatly folded piles of clothes, the tags still attached. I select a plain black t-shirt and another black skirt from the pile of clothes intended for me, not missing the fact that there are no pants options for me. As I pull the clothes onto my still damp body, I look around the bare room. In this entire horrid little space, there’s not a speck of blood remaining - the whole room has been efficiently disinfected. Below the pungent stench of bleach, though, I can still smell the blood.
It’s virtually impossible to get rid of that much blood and not have some linger.
On the table where I was raped, now sparkling clean, sits a brown paper bag heaving with food. Without really thinking, I beeline for it, pulling the paper bag open as the smell of fried chicken hits me in the face.
Better than the smell of blood. I’ll take it. Especially when whoever has me trapped here went to the trouble to pick up my favorite takeout. Coincidence? Probably. I’m too hungry to think properly. There’s only one thought that pulses through my addled brain: Where is Rome?
I glance up at the cameras positioned in the corners of the room. They stare back, mocking me. I want to be stubborn and refuse to eat, but I’m too far gone for that. We - me, my captor, and the cameras - already know I’m going to fold.
Beside the food sits a bottle of water, the seal already broken. Drugged. Of course, but then the food probably is, as well. I start to cry as I pick up the water bottle. I’m so hungry. So thirsty. So fucking scared that Rome is already dead.
I contemplate my next move. Do I eat the food and leave the water? Is everything drugged? Is nothing drugged, and I’m just hallucinating? Maybe I did die in the bathtub and I’ve just stepped into the afterlife, where they serve endless bags of fried chicken burgers and curly fries in tiny prison cells in hell.
Fuck it. If whoever has me wants to drug me, let’s hope they put in enough to fucking kill me. I snatch up the bag and the bottle of water, taking it over to the mattress. I sit on the edge, dizzy as fuck. I’m shaking so hard I’m going to pass out if I don’t eat something soon.
I tear open the burger wrapper like a savage. Fried chicken with apple slaw, hold the pickles. I glance inside the bag. Curly fries and an extra container of blue cheese dressing. Great. It’s almost as if this psychopath knows me on an intimate level. Then again, he could be one of the countless delivery dudes who brings my weekly lunch order to my office. I am nothing if not a creature of habit.
My breathing quickens as I stare at the burger. It’s the same thing I always order. The thing Jennifer tells me I’m a freak for eating. Not the weirdest order. But not the standard.
My blood - what remains in my body, at least - runs cold. I put the burger back in the bag, my appetite gone. I try to think back to the last time I ate from this place. Months ago, before I started dieting to fit into the ridiculous dress I wore on my birthday. The dress that now sits in the far corner of this tiny room, dirty and bloody and cut to ribbons.
How long has this person been following me?
Were they following me at all?
Or do I already know them?
That’s when I remember the last time I ate this meal. The only “date” Joshua and I ever went on. He wanted to take me to New York in his private jet for dinner, and I couldn’t have been less interested. Instead, I visited Will first, arrived an hour late to the airstrip with I-just-got-fucked hair, and my tardiness, plus approaching bad weather, meant we were stuck in San Francisco. Joshua was not amused when I demanded fried chicken, and now I have to wonder if this is some kind of revenge.
I stare at my hands. I didn’t wear Joshua’s engagement ring long enough to miss the weight of it on my finger, but now it’s all I can think about. Was it him? Is this his way of punishing me for being a shitty fiancée? It makes zero sense. I mean, the guy stands to be one of the richest motherfuckers in the world, after we get married, and if we don’t tie the knot, he loses all of his stock options in the Capulet family dynasty that stretches far and wide, across the globe. He’s the person least likely to do this.
And yet. This fucking burger.
I’m grasping at straws. Joshua didn’t do this. But whoever did, knows me in some way. I just need to figure out how - and who - before it’s too late.
CHAPTER THREE
ROME
“Put these on,” the fucker in the mask says to me, throwing a set of cuffs my way. “Time for a playdate.”
A playdate. I’m pretty sure that means he’s taking me out of this room.
He’s standing in the doorway of our little dungeon of horrors. I’ve been watching Avery sleep, which sounds a lot creepier than it is. Honestly, I’m just making sure she doesn’t fucking die on me. She’s breathing, sure, but when I put my fingers to her cold throat, her pulse barely registers. Her heartbeat is slow, so slow - and I’m terrified of her dying down here.
So the visit from our deranged kidnapper is almost a welcome relief from the endless hours I’ve spent watching Avery’s chest rise and fall, rise and fall. I might go mad if I have to keep watching her like that, floating in the space between life and death. If the girl doesn’t get some serious medical attention soon and a giant blood transfusion, I don’t know if she’s going to survive.
I stand, wincing as I push up on the wrong arm. My shoulder screams in protest, and I’m sure I feel a fresh spurt of blood ooze from my bullet wound. That worries me, too. The damn thing should be healing by now. What did they shoot me with, a fucking bacterial infection in a bullet? All I know is that I’ve seen that movie with James Franco, and though I do claim to be somewhat of a badass, sawing my own arm off to stop gangrene from setting in is probably above my skill set.
I cover the wince with a half-hearted cough, bending to pick up the metal cuffs on the floor, halfway between the mattress and the door.
“Tight,” the guy says. I mock-salute him as I affix a cuff to my left wrist and close the loop, the metal teeth catching with a sickening click-click-click. “You got it, Darth Vader.”
The guy lets out a barking sound that I can only a
ssume is a laugh, followed by a swift punch to the side of my head. I stumble, still holding the cuffs, as I wipe blood from my mouth with the back of my hand. He resumes his stance as if nothing is amiss, waiting as I spit blood on the floor.
“The other one,” he demands. Reluctantly, I acquiesce, looping the second cuff over my right wrist and squeezing it shut. The finality of that action isn’t lost on me. As soon as I’ve closed the locking mechanism, I regret it. I should have fought him. Should have done something. But my gut told me that the only way out of this room and to the possibility of escape for both of us, is to seem as if I’m going along with our kidnapper’s demands for now.
Turns out the basement of horrors isn’t where the show stops. Not in this hellhole. While Avery sleeps, I’m blindfolded and dragged upstairs to a new realm of hell. I think about fighting the guy off, but I also want to see what’s beyond this room, to see if I might be able to plan an escape for Avery and me.
“Try anything,” the guy says, his modified voice robotic and bizarre, “And I’ll gut that bitch in there while you watch.”
I will not try anything. Not while I’m not in that room and unable to defend her. I’m scared as fuck for Avery. I haven’t told her, and I still fucking hate her for what she did to me, but seeing her fall apart today just kind of … broke me. I don’t know. Can you hate someone and still care about them? I mean, it’s not as if I want her to die for what she did to me all those years ago. I just want her to suffer a little for it.
Thing is, the girl has already suffered more than enough for her lifetime. I don’t know if this experience cancels out the rage I carry for her betrayal, exactly - but I do know I want to get her the fuck out of this place.
Which is easier said than done.
I try to catalog every single thing I see as the guy drags me from the room, slamming the door shut behind us. In the last slice of open door, before the room is sealed shut, I glimpse Avery, still sleeping heavily, and I pray that they leave her alone while I’m gone. I don’t believe in God, not after the life I’ve lived, but I still cast a wordless plea to the universe to protect her in my absence.
Pretending not to take much notice, I watch out of the corner of my eye as the asshole wearing the mask locks the door. Four locks. Three of them are deadbolts, impressively large ones, cemented into the fucking wall. The fourth is an old-fashioned key, the thunk we hear every time he decides to visit.
Well. No chance in hell of me breaking that down with a kick. No chance of me breaking that down with a fucking cinder block. I’d have better luck smashing down one of the actual brick walls than the door that separates us from freedom.
The asshole is smart, making sure to keep me in his sight the entire time, a gun at his hip and a knife on his belt that both promise pain and torment. I’d like to say I could take him, even cuffed - but if I attack him, and I don’t win, I have no doubt he will inflict pain on Avery, so horrific, it might kill her. For now, I have to treat this excursion as a recon mission.
I’m directed up a narrow flight of stairs, everything still dark. The guy in the mask is about my height, six-two, a little more solid than my wiry frame, but that could just be the layers of black clothing that look like they were combined from an army surplus store, an Islamic clothing boutique and a quad-biking supplier. I have to bite down on my tongue to distract myself from attacking him with every ounce of venom that runs through my veins right now.
At the top of the stairs, there’s another door. This one has the same four locks - three deadbolts, one old-fashioned key. Too bad if we start a fire down there, we’ll be crispy before they can unlock all the fucking doors. Finally, all the locks are unlocked, and I’m pushed forward into a shitty little kitchen that reminds me of a meth lab set-up, all the windows covered up with boards or heavy plastic. The place smells like rotting, damp wood. And right there, on an old, musty kitchen table that has been lifted straight from a 1950’s formica commercial, sit bricks upon bricks of coke. Great. We’ve been taken by fucking tweakers? Drug cartel heavies? I suddenly feel like I’m in a low-budget reboot of Breaking Bad.
I don’t have time to pontificate on who might be responsible for taking us, though. I’m shoved into a bedroom, the room completely bare, save for a steel bed frame that boasts a stained mattress, a matching steel chair, and a woman dressed in exactly the same kind of army surplus shit the guy who pushed me into the room is sporting.
I can tell she’s a woman because she’s put a little more effort into her get-up - tight leather pants that accentuate her narrow waist and hug her lithe frame, unlaced black Doc Martens, a form-fitting leather jacket zipped up to her chin, a grinning hot-pink skull face bandanna that starts under her eyes and ends at her throat, a pair of oversized aviator sunglasses … and to top it all off, a ridiculous multi-colored wig that falls to her shoulders, a Harley Quinn Halloween leftover of pastel blues and neon pinks that belongs in a tacky sex shop window display. The girl is smart - she’s covered every inch of herself, down to the black, lacy gloves she wears over her hands and the wig’s blunt bangs that cover her forehead, right down to the aviators currently acting as a handy mirror for me. She could be anyone I’ve ever met, and I wouldn’t have a fucking clue who.
The guy who dragged me up here pushes me forward violently. I narrowly manage to keep my footing, stumbling to a stop in front of this tricked-up woman who seems to be a willing accomplice in our little show.
“Nice wig,” I mock. “Do all the girls at the whorehouse wear them, or do you cost extra?”
It’s hard to tell what she’s thinking–you know, the elaborate disguise and all–but I swear I see her smile under the tightly-wrapped half-face bandanna that stretches over her cheekbones like a second skin.
I don’t even hear the guy behind me. He approaches like a ninja, silent across the wooden floor, and the next thing I know, he’s grabbed me, his hands hooking around my upper arms and pulling them back, effectively immobilizing me. The Harley Quinn wannabe pulls out a fucking syringe and comes at me. Without thinking, I use the only weapon I’ve got, launching a hard kick to her midsection. Satisfyingly, it hits its intended target, and the bitch is sent flying, skidding along the floor, the syringe rolling away under the metal bed frame.
The guy responds by pulling me violently to the side, ramming my head into the sharp edge along the door frame. The world goes blank for a split-second, as the top of my skull connects with the metal frame, and then I feel warm blood rising up in my hair. The room spins, and before I can right myself, I feel a sharp sting at my neck. It doesn’t take long before whatever’s in that needle works, and I’m out cold.
* * *
When I come to, it’s to the taste of old blood on my mouth, and the vengeful throbbing of an open wound on top of my scalp. I blink a few times, taking in my surroundings; I’m on the floor, in the same room, handcuffed to the metal bed frame as Psychotic Halloween SkullFace Bitch watches me silently.
“How’s your stomach?” I ask her. “You know, my mother taught me not to hurt girls, but for you, I think she’d make an exception.”
The woman approaches me, and before I can even glance down at myself, I notice in the mirrored reflection of her aviators that I’ve been undressed. All I’m wearing are the boxer briefs that magically appeared in the dungeon wardrobe that our kidnappers so thoughtfully put together for Avery and me. If I ever make it out of here, I’ll write a fucking blog post for Vogue: “How to Create a Capsule Wardrobe for your Own Murder.”
“Where are my clothes?” I ask pleasantly. She doesn’t answer. She hasn’t said a single word since I set eyes on her. Which makes me wonder. “What, you guys couldn’t spring for two of those stupid voice distorters? Maybe if you sold some of that blow out there, you could really splash out, treat yourself.”
She says nothing, dropping to her knees beside me. I swallow nervously as she reaches for me, running a lace-covered finger down the side of my face.
She laughs soundlessly;
I can tell because of the way her shoulders shake. Maybe if I charm her with my witty one-liners, she won’t cut my dick off and make me choke on it. I try to edge away, as she reaches for the top of the boxer shorts I’m wearing and pulls the elasticized hem. But there’s nowhere to go.
“Why do I feel like a spider about to get its head bitten off?” The She-Devil cocks her head to the side at my question, which only makes things more sinister.
I’m still trying to catch up from whatever drug they injected into my neck that rendered me briefly unconscious, the world moving in slow-motion around me, like a thick, soupy humidity I can’t quite surface from.
She releases the elastic waistband, and it snaps against my skin. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s unexpected, and distracting enough that I look down at my lap, making sure everything is still intact. As I take my eyes from her, a slender hand presses against my mouth, pressing a handful of pills onto my tongue. Before she can get a good hold on me, I wrench my head to the side, spitting the pills in her face. One bounces off her sunglasses, a string of saliva left in its wake. She shrugs, reaching into her jacket, her gloved palm suddenly holding more medication. One blue diamond-shaped pill, two round orange caplets. Fuck. The orange ones could be anything. The blue one looks familiar, not because I’ve taken it before, but because I sell a shitload of the Mexican counterfeit version to retirement-aged businessmen who need pharmaceutical assistance to live fast and fuck hard past their expiration date. No fucking way. It can’t be that. Why would she be giving me that? As I’m grappling with that possibility, she punches me in the jaw. Her hand is small, but her strength is wicked - I wouldn’t be surprised if she was sampling the coke in the kitchen before coming in here to drug me. I groan, my head lolling to the side, and it’s that moment of opportunity my technicolor damsel not in distress seizes with both hands, forcing the new pills into my mouth.
VENGEFUL QUEEN Page 3
