Monster didn’t want his father to snap with these men. He was terrified if he did, something bad would happen. There were more of them than him, and they would probably have guns.
He knew his father wouldn’t be happy to see him out of his room, far from it, but Monster would rather take a beating than see his father killed.
Pushing his nerves down as far as he could, he gave a little cough.
Instantly, his father’s eyes locked on his. Monster read the anger in their depths, his amazement the boy had dared leave his room unattended. He knew his father didn’t want people to see him—knew he was different, though he didn’t quite understand why.
Though his father had seen him, the older man didn’t immediately race off. Instead, he turned to the men he’d been fighting with and said, “Please excuse me for one moment.”
Then he turned and stalked to where Monster stood, hiding beside the doorway.
He caught sight of the fury in his father’s eyes, and turned and fled.
Regret filled him, together with sick dread, as he ran back down the hallway, toward the protection of his room, but he didn’t get that far. Instead, his father’s iron fingers locked around his upper arm, pulling him to a halt so hard he lifted off his feet.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” his father hissed in his ear. “You want to be seen?”
“No,” he whimpered. “I heard you fighting …”
“That was none of your business.” He’d reached the closet in the hallway. “If I can’t trust you to stay in your room, you can stay somewhere with a lock on the door.”
He yanked open the closet and threw Monster in. Monster landed on his bottom, his back slamming against a metal bucket. The mop propped inside it fell to one side, and, in front of him, the door slammed shut, encasing him in darkness. A second later, he heard the sound of the lock clicking into place.
Monster let out a cry, his hand pressing to the spot in his lower back where the metal had hit him. But no one offered to kiss his bad spot better.
He pulled his skinny legs up to his chest and pressed his face against his knees to try to stifle his sobs.
What if something happens to Father and no one knows I’m in here?
The thought brought on fresh tears and he sank his teeth into his knee to muffle the sound. His father wouldn’t appreciate hearing him crying, and he’d want his guests to hear his son’s cries even less. Part of Monster wanted to jump to his feet and bang his small fists against the door and shout for help, but he knew he’d never do such a thing. He was different—a freak. If the other men saw him, they might take him away to a place even worse than his father’s house. At least here, he had a warm bed, and books, and meals when he was hungry—well, most of the time, anyway. If outsiders saw him, they might take him away and lock him in a dark hole where he couldn’t offend anyone else with the sight of his face.
His father would come and let him out as soon as the men left, he reassured himself. He wouldn’t leave him in here for long. It was just to teach him a lesson, a lesson he deserved. He’d been stupid, he knew that now. He’d never leave his room again without his father’s permission.
Through the closed door, he heard voices and doors slamming. Had the men left? He tensed in anticipation, hoping his father would let him out, while frightened of what would happen when he did. But the door didn’t open.
Monster sat, huddled in on himself, waiting. Time passed, and though he hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep, he woke to find himself curled up on the floor, a number of items digging into his body. An ache filled his bladder, and he cupped his hand over the top of his penis. He needed to pee, and badly, too.
Getting back to his feet, he risked banging on the door. His small fist didn’t make much sound, but it wasn’t as though his father didn’t know he was in there. He banged again, but the urge to urinate grew so strong, he knew he didn’t have time to wait for a response. Hurriedly freeing himself, hopping up and down in his urgency, he let out a sigh as a stream of hot urine hit the bottom of the metal bucket. The sound of liquid hitting metal was loud and hollow in the confined space.
He finished, did up his zipper, and sat back down with a resigned sigh.
Monster didn’t want his father to find the bucket off pee, but there was nothing he could do about it. He lost track of time, alternating between sitting and dozing, and crying as he banged on the door. Finally, he gave up and tried to make himself as comfortable as possible, curled up on the cold, hard floor, his hands tucked beneath his cheek as a pillow. He was horribly thirsty—so much his throat hurt—and a gnawing hunger had settled into his tummy. Was it the next day already? He had no idea.
He never wanted to anger his father so much that he’d end up here again.
He’d learned his lesson …
Monster (Present Day)
Monster came back to the present with a shudder. He’d forgotten all about that particular incident in his childhood, or perhaps not forgotten, but blocked it out. He wondered how many other delightful moments of his father’s parenting his mind had forgotten in order to keep him sane.
Looking around at the tin can of an airplane he sat in, it was no wonder he was plagued by anxiety. He’d only recently truly become a free man—and his Flower had been the one to gift that privilege to him—and it shouldn’t be unsurprising that the idea of locking himself up in something again, even if it was voluntarily and only for a matter of hours, brought him out in a cold sweat.
The co-pilot approached, and Monster looked up, forcing a smile.
“We’ll be taking off in ten minutes, sir.”
“Thank you.”
The co-pilot walked away, and Monster took a breath and continued to clutch the armrests. Within a few minutes, the engine started up, impossibly loud around him, and began to taxi out to the runway.
This was ridiculous. He had killed men, but he was afraid of flying.
Flower. He just needed to think about Flower. She would be his prize at the end of this hellish ride.
Nine
Lily woke with a jolt, her heart hammering.
Would she ever wake up again without being filled with a soul-clenching terror that something was so very, very wrong? Maybe it would wear off after time, but she struggled to believe that one day she would just wake up and feel like the time with Monster and the events leading up to it had never happened. By sending her back to America, he’d taken away her hope for a different future. He’d denied her the only chance of happiness she’d ever imagined for herself.
Or maybe how she felt had nothing to do with missing Monster, and everything to do with post-traumatic stress.
Gradually, her heart rate slowed and she was able to think clearly again. She remembered what had happened the previous day and slid her hand beneath the pillow. For a moment, she thought the gun wouldn’t be there, and she’d turn to find Cigarette Hands standing in her bedroom door, pointing the muzzle at her, but then her fingers met with the cool metal and she exhaled a sigh of relief. No one had been in her apartment while she’d been sleeping. Despite her certainty someone had been following her, they’d at least left her alone here.
She peeled herself out of bed and walked into the kitchen. She didn’t have any milk, but she did have coffee and sugar, so that would have to do for breakfast. She was so conscious of time trickling by, and with it the certainty her story would break and Cigarette Hands and his friend would come looking for her.
She couldn’t waste any more time.
With the coffee brewing, she went over to her home computer and fired up the machine. She hoped her internet provider hadn’t cut her off already, but no, the bills were still coming out of her account automatically, so the fact she’d been missing for the last month didn’t mean they weren’t being paid. She logged on, and to her relief, Google popped up. Quickly, she typed in ‘ports in California.’ Eleven results were pulled up. She didn’t think there had been time to take her to any ports ou
tside of the state, and chances were, considering she’d then been flown to Cuba, she’d have been driven south rather than north. She could also narrow down her search by looking for a port that had a small airfield nearby. Finally, she knew she wouldn’t be looking for a medium sized port. The place would either need to be so massive, numerous shipping containers wouldn’t be gone anywhere near for days, if not weeks or months, or else the port was tiny with only a few people working there who would all know exactly what was going on.
Her eyes widened as she read some of the stats for the bigger ports. Forty-three miles long and covering over seven thousand acres! How the hell would she ever find a single shipping container in all of that? She was starting to understand why the police had been so dismissive of her. If that was the sort of thing she was looking at, she didn’t stand a chance of finding where Cigarette Hands had kept her and the other girls. Hell, even if she was able to find the container, there was no saying they’d even still be at the same location. They could easily have moved on.
The only thing making her think they hadn’t was how chilled out they’d been about the whole thing. They hadn’t shown any fear about being heard when she’d yelled, hadn’t put their hands over her mouth or tried to shut her up. Those actions told her they were confident about their location, and only familiarity brought confidence like that.
Keeping to her ideas of the port being south, not too big, and close to an airfield, she traced her finger down the computer screen. Her finger stopped, hovering above a name. San Diego? Had she been taken from Los Angeles and brought down to San Diego?
Quickly, she Googled the area and her stomach knotted with uncertainty.
Perhaps she hadn’t been kept at the main part of the port. It appeared too busy, clean, and official for what they’d been doing, but surely there would be some offshoot around the other side of the bay, perhaps an area that had been used before and then shut down?
It made sense to her, but she couldn’t know for sure, and something didn’t sit quite right. Surely if she’d been somewhere that busy, she’d have gotten a sense of the size when she’d been there. Yes, she’d heard the sound of a big ship, but the place hadn’t had the busy, bustling atmosphere of a main port.
Lily sighed and ran a hand through her hair. Feeling defeated, she got up and went to make the coffee. She needed the caffeine to get her brain to work.
Holding a filled cup in both hands, she went back to the computer and sat back down.
The only thing she could do was head down the coast and check the place out for herself. She’d take the coastal road and keep her eyes peeled for anywhere she might have been taken. Though she felt demoralized at the enormity of the task ahead, her thinking was sound. Cigarette Hands must have taken her somewhere along the coast between Los Angeles and the Mexican border.
She just had one problem. The police still had her car.
Of course, Cameron had a vehicle. It felt like she was pushing her luck, but she wondered if it was worth asking if she could borrow it. After all, he said himself that he worked from home, so it wasn’t as though he needed the car for his daily commute.
Lily chewed on her lower lip as she thought.
If she asked him, he’d want to know where she was going. Hell, he’d probably insist on coming himself. She didn’t want that. Despite his questionable contacts, he seemed like a good guy, and she didn’t want to get him involved with a bunch of murderous, rapist criminals.
A sudden knock came at her door, and she froze. Would it be Cameron? She couldn’t think who else would be visiting her—a colleague from the clinic, perhaps? But why would they be knocking on her door instead of using the buzzer at the main entrance? Only someone who was already inside the building would be able to knock.
Cautiously, Lily got to her feet. The gun she’d bought sat on her desk. Trying to control her shaking hand, she picked it up. She didn’t want to shoot anyone, but there was no way she planned on opening the door without it.
Moving as lightly as she could, happy her feet were bare, she hurried over to the door. She paused, her heart beating hard, trying to get a sense of who was on the other side. A peephole was placed in the center of the door, but she worried putting herself directly in front of the door would expose her. They might see the shadow in the slither of a gap beneath the door and shoot her through the wood.
“Miss Drayton?” a male voice called. “Are you in there?”
The voice didn’t sound threatening, more unsure, but she didn’t recognize it. She held her breath, the gun pointed in the direction of the door, just waiting.
“Miss Drayton,” the man tried again. “My name is Scott Burnett. I’m from the Tribune. I covered your disappearance last month, and a contact has informed me you’ve since reappeared. Would you like to talk about where you’ve been for the last month?”
She hesitated, and then said, “Push some ID under the door.”
There came a shuffle from outside, and then a press ID card was posted under the door. She picked it up. Of course, she had no idea if this was what the guy looked like—mid thirties, prematurely balding, a bored look in his eyes—but he appeared harmless. She bent and pushed the card back under. “I don’t want to talk to the press.”
“Don’t you want someone to hear your side of the story? Word is you ran off with some guy who treated you badly, so you came back again. A fair few people are pretty pissed about all the police hours you wasted.” He paused and then said, “There have been other rumors, though …”
Her interest had been piqued. “What kind of rumors?”
“That you were abducted by a trafficking ring and the cops aren’t doing anything about it. If this is true, don’t you think the public has a right to know? They should feel they’re being protected from these people, but if innocent women are being snatched off the street …”
“What if that story is the true one?” she asked. “If it goes in the paper, those very same traffickers are going to hunt me down and shut me up.”
“Is that what you’re afraid of? Is that why you won’t open the door?”
Right now I’m afraid of everything, she thought, but didn’t say.
“I’m not afraid,” she said, resolutely.
“So open the door. You’ve seen my ID. I only want to talk, I promise.”
I’ve got the gun, she reminded herself. She would stand to one side of the doorframe with the gun out of sight. If he so much as breathed in the wrong direction, she would shoot him.
Trying to stop her hand from trembling, she unlocked the door and edged it open. The same man who’d been pictured in the ID was standing in front of her, wearing a loose beige suit and frameless glasses.
He saw her through the gap and gave a nod.
“I’m not frightened,” she said again. “I’m just cautious. After what I went through, I’m sure you understand.”
“So the trafficking story is the true one, then?”
“What if it is? What could you possibly do to help me? Are you able to provide around the clock protection?”
“Well … not exactly.”
“Then you can’t help me.” She began to shut the door again, but he put out a hand to stop her.
“Wait. We might not have muscle power, but we are great investigators. We can help you find out who took you.”
“When you say we, who exactly are you talking about?”
“Well, it would just be me, really.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Right. And maybe I don’t want to find the men who took me. Perhaps I just want to forget the whole thing ever happened.”
“I understand that, but if your story is true and there really are traffickers, they will be doing this to other women. Can you just sit back and let that happen?”
Anger suddenly bubbled up inside her. “I didn’t just sit back, Mr. Burnett. I did what any other law abiding citizen would do—I went to the police. The problem is, they’re the ones who are sitting back and not doing anything
.”
“Did they say that? That they weren’t going to do anything?”
“Well, no, not exactly. They had me talk to a sketch artist and said they’d put out some feelers, but I didn’t get the impression they were taking me too seriously.”
“So let me look into things for you.”
She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t want that. I just want this whole thing to go away.”
She pushed the door shut and this time he didn’t stop her.
Lily stared at the closed door, waiting for him to bang on it and demand she let him in or something, but nothing happened. Yet she could still sense him standing there, and then she heard a rustle and a business card slipped beneath the door, making her jump.
“If you ever change your mind, or need anything, you’ve got my number.”
And with that she heard his footsteps walking away, until they faded to nothingness.
Ten
Lily let out a sigh and walked back across her apartment to where her coffee had now grown cold beside her computer. The screen had gone into saver mode, but she jiggled the mouse and brought it back to life. She wasn’t going to sit around here any longer; she couldn’t risk it. The reporter would probably write something about her whether she wanted him to or not—hell, she’d probably already given him enough of a story just by what she’d said through the door—and if he wasn’t going to write about her, someone else would. One thing Los Angeles wasn’t short of was newspaper reporters and paparazzi, and while she was sure she wouldn’t exactly make the headlines, it might get enough notice for the wrong person to read that she was still alive and back in America.
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