“I’m going to find her,” I whisper.
And God help the man who took her. Because if he hurts her. If he even touches her. They’ll never find enough of him to bury.
And I will tear the city apart to bring her home.
Chapter thirty-eight
Ava
Myeyelidsflutteropen,but I can’t see much—just blurred shapes, dark walls, maybe a ceiling. My head pounds like it’s been stuffed with cotton and filled with bricks at the same time. My mouth is dry. My tongue feels too big. I try to swallow. I can’t.
I blink hard. Once. Twice. The blur sharpens into a flickering overhead bulb, its buzz slicing through my skull. Cold. The floor beneath me is cold. Concrete? My shoulder screams when I try to shift. I’m lying on my side, one arm twisted under me, completely numb.
Panic flickers at the edges of my brain—dull at first, then sharper.
Where am I?
The last thing I remember is being in my office, about to leave with the papers I needed to work from home. Then… the hand. The one that came out of nowhere. The crackle of calloused skin against my face. The stench—God, the smell of old tobacco and sweat. And the sting in my neck. I remember dropping the papers. I remember trying to scream, but breathing nothing but his hand. Then—nothing. Like someone turned off the lights inside my brain.
Now I’m here. Somewhere.
Not anywhere I know.
I inhale too fast and cough. The air is damp, metallic, like rust and mold. My arms are sluggish, but I move one—slowly, painfully. My fingers brush concrete. Chains?
No. No, not chains. A metal pole, maybe. I try to sit up, but the nausea slams into me like a wave. I drop back down.
My heart is pounding.
I was taken. I know it. Someone took me.
I force myself to breathe—shallow, slow. Focus. Think. But all I hear is the thrum of my pulse in my ears and the faint creak of something above me.
Footsteps?
I’m not alone.
There—again. That sound. Slow, deliberate. Heavy boots on concrete. They’re close.
I freeze, muscles locking up, breath caught somewhere between lungs and throat. The bulb overhead swings slightly from the ceiling, its flickering light twitching shadows across the room. The footsteps grow louder. Closer. Not rushed—measured. Calm.
They know I’m awake.
I tense as they approach, heart hammering. I try to make myself as small as possible on the bed, curling inward, pressing my back into the cold metal frame. There’s nowhere to hide, but I press against the edge anyway, willing myself to disappear into the shadows.
The bulb hums above me, casting a sickly yellow glow. It flickers again. The room slowly reveals itself.
No—it’s not a room.
It 's like a cell.
The walls are concrete, cracked in places, stained in others. Dampness clings to everything. The corners curl with what might be mold, or something older. There’s a smell—of decay and neglect, of air that hasn’t moved in years. There’s a small window on one side of the room, with the glass broken in one corner and just as dirty as the rest of the room. So dirty that daylight barely gets in.
The bed beneath me is little more than a metal frame with a thin, sagging mattress that feels damp and worn. The sheet draped over it is threadbare and stained, barely holding together. The pillow is flat and rough, the kind that looks like it’s been used by too many before me—too many who never left.
But what really turns my stomach is in the corner.
A toilet. Too clean compared to the rest of the room, like it’s the only thing someone bothered to scrub. Above it, a chipped sink, bolted to the wall. But no mirror. Just bare, cracked cinderblock where my reflection should be.
