Something they don’t know about, something that’s mine.
I slide the chip back into my pocket and tuck the screw into the other. It’s something small I can hide, something that might come in handy because Iamgoing to escape this place.
The mattress is stained and nasty. The chair is compromised and barely standing on its own at this point, so I ease down with my back to the wall and fold my legs, the chain clinking as it settles. The floor is cold against my legs and butt, but it’s better than that…that crime scene.
Needing something to occupy my hands, I pull the chip back out of my pocket and begin running it through my fingers the same way Maverick does—edge against thumb, turn, repeat—until the rhythm takes. My chest finally loosens enough for breath to go all the way in.
Don’t think, I tell myself. Thinking is going to lead to dealing with the pain of being taken. And I don’t have that luxury.
I can’t think of anything else.
Time is my worst enemy. With nothing to hold my attention, my mind walks into every secret corner and nightmare possibility.
I know what happens to girls like me, the ones no one cares to find. The damaged ones. The girls no one misses. With every passing moment, a sense of grim terror is beginning to push its way into my consciousness.
Trafficked. Kept. Raped. Disposed of when the novelty wears off. What the hell is Danner planning? And is it just him, or are there others? This feels like something way above that idiot’s pay grade. He mentioned ‘the boys’ earlier while he was drawing my blood.
The thoughts, the questions, the nightmares all arrive at once, one after another, and sit in a line. Just waiting for me to acknowledge and deal with each and every one of them with all the time I’m going to have. But I don’t want to deal with them. I don’t know the answers. My stomach lifts and falls like I’m on a too-quick elevator.
A news story from a few years ago pops into my mind. I think it was out of…North Carolina? South Carolina? The details are fuzzy. A woman went to look at some property with her boyfriend. A serial killer killed the boyfriend, then chained the girl up in a container—kind of like this one—and kept her there for over six months, repeatedly raping her until she managed to escape.
I can’t rememberhowshe managed to get out, though. Some mistake her captor made, a trick, an opening. The blanks in my memory sting worse than the parts I recall, because Ineedto know how she escaped, damn it. Tears prick, making my eyes burn.
No.
I press the heels of my hands, hard, into my eye sockets until fireworks go off behind my lids, then let go before I make it worse. Crying wastes salt and precious time I need to make a plan.
I’ll cry later. Not now.
I work the chip again in my fingers again and try to think about the men I left behind. The ones I need to fight to get back to.
Conrad first, because he’s always first when things go wrong. I bet he’s slicing the world into tasks so he doesn’t break in half because I left him again.
He’d sooner die before admitting it, but I know I broke him. I didn’t mean to. I just…the only voice I could hear back then was the one saying I wasn’t enough. He was better without me.
Especially as tangled up as I was in my feelings for all of them.
That voice is dimmer now, but it’s still there. I can still hear it, especially after finding outmy fucking father sold me. God-Jesus.
Conrad will have Zeus. I bet he’s turning the vet clinic into a war room because that’s all he can control right now. He’s probably so damn mad at me.
Atticus will already be in the hotel computer system, working it like it’s a special kind of playground. In my head, he’s talking in timestamps and paths, fingers moving fast, his eyes blank and bright behind those glasses that make my mouth water. He’ll find the camera that looked the other way and make it tell him a story anyway. He’ll build a map to find me out of missing frames and sounds that don’t make sense.
Maverick is smiling in that Cheshire-cat way he has at people who don’t deserve it, and when they stop being useful to him he’ll stop smiling. He’ll call in markers and burn those who deny him to ash. He’ll leave the ashes neat, though. He’s polite like that, and won't want to make a mess for someone else to clean up.
Storm… Well Storm is busy watching everyone’s backs and counting exits, his knives in hand. He’s ready to go to battle for me. He’s just waiting for the signal that turns him into a monster. He’s waiting to kill anything and everything in his path.
And then I think about Zeus, and my throat closes from the agony of what he must be experiencing. I drag a breath in around the pain. He got his teeth into Danner’s flesh. He did his job. If there’s any justice left, Conrad has the vet brushing his fur right now and telling him he’s the world’s most perfect, bestest boy.
The hum under the floor seems to widen for a second, turn, and settle. The room shifts almost imperceptibly as weight moves on weight. Water I think again. It’s just the water shifting under us.
I keep working the chip because idle hands are invitations. The edge has left a tender groove in my thumb. Good. Something that belongs to me.
The locks start up again long enough after Danner left that my sense of time feels dumb. One, two. The door opens. He fills it with his bad breath and a tray.
“Dinner.” He says the word in the same tone he might say “collar.”
The tray has a plastic cup of water, a sandwich in cling wrap, and a bruised apple. He sets it on the crate-table and looks down at me. His gaze finds the chip in my hand because he’s trained to find things people hold tight.
