Fuck.
“Thought you could get away from us that easily?” Moseley’s voice filters through the room, echoing off the massive walls of the old, abandoned warehouse. “I told you I have friends in places you’d never expect.”
He grips my cheeks, inspecting my face in disgust. “Who hit her?” he growls.
One of the men points at the man behind me, and I feel him start to shake, begging for his life in Italian. I don’t speak the language, but I can feel his fear vibrating every part of him.
BANG!
My scream is so loud, it makes all of them cover their ears. The high-pitched wail bounces off each corner like a ping-pong ball.
Somehow, I’m still alive, and my shoulders sag in relief.
“You’re no good to me dead!” Moseley exclaims, putting his gun away as the man behind me hits the ground with a thud.
He must see the terror in my eyes because he smirks, kneeling down so we’re looking at each other eye to eye. “What? Didn’t think I was capable of taking someone’s life, Ms. St. John?” he laughs maniacally. “Oh, sweet girl, how you’ve underestimated me.”
He caresses my face, but I shy away from it, his touch repulsing me as bile creeps up my throat.
“Don’t touch me!” I grit out, barely able to get out the words through the haze my head is still in.
Mosely frowns. “Put her with the others. Rico should be here soon with the plane.”
The plane? Oh shit, this is really happening!
The other man rips me to my feet, pushing me toward a room on the other side of the building. He opens the door, then throws me to the floor, barely missing the dirty feet of the women cowering in the corner.
The air is thick here. It smells like oil, rust, and a fear that’s been recycled too many times to count. He cuts my binds, freeing my hands so I can pull myself to my feet. Then the door locks behind me, sealing us into darkness.
“You can’t do this!” I scream, racing to my feet, trying the handle that won’t budge. My fists pound on the metal door, but all I hear is someone telling me to shut the fuck up before he shoots me.
I swallow hard, forcing the tears to stay behind my eyelids, hopelessness replacing my fight.
“Easy,” a woman’s voice murmurs from somewhere behind me. “You need to calm down. Fighting them won’t help you now.” She speaks perfect English, but her accent bleeds through, the smooth Italian husk taking over.
I turn my head, searching the darkness until I see her sitting against the wall on the opposite side of the room, knees pulled up, staring at me like she’s already been in my shoes.
She turns on a dimly lit lantern beside her, giving the room just enough light to make out the bruises blooming along her forearm, and across her face. “This is what you get when you fight.”
Her gaze shifts to the other girls in the corner. All of them small, some of them younger than fifteen. She’s the oldest of all of them, her beauty marred by someone else’s rage.
“This is what you get for protecting the little ones,” she says with a sigh, leaning her head back against the wall just as the lantern’s light starts to flicker. She turns it off again, bathing the room in darkness.
“The batteries are giving out on it,” she whispers.
“Who are you?” I ask her, moving so I can sit next to her on the floor. The cold metal bites into my back as I slide down it, my bones barely resting once I’m on the ground.
“I’m Antonia,” she says quietly. “You’re safe enough… for the moment.”
A hysterical laugh claws up my throat. “You have a funny definition of safe,” I whisper.
She stirs beside me. “I didn’t say safe. I said safe enough.”
“I’m Mindy.”
“I know,” she says, her voice sounding tired and weak.
My chest tightens. “How?”
