His car waited at the curb, engine idling.He opened the passenger door, motioning me in.
I slid into the seat, every nerve on fire.He restrained my wrists with ziptie cuffs.I fought to keep my anxiety at bay.Panicking right now wouldn’t help.
As he drove off, the city lights receding into darkness, my thoughts spiraled.I tried to count the stop lights, or gage the miles.But my mind was all over the place.All my training left because my brain and my heart wouldn’t stop thinking of the people I loved.
Dante.
Char.
The girls.
The only thing I could cling to was the hope—thin but vital—that my doorbell camera had caught something.A face.A car.A license plate.
Something.
As the city disappeared behind us and the night swallowed the road ahead, I closed my eyes for a brief second and held onto one thought like a lifeline.
Please.Let someone find me
The car ride felt endless, even though I knew—objectively—that it couldn’t have been.
Time warped when fear took over.Every turn stretched too long.Every stoplight felt like a countdown to something worse.I focused on breathing evenly, on not giving him the satisfaction of panic, on staying present enough to remember details later—sounds, turns, the way the road changed from smooth pavement to something rougher beneath the tires.
Eventually, the city thinned out.Streetlights gave way to darkness.The hum of traffic faded into nothing but the engine and my own heartbeat.
When the car finally stopped, my muscles were shaking from holding myself together.
“Out,” he ordered.
I obeyed.
The air smelled different here, damp, earthy, old.A door opened somewhere ahead of me, metal groaning softly, and then we were moving again, down a short set of steps, the temperature dropping with each one.
A basement.
The light flicked on with a harsh buzz, revealing concrete walls stained with age and moisture.Exposed pipes.A single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.No windows.
My stomach dropped.
He guided me to the center of the room where a thick metal post had been bolted into the concrete floor.Without ceremony, he produced a length of chain and a padlock.My wrists were already numb as I extended them for him to bind me somehow.Except he surprised me when he looped it around my ankle instead—tight enough to be secure, loose enough that I could move a few feet in either direction.
Just enough rope.Just enough mercy to pretend this wasn’t what it was.
“There,” he said.“You’ve got room.”
I followed his gaze.A bucket with a toilet seat snapped onto the top sat a few feet away.Nearby, folded with deliberate care, was a thin blanket and a single pillow.
The details were almost worse than the threat.This wasn’t chaos.This was preparation.
“Sit,” he instructed.
I lowered myself to the concrete, the cold seeping instantly through the thin fabric of my night clothes.My ankle tugged against the chain, the sound loud in the quiet room.I forced myself not to flinch.
He crouched in front of me, eyes unreadable behind the mask.“You do what you’re told, you eat.You drink.You stay alive.”
Alive.
The word echoed long after he stood and walked away.The light clicked off.A door shut.A lock slid into place.
