He shakes his head, then clicks his fingers and gestures toward the entrance. A hand finds my arm again and pulls me toward the open doors.
Inside, it doesn’t look like a warehouse. The floor has been scrubbed to concrete shine. Fluorescents burn down in strips, bright enough to erase shadow but not enough to feel like daylight. The air is wrong—dead air, recirculated through fans too small for the space. And everywhere I look, pieces of someone else’s nightmare.
A row of mattresses on the floor, lined up military neat. Stained, sagging, each with a blanket folded at the end like a joke. Folding chairs stacked in one corner. A long table covered in bottles of water, makeup palettes, scissors. A mirror propped against the wall, streaked with powder and fingerprints.
And the women. At least a dozen. Huddled together on one side like cattle corralled against the railings. Thin. Silent. Their eyes flicker up, then down again, as if looking too long might earn punishment. Some wear dresses that aren’t theirs, fabric too tight across their shoulders. One of them clutches another’s hand so hard their knuckles are white.
My knees lock. My lungs hitch. This isn’t a holding cell. It’s a showroom.
Vince whistles low. “Look at ‘em, Summer. Your new sorority.”
Donnie snorts, dragging a cigarette out of his pocket. “Sororities for college girls. These are just playthings.”
Their laughter ricochets off the walls, too loud, too casual. Like this is normal. Like this is what every Tuesday looks like to them.
Jackson doesn’t laugh. He watches me take it all in; head tilted like he’s studying, waiting for the precise second I’ll crack.
“You see it now,” he says softly. “You thought Jacob’s world was the worst it could get. But Jacob kept you in a dollhouse. This—” He gestures to the warehouse, to the rows, to the eyes that don’t dare rise. “—this is what happens when the door to Hell opens.”
His voice isn’t raised—it doesn’t need to be. It lands in me, hitting me straight in the empty shell of my chest, the cavity where my heart once lived. But now, my heart belongs to Jacob, he holds it in his hands, and until he finds me—until I’m back in his arms—the space will remain empty.
They pull me forward, past the girls, toward a staircase that doesn’t belong in this place. Steel, bolted to the wall, leading up to a second-floor platform with glass-walled rooms overlooking the floor like observation decks. Offices, probably, before. Now—control towers.
Every step echoes. My bare feet hurt on the grated steel, but the hand pushing me forward keeps me moving. I catch glimpses as we climb—another door, barred from the outside; cameras mounted high on every corner; a red light blinking like a pulse.
Jackson walks behind me, close enough that I feel his presence like static, close enough that if I stumble, he’ll be the one to catch me just so he can drop me harder.
At the top, a glass-fronted room. It’s empty except for a chair, a table, and a rack of clothing draped in silk and lace. Dresses hung by color, lingerie folded in neat piles. Like a boutique carved into the bones of a slaughterhouse.
Waiting for me.
A woman appears. Too much makeup plastered over a face carved by decades. Hair fried into tight curls, skin leathered and orange. She chews her gum slow, eyes flat, like she’s clocked out of her own body years ago.
“Got another one for you, Brenda” Vince says, shoving me toward her.
“This is the girl I was telling you about…. The one for me,” Jackson announces with his chin tipped too high, like he’s just accomplished the ultimate mission.
Brenda doesn’t blink, looking me up and down like I’m a mannequin she’s already bored of. “Needs paint,” she mutters. “And red.”
She plucks a dress from the rack; Silk, crimson, slit up the thigh and tosses it on the chair. Then sets down a tray—powder, brushes, tubes of lipstick like scalpels.
Jackson leans on the glass, arms folded, watching everything. He doesn’t interfere. He doesn’t need to. His presence alone pins me in place.
Brenda jerks her chin at me. “Clothes off.”
The words land like a whip crack. I don’t move. I swallow hard as my throat tightens.
Donnie laughs. “She’s shy.”
“Leave,” Jackson snaps, his eyes never leaving me. “All of you, out.”
Donnie and Brenda look at each other, and then back at Jackson. He raises his brows at them, frustration building from impatience. Eventually, they do as he asks and leave the room.
As soon as the door clicks, he speaks, “From this moment on, the only person to see you bare will be me. Your skin is mine. For my eyes only.” His eyes trail the shape of my body, the pajamas Jacob gave me still hang loose on me. “Now… change,” he orders.
I look for the door, for the idea of finding any way out, but there’s nowhere. Even if I got out of this room, they’d chase me, catch me, and maybe the dark web booking system would re-open. From what he’s saying, he wants me to himself, and that gives me more opportunity to eventually escape. If he wants me, and only me, he won’t leave me here, maybe he’ll take me somewhere else, somewhere I can run from. Somewhere I stand a chance of escape.
He pulls his pistol from his back and places it on his lap. A warning without words.
