Iate the granola bar and drank the water when I woke up. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had real food. Hot food. I had dreamt of bacon while I slept. I even thought I could smell it right now. It was like a mirage of water in the desert. I must be desperate.
No light came through the slats of the boarded-up window, so I knew it was late. How late, though, I couldn’t be sure. And it was cold. Really cold. I was glad to have such dim lighting in the room. Sleeping on the bare mattress and knowing others had been here before me—well, I didn’t want to know what I’d find staining it.
I stayed at the window for a while, knowing screaming would be useless. If anyone would have been able to hear me, he would have made sure to gag me anyway. This wasn’t the first time he’d done this. I knew that much. But I tried anyway. I cried out the window, not caring if he could hear.
“Hello? Hello, can anyone hear me? Is anyone out there?”
Nothing. Nothing but the sounds of night. I went back to the bed and sat down, rubbing my arms to warm up.
I wish I knew exactly what would happen to me. My captor—what was his name? I decided I would call him Death. He looked like an angel of death. That death mask hid his angel’s face.
I needed to find out more information. Try to figure out where I was. How far from civilization. I heard no noise, and trying to look through the window slats had proven useless earlier. The room smelled musty and old, like it hadn’t been used in a while. The mattress and pillow—I didn’t want to think about what those smelled like. But if I went close to the window, in addition to the freezing-cold draft, I could smell pine. We were in the woods somewhere. Question was, where and how far from civilization?
Death. He’d whipped me so easily. Hadn’t even had to hold me down to do it, although he had had to adjust my position a few times. I’d have to figure out how to not swallow the pills next time. I couldn’t be so out of control again. I needed to find an opportunity to run. But what if when I got that chance, it turned out there were more men out there? What if he wasn’t alone? What if I did manage to get past Death and got out there, only to find a second man? Or third. Victor had so many at his disposal.
But did Death work for Victor? I guessed he’d have to. Victor would have to be making money off this auction. Was he doing this to me to keep his promise to Mateo? How cruelly he kept his word. How easily he twisted it.
Mateo had begged him for my life.
He’d been on his knees when they’d brought me in. He’d been beaten and bloodied, bound and kneeling in the middle of that horrible room with the scent of fresh blood, of death, overwhelming every other sense. When he’d seen me, God, his eyes when he’d seen me. The shock. The horror. Like everything they’d done to him up until that point was moot. Like me seeing him like that, Mateo, my older brother, my hero, the one who always took care of me, who savedmeevery time, me being thereto see him on his knees had broken him in a way they hadn’t been able to break him before.
He’d begged them, then. I knew he hadn’t begged before. Victor said so.
Victor.
Victor had looked so smug upon hearing my brother beg.
I would kill Victor with my bare hands. I would do to him what he’d done to my Mateo.
I wiped hot tears from my face and steeled myself. But remembering…remembering what he’d made Mateo do to promise to keep me alive. What he’d made me watch.
I leaped off the bed and ran into the bathroom, making it to the toilet just in time as that granola bar made its way back up. I’d had nothing to eat in so long. I didn’t even know how long.
When I stopped retching, I opened the medicine cabinet in search of a toothbrush. I did find one, a small travel-size one, but no way was I going to brush my teeth with a used toothbrush. And before he made me do it, I flushed it down the toilet. At least there was a tube of toothpaste. Squeezing some on my finger, I brushed my teeth as best as I could.
I needed to focus. To find some way out.
Using the night-lights, I searched both rooms again, and like the first time, found nothing. The chest where he’d kept the crop was locked tight, but I knew if I could get in there, there might be something for me to use, some sort of weapon. Something to use to escape, or at least to hurt him long enough to get out of here. He had to have a phone. I would take it and make the call to David Lazaro, Mateo’s contact. I’d memorized his number. But was he in on it too? Had he set Mateo up?
It didn’t matter, not right now. I needed to get out of here first. He had to have a car. I mean, if we were in some remote location—and I knew we must be—he’d need a car to get here. Icould take the car. The rest I’d figure out. I just needed to get out of this room.
I didn’t know how much time had passed, but I tried the door for the hundredth time, growing so frustrated that this time, I pounded on it with both fists, screaming out for him to let me out.
A light went on in the outer room. I scrambled backward to the bed, climbed on, and waited, my back pressed against the headboard.
The lock slid, and I found myself hugging my knees, hiding my face behind a curtain of hair. When the door opened, I lifted my head. Death stood there without the mask, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. His damp hair told me he’d recently had a shower. I guess he’d built up a sweat whipping me.
My ass hurt, and I shifted my weight.
He didn’t close the door.
Without a word, he entered. I studied him.
He watched me, his gaze as effective as chains keeping me locked to the spot.
Then he changed direction and reached into his pocket for what I knew was the key to the chest. It was like as soon as he looked away, he released me. Like the bonds holding me stupidly to the bed while the door stood open had been broken, and I ran. I bounded up faster than I thought I could move and bolted straight for the door. I didn’t trip, I didn’t think, I just ran. It wasn’t a big room. It would only have taken five or six steps to get to it. But I didn’t make it. And I knew from the look in his eyes that he’d expected me to do just what I did. That he’d left the damn door open on purpose, testing me. I knew it the instant he shot his arm out and caught me just before I could set foot outside the door. Just a breath away from that other room, that brightly lit room.
Death wrapped an arm around my middle and slapped my ass hard before hauling me kicking and screaming back to the bed with the bare stained mattress.
