The handle turned and the door swung open to reveal my captor, Diego Ruiz.
“Querida,” he said in that slow, affectionate way manipulative men used like it was believable. His gaze swept over me, admiring his newest acquisition.
I hated that sound and that look but I kept my expression blank. Another lesson I learned at the school of hard knocks was if you gave them nothing they got bored.But men like Diego? They didn’t get bored. They got mad.
He stepped inside and shut the door. The lock clicked loudly, almost echoing in the tense air. He reached out, and his knuckles brushed my jaw gently, like a lover.
“No!” I protested and jerked away from his touch.
He smiled tightly. “We’ll fix that word first.”
What happened next wasn’t about sex or violence. It was about power. About making sure I understood that he had all of it and I had none. His eyes were dull and lifeless as he ripped my work clothes to shreds and took his time memorizing my body. “Exactly what I wanted,” he said like I was an object he added to his collection. Ice ran through my veins as his hands brushed over my skin and his lips touched me where I didn’t want it.
Diego’s lips pulled into something that looked like a smile as he climbed on top of me and that was the last thing I noticed about him because I fixated on a water stain on the ceiling and thought about the sketchbook I kept on my nightstand. I drew that stain in my head until it became a door.
I left my body on that rickety bed and walked right through it.
When he was done, he smoothed his clothes as if we’d finished a business meeting.
“Macy,” he whispered. “I like you better feisty,” he murmured. “But not too feisty.” He smiled and walked out. The lock clicked, metal against metal, loud and obnoxious.
Just like Diego.
***
The first full day in captivity felt a lot like what I imagined prison would feel like. Endlessly boring without a routine, soI built one in counts of sixty. Thirty seconds of pushups and a thirty-second break. Thirty seconds of sit ups. Stretches. Jumping jacks. Thirty on and thirty off.
I paced the room making sure it was still eight by seven. Checked the window just in case, and then the door. I guzzled water from the small sink and pissed in that same sink when it became clear nobody was coming for me.
The cold air bit at my skin but I ignored it, refusing to shiver, pretending like I was fully dressed. Hunger stabbed at my ribs and I closed my eyes, imagining a big sandwich sat in front of me. I refused to ask for anything, refused to let them think I wanted anything from them.
I lost count of how many sixties had passed when the door opened and a short, heavyset man appeared with a bag in one hand and a Styrofoam box in the other. He dropped it all on the floor with a grunt and exited without a word.
I took a hesitant step forward and then another until the loot sat at my feet. I dug into the bag first, pulling out leggings, sneakers, and a gray sweatshirt, slipping them on like a second skin. My body relaxed a little but not enough to stop the tension coiling in my muscles. The box contained food, chicken, beans, and black rice. I ate the rice and beans, left the chicken in sauce where it was.
I needed energy but a clear head and I trusted the dry rice and beans as much as I could trust anything.
When the sun went down, I heard voices and that was when the real fear set in. Diego Ruiz wasn’t justacriminal, he was second in command for the Sombra Negra cartel.
A fucking cartel lieutenant.
When Diego returned to my room that night, my blood ran a little colder and I held my body stiffer. He didn’t tear my clothes off the second night, he slowly undressed me and then himself, and then I focused on that stain, slipped through the imaginary door and I didn’t return until I was alone again.
The third time he came inside, I wasn’t sure if it was the same day or the next, but he made me undress myself and him. “On your knees,” he commanded.
I obeyed because I didn’t have a choice. Because I knew he was a terrible man who did terrible things. Because I didn’t have an exit plan worked out.
Yet.
Time and time again, Diego stepped inside and took what wasn’t his before leaving me in the silence and the filth. Once a day his man brought me food that smelled incredible, but I survived on a diet of rice and beans only, too paranoid to eat anything else. My logic was faulty, but I needed to eat.
“You’re mine,” he said the fourth time. And every time after that.
I wasn’t his and I never would be.
If I didn’t find a way out soon, I would take the only way out that was left to me.
***
