Not that I’d be able to escape once I was out of this cell, but trying was a hell of a lot better than sitting and doing nothing while hoping someone would find me. Anyone.
But after days, my hope shifted from being found to being given water and food for my cramping stomach. My throat was so dry that I could no longer swallow and my lips were cracked and bleeding. But the worst was being trapped, no windows, being below ground and feeling like I never had enough oxygen.
I was sitting on the floor when the lock finally clicked and the door opened. I scrambled to my bare feet, spine against the wall. My plan had been to jump whoever walked in. That plan slowly diminished over the days as I grew weaker. No doubt it was their plan. Make me submit by doing nothing, by just shutting me in a room for days until all I could think about was begging for someone to help. Begging them for help.
But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t do that.
The man in the doorway wasn’t the same as the one who brought me to my cell, but I’d caught glimpses of him in the van through my drugged fog. I never heard him speak, smile, or do anything. His expression had been cold and blank. No smirk. No scowl, just blank and unreadable. The unknown.
He was tall and bulky, a muscled bulky, with dark, almost black hair and naturally sun-tanned skin. It was his beady, brown eyes that were the scariest though because they stared at me like I was nothing more than an inconvenience, a piece of garbage he had to deal with.
“What do you want? Who are you? Why am I here?” In the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but think of Kai and the scars across his chest. Were these the people responsible for that? Were they the ones he worked for? Had I become insurance anyway? Did they have my father, too? “My father? Where is he?”
“At home, I imagine.” I sighed with relief. Okay, my dad was okay.
The man raised his brows as he examined all the scratch marks on the doorknob, then he looked at me and gestured with his chin to the cot. “Lie down.”
My heart pounded wildly. “No,” I retorted. No way in hell was I lying on the cot. Only one thought came to me why he wanted me to. No. I wouldn’t.
“Are you sure you want to take that approach?” He stepped further into the room and my eyes narrowed as I watched him. He was confident, and he should be. The asshole had all the power against a defenseless woman.
“Are you sure you want to?” I stupidly said back. But he’d left the door ajar and I was thinking about escape and not what I was saying.
I never saw it coming, how could I? His gun was in the back of his pants. He pulled it out and shot me in the thigh.
I fell to the floor clutching my leg, blood seeping between my fingers. The sharp pain went right through my body and I rolled on the floor trying to stop myself from screaming and giving him the satisfaction.
“On the cot.”
“You shot me!” I’d been shot. Oh, God, I didn’t want to die. No matter where I was or what they did to me, I wanted to live.
He raised the gun. “And I will again if you don’t do as I say.”
I had no doubt he would. I also had no doubt that the situation I was in could be my last. I pressed my palm to my leg as I crawled to my feet then limped to the bed. He obviously didn’t want to kill me; he could’ve done that days ago.
“Hands above your head.”
Shit. I didn’t want to do it, especially when I saw the rope in his hands. But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of me begging. Never. I may have been the quiet geek in school, but I was also stubborn and determined.
But I wasn’t stupid and had to be careful what I said next time.
I screamed as the gun went off again. This time, he hit the cot and stuffing billowed out into the air beside my left leg.
Oh, God. Help me.
I gritted my teeth against the throbbing pain pulsing in my thigh and raised my arms above my head, fingers curling around the metal bar. He walked over, his steps quiet and slow, the opposite of what was happening inside me.
He stopped beside the bed and I glared at him, refusing to flinch under his stare. “I have a feeling we’re going to be here a while.”
“What are you going to do? Why are you doing this?”
He leaned over me and wrapped the coarse rope around my wrists then to the cot’s bedframe. The tiny hairs of the material cut into my skin and I sharply inhaled when he yanked and the rope tightened.
His eyes traveled the length of me, hesitated on my thigh as if assessing whether I was going to bleed to death or not. He crouched, elbows casually resting on the cot beside me.
This time I did flinch when he reached out and pushed my hair back from my face. Then he said in a low, calm voice, “My name is Jacob and I’m your worst nightmare.”
Dust. That was what I’d become. A speck of dust, floating, falling, fading. Something to be wiped away with a swipe of a finger and disappear.