Physically I existed, but the remains of who I’d been had been erased. The fight to hold onto who I was slipped away. That five-year-old girl who told her teacher she was going to stop people all over the world from getting sick had vanished.
Day by day a layer of me was peeled away and I was left raw and exposed. I never thought I’d ever choose to die. But I did. I begged for death. Not to them, I wouldn’t give them that, but when I was alone in the darkness.
But I didn’t die. So I existed.
I survived. And within the speck of dust, I had a speck of hope.
Maybe that was how I survived. Because without hope, there was nothing.
I sat in the corner of my room, my legs to my chest, my palm on the floor as my fingers scratched slow and methodically back and forth on the cement. I no longer had a bed frame, just a thin ragged mattress on the floor. They took that away after I used it to try and get out of my cell.
The door opened and I didn’t look up, merely continued my rhythmic movement.
“Get up,” Alfonzo ordered. After two months of being here, I’d discovered his name. He was the one who handled me when I’d been kidnapped and brought here. He was also the second worst next to Jacob.
Alfonzo liked sex. Jacob liked pain.
I stood, kept my eyes on the floor and followed him out the door. He didn’t have to make certain I was behind him. He didn’t have to force me. He didn’t have to do anything because I wouldn’t disobey him.
Not anymore.
Alfonzo was my trainer so to speak. Jacob hurt me, terrified me, he made me submit. But Alfonzo… he humiliated me. He treated me like an object and after a while, I became an object. I was nothing more than an expendable item to give pleasure to him and I wore a collar around my neck to prove it.
We walked upstairs, through the dining hall and out onto the terrace. I hadn’t been outside in weeks. The heat felt good on my skin, even with the welts scoring across the backs of my thighs from a few days earlier.
I stepped on a sharp stone and it dug into the sole of my foot, but the pain was minimal to what I was accustomed to. I did my best to keep my steps even and quiet like I was taught—compliant and invisible.
I stopped when Alfonzo did, keeping my eyes down.
“Leave us,” a voice ordered.
Alfonzo pushed by me and I was left standing on the hot patio stones, the soles of my feet burning. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth trying to numb out the pain. I was good at numbing out the pain.
I recognized Raul’s voice. He owned the compound and he owned me. I’d seen him a number of times at meals when I was in the dining hall, not eating but being played with.
“Come closer.”
I took several steps forward until I stood under the shaded canopy and kneeled. I’d never been brought to Raul before. Fear crept across my skin as I wondered what he wanted with me. It was insane to feel this way, but comfort came with routine, with knowing.
And this was unusual.
“This is the girl. Raven. Of course, that’s not her real name. Alfonzo named her. Said she reminded him of a raven because she is so intelligent. A problem solver.” He chuckled. “She pushed her bedframe up on its edge against the wall, then climbed it so she could reach the ceiling. Then she used the sheet wrapped around her hand to dig through the plaster between the wall and ceiling. Smart. She knew when she could do it and when my men would be checking on her even without a window to tell the time.” Every day I dug a little further until Alfonzo walked in unexpectedly one day and saw me. That’s when they took my bedframe away. “Raven is the daughter of a well-known scientist.”
I inhaled deeply to try and settle my nerves and that was when his scent hit me.
A slight whimper escaped and I started to look up, but stopped myself. I couldn’t breathe because I knew that scent. I’d never forget it. My heart pounded and sparks darted over my skin.
I wanted to fall on the ground and sob, but I was too scared to do anything but keep my head down and remain as still as I could.
So many emotions traipsed all over me and through me. It was like my adrenaline had been drowned and now it was being pulled from the depths of the ocean and given life again.
Kai.
Maybe I was wrong in assuming he was here to save me. Maybe it was the stupidest thought I’d ever had. But it was all I had.
“Obedient. Now. Took Alfonzo and Jacob weeks to break this one.” Raul laughed and it crackled as if he smoked too much.
“She’s a risk,” Kai said.
I choked on the sob as his voice blanketed me. I dug my cracked, split nails into my naked thighs to keep myself from looking up at him, to see for myself that it was really him.
“Perhaps. But my understanding is you enjoy risk, Kai,” Raul said.
I heard the click of a lighter and then the smell of cigar smoke billowed in the air.
“A high-profile missing girl is a liability.” Kai’s voice was controlled and casual. What was he saying? It sounded like… no. No. It wasn’t true. “No matter how beautiful.”