“But . . .”
“You’re not listening to me,” she hissed. “You’ve only seen a tiny piece of what they’re capable of doing! If you want to carry on breathing, forget everything!”
She bent down and picked up my bags, walking away, clip-clopping across the concrete.
I didn’t follow.
I should go to the police. Christ, I had to do something.
“Listen!” she snapped, turning around and glaring at me. “Did you get a photo of it happening? Video it on your phone? No, of course you didn’t. There’s no proof! And even if someone did listen, you wouldn’t last the night.”
“He killed her! I know it! Don’t you even care?”
“I care about not being next,” she said, her voice low and furious.
“Then I’ll leave!” I shouted. “I’ll get the hell away and then tell someone. I’ll buy a ticket online and . . .”
Her voice was brittle. “They’ll be watching you—and you can’t trust the police. You’d never make it.”
She stared at me, holding my gaze until I scrubbed a hand over my face in frustration. Then she glanced down at my damaged fingers.
“I’ll take care of that for you.”
I shook my head. “There must be a way out of here!”
“Sure, honey. Feet first.” Then she gave a small smile. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and Sergei will forget about you. Especially as he’s already had you.”
“He hasn’t had me!” I spat out, my eyes narrowed in anger, my gut twisting.
“Oh,” she said softly.
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
She deliberately ignored my question.
“I’m going to get out of here,” I growled.
She shrugged again, unimpressed.
“That’s what they all say.”
When she turned and walked away, I didn’t know what to do. I had nowhere else to go. This time I followed.
I tried to take in my surroundings and ignore the pain.
It was gloomy, just a few service lights that filled the space with shadows. Expensive cars were parked in numbered bays: Porsches, Ferraris, an Aston Martin and two Jaguar coupés.
I was scared, really fucking scared. I was lucky to be alive. If I kept asking about the girl, I wouldn’t live for much longer. Maybe I should do what Trixie said and forget about her if I wanted to survive. Could I do that? I wasn’t sure. The girl, if she was alive, what would happen to her? Where would they take her? I had to tell someone. But I didn’t know who I could trust.
Anger and frustration burned inside me and it wouldn’t take much for the simmering rage to explode.
And then you’ll die. I was a fucking coward.
“Looks like you got some cool clothes,” said Trixie, peering into one of the bags.
I stared at her in disbelief as blood continued to trickle down the side of my face.
Twenty minutes ago, I thought I was going to die, now Trixie was smiling and joking in front of me. She didn’t want to see the blood or my broken fingers; she didn’t want to know that I’d witnessed an assault, possibly a murder, maybe two. I couldn’t make sense of it and I shook my head in confusion.
Nothing felt safe anymore.
She took me to the theater’s first aid station. I could hear rehearsals on the stage, feel the vibrations of the music.
It spun my mind that this existed side by side with the violence of the last few hours, operated by the same people.
Dance, performing, this was my life. But now the whole thing was tainted.
Trixie frowned, staring at my hand which had swollen to twice its normal size. The fingers that Sergei had broken were turning purple and looked like a couple of Kranjska sausages.
“We’ll get some ice for that.
Trixie led me to a stool and told me to sit while she opened a large fridge, pulling out two packs of ice.
I rested my hand between the icepacks while she washed the cut on my head.
“You’ll have a scar,” she said. “But it’s above your hairline. It should probably have stitches . . .”
Her words tailed off.
“But I’m not going to get them,” I finished for her.
“You’re learning.”
We stared at each other for several long seconds before Trixie looked away.
After some of the swelling had begun to reduce, she eased the ice packs away, and without telling me what she was going to do, grabbed my broken fingers and yanked them back into a straight line.
The pain was off the chart and black dots floated in front of my eyes. I didn’t know if I was going to puke or pass out.
In the end, I didn’t do either, swaying on the stool while Trixie expertly splinted my broken fingers, then wrapped them in a thick bandage.
I guessed it wasn’t the first time she’d had to do that.
“Leave the splints on for a week. Then you’ll need to do some exercises so they don’t get too stiff. Just like new in five, six weeks.”
I nodded, but inside the molten lava of anger was beginning to glow red. Somehow, I’d find a way to take these evil bastards down. Somehow.
“You’d better get to rehearsals.”