terrified.
I’m laid out across the back seat. This time there will be no escape. No jumping out on the highway. He’s made sure of it. I’m blindfolded. Bound at both my wrists and ankles. Thick tape covers my mouth. I’m strapped down with both sets of seatbelts.
I don’t know what day it is or how long it’s been since I was taken from school. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is escaping.
It takes a while for my brain to become fully awake.
I will not panic. That’s the first rule.
I take a deep breath and try to recall the rest of the rules. They’re from a book I read by Dr. Ida Kurshner. It’s half autobiography and half ‘how-to’. The book detailed the kidnapping and subsequent escape she’d experienced as a young woman at the hands of a plumber who came to her home to do work one day and decided to take her with him when he left. At the end of the book, she listed her TO DO’s in case anyone reading ever found themselves held captive.
I recall Dr. Ida’s list.
#1) Avoid being captured all together by screaming and fighting back.
That ship has sailed, lady.
#2) Retain your composure and dignity. Do not beg or become hysterical. Do not cry, if at all possible. Smile and offer compliments without appearing manipulative.
I think the good doctor was also the same one who wrote all those housewife manuals from the 50’s. Curl your hair and put on lipstick before your husband comes home. Do not concern him with how bad the children might have been during the day. Smile often and make sure his dinner is hot and ready. You could end up with that new vacuum you’ve had your eye on if he thinks you’re doing a swell job.
No.
#3) Do not challenge your captor.. Show them respect.
Over my dead fucking body, Dr. Ida.
#4) Do not engage them in any conversation that could be upsetting for them.
Hey, Mr. Captor Man! How’s the family? See the game Sunday? Can you believe this weather we’re having? How about you letting me go and we meet up for a game of one-on-one at the rec center next week? Sound good? Okay, see you there!
#5) Connect with your captor on a personal level. Share personal stories. Make them feel like you have things in common. Better yet, make them care about you by relating to them.
Hey, you like killing and kidnapping? O.M.G. Me too!
#6) Seduction.
Number six is how Dr. Ida finally escaped. She convinced her captor she wanted him as much as he wanted her. She seduced him and they engaged in what she called a ‘consensual non-consensual sexual relationship.’ Over the course of a few months she gained his trust enough for him to let her go outside in the backyard on occasion where she eventually scaled a fence and ran to a neighboring house for help.
The problem is that Dr. Ida was dealing with a man having a psychotic breakdown. I’m dealing with a man who’s straight up psychotic.
I’m going to have to improvise on the list, but I’m going to try. I must try. I’ll do anything to make up for the sins of my father. I’ll pray to every god. I’ll sink to the lowest of the lows, because I will finish my work, even if it’s with a gun to my head during and a bullet in my brain after.
One way or another, I will be free.
Chapter Twelve
Thinkingyou’re going to die one minute and live the next is downright exhausting. I’m emotionally and mentally drained when I hear doors open, and I’m pulled from the vehicle. The blindfold is ripped away. The bright light that’s creating a halo in my vision. Once my eyes focus, I can see the vehicle I was traveling in is an unmarked black van. Not the soccer-mom kind, but the industrial kind plumbers or electricians use. I’m set on my feet, but my legs are wobbly and my feet are still tethered at the ankles. I stumble but don’t fall, held up by the large warm palm of my captor.
Smoke braces my bicep with one hand and bends to cut away my restraints with the other.
“Are you this rough with everyone you kidnap?” I bite out. I realize it’s not smart to insult him. The Dr. Ida of my imagination is slapping a ruler against my palms.
“Sorry, I’m out of touch dealing with the living. Most people I encounter stop breathing after a few seconds. I’ll try to be more fucking gentle next time,” he says.
He’s being sarcastic, but it’s the truth in his words that hit me in the gut. He doesn’t usually kidnap people. He kills them.
There’s no aftercare involved in killing.
We’re in the middle of a field in front of a large U-shaped building with broken windows that looks as if it’s an abandoned school of some sort. Weeds, vines, and graffiti take up most of the chipped brick exterior. A dilapidated metal fence around the perimeter is missing entire sections I assume are somewhere under the thick brush growing between the chain links. The parts that are still standing have a metal slinky looking wire sitting at the top. Barbed wire. It’s not a school at all.
It’s a prison.
Or at least, it was.
There’s no sign of life. No sounds except the crunching of the brush under our feet as Smoke leads me over thick woven brush at least a foot high. I get caught up in it several times. My foot sinking to the bottom of the tangled vines and holding me there until Smoke cuts them away with a long, serrated knife from his belt, urging me forward into the building.
We enter through a car-sized hole in the side of the building. We climb over a steep pile of crumbled brick in order to get inside.
I stumble, my foot slipping on the brick several times until Smoke picks me up with ease, setting me back on my feet on the other side of the pile.
He nudges my shoulders, and I slowly move forward into the prison, his heavy footsteps follow closely behind, echoing off the walls as if there is more than one of him behind me.
We move deeper into the cellblock down a wide hall. The building is two stories. One row of cells on top of the other. A corroded staircase stands in the very middle of the large room. Furry brown dust and mold clings to the air ducts running the length of the ceiling. Rust peeks out through the dozens of layers of prison green paint peeling from the walls. Graffiti is everywhere, even high above the cells where I’m left wondering how on earth the artist got all the way up there.
Broken windows let in an occasional breeze that can’t be felt in the stagnant heat outside. A torn piece of paper floats across the floor in front of us like a prison tumbleweed. Warm air hits my sweaty skin. I shiver, the warmth doing nothing to stop the chill from stabbing its way through my skin down into my bones like an ice pick. My lower jaw vibrates. My teeth chatter so loudly the sound echoes around in my brain. To make it stop I clamp my jaw so tight I’m sure my teeth are about to crack.
It smells like death.
My stomach rolls.
Decay thickens the air and makes it hard to breathe. It’s more than just a smell. It’s a feeling. A feeling I fear I’ll never be able to rid from my nostrils or my thoughts. It sticks with me, covers me, cages me in as if I need a reminder that, like the many who’ve been here before, I am a prisoner.
Bits of paper and clothing are strewn about the cracked concrete floor. Thin dirty mattresses are everywhere except on the iron bed frames, the welds thick at the joints from multiple repairs. Some of the mattresses are leaning against the bottom of the stairs. Some are stacked in the middle of the hallway. Some just lay about at various angles with tears exposing their springs like corpses left in the very spot they died in.
There’s more graffiti here than on the outside of the building. Painted on the floor is a large red satanic star. I shut my eyes tightly as I cross over it. When I’m sure I’m clear I open my eyes again and look up to where an entire doorway of a cell appears to be stained in blood. A large splatter covers the right side, turning into thinner and thinner drip marks the further down the wall I look before turning into a black pool stain on the concrete.
Bile rises in my throat.
I can see the violence of the past all around me
. It flutters in the air like ghosts surrounding me, making their presence known. They whisper in my ear, sliding across my prickly skin.
The breeze turns from warm to cold as the sun sets and the prison glows with a deep blue as the moon lights our way. I can hear the screams of the past. Banging against the bars. A last cry of whoever met their unfortunate end in that blood-stained cell.
“I’m not afraid,”I say out loud. I’m not sure if I’m talking to Smoke or myself. But even I don’t believe my own words.
Smoke chuckles, guiding me into a cell and slides the metal bars shut with a bang, creating a never-ending echo. He produces an ancient-looking key and locks the cell with a click that makes my heart jump in my chest.
The sun’s almost completely set now and the light through the windows is dim at best.
“No lights?” I ask.
The second the words leave my lips I know it’s a stupid question. The place barely has standing walls. Of course, it doesn’t have electricity.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark,” Smoke says, tucking the key into his back pocket.
“No,” I lie. “I’m not afraid of anything. Not even the likes of you.”
The corner of his lip curls up into an evil, half-smile. He leans forward with his hands on the bars right above his head. He looks me up and down. His eyes widen. He looks hungry. Angry. Feral.
“Oh, hellion. I very much doubt that.”
I take a step back to gain more distance even though there are bars separating us.
“I've seen fear a million times in a thousand different ways,” Smoke says.
He pulls out the key once more and turns it in the lock. He’s inside the cell now.
I’m backing up and backing up until I’m trapped against the far wall.
Smoke approaches and leans down. He’s so close his nose is almost touching the place between my neck and ear.
“You can’t tell me you’re not afraid. I know fear when I see it.”
I’m trembling as he closes his eyes and inhales deeply running the tip of his nose runs across my skin.
“Fuck, I can smell it on you, kid.”
“Don’t call me a kid,” I seethe through my teeth.
His eyes darken with fury. “I’ll call you whatever the fuck I want to call you.”
“My name is Frankie.” I say with a sudden boost of confidence.
He’s so close now, his chest is pressed against mine. “I know your name. I just don’t fuckingcare.”
We’re still, locked in position, neither one of us wanting to make the first move. Smoke breaks first.
“Your eyes really are that color,” he whispers. I’m taken aback.
“What’s going to happen to me?” I ask, on a shaky whisper.
Smoke places his hands on the wall beside my head, caging me in. I’m eye to emotionless eye with the ghost of Christmas kidnapping.
“Whatever the fuck I want,” he growls.
“Fuck you,” I spit.
He chuckles, and I can feel it in my chest. His lips brush against my jaw.
“Only if you beg.”
Chapter Thirteen
I’m alone.
Smoke’s gone. He left me a mattress and a few bottles of water. The cell has no toilet but a small metal sink with no running water. Since it has the only drain in the place, I use it to relieve my full bladder and lay down just as darkness blankets everything.
It’s freezing. I’m awake, but I’m not sure if I’ve slept yet or not. I don’t remember dreaming, but I also don’t remember falling asleep. How long have I been in here? Minutes? Hours? Days? Long enough to make me understand how inmates in solitary go crazy.
Sitting alone in this cell is a lot like walking on train tracks in the dark when you know a train is coming along at any second. My skin pricks with anxiety. With the unknown.
When? When? When?
My stomach rumbles with hunger, but it’s the least of my worries.
Every few seconds a whistling noise starts like wind blowing through a pipe. It begins low and grows louder and louder until it sounds as if the ceiling above me might burst. It stops completely for a few moments before starting all over again.
I count the sequence of these whistles to keep my brain occupied. One. Two. Three. It’s when I’m on four that the whistling stops and another kind can be heard.
One that’s not coming from any pipe; it’s coming from down below.
I pretend it’s nothing until I hear footsteps on the metal stairs. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. My palms begin to sweat.
He’s back.
I sit up and pull my knees up to my chest. A barrier that can easily be breached.
The clouds shift through the large window on the far wall revealing a half moon which gives off just enough light to remind me I can see.
A shaky yellow stream from a flashlight bounces off the walls of my cell and hits me in the eye, momentarily blinding me.
A key turns in the lock and I hear the squeal of the door sliding open.
Holding in a cry I grip the mattress tightly.
My eyes strain as I peer into the blackness. The shadow standing above me is big but not nearly as large as Smoke. When the clouds clear and allow the rest of the moonlight to flood the cell and reveal more of the stranger in front of me.
This man is much shorter, skinnier, and dirtier than Smoke. He takes out the toothpick he’s chewing on and smiles, revealing a missing front tooth. “Hello there, darlin’. I’m Wes,” he says with a crooked smile.
“Did Smoke send you?” I ask, hesitantly.
The man shakes his head slowly from side to side, and for a split-second, I think I’m saved.
Saved is the last thing I am right now.
His eyes rake across my body like I’m wearing nothing at all. The hair on the back of my neck stands up.
He sits down on the bed next to me. I immediately jump up and run for the now open cell door. He reaches out and grabs my arm, pulling me back down on the mattress.
“Oh, no you don’t. We just met. Let’s get to know each other for a while.” The man grins, and I shake my head.
“No, let me go.”
“Why do you gotta be so rude? I just want us to be friends.”
Wes reminds me of a snake slithering his way around a rodent playfully before squeezing the life from its body. He looks like a snake, too. Flat-headed. Beady, little, wide-set eyes, and a sharp tongue that might as well be forked.
This man is not here to rescue me.
A surprising thought crosses my mind. It sounds idiotic, even to me.
I hope Smoke comes back soon.
“Smoke treating you alright?” the man asks, sucking on his bottom lip and shuffling closer to me on the mattress. He’s got my wrist in his grip and as much as I try, I’m too battered and bruised to fight him off. “I’ve been sent to check up on things and from the looks of it, things look realgood.”
Everything in me is screaming to fight, but I don’t have anything to fight him off with. I’m weak. So weak. He palms himself through his jeans and my stomach rolls. If it wasn’t already empty it would be now.