In the morning, I wake up with sore shoulders and a stiff neck. I spent all night with my arms tied behind my back and my head slumped down to my chest. My entire body is sore and my muscles scream in protest when I try to work my wrists free from the rope binding them.
After a few minutes, I have to stop and admit that the rope isn’t budging. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, but this gives me time to come up with an awesome escape plan. Today I’m going to do something other than cry for Ryder like I did all last night.
Knowing that he bled to death sometime last night nearly kills me, and it takes every ounce of strength I have to keep from bursting into tears and becoming useless. The thought of never seeing Ryder again hurts my heart, and for a minute I think about giving up. What point is there in escaping if Tobe and I can’t go back to Reese and Ryder?
We won’t survive long on our own. The last week has shown me that. If Tobe and I don’t have Reese and Ryder to help take care of us, we’re going to either starve to death, or get eaten alive and turn into soulless flesh-eating monsters. Neither of those things sound great, but neither does staying here at this camp with Frank.
I take a deep breath, and look around the tent. There are three others girls tied to another pole, and I check them out in terms of usefulness. One of the girls looks to be about fourteen years old, and she might be a couple of inches taller than me. Her hair is light blonde, her eyes are light gray, her lips are thin, and her build is petite. When she looks at me, her eyes are dead and lifeless.
The other girl is a couple of years older, but she can’t be more than sixteen, and a few inches taller. Her skin is a soft, espresso color, and her eyes are large and brown. Her hair is black, wavy and long, hanging almost to her waist. Her build is athletic and powerful; she might be of use in an escape attempt.
The third girl is a couple of years older than me, and about the same height as the dark-skinned girl. Her hair is blonde and short, and she has a similar expression on her face as the youngest girl. She’s completely given up hope of being rescued, and she’s probably just hoping for an easy death.
“Hey. Hey, are you alright?”
The dark-skinned girl looks up at me with dark, pain-filled eyes. “What do you want?”
“How long have you been here?”
“I’ve only been here for about a week. They caught me while I was digging through what’s left of the drug store near my home. I thought they would rescue me, but they dragged me away, beat me, and starved me of food and water.”
“What else did they do to you?”
“Nothing yet. They’re trying to break me down before they do anything more to me. After four days with no food and water, they dragged me into one of the other tents and threw me down on a bed. One of the men tried to have sex with me, but I bit one of his fingers off.”
I gape at her. “You bit off his finger?”
“Yep,” she smiles proudly. “They didn’t try anything again after that. I went one more day without water, before they finally had to relent and give me some or risk killing me. So now they’re starting my torture over again. It’s been almost forty-eight hours without water.”
“What’s gonna happen to the two of us?” I ask, nodding my head at Tobe, since that’s the only part of me that can move right now.
She frowns. “They’re probably gonna come in and beat you, then starve you, and then in three days time, they’re gonna test you. If you fight back too much, you’ll start over again. If you fight just enough, you’re fair game to all the men. That’s what happened to Melissa here,” she says, nodding her head at the younger blonde, the one with the dead eyes. “They’ve had her for about two and a half weeks I think.”
I glance at Tobe out of the corner of my eye. “Did you know her when you were with them?” I don’t get an answer, but I didn’t really expect one. She hasn’t said a word since we were on the island, and she’s not going to start now. I look back at the dark-skinned girl. “She was abducted by the Warriors before and was held for over a month.”
The girl shakes her head. “I’m sorry to hear that. What’s your name newbie?”
“Sam.”
“Naomi,” she says. “I’d offer you my hand, but they’re kind of tied up right now. Are you alright?”
“I’m just wondering how Frank and his group managed to find us. We traveled a long way to get here, all the way from Louisville, Kentucky. How did they track us this far?”
“I think I can answer that for you. I heard one of the men say that they found your apartment and an open map to Beaver Island on one of the counters. That’s near here, right?”
I sigh. “Yeah, it is, and I left that map there without even thinking about it. That’s how they found us. They knew where we were going, and we used the first dock we found. We weren’t exactly hard to locate.”
“Hey man, Frank wants you to check in on our guests!”
Naomi looks at me. “Do whatever they tell you, but don’t make it easy on them. Never stop fighting, or they’ll get rid of you.”
The tent flap pulls back and a man walks in. He can’t be more than twenty, but he looks older and more deadly with a shotgun in his hands. He’s dressed in army fatigues, black combat boots, and he has a black cap on. “How are we feeling today ladies?”
Tobe, Melissa, and the other blonde don’t answer, and they don’t look up. They just hang their heads in total silence. He looks at them with obvious disgust, and then turns his attention to Naomi. “How are we doing today firecracker?”
She sneers. “Just peachy. My new friend and I were getting to know one another. Gotta problem with that, sir?”
He smiles. “God, I love ‘em feisty.”
She looks unfazed for the most part, but I can see a slight hint of fear in her eyes. She knows what’s going to happen to her once she becomes more approachable, and she’ll do anything to keep it from occurring. Even if she’s given up hope of rescue, she can’t look like she’s given up.
He turns to me. “Well, our new recruits are awake it seems. How’re you feeling?”
“Fine.”
He smiles and rolls up his sleeves. “You won’t be for long.”