Natalia

 

It had all happened so fast. I’d run back to my room, tears stinging my eyes and a paralyzing sense of dread coursing through my veins. Marco was dead and I was at the mercy of the psychotic bitch who’d decided to haunt my life. Alessandra hated me and so I would suffer. That was how the world worked. My world, at least.

 

I had to get out. That was the one thought ripping through my head over and over again. I grabbed a bag, started throwing things in it. It was desperate and stupid. There was no way I’d be able to leave. But I had to try.

 

I didn’t own many things, and it took only a couple minutes to gather it all. I looped the bag over my shoulder and burst out of the room. If I could move fast enough, maybe I’d find a window to sneak out of. I wasn’t sure what I’d do if I made it outside. Hail a cab, maybe, and beg for him to take me as far away as possible. But I had no money to offer, nowhere to go. I had to hope for the best.

 

The hallway was quiet as I snuck down. I kept my ears at attention, ready to scramble in the opposite direction as soon as I heard any hint of another person. Nothing moved. I stole into the living room. It was sparkling clean from my efforts the night before. I laughed miserably to myself. In comparison to now, my life yesterday had been so simple. It had almost been nice. Marco had cared enough to shield me from the worst of Alessandra’s hatred. But I saw now that was the cause of all this. She hated me because he cared. There was something wrong with her, something fundamentally broken and skewed. All it took was Marco’s affection towards me to trigger the slave master inside of her.

 

Suddenly, I heard voices behind me. I panicked, froze. The pulse in my eardrums ratcheted up until it was all I could hear. Thud, thud. I had to run. Where? Which way? I whirled around and dashed down a side hallway. I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone was following.

 

And ran headlong into the outstretched forearm of a bodyguard. I collapsed onto the carpeted floor, dizzy and in pain. Looking upwards, I saw Alessandra’s face jut into my vision. Her expression was twisted with cruelty and cold anger.

 

“Did you think you were going to run away after what you did?” she hissed. “Did you think I would let you go?” She slapped me, but I barely felt it. My face was numb from the guard’s forearm. “No,” she counseled, wagging a ringed finger at me, “you aren’t running anywhere.” She straightened up and looked to the man who’d knocked me to the ground. “Take her,” she ordered. Then she disappeared.

 

The man loomed over me, big and stoic. His face didn’t betray a single emotion as he lowered a rag towards my face. I tried to scream and fight him off, but I didn’t stand a chance. He pinned my arms to the side and pressed the fabric over my nose and mouth. I choked on the chemical fumes. It took only seconds before everything went black.

 

# # #

 

I came to in a dank concrete cell. An excruciating headache split my skull in two, courtesy of the chloroform the bodyguard had used to knock me out. I struggled up onto my elbows as best I could and looked around through squinted eyes.

 

The room was only a few yards square. A gated doorway made of iron bars was set into one wall. Everything else was solid rock. In one corner, a plastic bucket emanated a vile smell of urine and shit. Otherwise, the room was empty.

 

It took everything I had to focus against the blinding pain in my head. I tried to reach a hand to rub my crusted eyes, when I realized with a start that they were bound together in front of me with a length of rough rope. My wrists were chafed and bleeding beneath the knots. Every muscle ached.

 

I had no memory of how I’d gotten here or even where I was. The last thing I could remember was the rag swooping down towards my face. I blinked hard to make the memory go away.

 

Managing to roll over onto my hands and knees, I crawled towards the door. I reached it and looked out beyond it.

 

A single fluorescent beam flickered intermittently overhead every few seconds, casting an ugly pallor over the hallway. I saw puddles collecting in the uneven surface of the concrete floor. Lining the corridor were more doors like mine. The one directly across from me was empty, but as I listened closely, I thought I could hear a whimpering sound coming from the cell on the other side of the hall and one over.

 

“Psst!” I whispered, trying to draw the attention of whoever was inside. It sounded female. “Psst!”

 

I heard a shuffling noise, and then a girl came into sight. I recoiled at the sight of her. Her face was a mess of purpled bruises and dried blood formed a river from her busted lip down her chin and neck. Her eyes were swimming with terror. She swept her eyes down the hallway, looking for the source of the noise.

 

“Over here!” I said, waving my fingers through the bars of the door. She saw me and her eyes widened. “Where are we?” I asked. “What’s happening?”

 

She opened her mouth to respond, but before she could talk, there was a metallic clang from somewhere I couldn’t see off to the right. The clump of heavy footsteps walking downstairs grew louder. The girl’s eyes bulged and she shot backwards, disappearing from my view.

 

“Wait!” I cried desperately. “Don’t go! Tell me what’s going on!” But she didn’t come back.

 

I sighed bitterly and rocked back onto my heels. The footsteps drew closer, and all of the sudden a man stepped in front of my door. He was dressed nicely, in a dark suit and a white shirt ironed free of any wrinkles. The shine on his wingtip shoes reflected my face perfectly.

 

“Are you talking?” he snarled down at me.

 

I stared up into his face. He had bristly five o’clock shadow and dark, beady eyes. His mouth was a thin, pale line drawn tight beneath a piggish nose. He looked far from friendly.

 

I shook my head feverishly left to right.

 

He sucked in a breath. Despite the tranquility in his words, his eyes spoke of horrors to come if I didn’t obey. “You better not say another word,” he said. His voice drooled with menace. “Or I’ll come in there and teach you how to shut the fuck up. Understand?”

 

I didn’t move.

 

“Nod your head if you understand.”

 

I nodded until it felt like my head was going to fall off my neck. My heart was racing and the headache continued to pound unabated at the soft parts of my brain. I was in pain and afraid and alone.

 

Satisfied, the man turned away from me and gestured towards someone else down the hall. “Bring her in,” he called to whoever stood there.

 

I heard the thumping of more heavy feet, accompanied this time by a slushing noise like something like being dragged along the rocky floor. As I watched, another man dressed similarly walked backwards down the hallway. In his arms, he held an unconscious girl. Her brunette hair hung over her face in sweaty clumps and a quiet groan dripped from between her lips. Just like the other girl who’d refused to talk to me, she, too, was busted up badly.

 

I retreated to the far corner of my cell and rested my head against my arms. I didn’t want to cry; tears wouldn’t help anything. But I couldn’t stop them from pouring unheeded down my face. It was all I could just to muffle the sobbing so the guards didn’t come back again. I didn’t want to end up like those poor girls I’d seen, beaten to a pulp and shot through with fear.

 

But I didn’t know if I would be able to escape it.