Jamie Riley woke with a start. She had no idea how long she had been asleep. The room where she was being held had no clocks. It had no windows and no electric outlets. She was pretty sure she was in a basement. The floor was always cold and the walls were made of bare cement.
There was a cot in one corner of the room with a sheet and a blanket and a thin pillow. Across from the cot was a thick steel door that was always locked. The walls were blank and empty. There was one low bulb hanging above her head, but Jamie had no control over it. Someone on the other side of the door commanded it; it was turned off whenever they wanted and usually turned on when they brought her breakfast. There was nothing else in the room. Three times a day a woman came down to let her use the bathroom and then gave her something to eat before slamming the door closed.
Jamie sat up in bed and wrapped the thin blanket around her shoulders as she drew her knees up and leaned back against the wall. She had no idea what had woken her so sharply, but she hated it. She wished desperately that she were still asleep. Her head fell back and she looked up at the bare rafters above her. There were four beams that ran across her ceiling. She had counted them and catalogued them and marked every bump and crack and she could see them when she closed her eyes.
“No one’s gonna hurt ya. We’re just gonna hold you for a few days.” That was all she had been told.
She remembered saying goodbye to Chelsea and Blue. She wanted them to be together; she knew they were perfect for each other and they had finally recognized it, too. She had left to give them some privacy. She drove to the grocery store to get some soda for her hangover. She had walked out of store and into the parking lot and saw a large black van next to her car. She approached the van warily. It had been early in the morning and she had foolishly assumed the daylight would protect her. Two men and a woman stood outside the van looking at her car and shaking their heads.
“Is everything all right?” Jamie asked as she approached.
“My idiot girlfriend here hit your car,” the one man said. He was tall and wiry, and was wearing a bulky black trench coat that made Jamie nervous in a way she couldn’t quite define.
“Sorry about that, doll,” the woman had said. Her name was Hillary. She was the woman who brought Jamie her meals and took her to the bathroom. She was short with a pockmarked face and a head of bleach-blond hair with dark black roots showing.
“It doesn’t look like there’s any damage, so we don’t have to worry about it,” Jamie said with shrug of her shoulders. She took out her keys to open the door, but the wiry man stopped her.
“Come look at it from this angle,” he said, taking Jamie by her shoulders and moving her so she was standing next to the van’s two back doors. The doors were open slightly, but Jamie couldn’t see inside. “See right there,” he said bringing his head down next to Jamie’s and pointing to her car.
Jamie still couldn’t see any damage. But it didn’t matter. She should have listened to her instincts. She was squinting at the undamaged side of her old black car when the back doors of the van swung open and she was suddenly pushed inside. A hand covered her mouth as she tried to scream. The doors were closed and, in a second, the wiry man and Hillary were in the car, taking off.
She was swiftly tied up, gagged, and blindfolded. Her shoes and socks were taken. They drove for what felt like hours with Jamie’s elbows and knees stuck in uncomfortable positions. Finally, they stopped and someone tossed her over his shoulder.,The blindfold was removed and she saw her cell for the first time. By the end of the day she would have every corner of it memorized.
Jamie figured this was the fourth day she had been here. Hillary refused to answer any questions. Why was she here? What did they want? Were they going to hurt her? How long was a few days?
That was the part that worried her the most. They had promised they only wanted to hold her for a few days as collateral. For what and whom, they never answered. But what if that was a lie? What if they were holding Jamie and they were going to do something terrible to her? What if telling her they would only hold her for a few days was their way of keeping her quiet and tame until they did what they really wanted?
But what if it really was just a few days? Jamie didn’t know what she should do. Should she try and escape or wait for someone to rescue her? In reality, the choice had been made for her. There was no way out of her cell and no weapons she could make from anything in there. She was well and truly trapped.
My sister has a lot of money, a lot. The words had been at the tip of Jamie’s tongue. She knew it wasn’t quite true – her sister didn’t have a lot of money yet – but it would be soon. But she hadn’t been able to say the words yet. She didn’t want to involve Chelsea if she didn’t have to. These were violent and dangerous creatures and Jamie didn’t want to give them her sister’s name.
There was a rattling at the door. Jamie froze and pulled the sheets tight around her. This wasn’t normal. Normally the light came on and then a few minutes later Hillary would come and take Jamie to the bathroom and then give her some breakfast. But the light hadn’t come on yet. It wasn’t officially morning.
The knob turned and opened and Jamie swallowed a scream as she looked at the tall and wiry man from the parking lot.
“Time to go,” he said with a jerk of his head.
“Go where?” Jamie asked, pulling the blankets tighter.
He made an annoyed noise and in two steps he was on her. He grabbed her arm and roughly pulled her from the bed. She didn’t know if she should fight him or go with him. She had no idea what was going on or what she should do. She staggered to her feet and stumbled behind him.
Her feet hit the freezing floor and she stood on her tiptoes as her body screamed against the temperature. They had taken her shoes and socks when they tied her up in the backseat of the van and she hadn’t seen them since. The man pulled her towards the door and Hillary quickly slipped the blindfold over her eyes.
“It’s for your own safety, doll,” she said.
Jamie didn’t know what that meant. She didn’t want to know what it meant. She wanted to go back to San Francisco and her bar and never come to back to this horrible town again. She wondered what Chelsea had thought of her disappearance. Had she called the cops? Had they called Chelsea to ransom her sister?”
Her hands were still untied, but the tall and lanky man held her in a vice grip. He pulled her along beside him and she walked over cold floors until he told her to step up and she began to ascend a set of steep stairs.
At first it sounded like rushing water. But then she understood it was the sound of men – men screaming and shouting and then the sound of someone hitting something else, that horrifying sound when someone hits another. Somewhere not far from her, men were screaming and shouting and fighting. Jamie tried to pull back and away.
“Where are you taking me?” she demanded, but no one answered her.
Hillary gave her a little shove and Jamie stumbled forward. Suddenly the screams reached a fever pitch and then it was half cheers and half groans and boos.
“Another excellent fight and the winner is Mike Sanchez!” A loud cheer went up and Jamie wished she could cover her ears. The sound was deafening and painful. Suddenly she realized what was happening. The pits, the fighting pits Blue had been in. That’s who was holding her, the men who ran the fights, but why?
The noise was getting louder and Jamie was walking rights towards it. She began to fight against the man who was holding her, but he just tightened his grip around her arm as Hillary grabbed the other and pinned it to her back. The blindfold caught her tears and her sobs were lost in the scream of the crowd.