Chapter Three
Thirteen days. One long, awful, terrifying week followed by six more horrible days.
Persephone stretched her mouth to relieve the pain of the gag one of her captors had forced onto her while another tied a rope around her hands behind her back, around her ankles, and her waist to hold her to the old wooden chair they kept her in day and night for the whole time they’d held her. The rope tore at the delicate skin on her wrists every time she moved. If only she could just sit still, but every fiber of her being screamed day and night she needed to move.
That she needed to do whatever she could to escape from these men.
They’d taken her to that farm and ordered her at gunpoint to dance around that pasture like some frolicking fairy loving life out in the country. Her legs nearly gave out half a dozen times, weak from fear as her whole body shook in terror while they barked out orders for her to look happier and to smile bigger.
“Look like you’re fucking loving this, bitch!” they screamed as she ran around in the green grass hoping someone somewhere could see her and how terrified she truly was.
That had been the only time they let her off that horrible old wooden chair, except when she begged them to let her use the bathroom. A half hour feeling the sun on her face out of nearly two weeks held against her will by them.
She still had no idea who they were. All she knew about the men who came into the room with her was they were young, white, and angrier than anyone else she’d never met in her life. She didn’t know if all of them where they held her were as angry as the ones who tended to her, but the four or five she’d met so far made her believe that one wrong move and she’d end up dead.
That is, dead before the moment they intended to kill her.
Persephone had seen enough news in her life to know how this would end. They’d kidnapped her to extract money from her father. When they got it, they’d have no more use for her. That’s how this went.
She knew her father well enough to know that he’d hand over any amount to get her back. Marshall Gilmore may have been cutthroat in business, but when it came to his family, he’d move heaven and earth for his daughters and wife.
But just as she knew the reality of her situation, he did too and maybe he wouldn’t give them the ransom quickly. He hadn’t made his fortune by being outsmarted by others. Maybe he’d try to bargain with them. She wasn’t what they wanted. Surely, they wanted money more than her. The problem was she didn’t know if that would help her or hurt her.
Holding back tears at how much everything hurt as she sat there tied to that chair for more than half a day since her last bathroom trip, she looked around at the room they held her in. Nondescript white walls that looked like they were covered in plaster made her think the building was older. Beneath her, a worn hardwood floor reinforced that belief.
Was she being held in a house? She knew they’d moved her after the farm trip, but she’d been gagged, blindfolded, and bound, so she couldn’t even guess where they’d taken her to. Nothing the men around her said gave her any clue as to where they were. In fact, they said little at all, and when they did speak, it was mostly to threaten her to keep quiet and stop crying.
Which she did a lot of.
She wasn’t ashamed of that either. She had every right to be scared for her life, and she’d seen enough patients in the hospital break down when they found out their cases were terminal.
And that’s exactly what her case was.
Terminal.
These men wouldn’t let her live much longer. Once they got what they wanted, they’d get rid of her.
So she had to find a way out and now.
* * *
Slowly, she lifted her head and opened her eyes to look around at the room in front of her. With the windows blacked out, she couldn’t tell if it was day or night. She listened for sounds from her captors and heard voices talking low somewhere nearby in the building. Their conversation made no sense, mainly because she only heard a few words every so often, but she tried to understand what they said in the hopes that it might help her escape from this wretched place.
Footsteps coming toward where she sat made her heart slam against her chest, and for the hundredth time, Persephone prayed to God this wouldn’t be the one when they pressed the end of a gun to her head and pulled the trigger.
The door opened behind her, creaking on its hinges in the way it did every time. It never failed to send chills down her spine as that ominous sound hit her ears.
She craned her neck to see which one it was. The one with the crew cut and tattoos of a skull and crossbones on his face? Or the one with slightly longer dark hair and eyes that harbored such rage she worried each time he appeared that he’d unleash that horrible anger on her?
The one with the brown hair pulled back into a ponytail who sneered in that terrifying way every time he had to come in to feed her or take her to the bathroom?
Or worst of all, the one who always pointed his gun directly at her as she swallowed spoonful after spoonful of that awful food they forced on her. They all liked to let her know they carried guns, but he went beyond using his to warn her.
The pleased look in his nearly black eyes said he got off terrifying her with that gun of his.
Oh God! It was the one with the gun!
“Time to eat, bitch,” he said, practically growling at her.
In his eyes, she saw the hate he felt for her. It terrified Persephone more than anything she’d ever encountered in her life.
This time he wasn’t alone, though. Behind him followed a man she hadn’t seen before. Dark haired, he wore it short but not shaved to his head. He had an angular face and little scruff, but he didn’t look dirty like the others. Overall, he didn’t look very much like a revolutionary, as the rest of his friends like to call themselves.
Persephone watched as the one with the gun handed him the bowl of whatever terrible food he’d brought to feed her. “On second thought, you feed this bitch. Why should I get stuck with this fucking slave shit?”
The new man simply shrugged. “Fine. I’ll feed her. What is this shit anyway?”
Surprised by the question, the one with the gun made a face of disgust. “How the fuck do I know? I’m not a fucking cook. She needs to be fed so she doesn’t starve to death on us, so this is what we’re feeding her. You writing a book? Make this one a fucking mystery.”
Again, the new man shrugged. “Whatever. Just making conversation.”
Waving his gun, the angry one stopped and pointed it at Persephone’s head. “Don’t let her give you any fucking attitude. If she does, smack her. She needs to learn her place.”
A smile spread across the new man’s face. “Got it. Anything else?”
“Don’t listen to her if she says she has to go to the bathroom. She just took a piss a few hours ago.”
He glared at her and made a gesture like he shot the gun and it kicked back in his hand before storming out and slamming the door behind him. Left alone with her, the new guy set the bowl of slop he needed to feed her on the table across the room and picked up a chair in one hand, swinging it around him as he grabbed the bowl again. The motion looked fluid, like he had done it a million times.
He set the chair down in front of her and with one hand untied the gag from behind her head, letting it fall away to the floor. As he sat down, Persephone stretched her mouth and closed her eyes to revel in the brief respite from that terrible pain the gag inflicted on her jaw.
“Are you hungry?” the man asked in a low voice barely above a whisper.
She opened her eyes and stared at him in amazement. No one had spoken to her like that in the thirteen days she’d been their hostage. In fact, no one had asked her a single question since they brought her there. Her comfort or anything about her didn’t interest them in the least.
As she looked at him, she couldn’t help but notice how different he seemed from the other men she’d met from the group. His dark brown eyes held no true anger toward her, and nothing in his expression said he wanted to kill her.
But she knew how quickly that could change with these men, and she had no reason to doubt he wasn’t just like them.
Cruel. Vicious. Deadly.
And no matter how gentle his eyes appeared now, when he held his gun to her head and threatened to pull the trigger because she’d upset him by doing something insignificant, he’d be as terrifying as the others.
“Well, hungry or not, I have to feed you, so open up your mouth,” he said in a tone that sounded almost amused.
What could be funny to him she had no idea.
He lifted the spoon from what looked like a grey version of oatmeal and brought it to her mouth, but she closed her lips tightly and shook her head. Whatever that shit in the bowl was, she didn’t want any. She suspected they were drugging her food to make her more compliant anyway. She didn’t feel like helping them with that since being on her toes might be the only way to escape this place and them.
The man watched her as she refused the food he offered and smiled. “Neither of us really has a choice here, so why not make it easy on both of us and eat?”
What the hell was he smiling for?
Enraged at his cavalier attitude toward her as she sat tied to a chair with her hands bound behind her back, she snapped, “Stop smiling! I’m a prisoner here. See the ropes around my hands? There’s nothing funny about that. And I’m not going to make anything easy on you just so you or one of your thug friends can kill me a day or two from now.”
Immediately, she regretted her outburst and waited for the inevitable pain that would come when he smacked her across the face as the man who fed her the first night did when she protested. She hadn’t made that mistake again, but something about this one’s stupid smiling had pushed her past the point of reason.
Looking away, she braced herself and waited with dread for the painful sting of being hit, but instead, he quietly said, “I’m sorry. I forgot myself for a minute there. It happens sometimes when you’re playing a part. I’m not going to punish you for what you said, but I do have to feed you.”
Persephone listened to him speak like a normal, completely not psychotic person and turned to face him again. “Who are you? Why are you being so nice to me?”
His dark gaze slid over her, down from her eyes to her lips and then her neck where she knew there were bruises from when one of their hands had painfully pushed against her tender skin and left it purple and ugly. A feeling of shame washed over her as he stared for too long at the evidence that she’d been attacked by one of the men, and she turned away again to avoid his knowing glance when he lifted his eyes to look into hers.
“I’m sorry they did that to you,” he said quietly.
Even more stunned from this second apology than she’d been at the first, she looked at him and shook her head in disbelief. “What’s your game? I know you’re no different than any of the others, so are you trying to lure me into a feeling of false security so when you hit me you get some kind of bigger rush? Just do it because I’m not falling for this nice guy thing you’re trying to do.”
The man said nothing for a long moment, making Persephone sure that at any second the swift retribution for what she dared say would come down on her. No matter what he wanted her to believe, she knew better.
He may have looked kinder, but no decent man would be anywhere near the men holding her hostage. No, this man was just as dangerous as any of the others.
“My name is Nick. I can’t say much more without putting both of us in danger, but you can trust me. I won’t let them hurt you, Persephone.”
This man—this Nick—spoke as if he knew her and cared about her. But how could that be? He was one of them. She wouldn’t be fooled by his gentle words and kind eyes.
No matter how desperate she was deep in her soul to believe everything he offered in those words and eyes.
“I don’t know who you are or who you think you’re fooling, Nick, but if you think for a second I’m falling for this act of yours, forget it. If any good resided inside you, then you wouldn’t be within a mile of these guys.”
Her indictment of him didn’t seem to faze the man one bit, though. He simply nodded and smiled again, like any of what was going on between them or around them was anything to crack a smile about.
“Do you enjoy my pain, Nick? Is that why you keep smiling?” Persephone asked, her anger with his amusement at the situation once again making her braver than she should have been.
And yet, once again, he didn’t hit her. He didn’t do anything, except for take that infuriating smile off his face.
“I’m not happy with what’s happening to you. I’m smiling because I’m glad you’re a fighter. If you were some pathetic thing who wasn’t intent on fighting for her life, this would be much harder. That’s all the smile is about. I’m not trying to make light of what you’re going through.”
Confused, Persephone narrowed her eyes and stared at him to try to figure out what this guy’s plan was. Did he intend on making her think he could be her ally just to betray her to those devils outside that room? To what end? What could he get from her that could be of any use to him?
“I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m not going to fall for it. And I don’t want any of that grey gruel you keep scooping onto that spoon either, so don’t even try to feed that to me because I promise you’ll end up wearing it.”
Nick lowered his head, but she saw he was trying to hide his smile. Again with the damn smiling!
“You think what I said was funny?”
Looking up at her, he shook his head. “I don’t know how you expect me to keep a straight face when you say things like that. What kind of hostage talks to her captors like that? I clearly need to work on my bad guy vibe because it’s not coming through with you, for sure.”
“You’re here to play head games with me, aren’t you? You do seem a lot smarter than the rest of them, so I guess you’re a good choice for the job, but I’m not some stupid debutante who’s never seen anything of the horrors of life, so whatever you think you’re doing, it’s not going to work.”
“Head games?” he asked, acting like what she said confused him.
But she knew better. He may have been far less of a Cro-Magnon man than the rest of his friends, but he was no rocket scientist. That she was sure of.
And he wasn’t very convincing in this innocent thing he tried to convey.
“You’re probably doing some good cop-bad cop thing with one of your buddies out there. Maybe that one who likes to press the end of his gun to the side of my face whenever he feeds me. He’s the bad guy, and you’re the good guy. You make me think I’m not going to die in this place, and then that bastard comes in and shows me just how wrong I was to believe in you.”
She shook her head, refusing to fall for the trick. “Nope. Sorry. Just be man enough to kill me yourself if that’s the way it’s going to be. Don’t leave it up to him. He’d probably get off on it anyway, so why give that guy all the good stuff?”
“I’m not here to play any games with you. Right now, I just need to get some of this food into you so you don’t starve to death. Can you at least try a spoonful of this stuff for me?”
Staring at him in utter disbelief, she asked, “Why are you acting like we’re friends or something here? I’m not going to try anything for you, Nick. You’re holding me hostage, for God’s sake! My hands are tied behind my back for so long my shoulders are killing me. I guess that’s better than real death, so thanks for that, but I’m a prisoner here. Stop trying to act like we’re friends because we’re not.”
With each word, her voice rose until she was practically screaming by the time she finished. Whatever he’d been sent in there to do—twist her thoughts with his mind games, play good cop to the rest of their bad cop routine, or whatever other horrible thing he intended—she wasn’t going to let it happen without fighting it.
Her yelling made his eyes fill with fear, and he turned to look at the door like he expected someone to come busting in at any second. Looking back at her, he put his finger to his lips and whispered, “Don’t yell. If you do, they’ll come in and I don’t know what they’ll do. I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m trying to help you here. You don’t have to believe me, but for the moment, at least give me the benefit of the doubt.”
“Why? Why should I do that?” she asked, unsure what this man was trying to do to her.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Because I’m here to save you. I can’t do that if they decide it’s time to kill you.”
“You’re here to save me?” she asked as his words repeated in her brain.
Save her? Why would this person do that? Why would he betray his fellow militia men who kidnapped her?
“Yes, and even though I’m happy you’re a fighter because you’re going to need that when we escape from these people, that fighting isn’t going to help you with them now. They hate women, or at least they hate your kind of woman, so fighting will only make them want to take out their rage on you. I know you don’t know me, but trust me. I’m here to help.”
What he said settled into her mind until she thought maybe it made sense, so she asked, “Are you a cop? FBI? Are you doing some kind of undercover thing here?”
She wanted to believe he might be telling the truth. The tiny spark of hope inside her had flickered until it nearly extinguished itself in the past few days of her captivity, but now it leapt inside her at the mere thought that maybe she might make it out alive with his help.
Whispering in her ear, he said, “I’m not a cop or FBI. Your father hired me to rescue you, and that’s what I intend on doing. I just need you to trust me.”
“I don’t believe you. My father wouldn’t wait all this time to send someone.”
There was no damn way this guy was telling the truth. Her father wouldn’t make her suffer for nearly two weeks. No way.
“He didn’t. When he decided the FBI wasn’t seeing this case like they should, he called me. That was last week.”
“Then why didn’t you show up until today?”
“I had to get in with them, which took a few days. They aren’t exactly the most trusting people on Earth. Now listen to me. This could get ugly, and I’m talking really ugly. I need you to remember that whatever happens, I won’t let them hurt you. I promise. I won’t let them hurt you, Persephone. But if it does get as ugly as it could get, I need you to remember I’m doing this to save you. Never forget that, okay?”
Nick leaned away, settling his gaze directly on her. What did he mean by as ugly as it could get if he wasn’t going to let them hurt her? What was going to happen that made his warning sound so chilling?
Reason told her not to trust this man. He was one of them. But hope made her want to believe what he said, and at that moment, she chose to hope that he wasn’t simply toying with her for some sick and perverted enjoyment he’d get later when he told her it had all been a lie.
For now, she’d trust this Nick. What other choice did she have?