Chapter Six
The bedroom door opened, making a creaking noise that never failed to terrify her, so Persephone quickly turned her head to see who they’d sent in this time so she could brace for what was to come. Eyes wide with fear, she saw Nick again and breathed a sigh of relief. Still unsure what to think about him, she felt reasonably sure he wasn’t as horrible as any of the other men.
He walked up beside the chair and crouched down in front of her. Placing his hands on her legs to balance himself, he looked up at her and whispered, “They’re going to be moving you tonight. I’m trying to get assigned to be one of the people who goes with you.”
She nodded and made a noise to let him know she wanted the gag removed. He reached up and pulled the rag out of her mouth.
“Don’t talk loud. We can’t afford to have them hear you,” he warned.
“Where are they moving me to?” she whispered, each word painful as her mouth formed the syllables.
“Winchester. I’m going to try to be one of the men who moves you.”
Persephone didn’t understand why he had to do any of this at all. Why weren’t the FBI just handling this like any other kidnapping case?
“Why aren’t the police or the FBI involved in this? At the very least, why aren’t the state police handling finding me?”
Nick shook his head. “The FBI is involved, but after those farm pictures came out, they probably thought you weren’t being held against your will.”
A mixture of disgust and disappointment rushed through her brain. Not held against her will? Didn’t they look at those pictures? She couldn’t have been more obvious with how terrified she was in each and every one. For God’s sake, in some she had to force back the tears as that awful man screamed at her to look happy.
“So there’s just you trying to save me?” Persephone asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer to her own question.
Nick lifted himself up so he was eye-level with her. His dark eyes stared into hers and made her feel like what he had to say meant something important to him. At least he seemed to care.
“Your father hired me because this is what I do. I know you don’t trust me, but I’m doing everything I can to make sure you’re safe while you’re with these men, and I’m going to get you away from here as soon as I can.”
“What are they planning to do with me?”
“I don’t know yet. They don’t seem to either. Most of the guys here are just drifters or unemployed guys who have nothing else to do but a lot of anger about it. They have this belief that the world has given them a raw deal, and their leader has told them the way to remedy that is you.”
“Me?” she asked incredulously.
How the hell could she be the way to remedy their unhappy lives?
Nick nodded and rolled his eyes. He didn’t seem too convinced by what he had to say. “Yeah. I think the idea was that they’d kidnap you and get money for their cause, but something must have happened because your father already paid them five hundred grand and you’re still here.”
Suddenly, panic tore through her body. She’d seen enough movies and documentaries to know that once kidnappers got the money they demanded, if they didn’t release their prisoner that person wasn’t long for this world. Tears welled in her eyes as all hope she’d had of escaping slipped away.
“They’re going to kill me, Nick. I know how this works. They got the money, so now it’s just a matter of killing me. Did they send you in here to do it?”
Tears began to roll down her cheeks as her short life flashed in front of her eyes. She’d never married or had children. She’d never even been engaged. All those years she’d spent devoted to becoming a nurse and then getting ahead at the hospital now seemed for nothing. She’d die in this terrible place or the next terrible place they planned to take her to and her life would end as if she meant nothing to the world.
He shook his head and cradled her face in his strong hands. “No! Don’t think like that. Persephone, I’m not going to let them kill you. I promise you that. Something must have changed anyway because they demanded another five hundred thousand from your father already. I think they didn’t plan on this actually succeeding, so now they just figure they’re going to milk it for everything they can. To do that, they need you alive.”
“But what if my father already paid that second half a million? What then? They aren’t going to keep this going forever,” she sobbed.
Nick slowly dragged the pads of his thumbs across the tops of her cheeks to dry her tears and smiled. “I think they’re just not very good at this. Most of them spend half the day sleeping because the leader is drugging them to keep them calm. This Clayton guy hasn’t been around since I got here, but Drist says he’ll be around soon.”
“Drist?”
“Short blond hair and way too many tattoos on his face,” he explained as his hands slid from her face. “The one who brought me when I first got here. He has a thing with guns. Probably means he’s compensating for something.”
Persephone couldn’t help but smile. There she sat in some rundown house tied to a chair and this man who claimed to be there to help her was making jokes about one of the men outside that room having a tiny penis.
She’d seen enough of Drist’s anger to make her want to believe someone had cut off his penis. Even that may have been too good for him, though.
Then it dawned on her that the name Clayton sounded familiar. “What’s the leader’s name? Clayton what?”
Nick moved his hands away from her face, and suddenly she felt alone, even as he crouched in front of her. Maybe she could trust him. God, she wanted to.
“Berger. My guess is that the FBI has kept him busy these past few days since he doesn’t make any secret of the fact that he’s the leader of the National Equality Militia,” Nick explained. “But Drist gave me the impression we might see him soon.”
Persephone looked up toward the ceiling as the name Clayton Berger settled into her brain. Where had she heard that name before? She had definitely heard his name, but where and why?
Focusing on Nick again, she looked down at him as he sat crouched in front of her and asked, “What does he look like, this Clayton Berger? Have you ever seen him?”
“Just a picture of him online but never in person. He doesn’t look like any of these guys, to be honest. He has short brown hair, light eyes, I think. Maybe blue. I’m not sure. He has a look like any regular businessman from what I could tell by the picture I saw. My guess is he’s the respectable face of the organization. Why?”
Persephone thought back to a night a few weeks before at the hospital. “Is he tall and thin?”
Nick nodded. “Yeah. Pretty much. Why?”
She knew there had been something strange about that man that night on her last shift of the week. He hadn’t seemed in as much pain as he claimed, so the doctor had refused to give him any meds for his supposed pain. He’d seemed more interested in talking to her about what made her choose nursing as a career than actually being in the agony he claimed he was in, and she’d suspected something was wrong with him.
“He came to the hospital where I work last month. He said he’d twisted his ankle and strained his back helping someone move, but he never really looked like he was really in much pain and the x-ray showed his ankle was just fine. I was the nurse who attended him, and all he wanted to do was talk to me about why I chose to become a nurse, if I liked living in the area, and things like that. I’m so stupid. I had a feeling something wasn’t right, but I still talked to him for nearly a half hour.”
“That was probably Berger getting a feel for you and where you worked since they grabbed you from the hospital, right?”
She nodded, disgusted that she hadn’t followed her gut that night. “Yeah. They were waiting for me at my car in the parking garage. That man pretended to be hurt just to get close to me? My father was right. He always told me working at that hospital put me in danger, but I never listened to him. Now my stupidity has cost him a million dollars and might cost me my life.”
Nick frowned and stood up in front of her. “No, it won’t. Your father may have lost that money, but I’m not going to let them do anything to hurt you. Just remember what I told you. Don’t fight them. They’ve been told to not mess up your face too much, so you should be okay. Hopefully, I can get to be one of the guys who goes with you tonight when we move to the new place in Winchester.”
“Will you help me escape then?”
“That’s the plan. Okay, I have to go. Just remember. Don’t fight them.”
He turned to leave, but Persephone hated the idea of being left alone in that room again with the gag stuffed in her mouth. “Wait! Don’t go. I’m going out of my mind sitting here for hours alone.”
Turning to look at the door, he sighed. “I don’t want to risk them getting suspicious of what I’m doing in here.”
“Please, stay for just a little while. You want me to trust you, but I don’t know anything about you, Nick.”
She waited while he decided if he should give in to her pleas and then silently rejoiced when he stepped back to stand in front of her. Persephone still didn’t know how much to believe in him, but God, she desperately wanted to.
“There’s not much to know about me,” he said with a smile that instantly calmed her.
“You say you’re not a cop or FBI. Then why would my father hire you to rescue me?” she asked as she sized up the man in front of her.
Tall and strong, she believed he could take any one of the men outside that room. But could he save her from all of them?
Nick lowered his head and said quietly, “I used to be FBI. Since I left, I’ve done work like this, among other things. Don’t worry. You’re in good hands. I’ve been undercover more times than I can remember. Never lost anyone.”
As he finished speaking, he winced ever so slightly before smiling. Persephone immediately suspected he wasn’t telling her the whole truth, but exactly what part was a lie? Had he not been in the FBI, or had he lost someone on a case? Or even worse, was everything he’d ever said to her a lie and he was just another one of the men holding her hostage for some stupid cause who would kill her at some point?
“Promise?”
The word came out of her mouth before she knew it, and for a moment, she felt foolish. How much could any promises made in a situation like this mean? She wasn’t a child. She knew how this would very likely end, with or without this man’s help.
Nick crouched down in front of her. With a look of utter sincerity in his eyes, he answered her question. “Persephone, I promise I’m going to get you out of here.”
He reached down to pick up the gag and then gently pushed it back into her mouth, looking away as he did so he didn’t have to face her while he did it. She understood he had to so they continued to pretend that he was one of the militia and she was still a prisoner.
That didn’t mean she liked it, though.
But she wanted to believe with all her heart that Nick, this man who appeared out of nowhere and promised to help her, would be the person he pledged he would be and not just another one of those awful men outside that room who looked at her like everything about who she was filled them with hate.
He touched her tenderly on arm as he moved to leave. “I’ll be back in a little while. Don’t worry.”
A few hours later, two men came into the room where she sat, but Nick wasn’t one of them. They forced a burlap sack over her head, thrusting her into darkness, and grabbed her roughly. But she didn’t fight them, desperately praying to God that she’d hear Nick’s voice at any second telling her everything would be okay. Still gagged and her hands and feet still bound, she was carried out to some kind of vehicle and tossed into the back. Her head slammed off the hard metal floor, and moments later, she faded into blackness.
* * *
Persephone opened her eyes but closed them quickly to avoid the light all around her. Slowly, she lifted her eyelids and tried to focus on her surroundings. Where was she?
The room she now sat in had tan walls and curtains with brown and white geometrical patterns on them. The windows were blacked out like at the other place they’d held her, but this looked more like someone’s home and less like just somewhere to hide a hostage. A twin bed sat along the wall in front of her, and above it on the ceiling hung a poster of some sports team’s cheerleaders.
She looked down and saw they had tied her to a metal kitchen chair with a plastic red padded seat. Far more comfortable than the last one, it at least gave her some cushion on her behind.
Persephone’s head throbbed, although she couldn’t remember why it would hurt so much. Had they beat her at some point after they moved her here? She tried to remember the details of how she’d gotten there, but her mind drew a blank.
She remembered the two men throwing her into a vehicle and then nothing. At least nothing until that moment when she opened her eyes.
The urge to cry out came over her, so even though the gag still made it impossible for her to actually say anything clearly, she screamed the best she could and hoped Nick could hear her. Then a thought crossed her mind that terrified her even more than being trapped in that unfamiliar room in that unknown place.
What if Nick wasn’t there anymore?
She didn’t know why the thought suddenly popped into her head. She barely knew him, and even though she wanted to believe he would help her escape, she couldn’t honestly say she could trust him. He’d given her hope, though, and for that, she prayed to God he was still with the militia group.
Her throat hurt, but she screamed until no more sound would come out. Still, no one came. Persephone wondered if the others had found out that Nick had been nice to her. Had they uncovered who he really was? Her mind raced with terrifying ideas of what they’d done to him and what they’d do to her now.
Her only hope to escape gone.
As she thought of him no longer there and then thought of him no longer alive, her emotions spiraled out of control. For two weeks, she’d existed in that chair as an object of hate for those men, threatened and demeaned by every one of them except for Nick. She hadn’t believed he could get her away from them so much as wanted to believe he could, but now that meant nothing.
Now she was truly alone again with little hope of ever finding a way out.
Tears rolled down her cheeks as she tried not to think of what would happen next, but it was no use. Her mind raced with scenarios of what they’d do to her. Sobbing, she begged God for deliverance and bargained anything she owned for just one more chance to feel the warmth of the sun on her face again. One more chance to hug her parents and sisters and tell them she loved them.
One more chance to live her life.
She cried until she had nothing left inside anymore. After two weeks of being held hostage, nothing they’d said or done to her had broken her spirit. What broke her was the realization that there was finally no hope left for her to get away.
That hopelessness settled into her heart and mind and took over every inch of her until nothing but sadness filled her. She didn’t know why they hadn’t killed her yet, but she knew it didn’t matter much anymore. They would soon, and when the time came, she’d be alone in whatever room they held her in, nobody there by her side to comfort her as she took her last breath.
Behind her, she heard the twist of the doorknob, but as the bedroom door opened, there was no squeaking noise like before. The person closed the door until it quietly clicked shut, and then she felt footsteps fall on the carpeted floor beneath her. Holding her breath, she waited for the sound of the person’s voice to let her know what to expect next.
“Persephone? Are you awake?” a man asked, sounding genuinely interested in her and if she’d awakened yet.
The familiar voice registered in her brain, and she looked up to see Nick staring down at her with concern in his eyes. They hadn’t killed him for being kind to her. He was alive!
He hurriedly pulled the rag from her mouth, and even though she didn’t know why since she barely knew this person, she couldn’t stop herself from crying tears of joy. Nick crouched down in front of her and softly touched his fingertips to her cheeks to dry them.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be here when you woke up. I checked over and over, but you stayed out for a long time. How do you feel?” he asked as he used his sleeve to dry the last of her tears.
How did she feel? She didn’t know how to express that. He wouldn’t understand how much it meant to her to see his face in that moment when she was sure all hope had vanished.
“My head hurts. I think that’s from when they threw me into the truck or the van or whatever they used to get me here.”
He lifted himself up and gently ran his hand over the back of her head. “I don’t feel any lump, but I guess that’s not surprising. You’ve been out for a long time.”
Confused, she wondered what he meant. “How long? I know I don’t remember being brought here.”
Nick stood up and walked over to the window to pull back the black covering to look outside. “Three days. They moved you to that house in Winchester that night after we talked, and I thought I could get you out then, but that Clayton guy, the leader, showed up and all hell broke loose. He was pissed that they knocked you out and told them to get you somewhere that didn’t look like a crack house. So they moved you here. You’ve been in this house for two days. I’m guessing they drugged you to keep you out for that long. They had me on security watching the back door, so I could only sneak in every so often to check on you.”
She tried to remember anything from all that time, but she drew a blank. Three days of her life gone, in addition to the two weeks they’d taken from her before that.
Covering the window up again, Nick came back to stand in front of her. His face serious, he said, “I need you to remember what I told you, okay? I need you to just trust me. I’ve got something planned, so when it goes down, you’ll have to do as I say for the two of us to get out of here alive.”
Persephone had no idea what he had planned, but she’d do as he said. She didn’t know if what she felt for him truly could be called trust, but she had to admit she’d never been as happy to see someone like she had when he appeared beside her just a few moments before.