ELEVEN
SLOANE
It’s dark. There are no windows in the back of the van, nor any actual seats. As the guy who shoved me in here takes corner after corner at speed, I struggle to remain seated on the rough, chipped wooden boards that have been hammed haphazardly to the floor of the van. Every time I place my hands out to try and steady myself, I catch myself on a jagged splinter or a twisted nail, jutting out at an angle.
He took my lab coat, and along with it my cell phone. He smirked when he found it in the pocket, then smirked even harder when he dropped it to the ground and crushed it beneath the heel of his boot. “Won’t be needing this anymore,” he’d informed me. That was…what? Thirty minutes ago? An hour? I have no idea how long I’ve been tumbling from one end of the van to other as he’s driven further and further away from St. Peters’ and Michael. The only thing I’m aware of at this current point in time is that I am screwed.
Seriously fucking screwed.
Panic hums through my veins, the sour, bitter taste of it manifested on my tongue, flooding my mouth. I have decisions to make. Do I tell whoever this guy is that I’m pregnant? On one hand, this information could make him treat me a little more carefully. On the other hand, it might have entirely the opposite affect. He could take pleasure in hurting me, trying to damage the baby on purpose, if only to hurt Zeth.
I need to ascertain who I’m dealing with first. Once I know who has taken me and for what purpose, it’ll be easier to make a judgment call. Until then, I’m just going to have to hope he doesn’t slug me in the gut for not doing as I’m told.
“Better yet,” a voice in the back of my head suggests. “Why not just do as you’re told and avoid getting hit at all.” I know it’s what I have to do. It makes so much sense, but honestly, the thought of being meek and obedient in this situation is crippling. It feels like giving in, and after the madness I’ve been through since I started looking for Alexis, giving in goes against every cell in body. Fuck this guy. Fuck whoever has told him to kidnap from my place of work, right from under the nose of the man who was sent to protect me. God, Zeth is going to be so mad at Michael. Poor guy. It’s not his fault. He can’t follow me everywhere while I’m at the hospital, and I’m the one who insisted on continuing to work there. I think, focusing as hard as I can, trying to formulate a plan, a way I might be able to get a message to one of them. If I were to try and steal a cell phone at some opportune moment, if I were to make a break for it, running at the first chance I get, then—
The van screeches to a halt. The guy must lean on the breaks hard, because I slide forward, slamming into wall of the van, hitting my temple against the cool, bare steel. Pain jangles inside my head, and for a second I can’t remember how to breathe. My limbs feel slack, loose, like I’m about to pass out, but I don’t. A door slams, and then I hear boots crunching on gravel, making their way around the van. Another door slam follows. A second set of footsteps in the gravel. So there are two of them after all. The woman pretending to be a nurse at the hospital said, “they have my son”, but I assumed one of the guys had left since I only saw the man in the black felt jacket back in the parking lot.
I squint, my head throbbing painfully as the rear doors are thrown open and daylight floods the van. Two tall, silhouetted figures stand side by side, looking at me, not saying anything, their features obscured by the bright light shining at their backs. So strange. It was definitely dark out when I got into the van. Definitely. So how can it possibly be daylight now? I squint past the figures of the two men, my eyes struggling to focus on what lies beyond them. After a long, worrying moment where I begin to think the bang on the head I just suffered might have affected my vision permanently, my eyes clear, adjusting to the brightness, and I see the truth of it: it’s not daylight after all. It’s bright, stark floodlights, lots of them, casting giant streamers of cold light out into the night. Some sort of sports arena, by the looks of things. A deserted one. I cut a look between the two men, waiting for either one of them to speak, but neither of them do. I’m about to start firing questions at them, demanding answers, when they step aside to reveal a third figure, also cast into shadow by the lights. This figure is different, though. Smaller. More slender. Narrower at the shoulders. It’s a woman.
The sound of high heels clicking on the blacktop rings out, echoing loudly. The woman moves toward the van, slowly, sinuously, like some sort of predatory cat. When she steps into the shadow cast by the van, out of the glare thrown off by the flood lights, she snaps into focus, and everything grows very sharp for a moment.
Long, auburn hair. A slash of red lipstick at her full mouth. High cheek bones. Razor sharp, intelligent, dark blue eyes. She’s wearing a tight, formal, business-like dress, the hem almost touching her knees, however the neckline is scandalously low. The material is a deep Irish green, complimenting her fair complexion and her fiery hair color.
I know her. In some distant, long forgotten part of my mind, I know her. I frantically try to place her, to figure out who she works for, but I draw a blank. It’s not until she holds her hand out to the guy standing to her right, the guy who shoved me in the back of the van, and he hands her a cigarette, that a memory flashes into my mind. A hot, sunny day by a pool. The woman before me holding a cigarette, placing it between her lips, lighting it…
“I’m guessing you don’t know who I am?”
I had replied, bewildered by her at the time. “Unfortunately not.”
“I’m Alaska. I’m Julio’s mistress. You’ll be Zeth’s crazy interloper that showed up in the middle of the night, trying to get herself killed, I assume?”
That’s right: Alaska. It comes back to me a in a rush of adrenalin—that day by the pool at Julio’s compound, the same day I thought I was going to get to see my sister again for the first time in two years. She’d approached me back then with all the elegance and feline grace of a supermodel, initially being friendly but then turning sour and hostile. I remember all too clearly thinking she was a mysterious woman, one who couldn’t be trusted. I haven’t even thought about the woman in well over a year.
“You can come out now,” she says, as she inhales from her cigarette. “No point sitting there, cowering now, is there?”
“I’m not cowering. I’m processing,” I snap.
Alaska arches one of her perfect auburn brows, an open-mouthed smile on her face as she allows smoke to curl free from her mouth. “Oh, yeah. I’m sure this was a little unexpected. I’m sure you thought I was buried in a shallow grave in Ecuador, didn’t you?”
I shake my head, trying to wrap my mind around all of this. “I’m sorry? Ecuador?”
She scowls, ashing her cigarette with an aggressive flick of her wrist. “Never mind. Just get out of the damn van, Sloane. I don’t have all day.”
What would she do if I simply refused to get out of the van? Would she climb up in here herself and pull me out by the roots of my hair? I doubt it. She’d probably tell her men to grab my ankles and drag me out into the dirt. I want to rebel, to refuse her command, but the consequences of doing so don’t sound too dignified to me. Plus, the baby…
I scoot forward, sliding myself out of the van, getting to my feet. Alaska observes me with cold, hard eyes, taking drag after drag from her cigarette. She jerks her head toward the lit sports field behind her, turns and starts walking in that direction, her hips swaying side to side like a pendulum. Her men wait for me to follow before moving off themselves.
“I’m sure you have questions,” Alaska says. “I’m sure you want to know why I’ve had you brought here. I’m sure you’re waiting on Zeth to magically appear and save you. Rest assured, you and I are going to have plenty of time to chat. As for Zeth…” She pivots, walking backwards across the parking lot, pinning in with her strange deep, blue eyes. They’re filled with an incomprehensible malice. “Zeth is another matter entirely. I’m afraid I have some unfinished business with your beau, Doctor Romera. By the time I’m through with him, I’m not sure that you’ll want him to come and save you anymore.” She laughs, an entertained little titter that appears to be more for her own benefit than anyone else’s. She points her cigarette at one of the men standing behind me. I try and turn, to see what the gesture means, but a sharp, stabbing pain lances my neck, and a tight pressure builds, making my head swim. A shot… They’ve given me a shot of something.
I open my mouth, trying to cry out, but my tongue is numb. My face, too. Suddenly my whole body feels as though it’s made of rubber, and I have absolutely no control over it. My knees buckle, my eyes rolling back into my head. I have no idea how hard I hit the ground. I have no idea, because I’m already unconscious.
******
“There’s tight and then there’s tight, Clay. Loosen them off a little. Her fingers have gone blue, you shit.”
“Do you think Alaska really cares if her fucking fingers fall off?”
There’s a snarl and the sound scuffling, and then the platform I’m lying on jolts as something crashes into it. I open my eyes, one at a time, left first, then right, grimacing. If my head hurt before when the van doors opened, it’s virtually splitting apart now. Alaska’s men are rough housing, pushing and shoving at each other, by the looks of things only half serious about hurting each other.
“You’re such a fucking baby,” the one on the right says—the one who must have remained in the van while the other dealt with me at St. Peters’. They look alike, both tall, with muscular frames. Dark hair and dark eyes. The guy who stayed in the car has a full beard, though, along with a narrow, silvery scar that runs down the right hand side of his face. He shoves the other man, putting up his fists. “Back off, Ben,” he says. “The last black eye I gave you has only just healed. If you want another one, though…”
So. If the clean-shaven guy is Ben, that must make him Clay. That must make him the person responsible for my hands, hoisted above my head and zip-tied too tightly, looped through what looks like a gas pipe of some sort. My hands are pulsing with pain from lack of blood flow. I wriggle my fingers, grimacing. Neither Clay nor Ben seems to have noticed I’m awake yet.
“Excuse me.”
Clay lunges for Ben, throwing a mock right hook, laughing like an idiot. Ben ducks back, slapping his strike away, feinting a hit of his own. They’re fucking children.
“Excuse me.”
Neither of them hears me. They dart and dodge, reeling out of each other’s reaches as they pretend to fight.
“HEY!” My cry gets their attention. Both of them freeze, arms outstretched, surprise etched into their faces. “Can you please loosen these ties? I’ll lose more than just my fingers if my hands are constricted like this for much longer.” Truth. A limb can only remain trapped without a supply of oxygen for so long before the cells begin to die. And the fact that my hands are tied over my head is making it even more impossible for any blood to reach them.
Ben and Clay trade looks. Unhappy, suspicious ones. “You’re hardly in a position to be making requests right now,” Ben informs me. “You’re lucky Alaska even wants you kept alive. We already told her it would be easier to start carving you up and dumping pieces of you into Puget Sound.”
I try to appear calm. Bored. “Well, for whatever reason she does want me kept alive, so you’d better loosen these ties or you’re going to have some explaining to do.” Can pinned hands and dead limbs cause death? Sure. If Pippa had spent any more time trapped in that elevator, she would have been dead without a doubt. Crush syndrome, in her case. In my case, it would more likely be shock and septicemia that killed me, once my hands were no longer living flesh. I It would take a hell of a lot longer than I may be implying for me to die, but these guys don’t seem all that bright. I’m counting on the fact that they won’t want to incur Alaska’s wrath.
Ben nudges Clay with the toe of his boot, snapping at him. “What did I tell you, man? Loosen them.”
Clay rolls his eyes, but he makes his way over to me where I’m sprawled out on a narrow cot, not a platform after all. He cuts through the zip ties that are binding my hands together, removing them, throwing them on the floor, then he pulls a fresh set out of his pocket, looping them around my wrists, securing me once more to the pipe overhead. The ties are still tight, but at least I can feel blood flow again.
We appear to be underground, in some sort of engineering room. A large steel vat sits at the other end of the room, plastered in warning stickers, yellow and black signs stuck all over it. A huge panel with countless switches and dials flanks one wall, and along the other a bank of what looks like an old fashioned telephone switch board stands, a rat’s nest of wires and cables snaking in and out of ports all over the place. A dull electric hum fills the air, along with the chemical tang of burning plastic.
“Where is she?” I demand.
“Busy,” Clay fires back. “She’ll come and see you when she’s ready. Until then, you have us to keep you company.”
“Joy.” Sarcasm colors my voice. I’m doing a remarkable job of hiding the terror that’s bouncing around inside me like a stray bullet. I’m just waiting for it to hit me somewhere fatal, for the rising tide of panic to overwhelm me so I can no longer pretend anymore, and my fear shines through. This is not a good situation to be in. I have no idea where I am, save for the fact that, as an educated guess, I assume we’re somewhere below the sports arena we stood before earlier. But which sports arena? There are so many of these mid-sized fields dotted all over the Washington State. Hundreds, maybe. There were no banners or pennants outside the large construction that would give any indication of which team play here, let alone which sport. And even if I did know this information, what good would it do me? Ben smashed my phone, and the chances of my getting my hands on either of their cells when I’m bound at the wrist like this? Impossible. Literally impossible.
“Why don’t you keep your mouth shut, bitch? We can easily go find some duct tape and wind that shit around your head three times if you don’t,” Clay says. His voice drips with anger, his eyes flashing with the same.
I think about shooting back a retort, but I see the warning in his eyes and I keep my lips pressed firmly together. Alaska’s men sit at a tiny table in the center of the cramped room, playing cards. For a while I listen to them as they talk, hoping to glean some idea as to why Alaska has brought me here, but their conversation is unhelpful and, frankly, asinine. I pass out for a while, only regaining consciousness when a rolling wave of nausea pulls me from my sleep.
Oh, god. Not now. Not here.
Morning sickness isn’t something you can bite down, though. It’s unstoppable, and occurs at the most inconvenient times. I lean to the side of the cot just as a violent stream of vomit is purged from my body, splattering onto the bare concrete beside me.
“Holy shit!” Clay’s shout reverberates around the engineering room, too loud and too close. The sound makes my head pound. Another wave of nausea spikes in the pit of my belly, my mouth watering uncontrollably as I try to catch my breath.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Clay cries. “Stop! Stop it right now.”
If only it were that easy. I cough and splutter, trying to push my hair back out of my face, but since my hands are restrained, it’s an impossible task. My whole body seizes as I retch again, throwing up once more down the side of the cot, onto the floor.
“Do something,” Ben hisses to Clay. “She’s doing it on fucking purpose. If you think I’m cleaning that up—”
I want to laugh. He thinks I’m opting to do this, just to make a nuisance of myself. How fucking ridiculous. I screw my eyes shut, shaking violently as I retch again and again. The sickness is never ending, undoubtedly made worse by whatever sedative they shot me up with earlier. The human body reacts badly to that stuff all the time. The human body, when it’s with child is an even more sensitive, unpredictable, finicky thing. The stench of vomit fills the engineering room. My stomach clenches one last time, and I gag, heaving, but nothing else comes up. Lying back on the bed, I gasp, panting, trying to blink back the tears of exertion from my eyes.
“If you think that form of protest is going to get you anywhere, you’re sadly mistaken,” Ben says levelly.
Laughter rocks me. I close my eyes and I laugh hard, hysteria creeping in at the edges of my mind. “Trust me,” I say in between fits of mirth. “I could have come up with…far more enjoyable…ways of making your lives miserable.”
“If you’re even thinking about shitting yourself next, think again,” Clay spits. “No one’s going to clean you up if you make a mess of yourself. You’ll just have to sit in it and—”
I sit bolt upright—as far upright as I can with the way that I’ve been restrained. “I’m pregnant. I have morning sickness. I can’t help it. I’m not going to shit my pants just to inconvenience you two fucking morons.”
They just stand there, staring at me. My hair is damp from my sweat. My eyes have been watering like crazy, so there’s bound to be a river of mascara running down my face. Add in the wild, unhinged look I’m sure is residing in my eyes and I’m sure I’m quite the picture of insanity. “I think you should go get her,” Clay hisses to Ben.
“Fuck that. You go get her.”
Clay watches me for a second, grimaces, then nods. “All right. I will. It fucking stinks in here anyway.”