Day twenty-one?

It’s the smell that wakes me up. My eyes are shut, my world is dark, but the smell of urine and blood forces its way into my nostrils.

I gag and suck in air through my mouth, but the stench is so strong I can taste it. Bit by bit, unwelcome consciousness sweeps the fog from my head.

I don’t dare open my eyes, for fear of what I’ll see, but I know I’ve been stripped naked. My hands and feet are chained to a mattress. Terror chews at me.

Sergei will never find me.

It’s the end.

At least Helenka got away. I pray that Sergei will offer Helenka and Yuri and my aunt protection until he can find Vilyat and kill him. He has to know that would be my final wish. My dying wish.

Footsteps thud towards my bed, and I tense, bracing myself for whatever’s coming next. An ice-cold explosion of water smashes into me, and I yank violently against my chains and open my eyes, gasping. My vision swims into focus and I stare up at a man looming over me. I don’t recognize him; he’s got a squarish, acne-scarred face and a nose that skews off to the left. He’s holding an empty bucket, which he drops on the floor with a clatter.

“You look like a drowned rat,” he sneers.

My mouth is dry, or I’d spit on him. “You look like a dead man walking,” I rasp. “Sergei’s going to make you into dog food.”

“Is that right? Well, I should have some fun with his girl first, then.” He smirks and runs his hand down my stomach. I go rigid with revulsion. My skin wants to crawl away from him. He squats down until his hot, foul breath is fanning my face, and shoves his finger up inside me. I stay stiff, refusing to move or struggle. I pretend it’s a tampon. I freeze my face into stone. I look at his face without seeing it, imagining the ocean, building a picture to block out his image.

He looks disappointed at my lack of reaction, and slides his finger back out. “You’re a pig-ugly bitch, but I’m gonna fuck you anyway. Because I know you don’t want me to.”

I meet his gaze. Sooner or later, I know I will break, but I’m going to make him miserable in every way possible for as long as I can. “Sounds like a personal problem.”

He slaps my face. I stifle a cry.

“Mommy didn’t hug you when you were growing up?” I taunt him. If I can make him angry enough to kill me, then I’ll be spared the rape and torture that’s surely coming.

“Shut up, whore!”

“Or maybe she hugged you too much.” He slaps me again. “Or was it Daddy?”

He punches me in the side of the head. Sparks explode behind my eyes. “Ooh, I struck a nerve,” I gasp.

He cocks his arm back, and I can’t help but flinch, because this one’s going to hurt.

But a strange feeling swells up inside me, a feeling of power. I’m tied down, naked, and I’m still jerking his strings.

He’s weak where it counts. I’m strong where it counts.

Maybe I can manipulate him into untying me. I’ve got a few tricks that he’d never expect. Yeah, I’ll end up dead no matter what, but the thought of getting in some final blows, maybe even killing him, lights a beautiful flame inside me.

Suddenly I’m not weak and disgusting, polluted by my own genetics. I’m a warrior planning a campaign of resistance.

He punches me on the side of the head, and I grunt in pain. Tears flow down my cheeks.

But at the same time, I flex my face into a manic grin.

“What the hell you smiling at, bitch?” he shouts, eyes bulging with rage.

Yes.

I stare right up at him. “My uncle has big plans for me, and they don’t include dying at the hands of a yapping Chihuahua like you. So I’m picturing how, after you kill me, he’s going to cut you up into little bits while you’re still alive, and feed you to sharks.”

His face contorts with dismay. It’s true, and he knows it – if he kills me, he’ll be in deep shit and then he’ll die.

He kicks the bed frame in frustration.

Yes.

“I can make you wish I’d killed you,” he spits.

“All right then. Let’s get this party started, little man.”

He kicks the bed again and again, in a frenzy.

Yes, yes, yes. Even though I’m dizzy from the blow to the head, I feel like I’m soaring with triumph.

“Biiiiiitch!” he howls, helpless with thwarted rage. He raises his fist to hit me again.

“Stop hitting her! Stop!” someone wails.

I twist on the bed, looking around the room for the first time. I think we’re in a mobile home. The windows are all blacked out and the lights are dim, but not so dim that I fail to see a girl who’s chained to a wall maybe ten feet from me. She’s also stripped naked, and her hair is limp and stringy. There are bruises all over her abdomen.

My body tenses.

And an evil smile twists the man’s mouth.

His creepy gaze skitters from her to me and back again. “You think she’s a virgin? I don’t think she’s no virgin. I’m going to find out.”

“No!” I cry out, and instantly regret it. I’m so, so stupid. I’ve just encouraged him to hurt her, and all she did was beg him not to hit me.

He swaggers over to her, and bends down and bites her left nipple so hard she howls in agony.

Then he goes and fetches a revolver from a cabinet, and walks over to her, and he thrusts the gun up between her legs. He forces the barrel up inside her vagina, violently. She screams and screams, her eyes bulging with terror.

“I just remembered, she ain’t a virgin. Cause I popped her cherry for her yesterday. You shoulda been here, she screamed real pretty.”

“Please don’t,” I cry. “Please. I’m sorry. Take me instead. I’ll do anything you want.”

“Oh, I’m going to take you in every hole you got. Right after I play Russian roulette with this bitch’s cunt.”

He spins the cylinder on the revolver and then pulls the trigger. She faints in terror.

He slides the gun out, walks over to the bucket, grabs it, and takes it to the sink. She is sagging on her chains. He fills the bucket up, and carries it over and dumps it on her head to wake her up again.

She thrashes and cries. He goes to fetch the revolver from the counter.

I bite my lip to keep from screaming and begging. It’s what he wants, so I won’t give it to him.

“Do you feel lucky today, bitch?” he croons to the woman hanging from her chains. He slides the gun in again.

“No, no, no, no, no!” she screams.

The door bangs open, and light floods the room. A man sticks his head through and looks at him.

“You fucking idiot,” the man snarls. “She’s worth fifty grand easy. You going to pay Vilyat fifty grand after you shoot her in the snatch?”

Reluctantly, the man slides the gun out of the woman’s vagina. He starts to head back towards me, and a sickening wave of relief that leaves me gasping. Nothing he could do to me is worse than watching him abuse that girl. Then there’s a cry from outside.

“We’re under attack!” a man shouts.

Our tormentor runs out of the room.

I hear shots, and curses.

Sergei. Please, please, please…

A little while later, Jasha runs in the room, and I start to sob with relief. He has a bolt cutter. He cuts my chains and takes his jacket off, and gives it to me. I put it on. Fortunately, he’s huge and I’m short, so it covers me. Then he frees the girl hanging on the wall. She falls to the ground, on her knees, and cries and cries. Jasha sheds his T-shirt and gives it to her, and she pulls it on quickly, hugging herself. Trying to shield herself from touch, from abuse, with those skinny arms of hers.

Jasha pulls me to my feet. I’m still weak and shaky from pain and terror and whatever knockout drug they gave me. There are no more shouts and no more gunshots.

“Helenka!” I cry out. “Oh God, is she all right?”

“She’s fine. She’s back at Sergei’s house with Yuri and her mother. They’re very worried about you.”

“Where is Sergei?” I demand.

“He’s busy. I’m going to take you home.” He sees the look of hurt and bewilderment on my face, and he adds, “He’s busy with Vilyat.”

And that actually makes me smile, despite everything. Because that means that me and Anastasia and my cousins are finally safe.

“All right then,” I say.

More men pour into the room. One of them has a blanket, and he wraps it around the girl and picks her up in his arms.

“Let’s go. Don’t worry about her; she’ll be taken to the hospital,” Jasha says, and he has to hold me up as I stumble out into the daylight.

I sway on my feet, trying to orient myself. Where the hell am I? I don’t recognize this place. It’s twilight. We’re in a wooded area at the end of a dirt road, and there’s another trailer huddled next to the one I was in. There are a dozen cars parked on the grass, scattered around the trailers. There are men lying in the dirt, leaking out their life’s blood, empty eyes staring up at the sky.

I catch a glimpse of Sergei hustling a man with a bag over his head into the back of a van.

Vilyat.

Jasha helps me into the back seat of an SUV, and I curl up there, shaking all over. As he drives me back to the house, I remember a joke Sergei made earlier, about a microchip. And I know how Sergei found me.