I peeled my eyes open, one at a time, and immediately closed them again. Jesus. Where the fuck was I?
I felt as though I had a hangover– the worst fucking hangover of my life, that was. My head was pounding, my stomach was churning, and I could barely lift my head off the ground without it swimming so much I thought I might hurl there and then.
I closed my eyes again, and drew in a few sharp breaths through my nose, trying to center myself. How had I ended up here? I groped around in my mind for the last thing I could remember before now. My brain ached as I tried to stretch my memory that far back, and I furrowed my brow at the pain.
I had been on patrol. That was all I remembered. Not in a particularly bad part of town, but I had been out on the streets. Nothing was odd– it was just me, out on the street, same as every night. Had I gone out and got drunk afterwards and just forgotten about it? Maybe I’d been spiked…no, I could remember vaguely thinking about what I was going to watch when I got back to my apartment. I hadn’t made any plans for after my shift. I was looking forward to getting home, peeling off my uniform, and slipping into my sweats with a takeout.
I finally managed to open my eyes and look around—it was dark wherever I was, dark enough that I couldn’t make out my surroundings. As my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, I realized with a creeping sense of dread that I wasn’t in my apartment.
I pushed myself upright, ignoring the pain that swirled through my head. I glanced around, trying to find something I recognized. The room was small, with no windows and exposed brick walls. It looked like some kind of cell, but not the kind that I might throw someone in for a misdemeanor—no, this was different. I couldn’t place it. I was lying on a small bench at the corner of the room, the wood digging into my back. I braced against the walls to help myself sit up, then swung my legs around to place them on the floor. The rough wood of the bench dug into the backs of my thighs. Which didn’t make sense, I was wearing pants. Except I wasn’t. What the hell was I wearing?
It certainly wasn’t the uniform I’d left the house in earlier that night– or, fuck, was it even the same night anymore? I had no idea how much time had passed, how long it had been since my eyes drifted shut and my memory gave out. I was dressed in—well, I couldn’t exactly call it a dress. That would be a disservice to dresses everywhere. No, this was more a handful of fabric scraps draped across my body—I could hardly make out the color in the darkness, but they appeared to be a deep, blood red hue. Appropriate. I tugged at the fabric as best I could, trying to cover a little more of my body, but it was futile. I was completely exposed. When I was wearing my uniform, I felt powerful, in–control, safe—but now, I wanted to retract into myself, to vanish completely under these pathetic strips of fabric.
I still couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on, but it was becoming increasingly clear that it was bad, bad news. I heard stories like this before—of women, waking up with no memory of where they came from and dressed in skimpy outfits that they’d never laid eyes on before. They rarely ended up with a happily–ever–after.
Suddenly, a door at the other side of the room burst open. I jumped and pulled myself to my feet, wobbling as I tried to stand. My feet were bare, and the rough concrete floor was cold against my soles. I tried to remember my training, dragging to mind what little I could remember of my hand–to–hand combat classes—it had been a long time since I’d needed to use them, thank God, but I lifted my fists as best I could and held them up in the most threatening manner I could, given the circumstances.
“Oh, you’re up,” a man’s voice cut through the darkness. I had to have been sedated at some point; my head was swimming painfully and I was having trouble keeping my eyes open now that I was upright. Who had done this to me? And why? And this guy seemed surprised that I was awake…what, had they intended to keep me out for longer? Or worse?
I swung for him, but instead of making contact, I simply staggered forward and found myself falling into his arms. I felt his grubby hands on my bare shoulders and shuddered at his touch, trying to pull myself free uselessly. I didn’t have an ounce of strength in my body, and he let out a small, mirthless laugh as I tried to get him off me.
“Hey, you’re a lot feistier than the rest of them normally are,” he remarked. He was a big guy, and he smelled like dirty sweat and stale whiskey. My scalp prickled with panic. The rest of them? How many of us were there? Or…how many of us had there been?
“Come on, they’re waiting for you out there,” he tightened his grip on my arm and dragged towards a door. I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them again, forcing myself to take in my surroundings like I’d been trained to do. The walls were pale grey, lined with a series of dirty metal doors like the one that had trapped me inside that awful room. At the end of the hall, however, something caught my eye: a door made of carefully polished wood, that seemed to glow in the flickering fluorescent light. That was where we were headed; why had they put so much effort into making that one door look nice, when the rest of this place looked like a prison? I tried once more to tug my arm from the man’s grip, but it was as though the sedatives had sapped every ounce of strength from my body. What the hell had they given me? We reached the door, and man paused for a moment, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear and re–adjusting my dress. I arched away from him, frowning, and my heart began to pound. I might not have known what was going on, but I could be fucking sure that it wasn’t good news.