Chapter 5
The world was a kaleidoscope.
It was a carnival ride, and the lights were flashing on, off, on, off.
There was a leather seat. It had that new car smell to it. I’d heard they bottled and sold that scent now. To spray into vehicles. The seat was soft against my cheek.
Rumbling. Whirring.
Someone was going through my purse. Emptying it out. Items were being tossed out the window. A cool breeze came in. It felt fresh. Crisp.
The scent of the ocean.
The taste of salt on my lips.
Blink.
We were outside a warehouse. It could have been any of a thousand warehouses along this stretch. How long had I been out? Two men were lifting me out of the car, one by each arm.
My feet weren’t working properly.
Mikhaylo’s voice called out from behind me. “I have to go back to the hotel. Get my bag. I want to put her through her paces properly. While I’m away, get her set up. But no one touches her until I return.”
The man on my right responded, “Of course, Mister Haydeon.”
I nearly snorted. Haydeon. Haydeon the Destroyer. Haydeon thought he was invincible, but he wasn’t. I was going to take him down. And I would use everything in my power to do that.
They were carry-dragging me across the concrete while behind us the car smoothly drove away. One of the men rapped on the warehouse’s metal door. The door cracked open a sliver, then pulled open wide.
They hauled me through.
Another maze of containers, stacked three high. More men with guns and pistols. A row of desks held computers, monitors, keyboards, and mice. The chairs sat empty.
Beyond was an open space. To the left there was a squarish cage, about six feet on a side, with a door on the close end. Five women huddled within.
A guard unlocked the cage door and the other two men tossed me in. My feet stumbled on each other and I splayed hard on the metal floor.
The cage door locked behind me.
The women all pressed back against the rear bars. They were, to a person, beautiful. They were black and white, Chinese and Hispanic. All had stained dresses and smeared lipstick. Their faces were wet with tears.
I pulled myself to my feet and turned to look at the room.
A king-sized bed centered in the space. All around were professional lighting and baffles. At least six cameras were set up from various angles.
I glanced to the right.
I had to get to those computers.
I slid my hand to my shoulder, as if adjusting my bra strap, and unhooked the USB dongle from its latch. They’d already stripped my diamond bracelets, earrings, and necklace. I tucked the dongle in the nook between my thumb and index finger.
Then I latched both hands on the front bars.
I began shaking them as hard as I could. “You can’t hold me! I’m an American citizen!”
The Chinese woman behind me desperately tried to shush me. “You’re going to get us all in trouble!”
I shook harder, bellowing. “I want my lawyer! I demand to see my lawyer!”
A guard came over to glare at me. “You’d better shut up! Enough!”
The black woman called out, “We’ll keep her quiet!”
I kicked at the bars. “No you won’t! Nobody keeps me quiet! Let me out! Let me out!”
The guard raised his hand high, and I stared him full in the face. “Go ahead, hit me,” I challenged him. “They wanted me untouched. Remember? And once my lawyer gets here, you’ll all be going to jail! For life!”
He laughed at that. “For life is right, you bitch.”
I spit at him.
Fury filled his face, and he grabbed at the lock, jamming in the key.
He opened the door –
I launched past him, as if racing for the exits. As I approached the tables with the computers I deliberately stumbled, hard, and flailed into the nearest one. I jammed the dongle into the USB port and then let the rolling motion take me upside-down to splay onto the floor.
Three guards were instantly on me, roughly grabbing me up. The one I spit on had his hand clenched as if he were going to pound me in the head.
Another snapped, “No! No marks!”
The third guard’s grasp cranked tighter on my wrist. He jabbed his free hand into the distance. “Put her in the box.”
Mikhaylo was a monster of habit; the box had been one of his most treasured techniques. I had known it, logically. But it was one thing to think of a situation in theoretical terms. It was another to be here. To be in the grip of three heartless men and to know the box was a heartbeat away.
I slipped past all preparation. Fear coursed through me dragging pure terror in its wake.
Suddenly I wasn’t acting.
Suddenly I was scrabbling, clawing, desperately trying to get free.
The guards laughed out loud as they wrangled me across the room. I saw glimpses of the cage as I fought against them. The stage-set bed. Then they were dragging me around a corner.
There. There it was.
Now they needed five of them on me to hold me down. If I hadn’t been drugged I might have had a chance. Every cell in my body screamed in agony as we approached it.
Like Mikhaylo, from the outside it seemed almost ordinary. A simple metal cube. Maybe two point five feet on each side. No windows. No vents. Just the one door. Solid. All so solid.
A guard hauled the heavy door open.
I dug in my shoe’s heels, which snapped off. My fingers were claws. I howled in terror –
They flung me in head-first.
They jammed in my legs and feet.
They slammed the door shut.
There was the sound of the key in the lock.
I was lost.