Cassie
“No, not again.”
I ran out of my small townhouse, slamming the door shut behind me, and bolted for my car. I looked at the time on my wristwatch and groaned.
Late, again!
I'd been in Eden for eight days. It was my sixth shift at the general hospital, and the third in a row I was going to be late for. I hadn’t studied for years to become a nurse only to be late for work every morning, especially when I had just started at a new hospital in a new town.
People depended on me. Lives depended on me. I wasn’t a doctor, but I made a vital difference each day. And although the graveyard shift wasn’t the best one to work, it was the worst one to be late for. The nurses who had been working all day were looking forward to going home and enjoying their Friday night plans.
I remembered my Friday nights before I moved to Eden, before my world was thrown into a downward spiral, before I found them together. Now, twice a month, my Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights were going to be spent working the graveyard shift at Eden Memorial General Hospital. And every off-week I would be working those days from sun-up to sun-down. A vast change from how my weekends used to be.
I had to laugh. Because, if I didn’t, I would cry.
I mumbled a few curse words under my breath as I took off down the street, faster than the speed limit allowed. I hit the corner sooner than I anticipated and slammed on my brakes, just in time to see him. He curved lazily around the corner on his bike at his usual fast but controlled speed. His eyes locked with mine for a brief moment as he passed, before he rode off down the street.
“Just breathe,” I sighed.
He was gorgeous. Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome was panties-wetting gorgeous! From his tall lithe height to his muscles, to the tattoos covering almost every inch I could see of his body, which left me curious as to what lay underneath the clothes. And then there was the dark piercing look he always gave me when our eyes met. It was intense, and I wondered if he looked at everyone like that.
I blushed at the thought. He didn’t know me from the next stranger, so of course the look he gave me wasn’t reserved for me alone. I shook my head, feeling embarrassed. We were far too different for us ever to have anything in common anyway. But, God! I wanted so bad to know his name, and to see if he had any more tattoos.
Since the day I first set eyes on him, while I was carrying boxes from my car to my new place, I’d wanted to get on the back of his bike, wrap my arms around him, and ride away like they did in the movies. It was a silly fantasy and made no sense at all outside my wishful thinking.
I reached the next intersection, which gave me the choice of the main road into town or the back road, which was at least ten minutes faster. I quickly rechecked the clock. The main road meant twenty-three minutes late and the back road thirteen minutes late. Maybe fifteen because I didn’t know that road very well. The decision was a no-brainer. I put my foot down again, swinging around the corner faster than I should have, to take the back road to work.
Apart from the soft purr coming from the engine, the car was quiet. I’ve never liked traveling with music on. Once upon a time I did, but since I started working full-time I’ve taken advantage of having peace and quiet as often as possible.
Ring, ring, ring.
The phone startled me. I hoped it wasn’t my boss. I rifled through my handbag on the passenger seat. Without slowing or taking my eyes off the road for more than a second, I managed to grab it and, without checking the caller ID, accepted the call.
“I know! I’m late. I’m sorry,” I began.
“Cass? You okay?”
Only four people have ever called me Cass instead of Cassie, and not one of them was my boss.
I let out an exasperated sigh.
“What do you want, Pearl?”
My sister was one of the very last people I wanted to speak to right now. Since I’d found my balls deep in her – the very same fiancé who, along with myself, was supposed to be saving himself for our wedding night – it’s been more an effort than a delight to talk to her. She and Josh - one of the other people who call me Cass - are the main reason I moved to Eden in the first place.
“I wanted to see how you are,” Pearl said. “I miss you?”
She sounded solemn, and for a moment I felt guilty for having been so blunt with her when she called.
“I’m doing just fine,” I replied. “How are you?”
“Yeah, I’m doing okay. How’s the new job?”
“Yeah, it’s good. I like the hospital, and everyone is great. The patients are also very kind too – most of the time.” I smiled for a second. “I’m also late. You probably know that though.”
She laughed.
“Yeah, you did sound a little flustered when you picked up the phone. Meet any cute guys yet?”
My sexy neighbor with the godlike body, I wanted to say, but didn’t.
The guy was gorgeous. But after having saved myself for Josh and having had our wedding all planned out for so long, to catch him screwing my sister had been a punch to the gut. The thought of falling in love, or even trying to find someone to love, seemed so distasteful it made me sick.
“To say I have given up on love would be an understatement,” I replied eventually with a heavy sigh.
“Oh, Cass, don’t be like that. You can’t give up.”
Her voice was sad, and I knew she was genuinely contrite, but I still couldn’t find it in me to say anything in reply.
“I really think things are going to start looking up for you.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I replied hastily. "Look, I’m about to pull into work,” I lied. “I’ll talk to you later.”
I hung up before either of us could say anything more.
“Oh, no. What the …”
I looked down at the dash and saw the flash of the fuel light. Then the oil light and the engine light joined in, and the car started to sputter. I pulled over. The engine cut out the second the car came to a halt. I flipped the ignition a few times, but nothing happened. The engine was dead.
“This cannot be happening!” I screamed, slamming the steering wheel with the heels of my hands. “Please, for the love of... I hate this!”
I took a deep breath to calm myself down. I knew that getting myself worked up wasn’t going to do anything but make the situation worse. I looked at the dash, pulled the key from the ignition and slid it back in, before trying the car again. Still nothing. I shook my head. I couldn’t work it out. It was like the car had completely shut down. But I’d just had it serviced before coming to Eden. It made no sense.
I grabbed my phone to call the insurance company. My knowledge of cars and engines was slim-to-none, so the only way I was getting out of there was by getting someone to come rescue me.
“Oh, I am going to be in so much trouble when I get to work,” I mumbled as I started to dial the number.
Beep, beep. The phone flashed. Low battery.
I screamed again. The phone was on ten percent. That had to be enough battery power. I didn’t have a charger in the car…
I laughed aloud. “And even if I did have a charger, I can’t start the car to make it work.”
I spent the next ten minutes trying to get hold of my insurance, but the signal was so crap that walking up and down the road did nothing to help it. Neither did crawling onto the roof of my car.
Beep, beep.
The phone went off again and flashed three-percent battery, dropping immediately to one-percent.
“No, no, no!” I squealed.
I quickly tried to dial the hospital’s number, but what little service I had wasn’t enough to push the call out before the phone went completely dead.
I could blame Pearl for this, I reflected. If she hadn’t called me, I wouldn’t have been wasting my battery and I might have stood a slightly better chance of making a call. But, either way, the car still would’ve broken down, and in the worst service area possible.
I berated myself instead.
“Take a shortcut, you said. You’ll save time, you said.”
Right now wasn’t a time for laughing or making stupid meme jokes. But I knew that if I didn’t laugh, I’d start crying.
I popped the hood and looked at the engine, not knowing at all what to look for. I shook my head and snatched the car’s user manual from the glove compartment. I sat in the passenger seat for the next few minutes, flicking through the pages, hoping to find something to help me out. But there was nothing.
My phone! That would have helped me.
I threw the book out the door in a huff. It landed with a thump in the slightly dewy grass.
“Oh, shit,” I muttered, and flew out the car to retrieve it and put it back in the glove compartment. Ruining the book would do no good, and I’d just have to replace it later.
‘Later’ would mean getting off this completely desolate road though.
I stared off in the direction I’d been heading, then back in the direction I’d come from. The sun was going down and night was settling in quicker than I would’ve liked.
I felt hopeless. Just when I really thought things were starting to look up for me, after having moved here and getting the job at Eden Memorial with so little effort… I honestly thought life was improving. I had the feeling that this was karma of some kind. It had to be because there…
A distant roar interrupted my thoughts. I walked out onto the road and looked around. Headlights were approaching, in the direction in which I’d been traveling. The roar of the engine grew louder. As it neared, I could see it was a motorbike. And then I saw my sexy neighbor sitting on the back of it.
I tried to hide my surprise, but couldn’t. My face lit up with relief. I smiled as the bike slowed and stopped in front of my car.
His name, I thought, I’m finally going to find out his name.
The thought excited me more than it should have. I quickly reminded myself that he was my neighbor, and he might be my only chance of getting off this road. Hopefully, it wouldn’t involve me getting on the back of that bike. Though the idea of riding behind my neighbor, with my cheek on his muscled back and my arms around his waist, wasn’t exactly unappealing.
“Car trouble?” he asked after kicking the bike stand down and turning the engine off.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I don’t know what’s wrong with it or why it stopped.”
“Let me have a look,” he said, turning to the open hood.
I stood back. He reached in and touched a few things, then climbed into the driver’s seat. He tried the engine. Nothing. He tried it again, then got out and came back around the car to speak to me.
“What happened?”
His gaze was intense. He stood so close in the darkness. His eyes held me like a pinned butterfly in a collection.
“When?” I asked vaguely, mesmerized by his presence.
“What happened when the car cut out?” he smirked.
“Oh, right, I get you,” I said, shaking my head. “Well, I was driving along and the car beeped. Then the fuel, oil and engine lights flashed, and the whole thing went dead.”
He nodded.
“You’re going to need a tow. You call your insurance?”
“I tried,” I shrugged, holding up my dead phone, “but I’ve no service and then my battery died before I could call anyone.” I shook my head. “I wasn’t even able to get through to work.”
He considered me for a moment in silence, as if contemplating something, then he pulled his own phone from his pocket.
“What’s your name?”
“Cassie,” I replied without missing a beat.
What’s your name? I wanted to ask, but couldn’t. His gaze held me silent and in place.
I waited for him to say something, hoping he’d introduce himself, but he didn’t. I gave him a small, shy smile.
“Nice to meet you, neighbor.”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
I scrunched my brows, wondering what he meant by that, but didn’t get a chance to think any more about it
“A couple of my buddies have a tow truck,” he explained. “I can get the car towed back to your place if you like?”
“Yeah, that’d be great. Do you think I can borrow your phone to call my work? I need to tell them I’ll be late.”
He nodded. “Give me two minutes.”
“Okay!” I replied, happy and relieved. “Thanks, I really do appreciate this. I hope you’ll let me repay you somehow. I could buy you a beer. Or something else… you know… if you don’t drink beer…”
He chuckled, and I felt a blush rising to my cheeks.
I shook my head in embarrassment
“Such a silly stereotype – that all guys drink beer…”
“Give me two minutes, yeah?”
I nodded quickly. “Oh, sure, sorry.”
He walked away, going back to his bike, and I sat in the front seat of my car, scolding myself for acting like such a babbling idiot.
I waited for what felt more like ten rather than the two minutes he’d asked me for, before he finally put his phone away. I looked at him as he leaned against his bike and looked around. Just as I stood to go over, I heard a rumble of engines growing louder as they approached quickly. Three, maybe four, bikes and a black car hove into view.
Although the fantasy of riding behind my neighbor was still sharp in my mind, I was relieved I wouldn’t have to go on the back of a motorbike. I started to make my way towards Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome when the three bikes pulled up in front of me, blocking my path. I jumped back out in fright. How could they have moved so fast?
I looked up at my neighbor in time to see he wasn’t looking at me, but down at his phone. He pressed the screen a few times before sliding it into his pocket.
The three large bikers had kicked down their stands and climbed from their machines, and were making their way towards me.
“Excuse me,” I protested as I tried to move past them.
Fear set into my body, and I had the sinking feeling that something was wrong. I stood staring at the three guys as the car pulled up and the front doors opened. Each of the bikers looked larger and meaner than the next. My neighbor was the largest of them all, but he seemed to be the least intimidating.
This wasn’t good. They weren’t good. And there was no one here to help me out.
I looked at my neighbor once more, only to find him staring at me. I turned and started running. But I didn’t stand a chance. One of the bikers grabbed me around the waist and lifted me kicking and screaming off the ground. He carried me to the trunk of the black car and dropped me in. Rough hands secured my feet and hands with tape and a cover was pulled over my head. The boot slammed shut, and everything went black.
***
The words ‘humiliated’ and ‘abused’ weren’t enough to describe how I felt.
I was stripped and forced to put on clothing I would never even have looked at in a store.
The white bra and panties were luxurious and expensive. The gartered stockings came halfway up my thighs and the stiletto heels were at least four-inches high, silver, and covered in tiny diamantes that made them sparkle in even the dim light of the bare room they dressed me in.
After I had been dressed, made-up and hair-styled to what one of the men called a ‘suitable’ effect, I was dragged along a hall, through a door, and down a flight of stairs. I was roughly pushed through another door and into another dark room, then through a curtain into yet a further room that lay in pitch blackness.
Trying to remember all the twists and turns made my head spin, but I needed to find a way out of here.
“Do not move,” a voice whispered harshly.
Then I was left alone, standing in a room so dark I couldn’t even see my hands when I held them up in front of my face. I could hear nothing but my own breathing, until a voice crooned out over a loudspeaker.
“The next lot for sale is a young brunette. She is tiny, curvy, and petite, standing at just over 5-foot, with a gorgeous face and an amazing body.”
What?
“And, as you all know, the best is always saved until last.”
Huh?
A dim spotlight came on just above my head. It lit only the small space around me and nothing more. Silence reigned for maybe two minutes, possibly more. It was hard to tell anything right now.
“Bidding will start at $200.”
I looked around, trying to find out where the voice was coming from. More lights flashed on, bright and blinding. I blinked, willing my eyes to adjust to the sudden glare. When I could finally see, I saw him in the audience, front and center.
My neighbor stared at me, looking relaxed, like he was out for a Sunday picnic and not at…
The next lot for sale…
My thoughts trailed off at the sudden realization I was for sale. I was being sold into some sort of sex slavery, and all because of him.
I wanted to cry. I tried hard to fight back the tears, but I soon couldn’t fight them any longer. What I imagined would be the first of many tears rolled down my cheek.