SEVEN
Ferryn
I couldn't get to her.
Uselessness was a chain around my throat, just as sure and unforgiving as the shackle around my ankle, eating away at the flesh with a constant burning pain.
I couldn't get to her, gently wipe away some of the blood, lift her into a less painful-looking position, rub her back, do something, anything to try to show her some comfort, some softness, some love in this pain-filled, hard, heartless place.
But I couldn't get to her.
And the hours stretched long and silent save for Mary groaning on the other side of the room, dry heaving, going through her own misery that I suddenly wished I could ease as well.
Both of them were in hell, and, unfathomably, all I had to complain about were some bruises, a wiggling tooth, and the constant, gnawing hunger in my stomach.
They hadn't fed us.
They would, of course, or else I'd be trapped in a basement with corpses instead of women, so the food would come eventually, taking the twisting pain away enough to be able to focus fully again.
I'd never been a girl on a diet, one denying herself food to fit a certain aesthetic. Partly because that rail-thin look simply wasn't in Vogue anymore. Curvier bodies that said you didn't deprive yourself a donut now and again were what people wanted to see, wanted to embrace. And since I fit that skinnier old-school version of beauty, I let myself stuff my face, hoping that I would eventually get some curves like normal girls my age.
You'll get there, my mother had assured me, to which I had stubbornly reminded her that I got my period three years before, that I should have developed already. I was a bit of a late bloomer too, she'd insisted. I might not have a rack the likes of Aunt Lo, but I think I rounded out alright. At eighteen or so. Give it time. Don't be in such a rush to grow up.
The adults said that a lot about growing up. As if society gave us a choice, as if anyone was allowed to be a kid past the age of twelve. Girls especially.
The second we stepped foot through the doors of middle school, we had to leave girlish things behind, had to get rid of beloved toys and replace them with makeup, hair straighteners, tweezers, razors.
All they want is a pretty face and an empty head, I had grumbled at lunch one day to Iggy who wasn't allowed to wear makeup, so found herself somewhat of an outcast in that sense too. And spread legs, a boy at the table behind me added, further confirming my thoughts.
Twelve, going on thirteen, and the only thing in anyone's minds was a hyper-sexualized outlook on life. As though all there was of interest was how our bodies worked.
Heck, Iggy and I were probably the last virgins in our grade.
A huge part of that was by choice, but also because boys looked at her with her insanely strict background differently, and, well, no one looked at me because of who my father was.
Suddenly, I wished I had taken the plunge, had let Conor who had been my first kiss go further like he had wanted to. Maybe I hadn't been in love with him, or even liked him all that much, but at least that would have been a better memory of a first time than this would.
Even with thoughts of impending rape on my mind, my stomach grumbled harder still, loud enough that I was sure it echoed off the empty walls.
"Chris," I called, voice low and coaxing, unable to take the blank stare a moment longer, even if maybe that was a selfish thing to think. "Come back," I added, though, again, maybe that was a cruel demand.
What would she come back to?
A body brutalized again, hurt in untold ways... again.
Reminded of what had happened to her... again.
Maybe the kinder thing was to let her stay there. At the beach, at Christmas, wherever she was that allowed her to escape this reality where terrible things happened without her consent, where there was no potential even for the smallest sliver of happiness.
Sometime later, long enough that my body gave into sleep again, which I decided to accept meant another day had passed, there was the clomp, the click, slide, click, the stomp of boots on the stairs.
It was the same one, the one who had taken Chris, who had my still-red and angry-looking claw marks down his face.
He paused at the foot of the stairs as my heart started to hammer, as my stomach twisted in something that wasn't hunger for a change.
This could be my time, my mind told me, making a cold wash over my skin. And I was feeling a little disoriented with my hunger, knowing full-well that would slow me down, would make any attempts at fighting likely weak and laughable.
But his eyes simply raked over me with what I could only call a promise before his feet carried him away from me, toward Mary who had lost even the ability to groan a few hours before.
"Come on," he said, hauling her up by her armpits, her body too weak to move on its own. "Let's see how many cocks you can suck for your dose today."
The awful thing was, I knew Mary was - in a way that was more messed up than I could even express - a willing participant. She would go along with whatever they demanded of her if it meant they would stick a needle in her arm, take away the pain in her body.
Sometime while he was gone, Chris finally shifted, pulling her body to curl up on her side, her face away from me.
She said nothing, made no noise, so I had no idea if she was still gone, or if she was back and processing pain and the events that had transpired.
Unsure of my part to play, I stayed silent, hating myself for it, but knowing I would only hate myself more if I somehow made it worse for her.
In this situation, I guess we should all be left to deal with it in whatever way kept us the most sane.
Sometime later, Mary came back down, this time able to carry herself, the drugs making impossible things possible again. Her cheeks were tear-stained, eyes red, and lips swollen, but she willingly walked over to her spot, offered her leg for her shackle, and accepted her imprisonment.
I mean, I guess they had to, we all did in a way.
And maybe she had been here long enough, had life beat her down so much, that fighting felt useless.
I could understand that, at a certain level, knew that human beings could only take so much before they cracked - or broke apart entirely.
But I hoped that wouldn't be my fate. I hoped that no matter what happened to me, I would never lose my fight, my will to get through this, get away from this.
Maybe I would fail.
Maybe the hunger, the pain, the fear would get to me. Maybe I would escape in my brain. Maybe I would take the drugs when they were offered.
You never really knew what you were capable of until a situation was set in front of you.
Sure, I had every intention of using each skill I had to violently protest when someone came for me, but maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I would freeze. Maybe I would - God forbid - beg, give them exactly what they wanted.
My eyes were slow-blinking closed, begging for sleep. When I heard footsteps above us.
Chris had been taken.
Mary had been taken.
I was all there was left.
My stomach pitched, every inch of my skin seeming to prickle simultaneously, every hair going up while a shiver racked my body.
Click.
Slide.
Click.
Fear was a slimy, slithering thing, snaking up my spine, curling around my throat, cutting off my air.
He was coming for me.
I knew it like I knew that whatever followed would be a scar etched permanently on my psyche.
My eyes only seemed capable of taking in legs, jean-clad legs moving toward me across the floor. There was a slit in the thigh, frayed with wear and washing. And I somehow knew - though, really, it was impossible to tell - that this cut hadn't come like that. Distressed, or whatever the term was. This cut was from something. With men like these, maybe a knife.
Oh, God.
A Knife.
No.
I couldn't let my mind race off toward possibilities, there would be endless paths of them; I would never find my way back.
The jean-clad legs slowed before me, bringing my gaze down to the boots. Not the one that came to take Chris and Mary. These were older, rougher, splattered with what looked like paint and grease. And bigger.
A hand came into view as he stooped, dropping a paper plate down on the ground in front of me.
Too shocked to think better of it, my head shot up, finding someone I hadn't seen before, middle-aged, dark-haired, but hollow-eyed as the rest.
"Eat," he rumbled at me while dropping a bottle of water before moving toward Chris to drop a plate, then finally, Mary.
With that and nothing else, he moved back up the stairs at an annoyingly carefree pace.
Click, slide, click.
My body seemed unable to come back down from the surge of fear - and the accompanying adrenaline - making me feel shaky and cold all over.
"Eat," a voice demanded, making my head shoot up, finding Chris sitting up, cringing slightly as her body shifted to reach for the plate. "You don't know the next time they'll give us food," she added, gaze lowered.
That seemed like fair advice since a couple of days had clearly passed already, and this was the first food I had seen.
As much as I wanted to engage Chris, wanted to try to keep her here with me, my stomach let out another growl, dragging my gaze down to the plate, noticing for the first time a pile of scrambled eggs and a single piece of toast cut in half, spread with butter soggying the bread.
I reached for it like the half-starving girl I was, digging in with a claw hand since there were no utensils available.
There was a moment of crippling fear that the food was laced with something that would make me like Mary, barely able to find her mouth as she ate, but once I started, there was no stopping it as the hunger overtook me. I barely even registered that all of it was stone cold and overcooked, so intent on having a stomach with something in it.
I wiped my hand down the thigh of my dress, wishing for more, even though my stomach felt full to bursting already.
Leaning back into the wall, I sucked in a deep breath, almost a little upset with how much relief I felt right at that moment. There shouldn't have been any relief. I was shackled like property in a basement of a house full of men who violently beat and raped women, would set their eyes on me eventually.
How could a simple full stomach make a slow contentedness creep over me like it would at home in bed after a great night out with friends, or taking down one of my instructors who had proven impossible up to that point.
It was amazing what your body could find comfort in.
"You'll get used to it," Chris said, again initiating conversation, pulling me out of a pre-sleep daze.
"Used to what?"
"The spans between meals," she told me, slowly making her way through hers still, somehow bypassing the urge to hoover it like I had. "Your stomach will shrink, and it will hurt less."
"How often do they feed us?" I asked, almost not wanting to know the answer, but wanting to keep Chris talking, even if it was simply about the awfulness I had to look forward to.
"It depends. Every two or three days."
Every two or three days.
I wasn't sure I could ever get used to the grumbling of my stomach.
I hoped I wouldn't have to.
"Are you from the area?" I asked.
"I don't even know where we are," she admitted. And, well, neither did I actually. But unless I was passed out for longer than I realized in that trunk, I was pretty sure we were still in Jersey. "My mom and I lived in Farehold before she died. Then I was placed in a foster home in Hadlet."
"We were practically neighbors," I told her. Farehold was where the mall was, where Iggy, Heather, and I would walk for hours, buying cheap accessories, browsing the shelves at the bookstore, touring the food court. Hadlet was where the movie theater was, literally five minutes from Navesink Bank. "I live in Navesink Bank. Look," I said, voice going serious. "Do you know who The Henchmen are?" I asked.
"The bikers?"
"Yeah. What do you know about them?"
"That they're dangerous."
Fair enough.
"My father is the president," I told her, watching as her head jerked over, eyes always so empty suddenly working wildly.
"You're serious?"
"Yes. My dad is the president. My uncles are vice president and road captain. My aunt runs Hailstorm. They are looking for me right now. And they are going to find me. Find us."
It occurred to me then what a poor choice I had been for abduction.
Mary seemed alone in the world.
Chris had been in a foster family, and while I was sure they would have reported it, and the cops had done some looking, there was no one to spur the search on.
It was easy for the world not to miss women without loved ones.
My heart, what little was left of it anyway, ached at that realization, that so many women went missing, never to be heard from again, with next to no one looking for them, missing them, demanding answers.
But that didn't mean they were hopeless.
At least not for these two women.
There was hope.
Because my loved ones would move hell and earth to get me back, would never stop, would bash heads and blow things up and run themselves ragged searching every corner of this world to bring me back.
And take them back with me, get them help, show them love.
I knew this.
If I couldn't find my own way out, they would find me.
I just had to hold it together, keep my wits about me, refuse to lose my mind in this hellhole until then.
"I don't think we are somewhere that we can be found."
Those were the last words she would speak to me that night.
The next day, claw-face came back to take Mary again.
The next, Chris.
I couldn't get through to her after, not even what felt like a lifetime later when paint-shoes came back with plates filled with rice and beans, wanting to get her out of her mind enough to nourish her body.
I woke up sometime later, finding she had cleared her plate while I slept, then sank back inside herself.
Mary was full-on detoxing again, heaving into the toilet on and off for hours until there was nothing left in her system.
Stomach full, my mind wandered.
Not to the beach or Christmas like Chris suggested, not escaping the situation.
Just taking stock of it.
My face felt oily, my hands coming back shiny when I touched it. My hair, already prone to grease even after just half a day, felt limp and heavy. My hands inspected the injuries to my face and head, still feeling an ache, but nothing to write home about. My stomach, somewhat flat to begin with, felt almost concave already, my ribs protruding, objecting to the lack of pasta and baked good binges. For, I didn't even know. Four days? Five? I was having a hard time keeping track. I couldn't imagine what another five, ten, twenty, sixty days could do to me.
I hoped to hell it wouldn't be that long, that - like I had said to Chris - my loved ones would come for me, for us. Or, short of that, I would find a way to get us free.
I'll admit, my fire was barely a flicker as time went on, as the constant, nagging fear became my only real friend in this place, as the hours stretched long with nothing but my swirling thoughts to keep me company. And the thoughts only got more and more negative by the hour, until it banked down my resolve.
Just a couple days.
This was what just a couple days of captivity - and a bit of hunger - could do to me. Me with my certainty, my bloodthirst.
Click, slide, click.
A familiar stomp.
I didn't have to look up to know who it was.
Claw-face.
Though, unfortunately, the claw marks had scabbed over already, would likely peel off in just a few days, leaving no proof of my raging fire in its wake.
I watched as he paused at the edge of the stairs, as he often did, like he thought he was building the anticipation, the fear.
And, damnit, he'd be right.
But the air didn't start getting caught in my throat until he got to the middle of the room... and didn't turn to either side.
No.
He kept coming forward.
Forward toward me.
Oh, God.
No.
While a part of me knew it would come eventually, that I wasn't trapped down here because they enjoyed feeding an extra mouth, finding that they never came for me the other times had given me a small sliver of false security.
My stomach knotted, twisting tighter as his feet kept coming toward me, as my time got cut shorter and shorter.
My hopelessness was a noose around my throat. And as I watched him kneel down in front of me, it was like someone had kicked the chair out from under my feet.
And I was dangling.
Strangling.
Flailing.
Except, wait, I realized as a hand seized my ankle, sinking a key into a lock, the weight lifting, making me realize for the first time just how heavy it had been, hanging, rubbing, biting into my skin, ripping it off in places.
With the chain off, I wasn't quite so helpless.
"Up," he demanded, hand seizing my upper arm much like the man from the first night had, but curling in tighter, purposely inflicting pain even though I wasn't struggling.
Yet.
I would go along with it until I was closer to an escape.
As I was half-dragged forward, I felt a stab of guilt at my potential freedom.
But, I assured myself, even if I did get away, if I escaped, if I could put this place behind me, I would come back. I would find a phone, call my dad and Lo, and get them back here in force, have them take down the bad guys, free Chris and Mary, get them help.
As I passed, my gaze slid toward Chris, finding her watching me, finding that - for once, her eyes weren't blank.
No.
They were flooded.
Flooded.
With unshed tears.
For me.
For what she knew was about to happen.
For what had happened to her.
I swallowed back the lump in my throat, making sure Claw-face was not looking directly at me, then shot her a small, mischievous smile, trying to let her know that if my time was up, that I would do exactly as I said I would; I would go down swinging; I would inflict some pain; I would make them see that they weren't the only ones with power.
My feet sounded annoyingly weak in comparison to his on the steps, as I pretended to pull away, to put up a fuss.
If he was used to me pulling away, he wouldn't think twice about it when I finally did make a move, get in position for it.
I could catch him off-guard
I waited for us to get upstairs, to move through the door, watching as his hands slid the locks closed, seeming to remember at the last possible second to pocket the key he had used to unshackle me.
His pocket.
No matter what I did to him, I had to get that key. Any ideas at all about escape were useless if I didn't get a key.
My heartbeat - hummingbird's frantic wings just moments before - slowed. My mind that had been racing with fear and uncertainty, cleared, focused.
Everything was about that key. About getting him distracted enough that he didn't notice I was taking it, that he would likely just assume that he had dropped it.
"Should shove you up against the wall right now, and make you pay for what you did to my face."
"What's the matter? Didn't want your hideous insides to show on the outside?" I asked, tone venomous as he yanked me to the end of the hall.
The end of the hall where I knew from counting the steps that we would be turning off if we were going to the garage.
My eyes sought the hallway in question, figuring maybe that would be the best avenue for escape, the door least likely to be guarded. And, maybe if I was really lucky, the garage would be full of blunt instruments, things we could use to defend ourselves if I couldn't get my hands on something better.
Better.
Like a gun.
Like the ones my father sold.
Like the ones I had been using for target practice with Uncle Repo since I was twelve, taking me out of town to the woods, trekking through all sorts of weather to get to the place where he had targets set up at varying distances, holes poked through them many times over from him practicing himself, or with Aunt Maze.
He'd pull the backpack straps off, zipping it open slowly, like he was building anticipation. And, well, he was.
Because I was twelve.
I was twelve, and I was learning how to shoot a gun.
Most kids I knew hadn't ever even seen one, let alone been allowed to hold one.
And there I was, about to illegally - because I knew it was illegal - shoot one in the woods.
I had felt older, wiser, more worldly.
I mean, I didn't get bragging rights. I knew I wasn't allowed to ever speak about this to friends, to kids at school. This was top-secret stuff which only really made it more exciting as Uncle Repo brought out four different guns, telling me to pick them each up, decide which one felt better in my hand.
We didn't do it often, practice, but a few times a year, every year.
I was good too.
Not great.
Not like Uncle Repo.
But good.
Better than my mom, which rubbed her the wrong way anytime Repo bragged about it.
There was also some kind of story about the wall of the compound and my mom and a gun that was some kind of inside joke that, no matter how many times I asked to know, no one would tell me.
So if I could - by some miracle - get a gun, I would be able to use it.
Well, I knew how to use it.
Whether or not I would be able to take one, point it, cock it, pull the trigger, and bore a hole - possibly a fatal hole - into a human being... yeah, that was still to be seen.
It occurred to me, yes, even as I was being dragged down another hallway by a man who wanted to hurt me in terrible ways, that my life was so incredibly different than anyone else my age.
I guess I had spent so much time railing against some of the oppressions that came with being born to my parents that I didn't see the freedoms.
In my position, no one else my age would be able to say that they had the skills to handle it - even if they didn't have the history of utilizing it in this kind of real-life scenario.
I was lucky.
Someday, I would make sure I told my parents that.
And my aunts.
And uncles.
They were the sole reason I even had a chance.
We rounded a bend that opened up into what could be called a living room, though the windows were blocked with big sheets of metal that reminded me a lot of the walls at Hailstorm.
There was a single couch facing a stone-front fireplace. No carpets, no knick-knacks, no coffee table. Bare.
Really, it was now or never.
That realization should have made panic wash over me, made my heart trip and stumble forward, should have made my brain race.
But, unfathomably, everything within me calmed, stabilized. My mind cleared. My muscles seemed to steel themselves.
His hand loosened slightly, giving me just enough room to whip my body backward, to lose the grip fully.
There were a few options.
To take someone down.
Fully.
I needed him down.
We needed to grapple if I was going to get that key.
He was bigger than me, undoubtedly stronger.
But I had knowledge and the surprise factor and his underestimation of my sex, my age, on my side.
I slid back.
Planted one foot.
Lifted another.
And swung my body around, kicking around in half a circle, the top of my foot landing perfectly as my body kept swinging around before I could plant my feet again, slow the momentum so I could face him once more.
There was always a lag with liver shots.
Five or ten seconds where the pain didn't register, as the liver jerked around in the stomach cavity.
I watched with a perverse, but unmistakable, sense of glee as his face crumpled in pain, as his body went down, unable to keep strength in his legs as the pain overtook his whole body.
No mercy, my Aunt Janie would yell at me in this situation. They damn sure wouldn't show you any.
My body flew forward, instinct and repetitive, unending lessons taking over me, making me land on him, closed fists slamming down full force into weak spots.
Nose.
Eyes.
A knee came up, ramming down. I couldn't be sure, but I would have sworn I felt a crack.
Ribs.
There was no time to revel in that, to feel pride.
The key.
I had to get the key.
One hand slammed down into his face as my body shifted, as another landed a groin shot that allowed my hand to seek his pocket without him noticing.
There was one small flaw in the plan, of course.
Whereas liver shots cause enough pain to render you almost voiceless, groin shots had a tendency to make a man roar in pain.
And roar he did.
It was barely a few seconds before I heard boots running.
My hand shoved down my dress, sticking the key in my bra before landing another well-timed punch as three men stormed into the room, one plowing forward, snagging me under the arms, and lifting me clear up as though I weighed no more than a dandelion seed.
"Calm the fuck down!" he roared as my hands knew nothing but self-defense, being outnumbered, knowing my time was running out.
I didn't say anything.
What was there to say?
I simply struck out again, landing a lame punch to his jaw, not even enough to make the boulder he called a head swing at all.
All I managed was an even more sore hand, and to piss off a man who could break me in half using half force.
His hand left my arm, moving forward so fast that I momentarily forgot to grab his wrist.
But a moment was too long in this scenario.
Because half a moment meant his giant hand was closing around my throat.
Squeezing.
My mind flew to Chris, to the bands of bruises around her throat. At this man's hands? While he did awful things to her? Like he was bound to do to me as well.
Thoughts became harder as the lack of oxygen started to make my brain feel foggy, thick.
Fight, a chorus of voices sounded in my head - every last one of my loved ones speaking through my subconscious, reminding me that so long as I had air - even just a teeny bit of it - in my lungs, I had the power to try, to fight, to do something.
My hands moved up in between his outstretched ones, clasping together, half-turning, then driving down the underside of my forearm into his elbow, making it buckle downward, releasing my throat.
My voice gasped in even as my body dropped, sliding under his arm, moving behind him.
Just in time to be grabbed by the man who had carried me in that very first night, leaning down low, catching me - shoulder to belly - and hauling me up and over his shoulder.
There was a moment of asinine, but undeniable, horror at the idea of my short skirt riding up, of the bottoms of my butt cheeks exposed by my black cheeky panties.
It took superhuman self-control not to reach back, to try to drag down the fabric, to cover myself.
But another side of me, maybe a prideful part, didn't want to let them know they had finally gotten to me, unnerved me.
They would only use something like modesty as a source of humiliation for me.
And I'd be damned if I gave them anything to use against me, anything other than what they already had on their minds.
But wait.
Not their.
My head lifted up from where my chin was braced on a giant back, looking up to find the other three men had stayed behind, lifting their fallen comrade carefully, inspecting my damage.
The choker guy seemed to feel my inspection, head swiveling in my direction.
I don't know where it came from, what would possess me to do it.
But I did it.
Smiled.
Because maybe I was losing the war, but I had won a battle, damnit. And I was going to call that a victory.
I did what I said I would when I was brought here - an untold number of days, though it felt like weeks or months - I fought. I hurt them. I showed them that I was going to go down swinging.
And, in turn, he looked taken aback, confused, then almost... curious.
I wasn't sure that curious was what I wanted him to feel toward me, but it was too late for that as I was turned suddenly, the man taking me into a room.
A room with a door.
A room that maybe had a bed.
Where all the awful things Chris and Mary had endured would happen to me as well.
This was when fear finally started to swirl around my belly, making bile rise up in my throat.
I choked it back as I suddenly felt myself falling from his shoulder, remembering at the last possible second not to grab at him for stability.
I slammed down on unprepared heels, feeling a stabbing sensation through them and up my calves for a second before I felt a hand clamp on my shoulder, adding pressure until my body had no choice but to buckle.
Buckle.
Going down.
Down to what?
My knees?
Because, well, after witnessing what I had been willing to do to his body, he was a freaking idiot to think he could try to force anything in my mouth without me biting the thing clear off.
But even as the revolting, but possible, idea crossed my mind, my butt slammed down on a hard chair.
There wasn't even enough time to register that before I felt my wrist snagged, yanked back until my shoulder screamed, then felt something, small but thick, slide around my wrist, tighten, connect me to the back of the chair.
Zip tie.
Even as I realized it, my other wrist got the same treatment until my back was arched painfully backward to keep the ties from clawing at the delicate skin of my wrists.
"See if you can behave your fucking ass like that for a bit," he rumbled before moving off.
The door slammed closed behind him.
Closed.
But not locked.
Not as though that would do me any good tied to a chair.
They knew what they were doing.
The thought made my lip curl, hating the idea of clever bad guys, always wanted to think of them as base, thoughtless morons easily outsmarted.
But handcuffs were hard, could have been used to break the rungs on the back of the chair, freeing me enough to get down on the ground, bring the cuffs to the front, find something to pick them with, or simply run with them still bound. They would make a good noose if I could grab someone, use it to choke them, pulling their body tight, using them as a shield.
But zip ties wouldn't break the chair rungs.
Maybe I could saw into them given enough time, but I didn't figure I had a whole heck of a lot of that.
It wasn't that zip ties were unbreakable.
I'd broken sets of them as far back as eleven years old.
When they were bound in front of me. It was simple, really, bring your arms up, close your fists letting your fingers touch, then use every bit of momentum in your body to drive them down while pulling your arms out, swinging your elbows backward.
They broke almost effortlessly.
It wasn't much harder behind your back, either. You just bent forward, lifted your arms up, and rammed them downward onto your butt. Over and over.
It took a few times, but they'd break too.
But like this?
Pulled to no slack, so tight that I was worried about the circulation in my hands, connecting me to a solid item?
Yeah... I couldn't think of a way out of it.
My legs were free, though, I reminded myself, thinking.
I'd put dining room chairs together with Aunt Penny once, all Allen wrenches and screws and washers.
But weak in the joints, in the legs.
I took a deep breath, figuring it was worth a shot.
Getting to my feet, I folded forward as far as I could but still move, making the legs stick outward. Taking a deep breath, I squat-ran backward with every bit of force the awkward position would allow, slamming back into the wall with the hopes that the legs would crack off the seat which would fall out without the support.
My wrists throbbed as my plan went through, legs splintering, dropping to the ground, the seat following, nothing to stop my wrists, then shoulders from slamming into the wall mercilessly.
"Ow," I hissed, taking a deep breath, trying to think through it. And, because my mom wasn't around to hear it, and because, well, the situation warranted it, I added, "Fuck."
Taking slow, deep breaths, I listened for running footsteps, tried to prepare myself for another possible fight.
But none came.
Not quite willing to believe my luck - since I knew the sound should have alerted someone - but also not the type to squander the chance, I forced my brain to think past the pain, to ignore the feeling of the ties slicing into my wrists as I pulled from the wall, and tried to throw my arms outward, loosen the rungs from the top where they were still stubbornly connected.
I could feel the skin of my left wrist breaking open, hot, searing, the trickle of my blood as it escaped my body.
Fighting someone else was easy.
Fighting your own animalistic self-preservation was harder as I hesitated at another pull, knowing it would only drive the ties in deeper.
Steeling my stomach - and my will which desperately needed it - I threw everything I had into one last attempt, feeling my heart surge upward as the rungs cracked and detached, the rest of the chair clattering to the hard floor.
Leaving me with two jagged, pointy pieces of wood attached to the undersides of my arms.
Like weapons.
Like I was sure I had seen in a movie once, some kind of girl vampire hunter with them attached to her wrists to jab into vampire hearts, turning them to dust.
An odd, almost hysterical chuckle bubbled up and trickled out at that thought, the long days, and the fights and the pain and the adrenaline clearly starting to get to me, screw with my mind.
But I couldn't let it.
I had to harden up, like Uncle Pagan demanded relentlessly, always being one of my harshest coaches, refusing to give me a second even to catch my breath or process my pain, instead insisting I learn to enjoy it, fuel myself with it.
Harden up, he would command, swatting me on the side of the head hard enough to make my other ear slam into my shoulder with the force. Yeah, you're pissed. Good. Use it. Come at me with it.
And I would.
Fiercely.
With every bit of tiredness and frustration I would feel at the moment.
I needed to find that strength again, to use all these experiences to drive me forward, to allow me to battle it out again. And again. And again if it was needed.
As if responding to the request for motivation, visions careened across my mind.
Chris with her hollow eyes.
Mary retching for hours.
Mary begging to be assaulted just to get a break from the detoxing.
Chris being thrown down on the floor like trash, bruises around her wrists and throat, blood in her mouth, eyes, demanding I find an escape, so I didn't have to be fully conscious of the awful things happening to my body when it was my turn.
The gnawing, unstoppable hunger.
The eyes of men who saw us as objects instead of people.
Yeah, that would do it.
Within minutes, I had to remind myself to breathe through the seething anger, the blind hatred that was making its way through my entire system, compressing my ribcage with its ferocity.
But no one came.
And, for the first time, I knew for how long.
This room had a clock.
Just a simple, ugly black rimmed one with bold black numbers and flimsy plastic hands hanging awkwardly on an otherwise empty wall.
Actually, this was another mostly-empty room with boarded windows, white-faded-to-yellow walls, wooden floors in desperate need of wax, or even simply a broom and mop, and one lone captain's chair in a hideous salmon color butted into a corner.
That was it.
Almost as if this place was temporary.
Temporary, but Chris had been here months.
If they were just squatting, surely someone would have seen and reported them by now.
Unless we were in the middle of nowhere.
That thought made me feel anxious and comforted in equal turns.
Anxious because if we were in a populated area, when we escaped, we could find a house and ring the bell, find a road and flag down a car, find a restaurant and beg for protection while we wait for the cops.
It would be the easier solution.
But comforted because if we were in the middle of nowhere, there would likely be woods to disappear into. And while I wasn't exactly the survivalist like Uncle Duke, I certainly knew a lot about the woods from time spent with Uncle Wolf and Malc in them.
I could guide us through them.
If they were too thick, I could ensure we survived in them for a few days before we could find some help.
Either way - in a populated area or the woods - I would make sure we all made it out of here.
But an hour past.
An hour and ten.
Then feet.
Boots.
And something else.
Something I heard a million times before.
From my mom.
The girls club.
My friends.
From even myself.
Heels.
But, no.
That couldn't be right.
This was a place of masculine evil.
It was no place for a woman in heels.
But they kept coming closer, somehow matching the thumping of my confused heart.
The boots stopped first.
The knob turned.
I raised my arms, ready to stab forward if necessary.
And, well, at this point, I was pretty sure it would definitely be necessary.
By any means, Aunt Janie would tell me. You have a right to protect yourself for any reason and by any means.
I had a right to defend myself, God-given and undeniable, up to death, right through it.
"Well, well," A woman's voice said, low and almost melodic, but in a cold way, like the chicks in movies you just knew were going to end up stabbing someone or stealing someone else's husband. "It seems this little mouse refuses to be caged. Something will need to be done about those wooden spikes," she added to the same man who had bound me to the chair in the first place.
He took an immediate step forward, but hesitated, something in his eyes relaying some sort of worry or maybe - dare I even think it - fear.
"What are you waiting for?"
"Saw what she did to Harry."
"Oh, yes," the woman said, smiling evilly. "Harry. It seems you managed an impressive feat. You ruptured his liver and cracked a rib into his lungs."
Cracked a rib into his lungs.
Into his lungs.
Which would mean sure death if it wasn't treated immediately.
Maybe it was, though, I comforted myself, finding that the idea of killing someone and the practical application of it were two completely different things.
Maybe that was what took so long, getting him to a hospital, getting the situation sussed out.
I swallowed a bit hard, lifting my chin, not wanting any of my uncertainty to show. If she wanted to believe I was a heartless killer, then that was what I would be.
"Am I supposed to feel sorry about that?" I asked, taking my cue from her, dropping any feeling at all from my tone.
"Well, any decent person would. Seeing as I can't have that kind of situation tracing back to me, to here. Harry, unfortunately, needed to be put down."
Killed.
He'd been killed?
Two things tried to fight for space in my mind then.
First, I wasn't a killer. I mean, if we wanted to get technical about it, he would have absolutely died from the lung puncture that I had inflicted if he didn't get to the hospital soon enough. But, technically, I had not taken a life.
Second, this woman was speaking as though she was the boss.
But the boss to what?
An army of men who preyed on girls.
But, no.
That made no sense.
There was no hierarchy in that, no ruling position, unless...
Oh, God.
She was a human trafficker.
She was a predator of women.
A woman herself.
Something flew back to the forefront of my mind, buried and dusty from time, muffled because I had been pretending to sleep one night at Hailstorm, so my mom and aunts would talk more freely, and I could listen in.
"That's how it is, though," Aunt Lo had been saying. "With women."
"But wouldn't you agree that we are more nurturing by nature?" Mom had asked.
"Sure, but if something happens, something robs a woman of that nurturing quality, there is no more heartless, no more ruthless, merciless creature on the Earth. Give me ten male kingpins over any one female one any day. That's all I am saying."
And here I was, facing my Aunt Lo - by all standards one of the most badass women in the world - 's biggest nightmare.
A female kingpin.
A woman who trafficked other women.
A woman who allowed her men to chain girls in the basement to beat and rape to their evil heart's content.
My spit turned sour, hard to swallow without cringing, but I fought it. I tried to school my face in nonchalance even as I lifted my chin higher.
"Put down?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Hopefully right out in the backyard like the rabid dog he was."
"Oh, I like this spirit," she said, nodding.
Almost like she was... I don't know, proud?
But that made no sense.
Why would she be proud of imprisoning a girl with 'spirit'?
"My goal in life, to impress heartless human trafficking bitches."
Apparently, once you started cussing, you couldn't stop. No wonder most of my uncles, and at least half of my aunts used them to punctuate their points.
"Take a good look at me, dear," she invited, even though I was clearly looking right at her.
"I'm looking right at you."
"Look through eyes not so heavily laced with teenaged angsty hatred," she clarified, making my hackles only manage to rise further. There was maybe nothing in the world I hated more than adults condescending to me, as though a couple of years made that big of a difference with emotions and passions. I knew adults who flew off the handle - both to hysterics or violent rage - far more easily than my age-mates did.
But she was right; all I could see when I looked at her was what she had allowed her men to do to other women, what a soulless, heartless monster she was.
I wasn't sure I had even really seen her until she demanded I do so.
It took just seconds.
Three, tops.
Three seconds to see it.
Because there was no mistaking it.
It was in the subtle contours of a body, so familiar. In the bone structure of her face. In her eye color. My eye color.
And, finally, it was in the hair.
The red hair I had always envied, mostly in the confines of my own heart, not wanting to come off as insecure, or that I didn't want to inherit the dark hair from my father.
But that was my mother's hair.
It was my mother's face.
It was my mother's body.
Plus a few years.
Which, really, could only mean one thing.
"Now you're getting it," she said, smiling.
That was one difference.
While, technically, maybe those were the same lips, that was not the same smile.
When my mother did it, it lit up her whole face, it etched deep into her cheeks, made her eyes dance, gave her happy creases.
When my mother smiled, it was a sight to see.
Whereas with this woman, all you could see was the smile of a snake, fangs dripping, just ready to sink them in and infect you.
"What? You don't want to give your grandmother a hug?"
There it was.
A confirmation I didn't really need since the DNA was undeniable, but somehow, hearing it aloud made it feel more real.
Sickeningly real.
Because if this was my grandmother, it meant some of her was in me, there was a connection - even if it was only genetic - binding us.
I couldn't help but wonder as I looked at her, as my mind tried to process this information, how did others do it? How did the parents, siblings, children of serial killers, rapists, or pedophiles handle the weight of that reality? That they were related to monsters? Did they wonder if there were pieces of that evil in them as well? That such a thing could be hereditary?
Even as I thought those things though, another realization crowded them out.
My mother was related to this woman, more completely than even I was.
And there was no kinder a woman, more caring a mother, no more devoted a wife, the most morally-minded woman I had met. She was pure goodness, light, warmth. With a little dab of grit and strength to even it out, so she wasn't all mush.
That was who I had come from.
Not this abomination before me.
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised they never told you. They'd rather brush me under a rug, lock me up in a cell, deny that I ever existed at all."
They?
But even as the question formed, things started coming back to me.
Like stolen snippets of conversation that abruptly cut off when my grandfather would come to visit to speak to my parents, and I would catch him saying that she was nothing to worry about, that she was never going to get within a mile of my mom and us again.
Again.
Like she had gotten to us before?
But I would have remembered that.
I remembered the eye color of my first Barbie from back when I was three-years-old - an inhuman cobalt blue that I colored over with brown a few weeks after getting it.
I would have remembered a woman 'getting to' me before.
So, what then?
My mom?
My mom.
See, I hadn't really gotten up the nerve. To ask. I had tried over the years, wanting to know, wanting to understand, wanting her to share it with me. But she was fiercely protective over them, covering them up if I happened to walk in on her changing, quick to whip around to face me so her back was hidden.
The scars.
My mom had a lot of scars.
All across her back.
All old, healed, but still slightly raised, white-ish, shiny, standing out against her otherwise perfect skin.
Scars that had troubled me whenever I thought of them, knowing the layout of them was too precise to have been from some freak accident where she got torn up somehow.
And, besides, if it was just some freak accident, there was really no reason to hide them from me, to keep the truth of it to herself.
So the reason had to be more personal, more evil than that.
I had wondered once, feeling my loyalty tugged in two directions, if maybe my grandfather had been a different man when he had raised her, if he had been heavy-handed and brutal, in complete contrast to the man who snuck me candy and brought me on wild shopping sprees at the toy or book store.
I had never been able to picture him doing it, picking up some object, and slashing it across my mom's back.
You never really knew what someone was capable of, what ugly resided in their hearts, but I never could accept that as the reality.
But maybe there was a different explanation.
Maybe this woman before me, who had a black hole for a heart, maybe she had been one to find so much fault in her daughter that she sliced her open, made her bleed.
Now that was a reality I could easily accept.
Maybe that was what she meant by they.
My mother and grandfather, who kept this from me, protected me from it.
Not sure what to say, not wanting to show a weakness by protecting my family, I said nothing at all, just listened to my own heartbeat, the steady whooshing sound of my pulse in my ears.
"I've seen them, you know," she went on, clearly having it in her mind to have a heart-to-heart with her long-lost granddaughter. To what end? That was yet to be seen. But if she wanted to talk, it meant more time for me to think, to process, to plan to figure how I could play this to my advantage.
"My daughter. That thug she calls a husband. Your brothers. Those people you call aunts and uncles. The same people who have refused to tell you about me since you were born, who also conveniently left out that they kept me imprisoned in a cell on your grandfather's property for even longer than that."
I tried not to let her words have impact, tried not to feel anything about them. Which was clearly her motive in telling me.
But how could I not think about it? Feel about it?
Even if I didn't want to - because I loved these people more than I had words to express, and I had a lot of words - there was no stopping it.
The sinking sensation in my gut, a sensation I had no other word for except horror.
I wanted to deny it, to say they weren't capable, no matter what this woman had done to deserve it, of illegally imprisoning her for decades.
Even if that was where she was headed - to a cell - it had to be done right. Right? You couldn't just catch people, throw them in a cell, and act like life could just go on as normal, like you weren't some makeshift warden.
It was especially hard for me to picture my mother being a part of that. My father, Aunt Lo, I got that. I wasn't naive. Their operations were the types that operated on the fringes of society, that crossed lines normal law-abiding citizens didn't even want to think about.
There were things I generally didn't let myself think about.
Even knowing what I knew about their operations.
I didn't let my mind drift to the uglier things.
Like to maintain their reins at the top, Daddy and Aunt Lo likely had to do things that weren't simply questionable morally, but outright wrong.
Torture.
Murder.
It was hard to accept that about these people who had braided my hair, who had held my hand at my first dentist appointment, who wiped away tears, who treated bloody knees.
These were people who had taught me fundamental life lessons that had shaped me into who I turned out to be.
But for all that love and light, there was no denying there was also a healthy dose of dark, or heartlessness.
That was a hard thing to accept.
But there was no way to avoid that harsh truth when there was a woman before you - like it or not, a family member - who was telling you that these people you shared meals with, trained with, laughed with, had put her in a cell to rot.
That being said, I know these people. I knew that whatever it was she had done meant she had earned such a fate.
"I can't imagine you were innocent," I said, shifting my gaze to her man who had decided it was safe to approach me.
It would never be safe to approach me again.
That was the odd, rather unwelcome thought, that crossed my mind right then. But even as I wanted to deny it, I saw the truth in it.
In what she had allowed to happen to me.
She had made it so that even if I escaped, even if I took every precaution to make sure nothing like this could ever happen to me again, it would never go away.
The pulsating, undeniable distrust that flowed through my veins as sure as my blood did.
Any man's gaze who lingered would set me on edge. Anybody that got too close would make my hands curl into fists to protect myself. Any basement would bring images flooding back like a riptide trying to pull me under the crushing weight of them.
It wouldn't matter how much I trained, over-trained, tried to make my body the weapon I knew it could be.
More determined even than Aunt Janie.
More hardened than Uncle Pagan.
More diverse than Aunt Lo.
More relentless than Lenny.
I would make myself into a whole other beast entirely
Unstoppable.
Untouchable.
Un-take-able.
No one would ever again put me in a situation like this woman - my grandmother - had.
No one would ever again make me feel helpless, trapped, hopeless.
And in my heart, I knew that maybe meant something for my future that I would have to face eventually.
But those were thoughts for another time, when I didn't have other, more pressing things to worry about.
My freedom.
Chris'.
Mary's.
That had to be at the forefront of my mind.
Not my father's - and aunts' and uncles' - dealings.
Not what they had done almost two decades ago.
Not what I would do weeks or months from now.
All I had right now was this moment.
This moment with a big guy who wanted to take my weapons from me.
This moment where I was confronted with a psychopath who also happened to be my only living grandmother.
This moment where I wasn't exactly sure what part I was supposed to play - the sympathetic ear, or the badass she had been impressed by.
"Who on this Earth is innocent?" she asked, shrugging one of her shoulders as her gray eyes pierced into me. "No one. Not even you, granddaughter." I must have raised a brow, shown some sign of confusion or interest - both of which I felt at those words - because she went on. "All the petty rebellions. And moon-eyeing a man you know would go to jail if he touched you."
Vance.
It was weird; I hadn't thought about him at all.
It was especially strange seeing as for the past several years, it seemed impossible to think of anything else. At least not for longer than a few minutes. He was like a magnet, and my mind was drawn to thoughts of him, images of him, dreams of him.
But it had been days.
Days when maybe my mind should have drifted, should have sought out his memory, should have found comfort in it.
And... nothing.
It was a really inopportune time for these thoughts - what with Grandma-of-the-Year staring daggers at me - but there was no stopping them once they started.
Like... what did it mean?
Was I maybe not in love with him after all?
Or had I not wanted to feel more of the things I was missing by being trapped? Did I not want to think about the fact that my plan had always been to get to eighteen, finally snag his attention, and let him be my introduction to all things physical... and that this situation could possibly mean that was no longer an option for me?
Even just that thought made my saliva turn acidic again, burning like battery fluid down my throat.
Yet another thing to contemplate at a different time.
I had a lot of introspection in my future.
If I had one.
Which I would do everything in my power to ensure that I did.
Even if I did decide to go with giving back as good as I got instead of stroking her ego.
"I hardly think having a high school crush on an older guy is even anywhere near the same thing as abducting women, and selling them out to be raped, Grams."
The Grams seemed to be the only part that penetrated her calm, collected, evil witch thing she had going on. Her eyes flashed, edges of daggers caught in the light. Her back stiffened. Her lips pursed.
"Careful," she said after giving it a moment, giving herself a moment to get her guards back up. "Haven't you ever heard the phrase about biting the hand that feeds you?"
There was no stopping the snort that rose up and forced its way out.
"What? The two times in, how many days I have been here?"
"My hospitality doesn't live up to your standards?"
"It doesn't live up to a third world jail's standards."
Her lips curved upward at that, snide, condescending. "It could be worse for you, you know," she said, tone deep, heavily weighted by the reality we both knew she was speaking of. "It really is only my word protecting you from that fate."
"Your word didn't protect my mother from getting scars all over her back," I spat.
"No. My word demanded that. So it might be smart to mark your tone."
"What's a few more scars?" I asked, shooting a look at her man who was slowly approaching. "If it is between bowing to your will, or fighting for my freedom, I will fight every time."
"So be it," she said, waving a dismissive hand. "Get her back in the basement. And try not to get yourself stabbed in the process. It would be a real inconvenience to lose two men in one day."
An inconvenience.
My gaze shifted to her man, looking for a reaction, offense, disgust at hearing that his death would simply be an inconvenience. That was how she would see it. After months or years of loyalty.
There was a flicker in his eyes for a short second before it was banked down. I figured that was a survival mechanism in this environment. Having feelings, even legitimate anger or resentment, could likely spell out death for you.
You had to learn to shut down.
You had to bottle it all up.
Which was likely why her men were so aggressively brutal toward other women. Because they couldn't take it out on the one woman who deserved it.
I almost - for a second - felt sorry for him. Before I remembered that this man had grabbed me off the street, pulled me away from my loved ones, had hurt me, had shackled me to a wall in a basement where he knew I might be tormented and starved. And had done far worse to both Mary and Chris, along with an unknown number of other women.
He didn't deserve my pity just because he had a job where he wasn't respected.
"Oh," my grandmother said, having opened the door, then paused, turning back, eyes even more wicked - something I hadn't known was possible - as a smirk pulled at her lips. I didn't know the woman, but I somehow knew to brace myself for whatever words might follow. She left me hanging for a moment, though, dangling with weak fingers, before she stomped down on my knuckles and made me free fall. "And why don't you bring the other girl up? The one my granddaughter here tried to defend. Have some fun with her," she added with the slimiest of smiles that left me feeling slick in the aftermath as she closed the door and disappeared.
There was nothing for a long moment except the distinct and faded click click clicking of her heels down the hall, disappearing to some wing of the home I did not know about.
A moment where her words landed heavily on me, weighed me down until I was sure my feet were sinking into the ground, like the world was attempting to swallow me up.
Of course.
Of course she would use the one clear weakness I had exhibited against me.
My humanity.
My care of another human being.
And Chris would pay for my attitude, for my relation to this raging bitch of a woman. And I had this awful, gut-churning feeling that with the permission of their boss to 'have fun' with her, that whatever happened would be worse, infinitely worse, than what had happened to her in the past.
There was a tightening around my throat, a stinging in my eyes - small remnants of helplessness before I shifted slightly to keep my grandmother's man in my sight, and the movement made the key suddenly dig into the top of my barely-there boob.
Reminding me that helpless was not something I was. Not anymore.
I had wanted to wait.
Until the house was quiet.
Until there was a lesser chance of someone hearing us shuffling through the house. Maybe we could even avoid seeing another person until we were on the grounds which gave us a better chance to take someone down, or avoid them entirely.
But my grandmother was forcing my hand.
It was now or never.
But I had to get back into the basement first.
Catch him off-guard.
That didn't mean, however, that I would go down without a fight.
Seeming to sense this, his head cocked to the side as his hand slipped behind his back.
I knew that move.
From movies.
From watching people at Hailstorm do it.
Reaching for a gun.
It should have filled me with dread, but all I could think of when he produced the compact black Glock was Uncle Repo.
This is a 9mm, Uncle Repo had told me once when he had pulled it out of the backpack in the woods. Small, compact, meant to be conceal carried. I got a feeling this - or maybe the Ruger - will be your gun of choice.
He had been right.
I took to the Ruger.
But I knew how to handle a Glock.
I knew how to pop out the magazine, check for bullets, stick it back in, aim, and shoot.
I needed that gun.
That gun might make all the difference.
Between freedom and perpetual captivity.
Between us getting away tonight, or being pulled back into the basement where I would be forced to accept the fact that Chris would be the one paying for my attempt to break us out.
I lifted my chin, all false bravado because, while I was comfortable with guns, had trained with Aunt Janie on how to disarm someone with one, even using real ones for training, I had never had a loaded one pointed at me with pretty darn good aim.
"You can't kill me," I informed him, proud of the fact that my voice didn't shake.
"No," he agreed, "But V would probably let me get away with putting a really painful hole in you somewhere that wouldn't be fatal. So just calm the fuck down, let me cut off those zip ties, and follow me back downstairs, so you can avoid that. Been shot before. Can tell you it fucking sucks."
I lifted my chin higher still, but held out my wrists.
Not because I had any intention of going along with his instructions, but because I wanted him to think I would.
He lowered the gun, reaching into his pocket to produce a pocket knife, flicking it open. I had a second to realize that it was the same one I had, that Uncle Wolf had given me for my thirteenth birthday, making me swear I would never go anywhere without it. I didn't, either. I even had it on me when I was taken, hidden in the zipper compartment of my purse along with my just-in-case tampons.
That purse was lost now.
I would never see that knife again.
There was a distinct sadness at that little loss.
The blade tip slipped under the zip tie on my left wrist, making the other side of it crush deeper into the already open and bloody wound there.
My air caught, but I managed to keep the hiss of pain inside as he pulled harder, trying to make the thick, stubborn plastic break.
It - and the piece of wood that had been between it and my wrist on the bottom - fell to the ground as he got to work on my other wrist.
It was then, when his head was ducked, the very second that the zip tie gave, that my other hand opened, the bottom of my palm extended, slamming upward, catching him under the nose, making him fly backward with a cry of pain as blood immediately trickled out, red and ugly, slipping from his nostrils to his lips, down his chin, and dripping onto his shirt as he was able to think through the pain, and charge me.
I skittered back, giving up ground, trapping myself closer to the wall to avoid the full force of a man who was twice my size's fist as it unavoidably cracked across my cheek and into my nose, making my eyes water, making the pain overtake half my face, all but guaranteeing a black eye or two within an hour.
My arm shot out, elbow catching his chin as I fought to get the wetness to stop flooding my eyes, making it harder to see.
"E-fucking-nough," he growled, raising the other side, still holding the gun, making my stomach plummet, knowing I might have been strong, but I probably wasn't strong enough to handle a gunshot without crying in pain.
But he turned it in his giant palm, making me all-too-aware of what was to follow.
It was a silly, overused term.
And accurate.
Pistol-whip.
Even as the thought formed, I could feel the first pang of pain to the side of my head.
But just for a second.
After that, everything went black.