MY CHEST CRUSHED, A dead man’s blood in my mouth, I freaked the fuck out.
Sheer panic and fear making me fight for breath, revulsion making me gag, I tried and failed to shove the body away.
I started to hyperventilate.
Javier pulled the body off me.
Shaking violently, I watched Javier drag the dead man to the side of the ship and toss him overboard with surprising strength. Strength I should’ve paid attention to, but didn’t, because I was losing my fucking shit.
More than the prospect of being raped, more than the prospect of being sold, more than the knowledge I may never see my family again, I was thinking about Callan.
Murder.
Javier had murdered the asshole.
Callan had seen death.
Lots of death.
I had a dead man’s blood on me. One dead man’s blood.
Callan had seen lots of death.
Shaking, shaking, shaking. Blood, bits of flesh, metal, copper, dirty, dirty blood.
I rolled to my side and heaved. Pain stabbed at my bruised ribs as blood and bile and despair lurched from my soul and shot from my mouth.
Flipping open a switchblade, Javier squatted in front of me and cut the duct tape binding my hands. “Where did he touch you?”
“Water,” I choked out.
With a sigh of disgust, Javier flicked his blade shut and stood. “Stay. Or I will find you and this will seem like child’s play.” He walked off.
The tremors wracking my body coming in waves, I rolled away from the mess of murder and vomit and landed on my back. Looking up between the tall containers on either side of me, the stars twinkled, the engine hummed, and waves hit the side of the ship. It would have been beautiful if everything about this moment was different and I wasn’t thinking about jumping overboard.
Jumping.
Beaten, bruised and with my underwear around my knees.
Jumping.
Laughing like I had completely lost my shit, I pulled my underwear up and my dress down.
I looked at the side of the ship where the asshole had been tossed over.
Nothing seemed real. Except jumping. But jumping was out of the question. I didn’t have any jump in me. I would have to climb overboard and drop into the ocean. Let the waves wash this fucking blood off me. Big, middle of the ocean, cleansing, suicidal waves.
Climbing overboard would be suicide.
And an easy out for the piece of shit who’d drugged and kidnapped me.
He didn’t deserve an easy out.
The piece of shit returned.
I hated myself for still lying where he’d left me.
Javier held the water bottle out. “I ask again. Where did he touch you?”
Thirstier than I’d ever been, desperate to get the blood off my face and out of my mouth, I stared at the water. Would my family look for me? Would Callan? “Where are we going?”
“Drink,” he ordered.
I eyed him without the fog of a date-rape drug coursing through my system. “The last time I took a drink from you, shit ended badly.”
“I have no reason to subdue you now.”
I barely remembered talking to him at the bar. In fact, everything post Callan walking out of my apartment was a blur. But I did remember Javier having a way different demeanor. He wasn’t smiling or casually flirting with me now. A gun shoved into his waistband, thick veins showing where he’d rolled his shirt sleeves up, he didn’t look like a monster like the asshole rapist did. But he’d killed without blinking, and I knew he would do it again.
I took the water and pushed to a sitting position. Trying to hide weakness by not showing pain as my sore body moved, it was my voice that betrayed me. “You’re a monster.” No force in my tone, I still held eye contact. Just like the asshole rapist, I would remember my kidnapper’s face. I would remember it so well, I would be able to describe it to one of those police sketch artists in perfect fucking detail.
He lifted one eyebrow. “Do you see me forcing myself on you?”
Fucking prick. “You drugged and kidnapped me.” I took a swig of the water and swished it through my mouth then spit.
His head cocked to the side. “How old are you?”
“What, you didn’t steal my purse and memorize the information on my driver’s license?” For about the millionth time since I’d woken up, I mourned the loss of my cell phone.
He laughed a dry, no-humor laugh that didn’t carry any echo between the cargo containers. “I am not stupid enough to bring evidence with me, pobrecita.”
The last of my hope died. I didn’t know how cellular technology worked, but I’d seen plenty of TV shows where they tracked someone’s location from their cell phone. I was at least hoping my purse and cell were somewhere on this stupid ship. “My family will find me,” I lied. My mouth still tasting like blood, I took another swig and spit.
“There is no one looking for you,” he countered confidently. “Now, tell me.” He fingered the hem of my soiled and ripped dress. “Did Bando get inside those panties? Or are you still a virgin?”
Horror mixed with hatred, then rage bled over everything. I didn’t remember telling him I was a virgin, but if I had, or fucking worse, if he’d somehow checked or done something to me while I was passed out, then this was even more horrific than I thought. I now knew for sure I was being sold, and sold specifically for my virginity. The thought of that young girl in the container with her sisters made me want to commit murder, starting with Javier. “You’re a pig.”
Faster than I could blink, I was on my back, his hand was on my throat and he’d kicked my legs apart before dropping to a squat between them. Rough fingers grabbed at my underwear. “Should I check for myself?” he asked, his voice eerily calm.
I should’ve been terrified. Or struggling against his hold, but something snapped. Snapped wasn’t even the right word. Resignation was closer. Defeat and exhaustion warred with the knowledge that he needed me a virgin and this fucking boat ride wouldn’t last an eternity, and I simply exhaled. “Go ahead,” I taunted. “Defile me and see if you make any money off me then.”
A sick smile spread across his face. “Maybe I will keep you for myself.”
The wheels in my brain started turning. I couldn’t win this round. And I’d definitely lost the fucking round when he’d drugged and kidnapped me, but that didn’t mean I was out of the fight. There would be an opportunity to escape. There had to be. Because goddamn it, I was going home.
I glanced toward where he had the gun in his waistband. “Maybe you should.”
Throwing his head back and laughing like a hyena, he released his grip on me and sat back on his knees. With a glint in his eye, he threw his arms wide. “Go ahead, princesa, reach for my gun.” He grinned so hard, it looked like a sneer. “See what happens.”
“You wish.” I wasn’t stupid enough to try that. At least not while he was awake.
Still sneering, he stood. “Get up.”
My back hurting, my ribs killing me, my face stinging, I got up. Holding my side, my feet tender as I stood on grated metal, I glared at him. “I want a shower.”
“We all want many things in life. Come.” He started walking, confident I would follow him.
Stupidly, I did.
Weaving through cargo containers, down steps that were more like a ladder, through halls and past machinery or an engine, or whatever the hell made this ship run, he kept a quick pace until he used the side of his fist to shove a door open.
I stopped in the hall and looked behind me. Our whole walk, I hadn’t seen another soul. I could’ve run. I could’ve gotten to the captain of the ship and told him I was kidnapped. I could’ve….
“Nowhere to go, princesa.”
I stared at him.
His arms crossed, leaning on the open doorframe, he smirked. “But by all means, have at it.” He gestured toward the hall we’d just come down. “Deck’s that way.”
I’d never considered fear before. There was shit I was afraid of. Heights, spiders that jumped, not making rent, but I’d never been truly terrified. Nor did I know that that kind of fear had layers. When I woke up in the pitch-black cargo container, I’d thought I would die of fear. I thought my pounding heart would give me a heart attack and that would be it. Then when the asshole had shoved me down and reached for his belt, I felt rage-fear. I was so enraged and so fucking afraid of his diseased dick and of pain, when ironically the pain of being kicked in the back had to surpass losing one’s virginity.
Then there was this moment.
I wasn’t shaking anymore.
I wasn’t thinking about the horrible diseases I could get from a dirty asshole rapist’s blood that had gotten in my mouth. I wasn’t even thinking about my family.
I was looking at that hallway and counting the turns and steps we’d taken to get here and wondering if I could outrun him. I was wagering my speed against my future. Because that was what was truly terrifying.
My unknown fate.
Would I be sold to some whorehouse where I was shot full of heroin and fucked fifty times a day against my will while collecting STDs and an addiction to drugs I’d never escape?
That fear, that terror, it added layers to everything else I had been through and it transcended it.
Seriously transcended it.
I was so terrified, I was counting turns and judging distance to the side of the ship and the vast ocean. A cold, unforgiving, unsurvivable ocean I no longer saw as an easy out for my kidnapper, but as a viable alternative to an unknown future.
Death over an unimaginable future.
“Still deciding?” Javier asked.
I didn’t answer.
“Let me help.” He leaned toward me. “You run, I’ll not only duct tape your hands again, I’ll make you wish I hadn’t killed the last man who tried to get in your panties.”
I didn’t listen to his threatening words. My traitorous brain was telling me ships had schedules, and they wouldn’t stop for one overboard, stolen virgin. It was telling me I wasn’t worth that much. I wasn’t young. I wasn’t complacent. I wasn’t special. I was just one inconvenience….
I stared at my abductor, and fate intervened.
My stomach growled.
It was all I needed to make the decision.
I would rather die hungry than sold, raped and addicted to drugs.
I turned and ran.