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I wasn’t ready for it. Wasn’t ready to see Ariel in a small windowless room banging on the heavy metal door, so hard it must hurt. She’s on every one of the screens now and even though the camera feed has no sound I can still hear her screams.
My knife is out of my sleeve in a flash. But not faster than it takes two of the Sons to disarm me and pin me against the wall.
Then Joker’s grinning face is only an inch from mine, and I consider biting off his nose since they’re holding me so tight my head is the only thing I can still move.
“Now calm down and listen,” Joker says. “I have a special job for you and I think you’ll do it without complaining. Or else I’ll have every one of my guys fuck her before I sell her to the nastiest Mexican whorehouse you can picture. They love the natural blondes down there.”
Just hearing his voice is making me wanna puke, let alone what he’s saying.
I hate backing down and I hate admitting defeat. I never do it. Because I’d rather be dead than lose a fight. But that’s not an option now. I gotta save Ariel.
“What do you want?” I snarl.
He laughs that chortling laugh of his that makes him sound like a kind grandfather. Revolting.
“First we’ll take your weapons and your phone and then we’ll talk,” he says. “How’s that sound?”
“Like a fucking nightmare.”
He laughs again and then they disarm me and lead me out of the room like some prisoner. The screens on the wall go back to showing the various rooms around the compound. Most of them are filled with people. How many men does Joker have? It looks like hundreds.
But all I actually still see is Ariel trying to get free. I see it even after they lead me out of the room and into a cell of my own.
30
Ariel
I have no idea how long I’ve been locked up in this windowless room. The only way to gauge time passing is how sober I am. I’m back to normal. This room isn’t some dingy whorehouse room. It has all the comforts, including a bathroom where I’ve drunk as much water as I could hold down to help the sobering up.
The other way to gauge time is how much my arms and hands hurt from banging on the metal door. I’m in agony from that, so it could be days.
I should relax, save my strength for escaping the first chance I get. But the problem is, every time I try to sit still memories of getting taken the first time come in force. It’s even worse when I close my eyes. The darkness is gathering in my mind and out of it come the faces of all the women I’ve known along my road. My own face, when I dared to look at myself in the mirror, marked by tears and bruises and smeared mascara.
All the banging and screaming I’ve done has had absolutely no effect whatsoever. No one’s even come to tell me to shut up. They left sandwiches and soda in the room for me and even some clothes, which probably belonged to some dead woman. I have no idea what this good treatment means, but I’m fearing the worst.
Maybe they sold me on to some crazy, depraved rich dude. That was one of the worst fears that me and those women sharing the darkness with me had. That we’d be sold off to some psycho who’d keep us in a cage like an animal for his insane pleasure. Or worse.
There’s absolutely nothing sharp in this entire room. The bed is made of sturdy wood, the dresser and closet have no knobs for me to rip off and neither do the cabinets in the bathroom. I climbed under the bed to see if I could find a nail to dig out, but no luck there either. The best I can do for a weapon is use the sheets to strangle the first person who comes in here. But who am I kidding? I don’t have the kind of strength needed for something like that.
My voice is gone, but I keep on yelling. My hands have stopped aching, but only because they’ve gone numb. I might never get out of here alive.
And the only reason I haven’t given up and retreated deep into the darkness in my mind is the thought of Ruin. I’ll lose him forever if I do that. Because this time, I know I won’t return from it. I won’t be able to.
31
Ruin
The room I’m in has a single camp bed pushed against one corner and no windows. It feels like it’s in the basement, with tons of earth pressing down on me, but it could be on the top floor for all I know. The walls started closing in on me the moment they shut the heavy metal door behind me, and it took a good long while for me to regain control of my mind enough to assess my situation.
Not much to assess, but checking out every inch of the room helped calm me. The walls are rough concrete and I could smash up the camp bed and use the pieces as weapons. Maybe the thinner wires could even be used to pick the lock on the door. But I’m sure they’ve got a camera on me in here, so I’ll try that as a last resort.
I assume Joker wants me for something other than to keep me locked up here in his bunker. Which means he’ll let me out eventually. Sooner rather than later, I hope. Because I never did well in small, cramped spaces and the silence and emptiness are already starting to erode my mind.
They took my phone. But I’d already told Edge where I was. The Devils already know about this place. They’ll come.
They also took my weapons. Or so they think. Because none of them thought to check the soles of my boots. I keep a small, razor-sharp knife wedged into the heel, because you never know when you’re gonna find yourself disarmed on the ground with some idiot trying to finish you. I didn’t survive as many fights as I had without thinking that far ahead and without my little bits of backup like that. I used to carry razor blades too, tucked away in the hems of my jeans and shirts. But I stopped doing that when I decided to turn a new leaf and become more than just a killer. A dumb decision, seeing how things turned out.
I eventually calm down, but with every minute that passes, my worry for Ariel grows blacker. I’ll kill every last Lost Son with my own bare hands and mount Joker’s fucking head on the walls of this compound. Maybe I’ll even gouge his eyes out for good measure. Or maybe I’ll just hang him off the walls for the birds to peck at.
