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"Zurich?" Mack asks. "I thought she sold already?"
"She did." Wes nods. "But the boss is going to deliver this one by hand."
"Sure." Mack's laugh echoes around the walls as he walks away. "If she makes it that long."
Slick chuckles too as he saws at the rope connecting my wrists and ankles. When the tension disappears, I’m too sore to move. My spine has been twisted for hours, my shoulders pulled back, my legs bent at the knee. Being released is a relief, but it’s not an immediate fix for the last few hours. He tries to make me stand, but without adequate blood flow, my feet can't find steady ground below me.
Wes slips my arms over his shoulder. Though I don't want to be anywhere near him, I can't push away from him either. "The pilot's meeting us on the airstrip in twenty minutes." He tells Slick. "Clean this up and meet us there."
Wes drags me alongside him so that the tops of my feet scrape against the concrete floor, my ankles still tethered to one another too tightly to get them under me. "This worked out well." He says lightly. "I'll have to thank Jovich sometime. The commission from you is going to pay off the rest of my student loans."
"You're a doctor." I pant. I'd forgotten about that detail, given the circumstances. Now that I’ve remembered, it feels like a slap in the face. "You're supposed to do no harm."
His laughter is deep and rumbling. "You really are so innocent, aren't you? That’s cute, Claire. You don't honestly believe that I'm a doctor because I want to save people, do you?"
I didn't think there was any other option. But I suppose that I’m discounting the one thing that turns otherwise decent people into criminals: money. After all, that's why I’m here, in this position. It's why I’m being sold off to whoever will pay the highest price. "Making people disappear is what pays the bills. But cutting people open and calling it surgery? It's not just a hobby, it's also a damn good cover. I mean, who doesn't trust a doctor? You did." Wes laughs, tossing his dark, wavy hair back as he languishes in his own wit.
He's right; I did trust him. Not because he’s a doctor or because he has gorgeous eyes, but because I trust too freely these days. I’ve known pretty much all of my life that it isn't fair, that it’s dark and sometimes twisted. I learned, growing up, that it isn't always pretty. And I had once believed that there was too much dark for any stars to shine again, that the darkness was too infinite for a pinprick of light to make a difference.
Somewhere along the way, Rhea got me to see the good again. I became so used to seeing that light, I'd become disillusioned by it. I forgot that monsters walk among us in the guise of a helping hand, a protector, a caregiver.
Wes stops abruptly as if something is amiss, clutching me against him and pressing a cold hand over my mouth. For a moment, there’s nothing but the empty hallway in front of us and a steady drip, drip! noise coming from somewhere. But then a gunshot rings out through the building as if the walls are made of aluminum. Wes swears out loud. "Slick!" He hisses. "Go see what that was all about."
Slick brushes past us, gripping the knife in front of him. He moves quietly and quickly, disappearing into the darkness ahead. We wait for what feels like forever for any signs of either Slick or Mack. But when a few long moments pass, and nothing comes, Wes swears again. "Keep your mouth shut, Claire."
My ankles and wrists are still bound, making walking impossible, so he continues to drag me through the darkness. He stops when we’re close enough to see a door propped open at the end of the hallway. What I presume to be the high beams of a car illuminate the empty space outside the door. Dust motes flit in the air, and I can hear the low rumbling of an engine. The scene is eerie, filling me with a sense of foreboding that I don’t understand. Whatever is out there can’t be worse than what awaits me at the end of the line.
Wes lifts a finger to his lips, a warning to be quiet, and then rushes for the door.
We’re nearly at the exit when Mack steps in our path. With the light behind him, his face is cast in shadows, but his size leaves no doubt as to who it is. He opens his mouth, but the sounds that come from him are strange—weak little noises like something between a whimper and a groan fill the air between us.
Wes eyes him a moment and is opening his mouth to say something when Mack takes a step forward, allowing the light to bounce off his shoulders and reveal his empty mouth pouring blood. It oozes down his lips and chin and covers his shirt. In fact, his shirt is actually soaked with it… far too much of it to have come from just his mouth.
One arm is pressed against his chest, and the other is gesticulating wildly as he attempts to convey some kind of final message to us. Whatever it is, he can’t say, because when he opens his mouth to try again, I realize his tongue is missing.
Mack falls to the ground before us, right at my feet. The knife sticking out of the back of his skull sends a shock through me.
I scream.
Wes grips me tighter and dodges the fallen body without a care, the way someone might sidestep a puddle. When we cross out into the night, there seems to be no one around. But Mack certainly didn't stab himself.
The driver's side door is open, and I can see a rabbit’s foot keychain dangling from the ignition. I catch my reflection in the car window, feral and desperate. I don’t recognize myself there, but I know who she’ll be in a matter of days. Hopeless, broken, a shell of what she strived so hard to become.
This may be my last chance to fight back.
I go completely limp, dropping all of my weight onto Wes' arm so that it bogs him down. As he tries to shift me, it gives me an opening to wriggle loose and break free.
I hadn't just been lying in the dark waiting for them to come back and herd me off to whoever purchased me. Even as I screamed myself hoarse, I'd been tugging at the rope, back and forth, shifting the coils so that the ties loosened and tightened and loosened some more. I know it stripped away some of the flesh... I could feel the searing pain every time I shifted the braided nylon over my already-raw skin, but I clenched my teeth and almost wished they'd put the rag back in my mouth so that I had something to bite down on.
All that pain gave me just a little slack, and I wasn't sure it would be worth it, until I drop out of his grip and fall on the hard ground. The tension between my wrists eases enough for me to shift myself one last time, wriggling my hand free. All the while, Wes watches me with an amused smirk. His form blocks my exit. "You can't escape me, Claire. There's no other way out."
He steps slowly closer to me, the way someone might approach a dog they’re about to trap. He doesn't seem concerned about getting bitten so much as having to chase me. I keep my eyes trained on him as he comes near, and when he takes the opportunity to lunge at me, sweeping me off my feet and throwing me over his shoulder, I let him.
"I liked you, so I'm going to give you some advice." He speaks casually, as if he were giving me tips on how to pass a test or budget my money. "This whole hard-to-get thing is cute to me. You're just a delicate little mouse, and I like watching you try to outrun the wheel. But not everyone is going to find it so endearing. If you want to last a while, learn to read your new master. I happen to know he—"
But whatever he knows about my 'master', I don't care. I’ll die before letting him ship me off to some rich sadist. I slip my arms around Wes' neck so that the rope still dangling off one of my wrists is wound around his throat. I pull the other end tight with my free hand and force all of my weight into the movement, the rope digging into his skin.
In this moment, all that matters is survival. Mine, certainly not his.
