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This time, she was more aware of time. She didn’t have an accurate way to gauge it, but she knew they’d walked for hours.
She’d stumbled. Fallen. Bruised her knees. Torn her cargo pants. She ached everywhere. The rope around her wrists cut into the tender skin. Her ankles were bleeding where they’d been bound, attracting every bug within miles to dine on her flesh.
All of that was bad, but what was even worse was that she was terrified.
Too terrified, too shocked, too everything to do more than whimper at the pain in her feet and wrists while her mind ran in useless circles.
Her teeth had chattered with fear.
The tall one found that incredibly amusing.
“Listen to the whore,” he’d said. “She plays the castanets.”
More giggles and laughter, and all at once she’d thought, Alessandra, exactly what in hell are you doing?
These were men, not monsters. She had to start seeing them that way.
Skinny and Stubby.
She named them on the spot, told herself they were people, not creatures out of a nightmare, but the truth was it didn’t help much except as a reminder that she’d been on the verge of giving up.
And giving up was something she’d never done, not in the worst moments of her life.
Bellinis were not cowards nor were Wildes. And she had the blood of both in her veins.
It was pointless to think about pain and fear. She had to think about a plan. About figuring out why they’d taken her.
What did they want?
Rape was a real possibility, but except for lewd jokes, pinches and touches, they hadn’t done anything overtly sexual to her. Not yet, anyway. So why had they taken her prisoner?
In late afternoon, they stopped walking. Stubby gave her a cup of water and a chunk of bloody meat he took from his pack. She’d forced herself to eat it.
Skinny produced a camera from his backpack. She recognized the brand. Her mother had owned one, an ancient Polaroid, the kind that took instant photos, and she’d thought how amazing it was that even when things were completely bleak, bits of useless trivia could float to the surface of your mind.
“Look pretty,” he said, “or nobody gonna wanna pay nothin’ for you.”
Then she understood.
They’d taken her for ransom.
Ransom?
The FURever Fund didn’t even have money for toilets. They certainly wouldn’t have the money to buy her freedom.
Maybe she’d smiled at the irony of it. Or looked like she might smile.
Stubby had backhanded her.
“Stan’ up straight,” he’d ordered, and he’d wedged the Polaroid in the branch of a tree and shot a picture with him standing on one side of her, Skinny on the other, both touching her intimately, but she had not flinched and had, instead, glared into the lens of the camera.
When Skinny pulled the developed photo from the camera, he’d snarled a curse and punched her in the belly.
“Soon,” he’d said, “you will not be so brave.”
He’d taken a piece of grimy paper and a pencil from his backpack. The other man had written something on the paper. Then he’d sealed the photo and the paper in an envelope and disappeared into the jungle. He’d returned a couple of hours later, without the envelope, and the men had grinned and high-fived each other.
Another day had been spent stumbling through the jungle. At nightfall, her captors had repeated last night’s pattern. They’d built a small fire. Cooked the carcass of something over it. A lizard, maybe. When it was still half raw, they tore it apart. This time, they hadn’t offered her any, nor did they offer her water.
