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He'd been on her before she could move. He'd torn her blouse and bitten one of her breasts like an animal. She remembered the roughness of the uneven concrete floor scraping her bare buttocks as he had pushed up her skirt and ripped off her underpants. Her head had banged into a chemical drum when he'd spread her apart. He had made a guttural sound as he'd pushed into her, but after that, the only sounds she could remember were her own screams.
The floor gave out beneath her and her head shot up. For a moment she was disoriented, and then she realized the security guard had led her into an elevator. "Where are we going?"
"I'm taking you to first aid."
"I'm all right. I don't need first aid."
"You're white as a sheet. I don't know what that guy was trying to pull, but maybe you should lie down for a few minutes until you feel better."
She started to protest but realized she wasn't in any condition to go back to the skybox right then. A few minutes away from curious eyes would give her a chance to pull herself back together. "All right. Just for a bit."
As the elevator continued to descend, she smelled cigarette smoke on the guard's uniform, and another wave of nausea came over her because it reminded her of Reed. She was overcome by a sense of helplessness. He was going to get away with this. He was right. Too much time had passed for her to be able to make accusations.
The security guard began to hack. He was overweight, probably in his early fifties, with grizzled hair and a florid complexion. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead. She read his name printed in block letters on his plastic tag. "You should give up those cigarettes, Mr. Hardesty."
"Yeah."
The elevator doors slid open. She saw the pipes overhead and realized they were in some sort of subbasement. "Where are we?"
"There's a first aid station for the employees down here. It'll keep you away from the crowds."
She followed him out of the elevator into a narrow corridor, which was painted a dull, battleship gray. Pipes hissed overhead and she heard a sound that reminded her of distant thunder. She realized that she was hearing the muffled roars of the crowd in the dome above them.
They rounded a sharp bend. "In here." He caught her elbow and turned the knob on an unmarked door.
Feeling her first quiver of uneasiness, she hesitated. With a hard push, he thrust her inside.
"What are you doing?" she gasped.
Her eyes widened with horror as she
saw that he had drawn his gun and it was pointed directly at her. A sense of unreality swept over her. Reed was her enemy, not this man she had never met. Above her the crowd roared like a beast in a padded cage, while she was trapped in a nightmare where she had escaped one terror only to be ensnared by another.
He pushed the door shut. "Get over there!"
"Why are you doing this?"
"Move!"
She stumbled backward, gradually becoming aware that he had pushed her into a room that seemed to be both a janitorial office and storage space. She saw a dented gray steel case desk, a file cabinet, and a wall of metal shelving holding cartons and machine parts.
He pointed the gun toward an armless secretarial chair that had a small V-shaped tear in the black vinyl seat. "Sit down."
Her legs trembled as she lowered herself into the chair. The oval-shaped back support squeaked and gave slightly as she leaned back. She stared with grim fascination at the ugly black gun that was trained on her heart. It didn't waver as he leaned down to pull a length of clothesline from behind a packing box that sat on a metal shelving unit across from the desk.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
Instead of answering, he pushed against the chair seat with his shoe, spinning it around so that she was facing the wall. She automatically reached out to brace herself, only to have him grab her arms and pull them behind her. She gave a cry of alarm.
He wheezed as he tied her wrists and secured them to the vertical metal bar that held the chair's back support. It rocked alarmingly on its spring hinge, pulling at her arms and making her wince. When she was bound, he gave the chair another push, sending it flying into the far corner of the cramped room. She stopped it with her feet before she banged into the wall and then, panic-stricken, pushed herself around so that she was facing him.
She tried to feel grateful that he hadn't tied her legs, but the cords were cutting into her wrists, sending shafts of pain shooting upward. He picked up the gun from one of the metal shelves where he had laid it while he tied her and returned it to the leather holster on his hip.
How long would it be before Ron noticed that she was missing? She fought down the hysteria rising inside her, knowing that no matter what happened, she had to keep her wits. She grew aware of the distant sound of music and realized that the halftime show had begun. Trying to ignore the pain in her arms and wrists, she forced herself to take in the details of the office.
The dented gray desk against the wall was cluttered with stacks of dog-eared manuals, catalogues, and a litter of papers. A small portable television, its tan case marred by greasy fingerprints, sat on top of a four-drawer file cabinet directly across from her. Clipboards hung from L-shaped hooks on the wall behind the desk, along with a calendar featuring a nude woman holding a brightly colored beach ball.
The guard lit a cigarette and held it between his stubby fingers, which were stained with nicotine. "Here's the way it's gonna be, lady. As long as your boyfriend does what I tell him, you don't have anything to worry about."
