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I try to catalog every single thing I see as the guy drags me from the room, slamming the door shut behind us. In the last slice of open door, before the room is sealed shut, I glimpse Avery, still sleeping heavily, and I pray that they leave her alone while I’m gone. I don’t believe in God, not after the life I’ve lived, but I still cast a wordless plea to the universe to protect her in my absence.
Pretending not to take much notice, I watch out of the corner of my eye as the asshole wearing the mask locks the door. Four locks. Three of them are deadbolts, impressively large ones, cemented into the fucking wall. The fourth is an old-fashioned key, thethunkwe hear every time he decides to visit.
Well. No chance in hell of me breaking that down with a kick. No chance of me breaking that down with a fucking cinder block. I’d have better luck smashing down one of the actual brick walls than the door that separates us from freedom.
The asshole is smart, making sure to keep me in his sight the entire time, a gun at his hip and a knife on his belt that both promise pain and torment. I’d like to say I could take him, even cuffed - but if I attack him, and Idon’twin, I have no doubt he will inflict pain on Avery, so horrific, it might kill her. For now, I have to treat this excursion as a recon mission.
I’m directed up a narrow flight of stairs, everything still dark. The guy in the mask is about my height, six-two, a little more solid than my wiry frame, but that could just be the layers of black clothing that look like they were combined from an army surplus store, an Islamic clothing boutique and a quad-biking supplier. I have to bite down on my tongue to distract myself from attacking him with every ounce of venom that runs through my veins right now.
At the top of the stairs, there’s another door. This one has the same four locks - three deadbolts, one old-fashioned key. Too bad if we start a fire down there, we’ll be crispy before they can unlock all the fucking doors. Finally, all the locks are unlocked, and I’m pushed forward into a shitty little kitchen that reminds me of a meth lab set-up, all the windows covered up with boards or heavy plastic. The place smells like rotting, damp wood. And right there, on an old, musty kitchen table that has been lifted straight from a 1950’s formica commercial, sit bricks upon bricks of coke.Great. We’ve been taken by fucking tweakers? Drug cartel heavies? I suddenly feel like I’m in a low-budget reboot ofBreaking Bad.
I don’t have time to pontificate on who might be responsible for taking us, though. I’m shoved into a bedroom, the room completely bare, save for a steel bed frame that boasts a stained mattress, a matching steel chair, and a woman dressed in exactly the same kind of army surplus shit the guy who pushed me into the room is sporting.
I can tell she’s a woman because she’s put a little more effort into her get-up - tight leather pants that accentuate her narrow waist and hug her lithe frame, unlaced black Doc Martens, a form-fitting leather jacket zipped up to her chin, a grinning hot-pink skull face bandanna that starts under her eyes and ends at her throat, a pair of oversized aviator sunglasses … and to top it all off, a ridiculous multi-colored wig that falls to her shoulders, a Harley Quinn Halloween leftover of pastel blues and neon pinks that belongs in a tacky sex shop window display. The girl is smart - she’s covered every inch of herself, down to the black, lacy gloves she wears over her hands and the wig’s blunt bangs that cover her forehead, right down to the aviators currently acting as a handy mirror for me. She could be anyone I’ve ever met, and I wouldn’t have a fucking clue who.
The guy who dragged me up here pushes me forward violently. I narrowly manage to keep my footing, stumbling to a stop in front of this tricked-up woman who seems to be a willing accomplice in our little show.
“Nice wig,” I mock. “Do all the girls at the whorehouse wear them, or do you cost extra?”
It’s hard to tell what she’s thinking–you know, the elaborate disguise and all–but I swear I see her smile under the tightly-wrapped half-face bandanna that stretches over her cheekbones like a second skin.
I don’t even hear the guy behind me. He approaches like a ninja, silent across the wooden floor, and the next thing I know, he’s grabbed me, his hands hooking around my upper arms and pulling them back, effectively immobilizing me. The Harley Quinn wannabe pulls out a fucking syringe and comes at me. Without thinking, I use the only weapon I’ve got, launching a hard kick to her midsection. Satisfyingly, it hits its intended target, and the bitch is sent flying, skidding along the floor, the syringe rolling away under the metal bed frame.
The guy responds by pulling me violently to the side, ramming my head into the sharp edge along the door frame. The world goes blank for a split-second, as the top of my skull connects with the metal frame, and then I feel warm blood rising up in my hair. The room spins, and before I can right myself, I feel a sharp sting at my neck. It doesn’t take long before whatever’s in that needle works, and I’m out cold.
* * *
When I come to, it’s to the taste of old blood on my mouth, and the vengeful throbbing of an open wound on top of my scalp. I blink a few times, taking in my surroundings; I’m on the floor, in the same room, handcuffed to the metal bed frame as Psychotic Halloween SkullFace Bitch watches me silently.
“How’s your stomach?” I ask her. “You know, my mother taught me not to hurt girls, but for you, I think she’d make an exception.”
The woman approaches me, and before I can even glance down at myself, I notice in the mirrored reflection of her aviators that I’ve been undressed. All I’m wearing are the boxer briefs that magically appeared in the dungeon wardrobe that our kidnappers so thoughtfully put together for Avery and me. If I ever make it out of here, I’ll write a fucking blog post forVogue: “How to Create a Capsule Wardrobe for your Own Murder.”
“Where are my clothes?” I ask pleasantly. She doesn’t answer. She hasn’t said a single word since I set eyes on her. Which makes me wonder. “What, you guys couldn’t spring for two of those stupid voice distorters? Maybe if you sold some of that blow out there, you could really splash out, treat yourself.”
She says nothing, dropping to her knees beside me. I swallow nervously as she reaches for me, running a lace-covered finger down the side of my face.
She laughs soundlessly; I can tell because of the way her shoulders shake. Maybe if I charm her with my witty one-liners, she won’t cut my dick off and make me choke on it. I try to edge away, as she reaches for the top of the boxer shorts I’m wearing and pulls the elasticized hem. But there’s nowhere to go.
“Why do I feel like a spider about to get its head bitten off?” The She-Devil cocks her head to the side at my question, which only makes things more sinister.
I’m still trying to catch up from whatever drug they injected into my neck that rendered me briefly unconscious, the world moving in slow-motion around me, like a thick, soupy humidity I can’t quite surface from.
She releases the elastic waistband, and it snaps against my skin. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s unexpected, and distracting enough that I look down at my lap, making sure everything is still intact. As I take my eyes from her, a slender hand presses against my mouth, pressing a handful of pills onto my tongue. Before she can get a good hold on me, I wrench my head to the side, spitting the pills in her face. One bounces off her sunglasses, a string of saliva left in its wake. She shrugs, reaching into her jacket, her gloved palm suddenly holding more medication. One blue diamond-shaped pill, two round orange caplets.Fuck. The orange ones could be anything. The blue one looks familiar, not because I’ve taken it before, but because I sell a shitload of the Mexican counterfeit version to retirement-aged businessmen who need pharmaceutical assistance to live fast and fuck hard past their expiration date. No fucking way. It can’t be that.Why would she be giving me that?As I’m grappling with that possibility, she punches me in the jaw. Her hand is small, but her strength is wicked - I wouldn’t be surprised if she was sampling the coke in the kitchen before coming in here to drug me. I groan, my head lolling to the side, and it’s that moment of opportunity my technicolor damselnotin distress seizes with both hands, forcing the new pills into my mouth.
Instinctively, I try to spit them out, but she’s lightning-quick, swinging her knee over my lap and straddling me, one hand pinching my nostrils, the other pushing my mouth shut. I thrash in her grasp, but it’s no use. I hold my breath until I’m passing out, because I’m nothing if not stubborn. Just as the edges of blackness are starting to close in over me, my body takes over, convulsing for breath violently enough that the pills make their way down my throat. I pass out, anyway, my arms stretched out crucifix-style against the bed frame, my chin slamming into my chest.
CHAPTER FOUR
ROME
Idon’t want to wake up.
A searing pain in my shoulder snaps me out of my dream state, back into reality. I blink heavily, and all of a sudden, I’m back in the room upstairs, high as fuck from whatever those pills were. The psychotic bitch who drugged me is twisting her fingers into my partially healed bullet wound to wake me up. It works, too. I roar at the sharp agony she’s inflicting with her gloved fingers, as she tugs and twists and prods. She stops after a few seconds. My howls must be enough to satisfy her that I’m awake.
It takes me a few seconds to understand what I’m seeing - a multicolored wig, bobbing up and down in my lap, a wet mouth sucking at my cock like it’s a goddamn lollipop. I’m hard, and that confirms my suspicions about the pills she shoved in my mouth and forced me to swallow. I can’t move, though, my limbs heavy, my head fuzzy. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s given me a cocktail of Viagra and muscle relaxants. Great. Just fuckinggreat.My shoulder is on fire, and I feel the first warmth of fresh blood as it seeps from my wound.Fucking bitch.
“What are you doing?” I ask her. The light in here is too dim to make out her face, now that she’s removed the face bandanna. She’s kept the sunglasses on, unfortunately, and if I make it out of here alive, I’ll forever be haunted by the image of my own drugged-out expression I see in the mirrored reflection.
