AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As surprised as I am that he’d defend me, I say, “Don’t.”
He glares at Aiden for a solid five seconds. The tension in the room is thick and stifling. Every one of us is edgy, ready to jump into the fray if need be.
Aiden just turns his back on Drakos.
“What next?” Sade asks, willing to be the distraction.
“Keep them here. Get their statements for the last time they saw Catherine and then get them the fuck out of my sight.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Lyla speaks up for the first time. Aiden turns to glare at her, but she just crosses her arms over her chest and cocks a hip. “She was ourslong before she was yours.” With a loud scrape, Lyla pulls out a chair and plops into it with a dramatic sigh. Recrossing her arms, she tilts her head and sends Aiden a sickly-sweet smile.
With a lot less drama, Juliette neatly pulls out a chair too and sits before gently resting her hands on the table, the picture of serenity.
Drakos and the cops are the only ones still standing.
But when I look at Aiden, it’s not anger painted on his face. It’s grief. “She’s been gone for nearly twenty hours. Do you know what that means?” His eyes flit to each of our faces. “Statistically?”
The girls don’t reply. They just sit there, Lyla, angry and afraid, Juliette, sad and worried. Strangely, I think that despite his anger and fear, Aiden Flint is still fighting to protect us from the possibility that Catherine isn’t coming home. “Either way, Lieutenant,” I finally manage, “we will be here until we know.”
With a disgusted sigh, he shakes his head and leaves the room.
Chapter 31
Catherine
July 10, 2008
Time has lost its meaning.
I do not know if it is day or night or how long I have been here, chained to the wall like an animal being baited and starved for a fight to the death. When the man who took me brought me to the Mousetrap, I thought it was to meet with Sascha. I thought…I don’t know what I thought, really. But it definitely wasn’t that I’d end up as one of those nameless women Aiden told me about.
The room that I am in is big but damp and dark with only a weak diffusion of light filtering in from a tiny, dust-caked window that sits nearly twelve feet above my head. The cool concrete beneath my knees and the rough brick wall against my head make me think the room might be an unfinished basement or an old storage cellar.
It's cool and dank and every now and then I can hear the scurry of little feet as the rats navigate the space around me, free to come and go as they please.
I am not the only one here.
The chains around my neck and ankles prevent me from moving more than a few feet in either direction, but I know they’re there in the darkness, cowering nearby like cattle in the van on the way to slaughter.
The other girls.
At first, I smelled them—the moldering ripeness of unwashed skin and stagnant waste.
I don’t know how many of us there are, only that every so often—maybe once or twice every day—the man comes with a flashlight and gives us water. When he’s done, he selects one girl. And he takes her away.
So far, none of them has come back.
No more have arrived either.
Still, and even with our dwindling numbers, I think it is better than being alone. The girls’ confused moans and broken sobs and restless, shuffling chains remind me that I’m still alive. The warbled sounds of their captivity lull me to sleep when thinking becomes too much.
And I have been, thinking.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my life and about time. I’ve been thinking how stupid and privileged it was of me to assume that I had all the time in the world to make the decisions I wanted to make and to live the life I wanted to live. How ignorant. Howdisgustingto assume that I had infinite moments left to discard.
Lizzie’s death, if it had taught me anything, should have taught me how quickly and frivolously a life’s time could stop.
End.
