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It feels like forever before the boat hits the side of something. I blur in and out of reality as the cold and drugs grip and twist my mental state. I hear the men yelling, I feel the boat we’re in jostle as the clanging of metal and creaking of wood before the hum of a mechanism has us rising.
“I’m surprised you pulled it off,” another man barks happily, chuckling as we come to a stop yet again.
Maybe now I can run?
Hands grab my ankles as others hook under my arms.
“Careful, the dirty bitch pissed all over Clunk.” The voice belongs to the man who was smoking. I recognise it immediately.
That’s it!
Niall told me once that there was this case where a man had been kidnapped and held for ransom. It was paid and he was delivered, but at the very moment he was delivered during the exchange, he was shot in the head and killed. Because he’d seen the kidnapper’s faces!
Don’t look at their faces.
If I don’t see their faces, then surely, I’ll be safe?
I’m clutching at straws I know but it’s the only hope I have.
I rest limply, hoping they think I’m sleeping as I am handed over the side of something that bumps against my hanging hips. My body tenses in preparation at being dropped but I’m gently placed onto a hard surface and left as the surrounding men laugh with each other about a job well done.
One of them digs his boot-clad foot into my side but I stay asleep.
“She should be awake by now; did you use more than I instructed?” a calmer, posher-sounding male voice asks and I feel him crouch beside me.
“Probably, you know what a fucking nugget Roger is.”
“You morons,” the man crouching over me hisses and gentle fingers feel for a pulse on my neck. “Can you hear me? Can you move your legs?”
“Please… don’t hurt me,” I beg, my voice raspy.
He doesn’t reply. When he moves away I’m lifted again and taken through a creaking door. We descend stairs and I start to panic as overhead lights flash through the burlap.
I tense and kick my legs, wishing I’d tried to make my escape while outside. I’ve fucked myself over. I might have had a chance but now…
“Let me go,” I scream until my throat is sore. “SOMEBODY HELP ME!”
“Ain’t nobody gonna hear you out here.”
I kick out, connecting with something that crunches, glad that I chose sneakers today and not my usual stiletto pumps. Although I could have used the heel as a weapon.
The man cries out and drops my legs which forces the other to release my arms.
With my head still in the bag and my hands still bound, I start to shuffle, unable to get the footing needed to run. Before I get even half a metre away, the sack is ripped from my head and a hand sinks and twists in my hair, pulling my head back, exposing my throat to the elements.
“Stupid fucking slut!” the man bellows, bending my head so sharply I can hardly breathe. Another inch and my neck might snap. “You broke my nose!”
“I’m sorry,” I cry and I feel his blood drip onto the top of my neck.
My eyes scan for anything that can help me but all I can see are metal doors with circular handles set on either side of a long, narrow hall.
This is a ship.
I’m on a ship!
I start to sob as the direness of the situation finally clutches tight to what little pools of adrenaline I have left. Finally, my head snaps forward and my cheek hits the metal grate. It bruises my skin, making my cheekbone fire up with dull pain.
I groan as I’m yanked to my feet and shoved forward so hard I fall again, this time hitting my face on a cold pipe. The world spins and my stomach retches, heaving the snacks I consumed at my desk while finishing that stupid piece on social media and how the media uses it to brainwash society.
Now it seems like such a trivial matter as my life hangs in the balance.
I keep my eyes on the path ahead, trying to memorise the route I’m being forced along for when I figure out my escape later. I’m taken down another set of metal stairs, which I stumble on, and along another hall where a few more men linger, playing cards at a table between rooms labelled “19” and “21.” I log that in my weakening mind.
“You did it then?” one of them cheers but the other doesn’t look up from his cards. I don’t look directly at their faces but it’s hard when my entire life I’ve been taught to make eye contact.
“Aye,” Roger replies.
“Who drew blood?”
Roger shoves me forward again but I don’t fall, my wobbly knees keep me balanced though only just. “This cunt.”
