Ow! My temples throb. Why is it so dark in here? I lift my head and cry out when it smashes against something hard. I try to stretch my legs but I can barely move. My hands and feet are bound. Oh, God! Where the hell am I?
My heart races and there’s a rushing sound in my ears that makes it hard to think. My mouth is so dry. I try to shout but my voice is little more than a croak.
Think, Lucia!
The last thing I remember was going for burgers with Dolos. We bought some, didn’t we? And I got an iced coffee too. I was drinking it in his car and then…
That’s it. I don’t remember anything else. Damn! That asshole has drugged me. The rushing noise in my ears is the sound of a car moving at speed. I’m in his goddamn trunk. I kick out and scream but the car keeps on moving. My breathing gets faster as the blood thunders around my body. What if I don’t have enough oxygen? What if I die in the trunk of this shitty car?
Matthias!
Jax!
My mom and dad!
What if I never see any of them ever again?
I close my eyes and suck in a deep lungful of air. Just breathe, Lucia. You got this. It’s Dolos. He’s your friend. You can talk your way out of whatever this is. I feel around for something I can use as a weapon, but the trunk is empty. Shit!
I lie in the trunk, listening for any signs that we are stopping or there is someone else in the car. All I hear aside from the engine is the muffled sound of the radio. I wonder how far we’ve traveled—how long since I was knocked out. At least Matthias is with Jordan. She’ll keep him safe and then she’ll alert people when I don’t come back for him. Then my father and Jax will find me. Everything will be just fine.
I don’t know how long I’ve been lying here but the car comes to a stop and the engine is switched off. My arms and shoulders ache from the pressure of having my wrists tied behind my back.
When the trunk opens a few moments later, I blink as the sunlight almost blinds me.
“Hello, chica,” Dolos sneers as he reaches in and stuffs something into my mouth. It’s some kind of rag and it tastes of greasy burgers. I retch and the bile burns my throat, making my eyes water.
He grabs the top of my arms and pulls me from the trunk. I stumble forward and he catches me. “Steady, chica,” he chuckles. “Don’t want you to hurt yourself now, do we?”
I look around frantically, desperate to see someone who might be able to help me, but we’re in the deserted parking lot of a boarded up diner. He’s parked his car beneath some trees so it won’t be so visible from the road.
I try to scream but the sound is muffled by the rag.
“Oh, I love a screamer.” He leers at me. “I’m gonna make you scream, chica, and no-one will hear you out here.”
I close my eyes as tears sting them. How the hell is anyone going to find me here? I can’t even try to reason with him because I can’t speak.
Dolos drags me roughly to the door of the diner. My feet drag along the asphalt as I try to resist but he is surprisingly strong for someone who spends most of his time sitting on his ass watching a computer screen. I try to remember what Toni taught me. Fight dirty. Use anything at your disposal. But in this situation, my mouth is my best weapon and it is completely useless.
I mumble through the rag, hoping that he’ll want to remove it to hear what I have to say but he simply laughs. “You can’t talk your way out of this, chica.”
He pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks the door, pushing me inside a dark room. I blink and stumble over some debris on the floor while he turns on a small electric lamp that floods the room with light.
As I look around I wish that he hadn’t. One of the large tables from the diner is in the center of the room and it has been made into some kind of makeshift torture device. It looks like something from a dodgy BDSM porno. It has shackles at the top and bottom for hands and feet and large chains hang from the sides. On a small table beside it are an array of weapons and sex toys—knives, scalpels, dildos and something I can’t quite make out. As he pushes me closer I see that it’s a speculum, the kind that gynecologists use when you go for a pap smear.
Bile burns my throat again. I pull away from him, shaking my head and screaming through the makeshift gag in my mouth but the more I struggle and cry, the more he seems to enjoy himself.
“Don’t worry, chica. We’re going to have so much fun,” he laughs.
He pushes me over to the table and I take my shot, throwing my head back and catching him on the nose, but it’s not enough.
“Fucking bitch,” he screams as blood drips from his nostrils. He slaps me hard across the face and pushes me onto the bed. I kick out but he chains me down and one by one he releases my ties and shackles me to the hard table. I stare at the broken ceiling fan directly above us, praying that it will fall down directly on top of him. The prospect of what he’s about to do to me is too much to consider, so I think of anything else and close my eyes, pretending I’m not in this room with him.
“No point closing your eyes,” he says. “You can pretend you’re somewhere else, but once I get started there’ll be no doubt about where you are and who you’re with.”
I hear the clink of metal, signaling he’s picked up one of the nearby weapons. I realize it’s the knife as he slowly and methodically starts to cut through my clothes. Firstly he starts with my tank top. The metal blade is cold on my stomach and I flinch.
“You thought it was funny to have that pumped up jackass come to my apartment and question me about whether I was fucking you?” he snarls in my ear and his spittle hits my cheek as he speaks. “You thought it was funny to have him picking over my life? Looking at me like I was some fucking freak?”
I shake my head.
“I had to sit there and live up to your little fantasy of me, chica—just some nerdy little gamer who couldn’t fuck a girl unless she’s on a screen. Because if he’d have found out what I really like to do to filthy little sluts like you, then I would have been in quite a whole heap of trouble, wouldn’t I?”
So he’s done this before? And he was worried that Jax almost found him out. Oh my God! How many other poor girls has he done this to?
“You’re not even my type. I prefer my girls much younger and skinnier than you,” he sneers. “But I’ll still take great pleasure in fucking every hole you have until you bleed.”
Then his knife slides up my inner thigh, cutting away my jean shorts, and I lie there motionless, praying for Jax and my father to hurry up and find me. The only other thing I have left is my stubborn refusal to let Dolos see me cry again.
