We drive for hours. Days, it feels like. If someone told me I was in hell, I’d believe them.
The only thing that keeps me from throwing up is knowing there’s a hood over my head. I’d end up swimming in my own vomit and I doubt a warm bubble bath is waiting at the end of this drive.
I’m alone.
The voices around me are deep and unfamiliar. They’re speaking Russian, so I can’t understand them. Not that understanding them would change anything. I can’t see and my hands are numb from the zip ties around my wrists. This isn’t a fight I can win.
There’s only one thought I cling to—one tiny bit of hope in this literal darkness.
Yakov will find me.
He’s furious at me. He said he wanted to get rid of me. But he’d never let me die like this. Not without a fight.
Suddenly, the car lurches to a stop. I brace my knees against the seat in front of me so I don’t face-plant into it when the driver hits the gas again.
But he doesn’t hit the gas this time. He turns the car off.
I stiffen, listening as the men talk and move around. Doors open and close. Then someone grabs my ankles and yanks me through the open car door. I scream, but it only makes the men laugh. Their sweaty hands clamp down around my biceps, setting me on my feet before they shove me forward.
I trip over the uneven ground and my own feet, earning more laughs every time I stumble. The man behind me keeps yelling things in my ear that I don’t understand.
Am I walking to my death? To my grave? The image of a freshly-dug hole in the ground fills my head. Tears pour down my cheeks. “Please.”
I don’t know why I’m wasting my breath. No one here is going to save me. They don’t take mercy on me. They just shove me forward.
Up ahead, I hear the rolling metal screech of a garage door. Then the ground evens out. I’m on a concrete slab and the voices around me echo off of what sounds like very high ceilings.
A garage? A warehouse, maybe?
I take slow, halting steps forward until another voice booms through the room. “Strip her.”
This man is speaking English, but I don’t understand what he means until hands claw at my clothes.
“Stop it!” I fling my bound wrists at the disembodied hands shredding away my t-shirt and pajama pants. “Leave me alone!”
“Shut up,” the voice commands. “Shut up and cooperate if you want to live.”
I don’t believe him. They wouldn’t be doing any of this if I was going to survive. But I don’t have any other choice.
Silent tears stream down my face, soaking the hood around my head until I’m stripped down to my underwear. They even cut the zip ties away, though they leave the hood on.
“Even with your face covered, I see what he saw in you,” the man says.
Yakov. He’s talking about Yakov.
Goosebumps spread across my skin. How many men are watching me? What are they going to do?
I can’t let myself think about the horrors that could lie ahead. I have to take this one minute at a time.
The man laughs, the sound coming from just in front of me now. “Relax, Luna. No one is going to hurt you. Yet.”
A hand presses to the exposed skin of my lower back and I’m directed forward.
“Stairs,” the voice says, leading my hand to a grimy railing.
I climb up metal steps until my thighs burn. Then that same hand is on my lower back again, leading me forward.
Suddenly, his hand fists in the material of my hood and rips it off. A good deal of hair goes with it.
I squint into the grubby light of a gray room. I’ve been in darkness so long that the single bulb hanging from the ceiling blinds me. My eyes are watering when the hand shoves me forward.
I trip through the doorway and catch myself hard on the concrete floor. Pain radiates up my arms, vibrating through my bones.
“Welcome home,” the voice hisses behind me.
I roll onto my back, wincing at the cold floor against my bare skin. When I can see again, I squint back at the door. Slowly, the figure there comes into focus. It’s the squat man with ice blonde hair from the security footage.
Akim Gustev.
I crawl away from him, huddling in the furthest corner from the door. As if it matters. There are no windows or means of escape. I’m trapped in here like an animal.
Akim seems to enjoy my fear. He grins as I cower in front of him.
“Why are you doing this?” I whimper.
“Because you belong to Yakov Kulikov,” he drawls, like I’m stupid for asking in the first place. “If you didn’t, you’d already be dead. But since he has taken an interest in you… Well, I’m going to keep you around for a while. To have some fun.”
He starts to close the door, and I call after him, “Yakov will kill you for this.”
“He might. Not in time to save you, unfortunately.” He looks back over his shoulder, his mouth twisted into a cruel slash. “See you soon, Luna.”
Then the metal door slams closed… and we’re alone.
Just me and my baby in the darkness.
