by Sam Crescent
How could they be sure that they’d eat the right food?
More often than not, the trays of food were placed in front of them. They didn’t argue and ate their food. Could it be that?
Noah was a big guy.
Mitch tossed her in the shower, and she didn’t have time to think about anything else as she had to concentrate on surviving.
****
Every single time Skye was taken from him, Noah felt like a fucking jerk. Mitch knew what he was doing, but he wouldn’t let that bastard tear them apart. They were stronger than Mitch gave them credit for. They would survive this.
He gripped the back of his head, trying with all of his might to shake off this haze that kept on clouding his ability to do anything.
Today, with Mitch holding her, he’d wanted to hurt that bastard, to wipe that smug smile off his face and to see his face crushed between his foot. Noah knew how strong he was. He also knew what made him a better man was knowing when not to use his strength for his own personal gain.
He only ever defended himself in fights, never started them. Whenever he was on the field, he always made sure to take care when he was close to other players, even those on the opposite team.
He was a big guy, one of the tallest in the whole of his year, but he’d always been tall, bigger, muscular, just like his father.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed as he couldn’t handle walking up and down another moment longer. He was so tired, so incredibly tired.
Running a hand down his face, he watched as the door opened and in walked two people carrying food. They didn’t say or do anything. One tray of food was left on the floor, and another was brought to him, much in the same way it always was, only the tray of food on the floor was normally for Skye.
He took the food, wanting nothing more than to bash the guy’s head in with the metal tray.
Was that why they used the metal trays? Was it to taunt them, to prove to them they could do nothing?
He stared at Skye’s food, and rather than start his own, he waited. Putting the tray beside him on the bed, he rested his elbows on his knees and tried to count.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
He got to a minute and a half and wasn’t sure if that was how long it had been. Time meant nothing to them in this world. Days and weeks could have already passed and they didn’t know it.
Finally, the door opened, and Skye was thrown inside. Her back was covered in a fresh layer of welts. Some of the old scars hadn’t been given the time to heal and were open.
He went to her, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“Enjoy her while you can,” Mitch said.
The door slammed closed, causing her to flinch. Skye turned her face toward him, and he winced. There was already a bruise along one side of her face.
She looked past him, and he followed her gaze to his food.
“They brought food some time ago,” he said. “I wanted to wait for you to eat it.”
She stared at the food.
“What is it?” he asked.
She took his hand and rested her head against his shoulder. “Did they hand you a tray of food?”
“Like they always do. They bring it in. Yours is here,” he said, pointing at the floor.
“Noah, you’ve not been yourself for some time, have you?”
They were both whispering.
“Skye, what’s going on?”
“Please, just answer my questions. You’re one of the strongest guys I know.”
“I’m still only eighteen. I’m sure it’s just everything that is going on around me.”
“Cut the crap, Noah. I don’t care that you can’t lift shit right now. This is important because I think I know exactly what the problem is.”
This made him frown at her. “You do?”
“They are drugging your food.”
“What?”
“They were putting something out of a syringe into your food, and I have this feeling they’ve been doing it to the men.”
“Why?” Noah asked.
“Because, you guys are strong. What better way to break you than to show how weak you are? Today, you couldn’t even stop Mitch from taking me. I saw the pain in your eyes, the conflict. You hate that. You hate that you can’t protect me, and you and I both know you’re a lot stronger than that.”
“Skye, I don’t—”
“We need to swap our meals without them finding out.”
“What?”
She grabbed her food and moved toward the bed, staring down at the trays.
“Noah, come and pray with me.”
It was an odd request. Neither of them had prayed during their time here.
“I don’t know how long this is going to take.” She sniffled. “Please, come and pray.”
She knelt beside the bed, and then he saw it. She shuffled over, and he sat down beside her.
“What if you’re wrong?” he asked.
“I’m not wrong.”
“I think I would know if I was being drugged.”
She looked at him. “How?”
“Because, I know myself.”
“You think a girl doesn’t know she’s been drugged until it’s too late. Noah, you can’t even handle standing up for a period of time. You lay down with me often, and even using the bathroom is a struggle. They have been watching us from the start. There are cameras everywhere. They can see everything, so we’re going to have to be careful.”
“What’s your plan then?” he asked. He picked up his fork and started to eat. It all tasted the same to him, and it made his nose wrinkle.
“To find out if you’re being drugged, this should affect me within a few hours. I’m not going to eat a lot, but you’re going to eat all of mine, completely finish it off. They may give doses to each food, depending on the body weight and size. If I eat too much, I could give the game away and pass out.” She took a small bite.
“This is going to render you weak if you’re right,” he said.
“I know, but it means you’ll be strong, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll both find a way to escape this.”
He finished off his meal at her insistence. For Skye, she only took a few bites and crawled into bed. Putting their trays near the door, he went to her. She was crying.
“It was bad today, wasn’t it?” he asked.
“Yes. I really don’t know how much more of this I can take, Noah. I feel like I’m dying inside, and there is only one escape.”
“What?”
“You’re going to have to kill me. If I’m wrong, please, end my life. I can’t handle … anymore.”
She curled up into a ball, and he climbed over her, wrapping his arms around her.
“You’re not going to die, Skye. Remember, we’re going to go trick-or-treating, and you’re going to wear an awesome costume.”
“Will you dress up?” she asked.
“You can count on it. There’s no way this guy leaves the house without some costume or another.”
She let out a giggle.
“What do you do for Thanksgiving?” she asked.
“It’s always a big family event. You know, the turkey, the dressing, the whole thing.”
“My family is like that. We get a small turkey because they’re always so busy and on call. Anything can happen over the holidays. They like being prepared,” she said. “I miss them.”
“I miss my family too. My kid brother and sister with their pain in the ass nagging.”
“I just miss my parents and my mom’s apple pie. I wonder if she’s made one and thought of me.”
“Why apple pie?”
“We go picking apples together. We’ve always done it since I was a kid. Even when she’s really busy with work, she would always take me out apple picking. We’d come home, and I’d wash and peel the apples while she got on with the dough. She’s not the best cook, but right now I’d give anything just to eat her food.”
“She sounds like it.”
&
nbsp; Silence fell around them.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“So tired.”
He held her a little tighter.
“My body doesn’t want to move.” She rolled over, looking at him. “You know what this means, don’t you?” she asked.
“Yes. It means you were right.”
“And we’ve got to do a lot more praying.”
Chapter Nine
For every meal, Skye gave Noah hers, and she ate his. She didn’t know how often they were watched so they would find ways of switching their food. Sometimes they prayed, especially if Mitch had decided to take her.
Not that she did much begging, more like bargaining to try to bring the wrath of some higher power down on the bastard that used her.
Each time he took her, she felt a part of herself die.
She couldn’t stop it.
He was breaking down her spirit, and what was more, she knew he enjoyed it. Mitch always promised her something worse than the last time, and so far, he lived up to his threats. That fear kept on manifesting itself.
What didn’t help either was she was eating less than half of Noah’s portion, and she knew for a fact it was drugged.
She’d gone from feeling perfectly fine, to struggling to move. They must have put enough drugs to make the men physically weak but not incapable of sex. Either that, or when it came to forcing them to rape people, they didn’t use as much of a dosage, and controlled them through other means.
Each day, Noah finished off his meal with gusto.
He stopped lying down all day, and she saw how wired he was becoming. She had to keep reminding him that he had to sit down, to pretend that he was still weak.
Every single time someone came into the room, he was vibrating with vengeance.
After one particularly bad experience with Mitch, some of her hair was missing from him pulling her across the floor. Her body had more bruises than not, and he hadn’t even washed her of his semen, or the other men’s fluids either.
Skye sank down into a deep pit of misery, one that she couldn’t escape from.
“Don’t touch me,” she said as Noah pulled her onto his lap.
Their food was once again waiting for them.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” she said. “Please, Noah, please, kill me. I can’t stand it. Not anymore.” She sobbed against his chest.
“We’re getting out of here.”
“What?”
“I’m done. You’ve asked me one too many times, and I can’t stand this anymore. I know you want to wait, but I’m done.” He put her down on the bed and gathered their food.
He put her tray in front of her, which was in fact his, and she watched as he ate his food. Once he was finished, he took hold of their forks.
“You know, I realize now that they must love this. Love watching the men struggle to clean their own ass and to just do about anything,” Noah said. “They mock us at every turn.”
The forks were made of metal, and so were the trays. Everything around them had the potential to do harm, only they were never strong enough to fight. Even if the men stopped eating the drugged food, they still wouldn’t be able to fight because they’d be too weak without it.
They clearly hadn’t counted on a woman seeing their operation. By Mitch hurting her at the right moment and needing to take the call, she’d discovered what was keeping Noah at bay.
When the man entered the room this time, Skye’s heart started to pound.
When was the best time to try to escape? Why were they looking for the best time to do anything? They were prisoners. They were being tortured for fun and games. How could they even think of allowing themselves to play into a schedule?
“We need your trays, dog!” The guard glared at him.
“Come and get it,” Noah said. He held onto it and stood.
She watched the guard. His gun was by his side. She’d heard Mitch on the phone a few times talking about how valuable they were as products. The money paid to watch them do things made them the products. The guard couldn’t really shoot them.
As the guard went to grab the tray, Noah lifted it and slammed it down hard on the guy’s head, once, twice, three times, rendering the bastard unconscious.
The other man, who wheeled the cart, came in, and Noah was ready. He used the metal fork, stabbing it into the man’s eye, and he screamed, wheeling back.
Noah grabbed the jacket, throwing it at her.
She stepped off the bed, pulling it on as Noah relieved the guard of his pants, tugging them on.
Next, he took the gun, grabbing her hand.
“Wait, maybe you should go,” she said.
“Skye, I’m not doing this with you right now. We go together or not at all.”
“I’m slow and weak.”
Noah slammed his lips down on hers. “It’s now or never.”
“What about the others?” she asked, looking toward the doors.
“We get out of here, and we bring help. We don’t have time to let them out. Half of them are weak anyway. Come on, we don’t have time to play here. We’ve got to move.”
He took hold of her hand, and they ran out of the room. Noah went in the opposite direction than whenever Mitch took her.
“Wait, Noah, what about the elevator? It’ll take us out of the top of the building.”
“I know, but we don’t want to get out where everyone is fighting. We need to leave through the back door, where not many guards leave.”
“You know the way out.”
Noah had admitted to her one of the days after he’d been taken that he’d been so badly beaten, Mitch and the others had mocked them all, showing them all where the exit was. It was just another element of their torture, how close to their freedom they always were, but never quite reaching it as they broke them so easily.
“Yes, I do.” He took her hand, and they ran through an arena. It was closed off, with no light, and Noah didn’t stop.
Even as her body struggled to keep up with him, she didn’t try to slow him down. One foot in front of the other. Fighting, trying to get away.
Tears of joy and hope fell down her face, and she could do nothing more than pray it worked.
They ran through another room, down a long corridor, and suddenly, Noah threw his weight behind a large metal fire door, and then they were out in the world.
It was daylight.
She blinked against the sudden harshness of light. It was also frozen, the snow biting into her feet.
“We don’t have time. We’ve got to move.”
They ran across the field, heading for the forest when they heard the first shot.
“Fuck, they’re onto us. Come on, Skye.”
She kept on pushing. In her thoughts, she remembered Mitch, his threats, the violence of his hands as they hurt her.
Everything he tried to do to her was to break her. She was more than ready for death, ready to have that killing blow delivered by Noah.
Only, they had found a chance to escape. A rare, beautiful chance.
To some, they were young, too young to even attempt something so incredibly foolish, and yet, they were making it.
They burst through the tree-line, and Noah cursed.
“They’ve got dogs,” Noah said.
“You’ve got to shoot them.”
“They’re just dogs.”
“Noah, they’re trained to sniff out blood. If we don’t make it to cover, they’re going to kill us.”
Noah cursed, but they continued to move.
Killing dogs was not high on her list, but survival was.
After everything they’d been through, she couldn’t handle being bitten to death or having them get to them for being sentimental.
Noah lifted her up on his back and took off through the trees. They kept on running and still no sign of the dogs.
When he couldn’t carry her anymore, she forced him to put her down, and they kept on running, heading in whatever directio
n they could.
The first sound of a dog barking, and Noah twisted around. He took aim, and she covered her ears as he fired.
Once he was done, he grabbed her hand again, and they took off.
“How are you able to shoot like that?”
“I love football; my dad loves hunting. It’s the two things I do.”
“You shoot at deer.”
“Let’s not talk about what it is I hunt or don’t hunt. It’s a bonding experience with my dad, and right now, it has come in handy. Those dogs would have slowed us down. They were vicious. You were right. The taste of human blood would have driven them crazy.”
They kept on running, and she glanced behind her, seeing nothing, and the relief flooded her.
Even as the darkness crept in, Noah didn’t stop, until they saw a house. It looked like a farmhouse, and Noah held her close in his arms, refusing to give up the gun.
“Noah, do you really think this is a good idea?”
“We left their perimeter, as otherwise they’d have kept on running. I don’t know but I’ve got my gun, and if this guy or girl has a telephone, we kill them, make a call, and get the fuck out of here,” he said.
She squeezed his hand tightly, tears filling her eyes as they slowly approached the door.
This was their last hope. Either they found an ally or they risked being taken back.
Anyone who went back to that hellhole was tortured. Mitch had shown her tapes of men and women who thought they could escape, who’d tried to.
None of them were able to make it out alive.
Wrapping the jacket around her body, she tensed as Noah knocked on the door.
One, two, three, four.
That was all it took.
Four knocks.
The sound of a dog barking scared the crap out of her, but it was coming from the other side of the door. She heard the man on the other side, and she had hoped it was a woman. A woman seemed less frightening after all they’d been through.
A man could be working with their captors, but then, so could women. They were completely screwed.
Where were they?
She didn’t recognize any of her surroundings. Not one bit. It looked all abandoned.
The cold started to make her shake, her teeth chattering.