Papa crouches in front of me. You didn’t come this far to give up now, Mickey. All you have to do is think…” He stands.
“Don’t leave. Please don’t go. I need you, Papa,” I cry, closing my eyes. When I open them again, he’s gone.
The door slides open. This time there’s no blinding daylight, only dark sky.
“Uh, who the fuck are you talking to?” A young woman asks. Her hair is a bright, unnatural shade of orange. She’s holding a tray of food, and underneath, a plastic shopping bag hangs from one hand.
She doesn’t close the door.
Since I’m unable to do so physically, a mental wiping of my tears will have to do. I sniffle and take a deep breath. “Nobody, just rambling to myself.”
She looks around the warehouse as if she expects something to appear. “You crazy or something?” She sets down the tray on the chair that Pike usually occupies during our ‘sessions’ and places the bag on the floor next to it.
“That’s what I’ve been told,” I reply. The smell of the food alerts my entire body to its presence. If my mouth could water, it totally would. I’ve only had a few sips of water here and there, and Pike’s fed me pieces of a protein bar. But how long ago was that? A day? Two?
“Who are you?” I ask. Instantly, I hear the voice of my torturer. Who are you? I cringe at my own question.
“I’m Thorne. I work for Pike.”
“Please, you have to help me,” I beg.
Thorne looks me over and frowns. There’s a ring connecting her nostrils in the middle like a bull. Her black tank top is short, barely covering her generous breasts while showing off a full sleeve of colorful ink running down her right arm and a belly ring with a sparkly charm that reads 666. Her eyes are heavily lined with black, and her eyes are a bright green.
“Sorry, not my department,” she deadpans.
I grunt in frustration. “What’s not your department? Setting someone free who's been kidnapped?”
“Well, one who is kidnapped is taken by force. You are a captive for all intents and purposes. You came here. He didn’t go looking for you. Besides, my current department is food and toiletries distribution although it’s often accounting, record keeping, lookout, lunch bitch, internet sales queen, etcetera, etcetera..” She waves her hand in the air.
I want to argue with her more, plead my case, but my mouth waters at the smell of whatever is in the bowl covered with a paper towel on the tray next to me. Although, it could be dog food and it wouldn’t matter. My stomach growls, and I realize how hungry I am. I don’t remember the last time I ate.
Despite my starvation, I give it one last try. “Please, he’s going to kill me.”
“Did you do anything that will get you deserve to be killed?” she asks, tucking a paper towel into the top of my shirt.
Great, she subscribes to the same ideologies as Pike. “Does anyone’s actions deserve death?”
“I take it you’re not a fan of capital punishment? But think on it, because we’ve all done something to deserve someone’s wrath at some point in our lives. I’m sure you’ll come up with something that’s led you to be here.”
She lifts the paper towel from the bowl which I realize is a chicken soup of some sort. My stomach growls so loud even Thorne hears it, staring down at my stomach.
“You know, this would be easier if my hands weren’t tied,” I point out.
She sighs and drops the spoon into the ceramic bowl with a clank. She sets her free hand on her knee. “This would be easier if you weren’t here. I have enough shit to do and maid to Pike’s captive isn’t on the fucking list. You want food or not? Because your stomach says that you do. I can hear that shit growling from my office next door. The fucking music is already bad enough.”
I nod and realize my approach is all wrong. She’s obviously loyal to Pike. I just need to find the right words to pierce her tattooed skin and get her to help me. Release me. She lifts the spoon to my mouth, and I hungrily swallow it down without chewing. We continue the process at a frenzied pace. Each bite that fills my stomach also feeds my brain, clearing some of the haze.
“Easy, or you’ll barf it right back up,” Thorne says as if she knows something about being truly hungry.
“So, you work for Pike?” I ask between bites.
“Something like that,” she mutters.
“Don’t you worry that this will blow back on you? That you’ll go to jail for helping him?” I ask, taking another mouthful of salty broth along with a hunk of shredded chicken. “Accessory to a crime?”
“Do you worry you’ll go to jail because last time I checked, breaking and entering was a felony, but you had a weapon and armed robbery comes with a price tag of some hard fucking time.” She feeds me another spoonful. “I know you don’t know Pike. Because if you did, then you’d know that he would take all the blame for all of this before he’d let me go down for shit he did. Plus, he wouldn’t get caught in the first place. I’m just here as hero-support or villain support, however you want to look at it.”
Another thought crosses my mind as she talks about Pike with affection in her voice. “So, you’re his girlfriend then?”
She pauses the spoon midair and wrinkles her nose. “Oh god, fuck no.”
“Then, why?” I ask, truly curious. If she wasn’t romantically involved, then why help him in this?
Her words soften. “I owe him my life and more. That’s all you need to know. I’m a loyal person, and Pike is the most loyal person I’ve ever met. He ain’t a good man by any means, but to me, loyalty means more than love.”
“Do you have family?” I ask.
“What’s with all the questions?” Thorne is clearly irritated. She plunks the spoon down into the now empty bowl.
“Sorry, I just haven’t gotten to talk to anyone in a while,” I say without adding, You’re my first opportunity to try and escape, and I’m trying here. “I mean, anyone else.”
She lifts a glass of water to my mouth, and I gulp it down in a few swallows. She dabs the water and food from the side of my lips with a napkin. She searches my eyes for something but I’m not sure for what. “Pike is as close to family as I got. I’ll do anything he asks of me and shit he wouldn’t ask of me. Without question. Without hesitation.”
Now, this I understand. “I get it. You’d do anything for family. So would I. I have three sisters and two parents, and although they think they know what’s better for me than I do, I’d do anything for them.” I smile, but there’s no happiness behind it. “At least, I’m trying to do everything for them.” I sigh. “It’s not really working out at the moment.”
Thorne ignores the sadness in my voice. “Oh, good, so then you get it,” she says, standing up and brushing off her hands on her jeans. “So you can stop asking me shit like that.”
“Good point,” I offer.
She unsheathes a knife from her pant leg. I cower backward, almost tipping the chair. She reaches out and catches it before it falls, setting the legs back on the ground. “Easy, killer,” she says, cutting my bindings.
“You…you’re letting me go?” I ask, hopefully.
“Nope. There’s enough security to keep you here without all the rope burn on your wrists. Locks. Lights. Sirens. Motion detectors. Cameras everywhere and anywhere.” She points to a blinking light in the upper corner of the room. “This was the boss’s orders. Feed you, then untie you. I just do what I’m told. I don’t ask questions.”
My arms are so sore. Every bone in my body cracks and creaks as I bring them from behind my back to resting on my lap. I rub my reddened wrists. “Why didn’t you untie me first?”
“Hot chicken soup to the face isn’t pleasant,” she remarks. “Come on. Follow me.”
“Where are we going?” I ask. I stand, but my legs fall out from underneath me. I drop to my knees.
“Here,” she says, wrapping one of my arms around her shoulder. “Up we go.”
She grabs the plastic bag she brought in with her other h
and and helps me up and out the door. The night air is thick and warm and it feels so good to be outside when I’ve often thought I never would be again. “Are you going to tell me where we are going?” I ask again.
“Do you want to be anywhere besides the fucking garage?” she replies.
“Touché.”
We slowly make our way through the alley, passing a few stray cats who meow at us along the way. “Shoo,” Thorne says, kicking out her foot to push them away, but being cats, they of course don’t listen. Instead, they sit and watch us, their eyes following until we are somewhere I recognize.
The backdoor of Pike’s Pawn.
Thorne presses a few buttons on the keypad next to the door, and the lock clicks open. She turns the handle and pushes it open with her foot, turning us sideways through the doorway. We move past the small office where this entire dramady took a turn for the worse, for me at least, and make our way through a storage room to the foot of a tall narrow stair case. “Up you go,” she says.
I give her a there’s no way I can make it up there look.
She rolls her eyes and removes my arm from her shoulder. “I’ll stay behind you the entire way and make sure you don’t fall. One step at a time as they say in NA. Come on.”
I don’t ask about the NA part because I’m too busy trying to lift my feet high enough to take each step when my thigh muscles are shaking with the strain. When my foot lands on a step, Thorne pushes me forward from behind. Step. Push. Step. Push. We repeat this until we reach the top of the stairs a mere ten minutes later.
Thorne helps me through a door into a dark apartment and then through another door into a small but neat bedroom.
“Is this your room?” I ask.
She closes the door and enters a code into a keypad on the wall, just like the one for the backdoor, and a lock clicks in place. “No, this is Pike’s apartment.” She guides me to yet another doorway. “Here, lean against this wall,” she says, leaving me in yet another doorway. She turns on a light revealing that this one is to a small but clean bathroom much in need of a remodel with yellow shower tiles and a pink porcelain sink.
She sets down the plastic bag on the counter and removes a pair of black yoga pants and a light grey sweater, setting them on back of the toilet. She pulls out a bunch of toiletries. Soap. Shampoo. A toothbrush and toothpaste. She arranges them in the shower and on the counter.
She sniffs the air around me and pinches her nose. “I recommend that you do the ole scrub-a-dub and rinse at least twice. You think you can manage?”
I nod, pushing off the wall and testing my legs. They’re tingling with a pins-and-needles feeling, but they’re holding up. “Thank you.” I stretch my arms above my head and bend my neck to both sides, cracking the stiff joints again. “I mean it. Thank you, Thorne.”
Her smile is uncomfortable and tight as she leaves. She shuts the door and the lock clicks back in place.
I glance into the bathroom where Thorne set out all the things I’ll need for a shower. I stifle a moan at the thought of hot water running over my sore muscles and decide that’s exactly what I need to get my blood flowing before I can assess the situation further and plan my escape.
I smile to myself. Step one has been accomplished. I’m untied. Maya will be proud.
I reach into the yellow-tiled shower and turn on the spray. I strip off my t-shirt and panties, groaning at the aching in my bones. It’s a slow process, but I manage it. I ball up the only items of clothing I’ve worn in five days and toss them on the floor next to the toilet. I’d throw them in a bio-hazard disposal receptacle if I could, they smell that bad, but unfortunately this isn’t a lab, and there isn’t one handy.
Leaning on the counter, I look into the mirror. My cheeks are sunken and my eyes have dark half-moon shadows underneath. The bruise on my forehead from Pike’s headbutt is fading although I never got to see how bad it was to begin with. My dark hair is greasy, peppered with dirt and dust from the garage. It’s all clumped together in thick sections, sticking out in all directions like a dirty Medusa.
The steam covers the mirror and distorts my disheveled image. I let go of the counter and slowly pad over to the shower, stepping into the heat. I take Thorne’s advice and shampoo my hair twice, adding a third for good measure. I pile the conditioner in my hair, and I don’t rinse it out until I’ve finished scrubbing my body raw with a washcloth and fresh bar of soap. It smells like cucumber and fruit, but any scent is better than several days unshowered and lingering in your own filth.
When I’m finished, I turn off the water and reach blindly to the counter for the towel only to have it placed in my hands. I gasp and quickly dab the water from my eyes. I look up to find Pike staring at me through the steam. “Such pretty bait you’ll make,” he says. His voice amplified within the small bathroom.
I quickly wrap the towel around my shoulders, careful to cover my left shoulder, although it leaves the rest of me naked from the bottom of my breasts down. I’m bare before him, open to his dark-eyed scrutiny. I’ve never been naked in front of a man before, never mind this kind of man. Papa has never even seen me naked, probably not even when I was a baby.
“What do you want?” I ask, pressing my back against the tile wall to put as much space between us as possible.
Pike rakes his gaze from my feet to between my legs and then to my breasts. “Afraid I’m going to kill you and that the food and shower was a last-meal clean-corpse situation?” he asks.
“I wasn’t until you just mentioned it,” I reply.
He chuckles. “I’m not going to kill you. Not today, anyway. I have a better use for you right now than as a sexy as fuck corpse.”
Sexy as fuck? Corpse?
His words vibrate through me in a way I can’t place with any feeling or emotion.
“Was that a threat or a compliment?” I ask.
He smirks, crossing his arms over his chest. “Maybe both.” He cocks his head to the side and his eyes drop to my chest once again. “Maybe neither.”
“And…what, exactly do you want to use me for?” I ask, bumping into the wet wall behind me.
He steps inside the shower fully clothed, but I’m already against the wall. There’s nowhere to go. He cages me in, lifting my chin to meet my eyes. “Bait.”
He leaves me standing in the steam, my entire body shuddering. “The door is unlocked. Get dressed and meet me in the kitchen.”
“Why?” I ask, breathlessly.
He spins around and glares at me. “Why?”
“Why bother with any of this? I’m not going to tell you anything. If you’re going to torture me some more, I still won’t tell you so you might as well kill me now and get it over with,” my words are brave, but inside, I’m a trembling child flinching at a raised hand.
“You misunderstand the point of torture then.”
“I understand perfectly well,” I say, straightening my shoulders. I bite my lip to keep it from quivering, hissing when I move the scab around my lips, and it pulls painfully on my skin.
He walks back up to me and looks me over, seeming genuinely disappointed. “Giving up so soon?”
I steel my nerves and try to pretend that his nearness doesn’t send a rushing wave of fear through my entire body. “No, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m not giving up. I won’t ever give up.”
He steps back inside the shower and trails his fingertips down the side of my face. My body heats and not from the steam. I jerk away from his touch, angry at him, my reaction, and at biology itself for causing that reaction.
The look of disappointment is replaced with a new gleam in his eye. His chuckle vibrates in my chest. “Good. You seem like the kind who doesn’t give up on a good fight.” He leans in and brushes his lips against my neck as he speaks and the wave of fear turns into a hurricane of biology and hormones, smashing into me with a force that makes it hard to stay upright. I’m wet and it has nothing to do with my shower and everything to do with him. “And I’d be lyin
g if I said I wasn’t looking forward to it.”
Chapter Thirteen
Mickey
After I finally calm myself down enough to stop shaking, I wrap the towel around my body tightly and brush my teeth three times before running a plastic comb through my hair. It takes a while to get the tangles out, painfully tugging at my scalp until the comb no longer catches and the knots are sufficiently smoothed out.
I put on the yoga pants and sweater shirt that Thorne had laid out for me and stifle a moan at the way the soft clean fabric brushes gently against my skin. The sweater is oversized but comfortable. The pants fit perfectly, hugging my body without being too tight. Being clean and dressed again gives me an all new resolve. The hot water from the shower has made the tingling in my arms and legs dissipate, and now, they’re just sore, but it’s nothing I can’t manage.
By the time I walk back into the bedroom, I feel sharper and more like me than I’ve felt in days.
The bedroom itself is not what I expect for Pike. Although, anything besides a dungeon with fire-breathing dragons and a chain-ball collection wouldn’t be what I expect for him. It’s block on all sides, painted white to give the room a more open and modern feel. The bed is a simple queen with a grey duvet and two simple white pillows. One of the nightstands is nothing more than an upside-down wooden crate, housing an assortment belts and change along with an empty bottle of whiskey. The other nightstand is actually not a nightstand at all, but a safe with both digital and combination locks. The electrical switches are the kind that are connected to metal tubes housing the wiring that runs up the walls and around the ceiling.
When I’m done scanning the room, I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
Often, the picture in my mind stands out clearer than the visual I get with my eyes, and if I have any chance at escape, I need to see everything.
In my mind, I see the window and realize it’s been painted shut. The walls of the room are mint green faded paint over concrete block. Several cracks run down the seams from floor to ceiling. The door is…wait. The walls. The cracks.
Pike: The Pawn Duet, Book One Page 8