by Skyla Madi
I frown. Just like that? “You’re letting me go?”
He angles his head, allowing the shadows to swallow up his face. If I could imagine the expression he was pulling, it’d be a confused one, like mine. “I have no reason to keep you. If you’re smart, you’ll run as fast as you can.”
He doesn’t want to hurt me, and strangely, the thought fills me with confidence. Or maybe it’s desperation. I can’t study without my tablet. If I don’t study, I’ll fail and if I fail, I’ll have nothing left. “I’m not going anywhere. Not until you replace my tablet.”
The confidence doesn’t quite reach my voice, but at least I found the balls to bring up what he did. I can’t see his face, but I’m pretty sure I hear the smile on his lips.
“I broke your tablet?”
I nod, curling my fingers around the strap of my bag and twisting nervously. “On the train. You pushed past me coming out the doors and I dropped it.”
He folds his strong, thick arms tightly over his chest. “And you chased me into an abandoned industrial site? For what?”
I push off the wall. “To tell—”
“To demand I replace what I supposedly broke?”
With a nod, I sigh, exasperated. I need him to replace it. Without it, I have to go an hour or two out of my way to the library after my shifts and that’s not realistic for me. Of course, there’s no way I can force him to replace what he broke, but I’m hoping the universe gives me a break. Just this once. I need it.
Silence falls as he gives me an overt once over. I wonder what he sees. A small, desperate nurse who can’t even afford a comfortable pair of shoes? Or a liar? To him, I could be a crazy woman looking for a handout.
“You need crack money?” he asks, his voice dead serious.
“What?” I spit, inching forward. “No. I’m a nurse.”
“If you get your drugs for free, then what do you want with me?”
“I don’t need drugs. I—” I pause and let out an exasperated sigh. “All I want is for you to replace what you broke. So just fix it and I’ll be on my way.”
“What the fuck do you expect me to do?” He gestures around him, dramatically. “Do you see any electronic shops around here? Would any be open at this time?” He steps closer. “Look, lady, I’m not messing around. You need to get out of here before—”
He’s cut off by a loud clank that seems to vibrate up the entire height of the warehouse. The noise sounds creepy and dooming, and I’m sure it echoes for miles.
“What is that?” I ask, creeping closer to him.
His entire body is taut and tense, but in this moment I find more comfort in the huge stranger than the waking warehouse.
The stranger clears his throat. “That is your biggest mistake.”
Chapter Two
The Warehouse
The stranger’s warm hand wraps around my exposed elbow and he tugs me behind him. If my heart was hammering before, now it pounds relentlessly, moving blood quicker than my body can keep up with. I let his large frame shield me from the endless clanking and curses coming from the enormous, delivery bay door. I pray the large man I followed into this industrial site is big enough to handle whatever comes out of it.
“Run,” he demands over his shoulder in a harsh whisper. “Now.”
He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I jolt away from him and immediately scan the ground for my tablet. Maybe repairing it will cost less than replacing. Thankfully, I spot it three feet to my right and I jump towards it. I bend low and scoop it up, not bothering to dust off the dirt.
But it’s too late.
Whatever he wanted me to run from drenches me in a bright light. Squinting, I lift my hand to block it, but it’s no use. I can’t see a thing. Eventually the spotlight falls away, illuminating the inside of the bare warehouse instead of my face. The man in charge of the spotlight is unlike anyone I’ve seen before. He’s huge and his facial scars…whoa.
Worried my stare will offend the man, I drop it to the battered gray tank that somehow manages to cover the large expanse of his chest. Still, I can’t keep my mind of his injuries. Whatever happened to his face must’ve hurt. I flick my attention back to his marred skin. It’s as if a whip with fifty ends had lashed him right across his flesh.
“Wasn’t expecting two of you, Stone,” he grumbles in a husky, baritone voice.
Two of us? He thinks we’re here together? Fuck no. I’m not being lumped in with him.
“Oh.” I step forward and the stranger, Stone, flinches toward me, the warning clear in his deep, ocean-like eyes.
Wow.
In the dark I didn’t see his face, but now, in the light, every corner of it is exposed, leaving no chance for a single shadow to obscure his features.
If I’d seen his face sooner, I never would have been so scared. Intimidated, maybe, but not scared. He’s easily the most attractive guy I’ve seen this side of the tracks—a strong jaw with subtle scruff, pink, full lips and by the looks of it, he has all of his teeth in his mouth.
Clearing my throat, I look back to the other man. “I’m not here with h—”
“Two,” Stone cuts in, stuffing one hand into the pocket of his baggy, black shorts. “That’s what I told Skull.” From his pocket, he pulls out two fat rolls of money and I gasp. “If you’ve got a problem with my money, take it up with him.”
The man surveys the money in Stone’s hand and so do I. I’ve never seen so much green. Each roll has to hold at least ten grand, easily.
The man I’ve decided to insensitively name ‘Scarface’ grins, exposing glistening pearly whites. Astonishing, given his appearance. “There’s no problem.”
He steps forward with open hands and Stone drops the dense rolls of money into his palms. Scarface weighs them in his grasp before eventually stuffing them into his pockets. Then his coal irises flick onto me. I almost flinch at the direct sight of him. As I look over his gnarly face, my own begins to ache. His gaze rakes me from head to toe and he seems amused by my deep purple scrubs. Normally I change after my shift, but I’d decided to skip on that tonight, willing to risk the germs I’ll bring home to my apartment. The way I see it is, whatever bacteria and bodily fluids are on my scrubs at the end of a long shift are undoubtedly on every surface of my home. It comes complimentary with a rental as cheap as mine.
“You sure your girl can handle herself down there?” Scarface asks, his stare stopping on my chest.
Pig.
I peer at Stone. Down where? Where are we going and why does he have to pay so much money to get there?
Stone’s eyes narrow in. “Don’t you worry about her. She’s meaner than she looks.”
His blue eyes clash with mine and I see through his words. I also see sympathy and frustration.
“Alright.” Scarface exhales, stepping aside. “You’re in.”
Stone reaches out and snags me by my elbow, making me drop my tablet once again. It crashes to the concrete floor, sending pieces darting in every direction. I wince as he digs in the tips of his fingers and pulls me into the entry of the warehouse. Struggling against him, I spare a glance over my shoulder. There’s no repairing my tablet now…there’s no passing my exam.
Stone tugs me hard against him, forcing my attention to the room. The ceiling is tall, tall enough to house a jetliner, and the windows are a shitty plastic you can’t see out of. It smells like blood and dead animals; not a big difference from outside, but noticeable enough. Right in the middle of the room I see two open, steel doors and I spot the first of many steps that descend into darkness. Where does it lead? What will we see at the bottom of those stairs and what did Stone pay so much money to get access to? I shiver at the thought.
“Please tell me we’re not going down there?” I whisper, pulling against his grip.
“That’s exactly where we’re going.”
I dig my heels in, desperate to free my arm from his grasp.
“Let me go!” I snap under my breath, clenching my jaw when his finge
rs tighten.
Fear and desperation curl in thick strands and wrap themselves around my stomach. I’m a second away from throwing up or passing out. This has to be a dream. A sick, confusing dream. With my free hand I slap at him, but he seems unfazed. I’m causing a scene in hopes of Scarface interfering and letting me leave. Surely he can tell I don’t want to be here? I hear Scarface laugh and now the thought seems stupid—wasted. Why would he care? I thrash violently, slapping with all my might. Black strands of hair fall from my ponytail and stick to my clammy forehead.
“Slapping? Really?” Stone hisses, restraining my arm. “Please tell me that’s not all you can do?”
What the hell does that mean? “Let me go! I know people! They’ll come looking for me!”
It’s a lie, of course, but I refuse to let the reality of my situation settle in. The reality is, if I die here, who would know? Who would come looking for me? I have no parents, no siblings, and no friends. My memory will fade away and it’ll make no difference to anyone except for the exam marker who will mark ‘non-attendance’ next to my name in a fortnight’s time, and the nurse who’ll be no doubt relieved she doesn’t have to babysit me on my next shift.
I blink away the tears that sting my eyes.
“Shut up,” he orders, his voice low and threatening. “You’re gonna get us both killed.”
“Got a problem there, Stone?”
Stone’s entire body tenses when Scarface speaks. Without a word, he dips low and I squeak as he wraps his arms around my legs and throws me over his shoulder. “No problem. She just realized she didn’t pack her new Jimmy Choos, that’s all.”
“No!” I shout, pounding my fists into his back. It’s a blatant lie. I would never forget to pack a pair of Jimmy Choos. Besides, it’s not like I can afford a brand of that caliber anyway. “Please!”
He ignores me while I squirm over his shoulder. I make no progress. Stone’s grip is tight, and he’s too strong to fight against. In this moment, I’m a mouse with my tail trapped underneath an elephant’s foot…I’m not going anywhere. Defeated, I slump and sob. Will anyone miss me? Will my face be plastered over milk cartons and billboards? Or will I become another number, a statistic, locked away in a police file and forgotten?
I close my eyes as we descend the stairs. When we reach the bottom, Stone carries me a few more feet before deciding to put me down. The second my shoes touch the floor, I swing at him. My fist connects with his mouth and the force tosses his head to the side. Shit! I hiss and clench my fist as pain darts up my wrist and tingles in my elbow. Panicked, I dive for the stairs, but he catches the strap of my bag and yanks me back. I struggle against him like a dog on a leash and get nowhere. He swears under his breath before my stomach sinks. I feel the strap of my bag bite into my body and snap. For a split-second I free-fall until heavy, arresting hands grab my shoulders and push me back. He shoves me against the wall and I sob when the back of my skull smacks the pipe. The headache-inducing pain throbs over my scalp before settling in my eye sockets.
“Listen to me—”
I open my mouth to protest, but he clamps his hand over my lips. The salty taste of his skin creeps across the surface of my lips and onto the tip of my tongue. The tears that stung my eyes previously now trickle over the rim and wet my cheeks. I’m going to die.
“Listen,” he says. “You can’t escape this. You want out? Too fucking bad. You got yourself into this mess and now you have to get yourself out.”
Air rushes in and out of my nose as my chest heaves. Nausea makes awful twists and turns in the pit of my stomach and my entire body trembles. Never have I ever felt fear like this before. It’s almost debilitating.
“The last thing you want to do down here is draw attention to yourself. You need to act like you’re meant to be here. If you don’t, they’ll slit your throat and throw you into the sewer. By the time you wash up somewhere, your body will be too destroyed to identify. Do you understand?”
Despite my frenzied thoughts, I soak up his words. Still, they don’t resonate with me. Why can’t I leave? Stone waits a few seconds before he lets his hand fall away.
“I won’t tell anyone, please,” I beg, my voice as shaky as my hands. “I just want to go home.”
Sympathy softens his hard, ocean eyes and I know what he’s going to say before he says it. It’s in his expression—his body language.
“You can’t go home.”
Chapter Three
Debt
I can’t…
I can’t go home…
The thought dries my throat.
My pulse jumps in tempo, my tummy clenches, and I have the awful desperate urge to throw up. Then it hits me—my phone. I can call the police. From my back pocket, I fish for my cell. When I pull it out and unlock the screen, the little bars in the top right corner are gone, replaced by a small circle with a line through it. My heart sinks.
“No reception down here. You might as well throw it away.”
There’s no reception…
Tears flood from my eyes and drop onto my cheeks. In anger, I swipe at them and stuff it into the side of my bag, ignoring Stone’s smug expression. I’m not a crier. I was seven the last time I actually shed a tear. It was winter and I’d waited outside the always-growing ‘children’s home’. I remember it like it was yesterday. I’d stood there nervously, squeezing the strap to my backpack with cold, bare hands. My new parents were supposed to pick me up just after lunch, but they never showed. I’d waited, shaking in my pink gumboots, for them to come and take me somewhere different, but they didn’t, and as snowflakes began to pool on the shoulders of my blue hoodie, I’d cried. I don’t know what had happened to them. As a child, things weren’t explained to me. Still, after days of uncontrollable crying, I’d promised myself I’d never cry over something I couldn’t change. This is one of those times, I can’t change what’s happening, but the tears won’t stop and I feel as insignificant as I did that day.
“Why?” I ask, uncaring that I sound desperate and scared. “Why can’t I leave? I said I wouldn’t tell anybody.”
“It doesn’t work like that, and Jesus, will you stop crying?” He flicks his tongue over his bottom lip with a frustrated lick. “You’ve stumbled across a big secret here and there’s no easy way out. I can’t force you to stay—and I won’t, not if it gets me killed too—but if you want to live, you’ll lick your wounds, Kitten, and hold back your damn tears.”
With a sniffle, I wipe my nose on my bare arm, collecting tears that flow from my nostrils, not my eyes.
“If you don’t, if you want to leave right now—” He points a long finger to the stairs he carried me down, “—you can climb back up those stairs and let Steve know you’ve changed your mind.”
Steve? Scarface’s name is Steve? I didn’t see that coming. Still, even though he has a friendly name I don’t inch toward the stairs, no matter how desperately I want to.
“What happens then? If I decide to leave?”
Stone shrugs his broad shoulders. “Steve can be a reasonable guy. I’m sure he’ll make your death quick and painless.”
He turns from me and heads down the dark tunnel, away from the stairs. I reach out for him, snagging the soft fabric of his hoodie, squeezing it between my fingers before he’s able to slip away. “Wait. My death? He’ll kill me?”
With a glance over his shoulder, Stone nods. “You know about this place now. You can’t unsee it, you can’t avoid it and you can’t talk about it.” His eyes darken and narrow in on me, forcing me to release his hoodie. “You don’t have a choice but to wait it out down here. You fight or you die. Maybe next time you’ll think twice about following a stranger from a train in the middle of the night.”
Fight? I can’t fight. I can barely lift a crate of medical supplies without complaining. A fight with me wouldn’t be much of a fight at all. I slump into myself. This is not how I envisioned this whole thing going. To be honest, I don’t know what I expected. I was only focused on
the money and how little I had to worry about my own safety. “I just wanted you to fix what you broke…”
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t seem worth it now, does it?”
Lowering my chin, I shake my head. It’s not worth it at all.
“And you owe me ten grand, by the way.”
My brows pull together, confused. Ten-freaking-grand! “For what? Ruining my life?”
Stone gestures around him. “It’s not cheap to get into a place like this. It cost me ten thousand dollars to save your life.”
I fold my arms as a tingle of frustration slices through my chest. I’m surprised how quickly it replaces my panic and fear. I didn’t want this. There’s no way I’m paying him ten thousand dollars for getting me trapped underground. Let’s not mention the fact I have to fight my way out. On top of that, I’m going to lose my job and my apartment. He has ruined my life.
“You expect me to pull that kind of money from my ass? I followed you from a train at one a.m. to fix my tablet because I can’t afford it. It only costs one hundred dollars to fix a busted tablet screen and if I can’t afford that, what makes you think I can afford ten thousand dollars?”
“Because down here, you have the opportunity to win up to eighty thousand tax-free dollars.”
My ears prick up. Eighty thousand tax-free dollars? He leans in close until the earthy, intoxicating scent of his cologne is the only thing I smell. I never noticed it before, but now it’s over-powering—arousing, even. It seems all this talk about tax-free money is warping my priorities and making my thighs tingle. The dimly lit tunnel we’re standing in doesn’t scare me anymore. Instead, a slither of excitement coils around my spine. With eighty thousand dollars, I can haul my ass to Italy and never look back. I’ve always wanted to move to Italy, maybe work at a petite wood-fire pizza place and live in a small cottage made of stone. Sitting on my porch, I would overlook a vast vineyard while I sucked on feta stuffed olives and drank wine. Yeah, that’s the life I want.