Perfect Prey

by Laura Salters

  He pulls out a cardboard box full of medical supplies, let’s go of my wrist and pushes me down so I’m sitting on it. He towers above me, arms folded. I guess he does it to assert his authority over me—­hard to do when you’re a short guy.

  I think that thought to try and make him less intimidating in my mind.

  It doesn’t work. I’m terrified.

  “Be careful. Walk away from the clinic, go and get a coffee, and wait. I’ll phone you when we make it to Zrenjanin.”

  What was Ilić so urgently telling me to walk away from?

  “What are you doing here, Carina?” he says, calmly like the rest of the robots who work here.

  My chest is tight, like there’s an elastic band wrapped around it, and my breathing is shallow.

  I try to mirror his eerily serene tone. “I came to talk to someone.”

  A frown, unfriendly. “I thought you went back to England.”

  “I did. I came back to Novi Sad with Erin’s mother.” I’m amazed how steady my voice sounds. “She had to fly out. I didn’t want her to be alone.”

  Mind reeling, I think back over everything I just said, desperately trying to work out whether I referenced anything that might make him think I know about his involvement. If he suspected I’d spoken to the police just now, and they’d warned me away from this place . . . what might he do if he knew they were closing in on them? What might he do if he knew what I know?

  Or what I don’t. There’s a black hole in my knowledge I still can’t fill.

  What did Andrijo do? Why? How was this place involved? How was Kasun, Borko?

  “Why are you here? At this clinic?” he asks, brow cocked.

  “I told you. I came to talk to someone about . . . something. Why shouldn’t I be at this clinic?” I tilt my chin skyward, fixing defiance into my facial expression.

  “Because there’s an identical one in Novi Sad.”

  Crap.

  “I didn’t want Karen to see me. I haven’t told anyone about what happened. Didn’t seem important, after what happened to Erin.”

  Hopefully the beat I missed went unnoticed.

  “What did happen?”

  “To Erin?”

  “To you.” There’s no sympathy in his voice.

  Matching his iciness, I curtly respond, “That’s between me and the clinician I spoke to ten minutes ago.”

  I’m instantly so relieved I’ve already told the lie, so relieved it’s all on paper, in the brain of that counsellor, and he can’t poke a hole in my story. I ran out of the appointment, panicked . . . sure. But that’s plausible for a girl in my pretend situation.

  Try telling that to my raging stomach. The nausea is cold, churning.

  I leap on his silence. “What are you doing here? I thought you worked for the tourism board, and yet you’ve just stormed into a sexual assault clinic with a key fob.”

  His face purples, spit gathering around the corners of his mouth. “I did work for the tourism board. I don’t anymore. How do you know that?”

  “You told us. On the riverfront,” I lie.

  “No, I didn’t.” He stares, narrowed eyes bloodshot and bulging.

  “Why are you so angry and defensive about my being here?” I ask. If I’m going for the sweet and innocent act, I have to commit to total ignorance. If I really knew nothing, I’d have no context for his paranoia, and would probably be questioning why I’ve been dragged to a random storage room far more than I currently am. For effect, I add, simperingly, “You’re scaring me.”

  He studies me long and hard. “What are you really doing here, Carina?”

  “I told you,” I answer quickly, but my heart is pounding so fast a hand flutters instinctively to my chest. He eyes it with suspicion, this physical sign of my palpitations. I deflect the suspicion back on to him. “Why are you really so concerned about me being at this clinic?”

  “Because it makes no sense. And I know you’re lying to me.”

  “So are you.” I regret it as soon as I’ve said it.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No. Not nothing.” He drops his hands to his knees, hunches over so his face is inches from mine and I can taste the staleness of his breath. “What did you say to me?”

  “You’re lying.”

  Motionless like a statue of a hunchback, he stares at me so intently I swear he can read my soul. “What are you suggesting?”

  I know I’m endangering myself right now. I know I’ve gone down the wrong road, pursued the wrong rabbit. I should’ve stuck with the scared and clueless act. But I couldn’t resist. Probably because part of me, the most suspicious, terrified part of me, doesn’t want to let this opportunity slip. I’ve spent weeks digging and digging, into Erin’s mind and into her life, into the darkest corners of the darkest alleys of possibility, searching for answers, searching for anything that might lead me back to her. And now, standing right in front of me, is a key to a door I’ve been banging on for an eternity.

  And even though I know it’s stupid, even though I know I’m putting myself at risk, I don’t care. The delicious sensation of nothingness is spreading through me—­part depression, part drug-­induced haze from my earlier double dose. Right now, in this game-­changing moment, finding Erin seems more important than continuing to live through the blackness.

  “I’m suggesting you’re lying,” I say, inching forward ever so slightly, showing that I’m not scared of him, that I won’t back down just because he’s using his testosterone to intimidate me.

  A snarl, like a bulldog chewing a wasp. “What about?”

  “Who you are. Where you work.” A pause. “Why the police are currently searching Andrijo’s apartment.”

  That’s all it takes for him to snap; to see I know more than I should; to realize I’ve come here to look for answers.

  That’s all it takes for him to raise a fist and punch me square in the face.

  My world goes black.

  CUTTING THROUGH THE pain is the rumble of a vehicle in motion and the burn of rope around my wrists.

  For a moment I can’t work out if my eyes are open or not. The world around me is still dark.

  I groan in pain. My nose throbs, agonizing, and my limbs protest against the rope binds around my wrists and ankles. I’m slumped in the back of what I assume is a windowless van, and we’re driving, driving away from the clinic, driving toward my death.

  Fear as cold as liquid nitrogen replaces the blood in my veins.

  Is this how Erin felt in the moments before . . .

  Before whatever happened to her?

  A chilling thought pierces my brain like a fishing hook.

  What if she died because of something she discovered?

  The ropes around my wrists press my bangle into the bone.

  If you are saved from the lion, do not be greedy and hunt it.

  We’ve been chasing a beast of our own, and this wild animal knows no mercy.

  I slide across the rough floor as we round a corner, slamming into the side of the van like a sack of potatoes. I can’t move an inch because of the way I’m tied, wrists bound in front of me and ankles tight together, and my muscles quiver at the stress. I would cry if I weren’t so terrified.

  What’s going to happen to me? Is he going to torture me, to find out what I know—­and who else knows it? If he was going to kill me quickly, he would’ve by now. Why am I still alive? Where is he taking me?

  I am alone in the back of the windowless van, alone with the shudder of flat tires against bumpy roads, alone with the smell of something stale and human, alone with the sound of the radio playing through the partition separating driver and cargo. Predator and prey.

  Predator and prey and a lion, but who’s leading this pride?

  Breathing gets harder. He ha
sn’t gagged me, but he might as well have.

  Gasp. Gasp. Gasp. Quicker than my heart. Quicker than my brain.

  Think, think, think.

  How can I survive?

  The backs of my eyes are painted with kaleidoscopic murals; I’m seeing stars, seeing the universe.

  Spiraling, spiraling, endlessly, spaciously, to infinity.

  I’m losing losing losing touch on reality.

  Can’t breathe.

  An invisible knife stabs my chest repeatedly, but it’s from the inside, it’s hard, my heart piercing my chest in a bid for freedom.

  Think, think, think.

  How can I survive?

  The more I think, the worse it gets. The less I think, the worse it gets.

  I’m shaking, trembling, a flag flapping in the wind, a glass wobbling on the table of a fast moving train carriage. Faster, harder, shaking.

  Think, Carina.

  How can I survive?

  Do I even want to survive?

  Think.

  Not about how to escape. That’s bordering on impossible. But think about Borko—­about how he slots into all of this. What do I know so far?

  Andrijo is a suspect. They’re searching his apartment. I previously thought he was a lone wolf, acting alone out of some carnal attraction toward Erin, a simple case of man pursuing his desires without care for the woman involved.

  But Borko is here; Borko tied me up and loaded me into a van; Borko is driving me toward something resembling death.

  Does he work for Kasun, too? What does the clinic have to do with it? Did Erin have an abortion? Did it go wrong? Why do these men care?

  The bruise, the baby, the barbarians.

  How are they connected?

  Think.

  Somehow, my breathing has slowed, my heart has retreated back into my rib cage.

  It’s a hollow curiosity now. Because I know even if I do magically figure it out, even if my overactive brain finally lands on the missing piece that’ll tie this all together like my rope-­bound appendices, I won’t live for long enough to see justice exacted.

  I’ll never know if they find Erin alive or not.

  We drive for so long that the adrenaline is eventually numbed again by my meds, and tiredness threatens to drag me under. A poem my English teacher used to read to us echoes through my foggy mind: “Do not go gentle into that good night.”

  I force myself to repeat it over and over, force myself to fight the exhaustion, force myself to keep breathing, even though I want nothing more than to succumb to the darkness.

  Nothing about me is gentle, and nothing about this night is good.

  I MUST HAVE fallen asleep anyway, because the harsh banging of van doors closing and opening jerks me awake. Light doesn’t flood the back of the van as the rear doors are swung open—­the sky is blacker than coal.

  Struggling to prevent the whimper escaping my lips, I blink against the pain of my face. His punch was hard enough to break my nose, and I feel dried blood crusted around my mouth and cheeks. I can still breathe. Just.

  “Silly girl,” Borko mutters. “Why poke your head where it doesn’t belong?”

  Instincts scream futilely at me to press myself to the partition, as far away from Borko as possible, but I’m bound helplessly to myself and moving is impossible. Not to mention pointless. It’d only delay the inevitable.

  Fear slams into me.

  He unties my feet so I can walk, but leaves my hands bound in front of me. Hauling me up by the elbow, so harshly I’m amazed my shoulder doesn’t dislocate, he drags me onto concrete ground and pulls me through huge, corrugated tin doors like the ones on farming sheds.

  It’s a warehouse, this single room big enough to fit my entire university campus inside. Forklifts and crates and rows and rows of shelves, brown cardboard boxes with complicated labels, strip lighting so bright it’s almost UV, the smell of cold, of lifelessness.

  What the hell is this? Does the warehouse belong to Feminaid? To Kasun? Bastixair? Are these medical supplies?

  Borko said he doesn’t work for the tourism board anymore. Does he work for Bastixair? Is that how he met Andrijo and Kasun, how he got involved in this twisted web of evil?

  I want to crumple to the ground, to beg him to let me go, but my limbs are paralyzed and I stay obedient, allow myself to be dragged along next to him, thinking that maybe if I do everything he says I might live. Logic is a funny thing. When you have no hope, it kind of tricks you. Lets you believe there is, somehow, a way. Maybe the brain knows that true hopelessness is itself enough to kill a person.

  My pathetic whimpers fall on deaf ears. Borko doesn’t turn to look at me at any point, just focuses on getting me from A to B. I have no idea what B entails, but it’s probably not a basket of kittens.

  Think, I urge myself. You’re smart, hyperalert. If anyone can think themselves out of this, it’s you.

  I frantically search the warehouse floor with my eyes, darting between boxes and trolleys, searching for anything I can use as a weapon. But we’re moving too quickly, and my hands are out of action, and there’s no way to grab anything.

  My chest soars as I remember tucking my phone into the back pocket of my jeans, but as I rub my balled-­up fist against my backside, the carpet’s pulled from beneath me in one quick swish. He already took it. If Ilić tries to call back, he’ll know immediately I told them about the clinic. He’ll be even more inclined to hurt me. And deep down, I know Borko is too smart to stay on the line long enough for Ilić to trace the call back here. The phone will be smashed beneath a boot-­clad heel within the hour.

  Too soon we reach the far end of the warehouse, where steel-­grated steps lead up to a mezzanine level. We clank up to the top, and from this elevated vantage point, the warehouse looks even more like a labyrinth of questions. Six doors lead off the balcony; I’m dragged to the farthest away.

  It’s a tiny storeroom. Empty. Cold. Rows and rows of blue metal shelves, coated in a layer of dust. Disused. Nobody will come looking for me here. Nobody. Panic rises in my chest. Breathing quickens, shallower than ever, leaving me light-­headed. Black and purple spots dance across my vision; I’m losing it, losing consciousness, losing all hope of survival.

  He throws me to the ground, and without my arms to steady me, I crash painfully into the rim of a shelf. All the wind is knocked from my lungs, and ­coupled with the panic attack, I feel my grip on the room slipping.

  From a thousand miles away, he asks, “Are the police likely to be following you here?”

  No. Novi Sad is over an hour away, and Ilić was only just leaving when we spoke. There’s no way they got to the clinic in time to witness my abduction, and if they did, surely they’d have tailed the windowless van here, sirens blaring, high speed chase ensuing. My only hope is that the CCTV cameras somehow caught it.

  “Yes,” I say through blood-­crusted teeth, fixing the last ounce of strength into my voice. I can’t let him think he’s won.

  He swears and slams the door shut behind him. I’m plunged into darkness.

  The last thing I hear before losing consciousness is the key turning in the lock, and his footsteps marching back down the steel-­grated stairs.

  Chapter Twenty-­One

  August 3, Serbia

  AS SOON AS I wake, I wish I hadn’t.

  Pain radiates across my face, through my skull, into my bones. My broken nose throbs, and my eyes feel swollen shut. The bottom of my ribs ache from where I collided with the shelf edge. There’s a small amount of light creeping through the bottom of the doorframe and, even though it’s pitch black outside, the slit of a window at the top of the back wall.

  Strands of thoughts loop and swirl in my mind like a spider dancing through the air, weaving a web. Thoughts of escape, memories of Erin, threads of information relating to her disappearance . . . the
y’re all so intricately spun together I can no longer separate them. Part of the same tapestry, the same masterpiece . . . a masterpiece I will never understand.

  I’m concussed. Or just coming down from a panic attack of epic proportions.

  Groaning with every inch, I pull myself upright and try to adjust into a more comfortable position. I settle for leaning against the one bare wall, head tilted back against the cool plasterboard. The beginnings of a migraine pulses against my temples. I didn’t drink a single drop of water today, and I’m suffering for it.

  Water. I need water. There’s no water.

  Panic flutters through me again, waves from a bird’s wings batting the air in my lungs. The palpitations start, and my first instinct is to bring my palm to my chest. When I can’t, because of the absurdly tight rope binds, they kick in harder, faster. The sick part of my mind reminds me of an episode of a prison drama I watched as a kid, when my mum was too tired to force us to go to bed. One female inmate killed another by locking her in a cupboard, without air or water, for days and days.

  What if they leave me here so long I run out of air?

  There’s no water and no air.

  Of course, that knowledge makes breathing even harder. I frantically search for an air vent, or some other sign that I won’t die from oxygen starvation, but in the darkness I find nothing.

  Tears fall then. Reflexively, and for lack of anything better to do.

  It’s pathetic, but I want my mum. I want her to hold me in her arms, tell me it’ll all be okay. I want to tell my brother I love him—­I never do that—­and spend a night on the sofa, just the three of us, no one staring at smartphones or video games. I want us to talk. I want us to laugh, to forget our various mental health problems and just be a family. I want it. I want it so badly it’s as painful as the butt of a gun slammed into my heart.

  Then, for the first time in so many years, I allow myself to think of my father.

  Normally I suppress all thoughts of him—­my psychiatrist thinks this is the root of my anxiety and depression. It’s simply too painful to remember him, and remember the day he died. So I bury it. I bury it so far below the surface it cannot hurt me, despite the fact my body fights back with panic attacks and nervous breakdowns.