Peering through the slit, I can’t see much but a shaft of light. This doesn’t give much indication of how long I’ve been here, nor the time of day, but I feel a weird sense of hope seeing the outside.
Glancing around the room, I try to find something that I can use to pry the board off the window, but my accommodation is sparse. Other than the bed, there is a bucket in the corner, which I’ve used for the toilet a few times (with help—not my finest moment), the bed and that’s it.
I move back over to the bed. There has to be something.
I lift the mattress and see there are metal slats on the base of the frame. Carefully, I wiggle one. Nothing happens. I wiggle the next one. Nothing. I go through them all until one halfway down moves.
Oh, God. I wiggle it and it moves. I give it a fucking good shove and it moves out of the grooves either side of the bed frame. I nearly drop it onto the concrete below, but manage to catch it before it clatters.
Holding the piece of metal in my hand like it’s the Holy Grail, I stare at it a beat. Then my brain remembers I’m being held captive and time is of the essence.
I rush back over to the window. Can I pry the board off…? It’s going to make a hell of a noise. Maybe I can be careful.
I place the metal through the slither between the board and the frame of the window near to the screw and try to get some leverage. Careful not to push too hard, but to exert enough pressure, I lever the metal. The wood creaks and cracks. It sounds loud to my ears, although it’s not, I’m sure. I lessen the pressure to reduce the noise and work the screw.
The wood splits with a crack and I fall backwards, hitting the floor heavily. Light spills into the room from the hole I’ve created.
Shocked, I blink up and then I’m moving. The noise was loud—loud enough to bring my captors? I’m not sure. I scrabble to my feet, a challenge with my hands tied, and quickly glance through the hole. When I look outside, my stomach drops.
The building is an old factory and it’s in the middle of nowhere. There are fields for as far as the eyes can see. I can’t see any houses on the horizon. I can’t see anything on the horizon, in fact. My screaming was pointless. I could have screamed until I was blue in the face, no one would have come.
Where in the hell am I?
I hear noises coming from the bowels of the building behind me. They must have heard the wood breaking.
I quickly lever the metal against the wood and try to break it more. My only option now is to go out of the window, if I can. I barely manage to get a second piece off before the door opens behind me.
Voices roar in anger and surprise, and then hands are on me, dragging me back. I swipe with my weapon at them. I think I connect with flesh, I’m not sure.
And then the last thing I see is a fist come straight towards my face before I black out.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
When my brain reboots, it does it with a blinding headache. My skull feels like it’s going to shatter from the pressure. I whimper. I can’t help it. The pain is unbelievable. I try to curl into myself to stop the agony, but I can’t move my body.
I’m tethered, I realise. I force my eyes open and I’m met with a shaft of light from the window. They didn’t repair it or put my blindfold back on. I squint against the brightness, blinking rapidly to clear the spots dancing in my vision and the stabbing in the back of my retinas. It settles after a moment enough for me to try to move.
I can’t.
I glance up over my head and see ropes tethering my wrists to the head of the bed’s metal frame. Dipping my gaze down, my feet are similarly tied to the base of the bed. Panic crawls up my throat as I take stock of my new situation. This is not good, not good at all. My white top is no longer white, but stained with blood and grime, ripped at the shoulder to reveal more bra than is decent, and my skirt is rucked up practically to my hips, revealing hints of the lacy underwear I’m wearing beneath. I don’t feel sore down there, and everything feels as it should, so I think they’ve left me alone.
I breathe a sigh of relief.
At least no one has violated me.
Yet…
The word fires through my brain and I shut it down.
No one is going to touch me like that full stop. I’ll die before I let them.
Not that I’ll have any choice. I’m spread out like a sacrifice for them. Fear spreads like acid through my veins. I have no idea how long I’ve been here or what they plan on doing to me. All I know is Grant pissed this Merrick bloke off and I’m collateral for whatever is going on between them.
As I come around a little more, my aches and pains start to make themselves known. I’m hurting everywhere. The old hurts are joined by new. My face feels swollen, the skin tight across my cheeks. I’m sure I must look a fright. My left eye is barely open more than a slit, although the right is less puffy, so I can see better through this. The temperature in the room is so frigid, my breath steams in front of my face with every exhalation I take and the air burns as it hits my trachea with every inhalation I make. I don’t think I’ll ever be warm again.
The sound of the lock makes me freeze and my eyes shift towards the door as it opens. Perkins and another man I recognise from the attack in the loft step inside.
“Boss wants to see you,” Perkins mutters.
I stiffen. I have no interest in seeing Merrick at all.
“I’m fine here, thank you.”
The other man laughs. “Listen to this fucking princess.”
Perkins says nothing, but his lips pull into a line. He pulls a knife from his pocket and I barely contain my scream.
“Are you going to be difficult?” he demands.
“It’s not really in my interest to be an easy prisoner for you,” I manage to blurt out, even though my voice wobbles. I’m proud that I say it, that I’m fighting back.
“If you want to keep breathin’,” the other man grins, “it is.”
I swallow hard and watch as Perkins cuts through the ropes at my feet.
“Make yourself fucking useful, dickhead. Grab her ankles.”
The other man moves to do as commanded and seizes my ankles. His touch on me makes my stomach twist, but I keep still. I don’t think I can take another beating. I’m hurting too much as it is. I need to keep my strength in case the chance to escape presents, because I’m not staying here. The first opportunity to get gone, I’m going. I realise from the window this place is in the middle of nowhere, but I’ll risk it. I want to believe rescue will come, I truly do, but it may not. I can’t rely on it. I can’t hope Jem and my brother know I’m missing, that they’ve worked out where I am and are coming to find me. I can’t. This isn’t a movie. The girl doesn’t get rescued by the dashing hero. This is real life, where the girl gets violated and dumped in a shallow grave to rot for eternity.
Well, not this girl. I’m living.
And I’m going to save my bloody self.
Even if I have to die trying.
Perkins moves to the head of the bed and slices through the ropes, freeing my arms from the headboard. Pain fizzes through my shoulders and biceps as he drags them down by my sides and pulls me into a sitting position on the edge of the mattress. He doesn’t give me time to let the feeling return to the limbs. He tugs my arms behind my back and ties them at the base of my spine.
“The hospitality here could really use some work,” I complain.
The other man guffaws. “We’ve got a comedian on our hands.”
I shoot him a dirty glare. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
Although it’s good that he thinks this. If I can get him to let his guard down a little, it might make my escape plan easier. Not that I have a plan. At the moment, my only idea is to find a chink in the armour and seize it. It’s a terrible strategy. I’ll probably get caught and beaten again, but it’s better than sitting here waiting to die. My flight response is in overdrive and the primal need to survive is driving all my decisions.
Perkins slips a meaty ha
nd around my arm and tugs me up. My legs nearly buckle, but he keeps me on my feet. On second thoughts, running might not be on the cards. I’m as weak as a spindled-legged foal. Good God. My legs are jellied. I can barely walk without his help.
It’s not just my legs either. I’m dizzy, nauseous, and every step sends pain lancing through my entire body. Escape might be a challenge.
Perkins walks—or rather drags—me through the door of my cell. I try to focus beyond my pain and staying upright on everything that lies beyond it. This information could save my life.
He leads me into a narrow hallway with multiple doors off it. There’s an industrial feel to the building, which is unsurprising, considering I’m sure from what I saw of the outside this was once some kind of factory. As we move deeper into the bowels of the building, it opens up more and I see more mechanical remnants of the factory’s former glory days.
The other man talks nonsense at Perkins, but he barely responds. He’s a man of few words, it seems. In fact, if I am to guess, I’d say the man annoys Perkins.
Eventually I’m pushed into a large room, a former office I think, but there’s plastic tarpaulin on the floor and a chair in the middle of the plastic. This doesn’t seem like a good thing. It looks like some kind of kill room, which has my heart skipping frantically in my chest.
Perkins steers me to the chair and pushes me into it. I want to fight him, but with so many people here, there’s little point.
My eyes go to the man leaning against the edge of the desk on the far side of the room. He doesn’t look that large, but there’s a formidable air about him. His dark hair is styled in a messy just-got-out-of-bed look that seems to fit with the trendy jacket and dark jeans he’s wearing. He looks like he should be in a bar, not in a dingy factory holding women prisoners.
I shift on the chair, the ropes digging into my wrists as I glance around the room. My chest heaves as my brain races.
“Miss Ellis-Hollander. I’m so glad you could join us.”
“I wasn’t exactly given much choice.”
“Yes, I am sorry you’ve been dragged into this unpleasantness.”
Not sorry enough to avoid it, though.
I bite my tongue to keep the words from slipping out.
“You’re Mr Merrick, I assume?”
He throws his head back and laughs. The other men join in.
“Mr Merrick… the only people who call me ‘Mr’ are my doctor, my solicitor and the plod. Since you’re none of those, sweetheart, I think you can just call me Merrick.”
“Well, Merrick, I want to go home.”
“I’m sure you do, and as soon as I get my business straightened out with your stepfather, that will happen—providing he does as I demand.”
The finality in his tone makes my throat constrict. “And if he doesn’t do as you demand?”
Merrick shrugs. “I’ll have to make some unpleasant decisions.”
Perkins takes a call, moving to the back of the room to answer it. I watch him for a moment before I slide my eyes back to Merrick.
“I’m not involved in his business.”
“It doesn’t matter. Grant Hollander crossed a line. He threatened things that are precious to me, so now I’m threatening things that are precious to him.”
I drop my chin to my chest and laugh. It’s probably not the best response, but I can’t help it. A mix of nerves and hysteria are getting the best of me.
“Oh, God. The only person Grant Hollander thinks is precious is Grant Hollander. You’d have been better taking him.” I raise my gaze to meet Merrick’s eyes. “You think he’ll care if you hurt me? He’ll care more about protecting his stupid reputation, about making sure the press doesn’t get wind of his dealings with you, about spinning a story about how his family got caught up in mob warfare and his stepdaughter paid the price for him trying to clean up the city. Nothing sticks to him. This won’t either. He’ll come out smelling of roses. You’ll go to prison for whatever you do to me. It’s how it always works.”
“Yeah, well not this time. Your stepfather pissed off the wrong people.”
He lifts his phone and snaps a photograph of me sitting in the chair, bound, beaten, cowed. I’m sure he’s sending it to Grant, and I’m sure my stepfather will not give two shits.
Perkins moves to Merrick and says something in his ear. I watch the man stiffen then his eyes come to me.
“Chat’s over. If your stepfather does as he’s told, you’ll go home and everything will be fine.”
He juts his chin over my head and I’m seized by two men behind me and dragged up. They take me back to my cell. I try to catalogue everything I pass on the way, but it’s a fruitless exercise because the moment I’m back in the room they let me pee, then wrestle me onto the bed and tie my hands and feet to the frame. The bigger man cops a feel of my breasts as he does, but they leave me otherwise unscathed.
I fight the restraints for a while, but they hold fast. I don’t know where those bastards learnt to tie knots, but I can’t shift them at all and all I manage to do is shred the skin on my wrists even more. Bleeding, I lie on the smelly lumpy mattress, exhausted, my bladder bursting again, until the sun starts to set through the hole in the wood board covering the window. It’s darkening in the room, the solitary bulb that usually is on to keep light in here not yet lit, so shadows dance along the walls where the setting sun doesn’t reach.
When I can stand it no longer, I yell for assistance. It’s disturbing how relieved I am to hear the latch slide back. I’m not relieved to see it’s not Perkins that enters the room, but Mr Handsy—the arse who copped a feel while re-tying me. I think his name is Smythe, but that could have been the other guy he was with. It’s hard to keep track.
He smirks at me, his arms crossing over his chest.
“You yelled?”
“I need to pee.”
Humility washes over me.
He grins. “All right then.”
I hate how much he enjoys this, but I notice he doesn’t lock the door behind him when he comes to the bed. He’s too focused on me. Hope surges in me. A mistake. Can I use this to my advantage?
I keep my expression neutral as he unties me, his fingers lingering too long in places they shouldn’t. He pulls me none-too-gently up to my feet and stands in front of me while I stand over the bucket.
“Well, turn around then,” I snap at him.
He doesn’t move.
“Are you honestly going to stand there and watch me pee?”
He still doesn’t move. Dirty bastard. With a scowl, I pull down my underwear, trying to cover as much of myself as I can, and I squat over the bucket. Mortification fills me as I pee into it, but also blessed relief as I empty my screaming bladder. I glare at Smythe as I urinate.
“You’re tapped in the head, do you know that?”
He shrugs.
I quickly finish up, recovering myself. This guy creeps me out. He’s just about to reach for me, when I hear a noise. It sounds like a ‘pop’. Smythe stops too, his attention going straight to the door.
It’s out of place, wrong.
A wail of agony suddenly rends the air. It doesn’t sound human, but I know it is. Claws dig around my heart and clutch it as fear stalks into the hallway, shrouding me in cold more frigid than the icy temperature.
What the hell was that?
It’s also perfect cover to act.
I don’t know what possesses me to do it, but some primal instinct urges me to act. I grab the bucket by the handle and as hard as I can, I clobber him around the head with it—urine and all. Disgusting, I know.
He goes down to his knees, coughing and spluttering. I don’t give him time to recover. I reach into his belt, snag his knife, and before I even contemplate what I’m about to do, I jab it towards his exposed neck.
I don’t reach my target. He grabs my wrist, my ravaged, bloodied, raw, rope burnt wrist and squeezes until I feel like the bones are going to shatter. My whimper turns into a scream of ag
ony. I let go of the knife. It falls to the floor with a clank, but he doesn’t let go of me. He uses his superior strength to force me backwards and onto the mattress. He comes down on top of me, his weight pinning me to the bed, crushing me.
My chest tries to heave in terrified breaths, but fear clogs my throat as I thrash beneath his huge body, trying to unseat him. The unmistakable cacophony of gunfire punches through the air. Screams follow. I can’t even think about what is happening beyond the door of my cell, because I’m in the fight of my life. If he takes this from me, there’s no going back.
So, I fight him, I fight him because what choice is there? I’m not going to die like this, but God, he’s strong and I’m hurt. I can’t win this. His knee goes between my legs, and I yell my frustration and my fear and everything pours out of me. I see stars as his hand wraps around my throat and my air supply is cut off. My lungs can’t draw in a breath and panic sets in. I’m going to die and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m never going to see Jem or my brother or Cami again.
Darkness doesn’t creep into the edges of my vision, it slams. I’m shutting down fast. I’m blacking out. I can feel my eyes going.
Then his weight is gone and he’s no longer on top of me. I suck in a breath and another. Oxygen floods my cells and I feel shaky as my body starts to reboot piece by piece. Bonelessly, I lie on the mattress, trying to regain my strength. I want to move, to see what’s going on, but I can’t.
All I can do is listen.
I hear the sound of flesh meeting flesh. It seems to go on and on, and the gargle of choking before silence.
I hold my breath as the heavy footfalls of boots move back towards me.
“Piper.” My name is said softly but with desperation.
I blink and when my vision clears, I see him.
Blond hair dripping down like a curtain, his brow drawn into an angry furrow, but an underlying fear in his eyes.
And blood.
Forbidden Rider: A Lost Saxons Novel #5 Page 34