“Hello?” She scowled. “Hello?” She slammed the phone down with a bang. “I hate…”
A sudden burst of static from the radio cut off Nicole’s complaint, followed by a chorus of renewed complaints from the models about a universal cell phone crash. Veronica leaned toward Nicole.
“I’ll come back…”
Nicole joined in, leaning over the counter to look at Satasha’s outstretched phone. The radio static rose to a crescendo, then turned into a shriek, almost drowning out the chatter from the models. Nicole joined in, leaning over the counter to look at Satasha’s outstretched phone.
A sudden diamond-sharp flash of light sent pain racing through Veronica’s head. Blinking, she raised a hand to her eyes, but it was too bright, too painful to even think about keeping her eyes open. Satasha, or one of the other models, was crying, a high-pitched wail that, amazingly, overrode everything else.
Then it was silent, blessedly silent. Models, radios…everything was silent. Veronica let out a breath. She needed to get the hell out of this madhouse, package or not.
She opened her eyes.
Nicole was gone. Everything and everyone was gone, the lobby, the models. The world was blue, translucent. She tried to move, but it was like floating in jelly. Panic swept through her; she didn’t know how to swim, and it felt like she was drowning. She kicked, waved her arms, but the harder she tried, the more difficult it was to move.
Finally, she was just suspended, like a bug stuck in glue, heart hammering in her chest, confused, scared. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. Blue…stuff filled her mouth, choking her. Then even the little light there was faded, and she was in the dark.
* * *
There were voices. Not from the models, but male voices. Fire and rescue, it had to be. There must have been an explosion in the building. She tried to move her arms and legs. The floating feeling was gone, but she still couldn’t move. Something was restraining her. She must be on a gurney, strapped down, being taken to the hospital. Everything was going to be okay.
She tried to open her eyes, but the lids were too heavy to lift. They must have given her something for pain. But nothing hurt. Then again, it wouldn’t if they’d given her something – a drug, perhaps. Her brain tried to make sense of what was going on. If she tried, she could just feel her fingers, but not her toes. Struggling to make a fist, she felt some sort of material under her fingers. A sheet, someone’s uniform? She pulled hard, but the fabric slipped out of her grasp.
Then it hit her; she was paralyzed. The explosion…she must have been thrown against something, landed on something. Broken her back, perhaps.
Her dark world was slowly growing colder. She was dying. And they’d left her behind.
She wanted to scream. She tried to fight against the restraints, wanted to tell them she was alive, that she was still in there, still with them. They had to listen.
“Help…” Her voice was tiny, just a whisper. It hurt to talk, but she needed to scream, to get their attention. “Please, help…”
From somewhere she heard a man’s voice, but she couldn’t understand the words. They weren’t garbled; it sounded like a foreign language. She tried to speak again, but it came out more like a whimper. The male voice spoke sharply, angrily, and then there was a bad smell and a sharp pain in her head. The world went away again.
* * *
Voices, far away. Rhythmic metal Clanking, somewhere near her head. Then voices again. Male. In a language she couldn’t understand. Somewhere she could hear an engine, hissing sounds. Like tires in the rain. It had to be a truck, she was in a truck. Or an ambulance. She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t dead, after all.
She breathed out a sigh, something like relief, but it trailed off into a ragged sob. Someone would explain things to her. She just needed to be patient.
But none of the voices sounded like they were interested in her. They sounded like they were arguing. She struggled, finally able to open her eyes. This wasn’t an ambulance. There wasn’t anything that looked like medical supplies. The walls were bare, just light blue metal, but everything swam in and out of focus.
With a huge effort, she turned her head. There was a man standing a few feet away, arguing with another man, but her vision refused to focus. But it was clear neither seemed interested in her. Then they moved out of her line of sight. There was a hiss, a soft cool breath of cool air against her cheek, and they disappeared.
“No, wait…”
Chapter Three
Veronica opened her eyes. Everything was now clear, in focus. She blinked. Everything stayed in focus. Tentatively, she wiggled her fingers, then her toes. Then lifted her arms over her head. Nothing hurt, everything seemed to work. When she brought them back down, her hand brushed against her canvas messenger bag. She closed her eyes, running her fingers over the familiar rough fabric. It was comforting, the rough fabric. At least she hadn’t lost everything. At least the messenger service wouldn’t fire her.
There was a noise to her right, and she turned her head.
One of the models, she thought it was Satasha, was sitting on a bench, sniffling as she punched forlornly at her phone. The girl’s clothes were rumpled, torn in a few places, but there didn’t look like there was any blood.
“Hey…” Veronica sat up, resting on her elbows. “Hey, are you okay?”
The girl looked at her with vacant eyes. “No bars. No reception. Nothing. The battery is almost dead.” She went back to the glowing screen of her phone.
Veronica sat up. “I meant are you hurt?”
The girl shook her head. “I’m fine. I’m not sure about them.”
It was then that she saw the other two girls on a bench further down, huddled together. They looked up at her with identical blank expressions of shock.
“Okay. Does anyone know where we are?” Veronica swung her legs over the edge of the bench. A wave of dizziness made her close her eyes for a moment. Her messenger bag fell off her lap, swinging from her shoulder by the strap. She pulled it higher on her shoulder, afraid to let go of it. “Does anyone remember anything?”
Satasha looked up with a blank stare. She was still wearing the same clothes, short skirt and skimpy blouse, but she looked rumpled, like she’d gotten undressed and dressed in the dark. Buttons were mismatched, the zipper on the side of her skirt gaped open. Veronica looked down at her clothes. They were still on the way she’d put them on at the gym. Except…her left shoe was on her right foot. Satasha finally came back from wherever she’d gone to find the answer.
“Just bits and pieces. There was like this weird sticky blue stuff all around me…I couldn’t move. I thought I was dead.” The last was delivered with another sniffle. “But then we all woke up here. You’re the last to wake up.”
“We thought you were dead.” That was from a petite red-haired girl on the bench, wedged into the corner against the wall. Her clothes had the same disheveled look. With a start Veronica realized the girl’s shirt was on backwards and inside out. “You didn’t breathe for a really long time.”
Veronica stood up, reluctantly dropping her bag on the bench. Stretching, testing her limbs, she took a few steps. Nothing hurt, but her body felt heavy, uncoordinated. She wanted to move, get oxygen into her muscles, but the room was narrow, only six feet wide or so, and barely long enough to hold the four benches lining the walls. There was nowhere to go, no room to move. The most she could do was swing her arms, but that made her dizzy, so she stopped.
“Do you know how long we’ve been here?”
The red-haired model looked up, mascara smeared under her eyes. “We don’t even know where here is. We could be anywhere. I think…” She sat forward, looking around with wild eyes. “I think we’ve been kidnapped. I heard men talking, but it wasn’t English. I read about it online.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “We’re going to be sold as sex slaves.”
Veronica wanted to laugh, tell her it was ridiculous, but something about what she said made sen
se, in a weird kind of way. These were models, after all. Pretty, great hair…great bodies. And all their clothes had obviously been removed and put back on, and in a hurry. She wasn’t sure how they’d all been yanked from the lobby of a busy New York modeling agency. But anything was possible. It was New York, after all.
“Where’s Nicole?” Veronica sat down. The seat of the bench gave underneath her weight. The models stared at her with unfocused eyes. One shrugged, the other dropped her head, sniffling.
“She wasn’t here when we…when we woke up. Just the four of us.” Satasha started to cry. “I think I saw her…but there was blood…”
“Damn it.” Nicole might have been a thorn in her side, but still. Veronica hit the bench with her fist; it gave off a metallic ring. She looked down, puzzled, then squeezed the edge. It was soft. She wrapped it with her knuckle; it was hard. She reached behind her, touched the wall. It was the same. If she hit it, it was hard, but if she touched it gently, it gave way beneath her touch. Wherever they were, this was some strange high-tech stuff. Maybe foreign, or military. But why would the military want pretty girls from a modeling agency? Or her, for that matter.
Abruptly, Veronica stood up, swinging her arms, taking three long strides, coming up against the narrow end of the room. She looked up, ran her hand around the corners of the wall. It felt solid, no seams, no nails or screws. Or hinges. She turned, walked to the other end of the room, checked out that wall. Nothing. The walls of the room were perfectly smooth.
“I don’t think this is a semi…”
“How would you know? You’re just a bike messenger.”
She turned around. The red-head was glaring at her with a look that Veronica recognized. Fueled by fear, the girl was ready to fight, for whatever reason, at the first sign of a challenge.
“Look…what’s your name?” Veronica sat down, tried to look less threatening. The girl stared at her. “Your name?”
“Emily.” The edge faded from Emily’s voice. “Emily Gallagher.”
“I’m Veronica Maxwell.”
“Okay.” Some of the tension left Emily’s shoulders. “Sorry about…before.”
“No problem. I don’t know that this isn’t a semi…or if it is.” She shrugged. “I’m just trying to figure this out.”
Veronica nodded at the girl sitting beside Emily. She hadn’t said anything. “Is she okay?”
Emily poked the girl. She lifted her head, stared vacantly at Emily. “I’m hungry.”
“Her name’s Marcelle. She’s French.”
Unsure what to do with that information, Veronica smiled at the girls. “I’m hungry too.” Reaching for her messenger bag, she started pulling out the contents. “I have some food, snacks mostly. But it’s something.”
“I have water.” Satasha pulled a plastic water bottle out of her huge leather purse clutched under her elbow. “Almost a full bottle. And…” She dug around in the bottom. “I have gum, some diet pills…” She came up with her wallet, held it out to Veronica.
“I still have this. Everything’s still inside. Driver’s license, money…social security card.”
Veronica reached into her bag. In the pocket on the side was her wallet. She didn’t have a driver’s license—no need—but she had her state ID, pocket money. Library card. Nothing was missing either. She dropped the wallet back into her bag.
“That means it wasn’t a robbery, right?” Satasha sat forward. “And it can’t be a sex slave thing or they’d have taken our identification.”
Emily leaned toward Veronica, her voice low. “I don’t think anything...happened. You know? I mean, I don’t...feel like anything happened. No sex, I mean.”
Veronica nodded. Truthfully, she didn’t think anything had happened either, but how could they be sure?
“I don’t think anything happened either.”
Satasha groaned, and then pointed to Emily. “But, she’s dressed inside out.”
That brought a fresh wave of tears from Satasha, and a very disapproving look from Veronica. It probably hadn’t been the most subtle way to tell someone they’d been undressed. Food was easier to talk about.
“So who else has something to eat or drink?”
“I have water, too.” Emily sniffled and held up a silver water bottle. She shook it. “It’s almost gone.”
Marcelle just shook her head.
Veronica dumped her bag on the bench. A can of pepper spray rolled away, and she grabbed it, shoving it back in the bag. “I have half a sports drink, three nutrition bars, and half a banana.” She held up the fruit in a plastic bag. “Let’s split the bars and the drink…” She held out one of the nutrition bars.
Satasha cringed, pulling away like she was being offered a rattlesnake. All three girls were looking at her with varying degrees of horror. The impulse to look behind her for something was overwhelming. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw there was nothing. Then she turned back to the girls.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Do you know how many calories there are in one of those?”
Seriously? “Now isn’t the time to be worrying about that.” She was still holding the bar, and Satasha was still pulling away. Veronica shrugged. “Okay. If you change your mind…”
She stashed the food, and then ate the banana, washing it down with a swallow of sports drink. Until then, she hadn’t realized how thirsty she was. She should really save this…but it was gone before she even realized it. And she was still thirsty. How long had they been here? How long had she been out?
She glanced at her watch, but the dial was smashed. “Satasha? Can you tell what time it is? Or what day?”
Satasha clutched her cell phone, shaking her head. “I’m saving the battery life.”
“Yeah, I get that, but I want to know how long we’ve been out.”
Reluctantly, Satasha turned on her phone, staring at the screen. In the faint glow, her face looked haggard. Veronica wondered what she looked like. Probably a mess.
“I think it’s been more than a day. Maybe almost two.” Flipping the phone shut, she shrugged, then flashed Veronica a startlingly normal smile. “I’m really bad with dates and times. Really bad.”
“Okay.” She smiled back. It felt good to smile, let off some of the tension. “Me, too, sometimes. I get that.”
“So…what do we do?”
“I don’t know.” It was hard to say that. Harder than she wanted to admit. She always knew what to do, had always known what to do, most times anyway, but there was no opponent here, no one on the other side of the ring. Not even a heavy bag to direct punches at. Even when her parents had died, she’d had tangible things to do: taking care of their estate, finding a place to live. Dropping out of college. There had been lists of things to do, to check off, but here she was, fighting blind.
“Yeah…I don’t know what to do.”
Veronica settled back against the wall. Whatever this was, she was way out of her depth. As hard as it was to feel so helpless, she was just going to have to wait for someone—or something—to show up to fight.
Chapter Four
“Veronica…”
She’d been sitting up, leaning against the wall, clutching her messenger bag, but she must have dozed off. A dull hunger headache had started behind her eyes, and she’d closed them for just a minute, trying to make it go away. She opened her eyes. Satasha was staring at the narrow end of the room. “What…?”
“Noises…someone’s outside…men.”
There was a hiss, and then a metallic Clank and a whoosh. The end of the room slid open, revealing darkness. As she peered into that dark, a man stepped out of it, and into the subdued light of the blue metal room. Every cell in her body came to life, adrenaline surging through her. Sliding the strap of her bag over her head, she pushed it away from her, got it out of the way. She could take him, she knew it. She just needed the right chance, the right opportunity. First, she had to know who she was up against.
Standing, feet set wide, w
eight back, she faced the stranger. “I want to know…”
He tried to slap her, but missed, instead knocking her backward as she scrambled out of his reach. She’d seen the flash in his eyes, a moment before he lashed out. She twisted, rocked back, and escaped the blow. The sudden fear, however, echoed through her chest, a wave of nausea rising up. She took a deep breath, and held her ground.
The man looked like he wanted to give it another shot. He was snarling, showing several gaps where his teeth should be. Out of habit, instinct, her hands curled into fists. The man’s snarl turned into a grin; he raised his hands, curling them into fists, just like hers.
“Come get it, bitch.” The words were English, but the accent wasn’t. But she didn’t have time to play nationality roulette at the moment.
“Stop.”
Veronica never took her eyes off the man, but he lowered his hands just a fraction of an inch, his eyes flickering away from hers, to the voice behind him. She swung hard, hitting him in the jaw. His head rocked back, then he turned, still wearing that damned grin.
It was like hitting a piece of iron. Pain shot from her knuckles to her shoulder, and then her whole arm went numb. She gasped, dropped her hand. The man spat a gobbet of bloody spit at her feet.
“Enough, Samuel. Get…back.” The man grabbed him by the shoulder, and Samuel took a step away from Veronica. “And you, sit.” The man took a step toward Veronica. She backed away, until she felt the bench against the back of her knees. Then she sat.
From her seat on the low bench, in the cramped space, the men looked like giants. At a quick estimate, she’d have put all two of them well over six feet tall. They were both well muscled, not like body builders, but like men who had muscles for a reason. If she had to guess, she’d say military, by their bearing, and the clothes. They wore what looked like fatigues, worn, dark gray, but with strange gray mesh padding on the knees and shoulders.
Dark Side Of The Moon (BBW Paranormal Were-Bear Shifter Sci-Fi Romance) Page 2