***
Amy roused to discover she was lying in a soft bed with the faint glow of a night lamp shining. A stunning young woman used a warm washcloth that smelled of soap to clean her aching face. She winced at the blood on the cloth as the woman rinsed it, knowing it had come from her cheek.
The woman smiled at her. “It’s about time you rejoined the living. I was getting worried. I think it’s the drugs more that the blow to the face. However, I’m not a doctor.”
“What drugs?” she asked in a scratchy voice that didn’t sound like hers. Flashes of the scene in the alley were running through her mind and fear surfaced.
“No need to worry, they’ll soon be out of your system. We can connect you with a good drug abuse center. The Master will take care of everything and you’ll be a new person.”
The Master? A drug abuse center? Amy kept these thoughts to herself. The events of the night continued to filter into her brain. Two thoughts hit her at once. A man tried to rape her. And, she hoped it wasn’t too late to call Brian before he hit the panic button and had the entire police department searching for her.
“May I use your phone?” Amy asked, struggling to control her rising dread.
“All our phones are located on a lower floor. I can have someone called for you. Do you have family that will worry or are you trying to reach a dealer?”
Amy realized how she must appear. “I’m not who you think I am. I’m a reporter. The friend, I need you to call, is a police detective. I don’t want a city-wide alarm sounded because he hasn’t heard from me.” In spite of her weak and shaky voice, Amy felt more like herself with every minute that ticked by. Her eyes narrowed. “What happened to the guy that attacked me?” He had to be the killer of the young, nameless prostitutes? Why was she rescued when those other poor girls suffered? Were the drugs in their system because he injected them?
The journalist in her slammed the fog from her brain and began writing the story in her head. It took her a moment to realize the woman standing over her had a look of complete horror on her face. Amy actually glanced over her shoulder, to the other side of the room, before she realized the woman was staring at her and she was the cause of the woman’s fear.
The next moment, the door was thrown open and two men came in. Amy could see the hypodermic needle in the hand of one of them. The other man was her beautiful rescuer, but he moved so fast, Amy couldn’t keep up with what was happening. This time, his eyes were brown and not the amber she remembered. He held her as the other man jammed the needle into her arm. Her last thought wasn’t fear, it was, not again.
Fang Chronicles: Amy's Story Page 5