He leaves me there, and when the door shuts behind him, my body sprawls limp like a puppet with its strings cut. I breathe deeply, cherishing every second that I’m no longer under his questioning. My face throbs. I close my eyes, not wanting to look down and see what parts of me are on display through my disheveled clothes.

When the door opens again though, I snap taught in preparation for what’s coming. But it’s not the masked man here to question me. It’s the woman. The one I can only assume lives here and wishes she was never dragged into this. The one that won’t help me.

Raven-haired, willowy, and severe, she looks young, younger than I am, but she wears a cold glare that ages her flawless face. “I’m untying your hands so you can eat, but before you get any ideas there’s three men out there.”

“I’m not going to try and hurt you,” I tell her. She doesn’t look convinced, but she approaches with a paper plate topped with a sandwich and a handful of chips. After setting it down on the bed, she helps me stand up and then unties my arms.

She steps back and watches me carefully as I pick up the plate. I don’t hesitate to scarf it down. I’m hungry as anything, and the pain screaming in my face isn’t going to stop me from devouring this food.

“I’m Ella,” I say, once I’ve come up for air.

“I heard you the first time,” she says.

I nod, taking another bite. I guess she’s not planning on replying with her own name. She doesn’t want to help me. Maybe she’s as trapped by these assholes as I am somehow.

My voice shakes as I whisper, “What do they want from me?”

Her stony expression falters for a moment. Does she feel pity for me? Anything?

“Just tell him what he wants to hear,” she says. “He thinks he’s doing a service to the fucking universe by un-brainwashing you.”

“What do they think this is going to prove?” I sigh before shoving more of the sandwich in my mouth.

The woman shakes her head. “Stop trying to rationalize it. They’re assholes, plain and simple.”

I turn to her and plead with my eyes. “I can help you. There’s someone coming for me, and when he’s here we can help you get away from them.”

It’s a desperate plea, and as soon as I see her incredulous expression, I know I won’t get through to her.

“You’re an idiot,” she snorts. “No one knows where you are. No one is coming here. If you think you’re fucked… Once they’re done with you, they’ll leave you somewhere and you’ll go back to your regularly scheduled programming. Me? This is my life. I’m stuck forever. So shut your mouth about things you don’t understand.”

She’s awfully confident in the statement that no one is coming here, but I know Kila is looking for me. I know it more certainly than I know my own name. He’s the kind of man that crawls across a desert to survive. He’s the kind of man that clings to the under-carriage of a bus just to eat dinner with me. And even though I didn’t say ‘I love you’ back, he’s the kind of man that won’t stop until he finds me.

Before I can reply, the door bursts open again. It’s my masked friend.

“We gotta go, stat. Got word there was a van outside the compound,” he tells the girl. “Not government. Turned around and headed this way. I shouldn’t need to tell you that we were never here.”

My heart stops. I know it’s Kila.

“Whatever,” the girl is saying, contempt pouring off of her.

Then the man reaches for me and I twist away. My arms are free now, and I hop backwards on my shaky bound legs. He stalks toward me, furious. The girl doesn’t lift a finger to help him, and instead takes the paper plate out of the room like she can’t be bothered with either of us.

“I don’t have time for this,” he says. “And I’ll make you pay for it later.”

I slide my hand behind my back and grab for the hair-spray bottle that’s been wedged in my ass cheeks all night. As he lunges for me, I shoot out my arm and spray wildly in the direction of his face. He lets out a shout of surprise and anger, but I don’t wait for a moment. I elbow him in the balls and hop like my life depends on it. I hop into the hallway. Once glance to the right and I can see the woman’s back heading towards a living room area. She looks over her shoulder at me, then looks away. I hop in the opposite direction, where a door awaits me just down the hall.

It’s my only opportunity. I’m slow-moving in this state, and it won’t take long for my masked torturer to get up. And he’ll be pissed. I grab for the door, and sure enough, as I’m slamming it shut I can see him in the door-frame of the room where I was being held.

I lock the door. My eyes start searching the room frantically. It’s a laundry room. My first instinct is to grab the nearest piece of furniture and shove it up against the door. It turns out to be a table topped with unfolded clothes, which slide onto the floor when I throw my body weight behind the act of bolstering the door.

Just in time, the knob jiggles and I hear my captor shouting at me from the other side. He pounds on the door so hard that it shakes.

As I scan the place, my eye catches on a glint of metal— scissors. Yes.

I grab them from a cup of scrubbers and screwdrivers and triumphantly hack at the zip-ties that are binding my legs together. Behind me, the door shakes so hard that I hear a heart-stopping cracking sound. He’s about to break the thing down. But I have legs now. Legs and weapons. I shove the screwdrivers in my pockets and keep the scissors clutched in hand. There’s a small, high window in here and the sight of it makes me want to scream with joy.

I hop on top of the dryer unit and kneel on it, eliciting a metallic moan from the machine. I get to work popping up the sash lock and throwing it open, but when I check over my shoulder, I see that the door has been busted off the hinges. My masked buddy is trying to cram himself through the opening, pushing the table as he goes. I rip the screen of the window with my scissors and throw myself through, not bothering to carefully pop out the screen altogether.

It seems I’ve been in a split-level house, so I am belly crawling through a bed of mulch as soon as I am halfway through the window. My ears perk at the sound of a tires on gravel, and the hum of an engine approaching.

“Where are you going, bitch?” the angry voice from inside sends a shot of adrenaline pulsing through my system. He grabs my feet and tries to haul me back inside. I claw at the grass for purchase and stab my scissors into the earth to hold onto for leverage.

I kick wildly as I scoot farther and farther from the window, pulling one leg from his grip. I am so close. My shoe pops off, and the release of his weight on my leg propels me forward— I am scrabbling, crawling, and wiggling until I can pick myself up.

I stumble, just getting a bearing on my new surroundings, but the first thing I see is a man I don’t recognize. He’s coming right for me with a look of determination. I start to run but he tackles me, laying me out like a linebacker. The air is knocked out of me. As I sputter, my new problem starts to try and pick me up. I grip my trusty scissors in hand and stab the first body-part I can see. He shrieks and drops me, but it’s not a long-lived victory. He knocks the scissors from my hand and punches me in the stomach. I double over, tired of all the pain and running low on energy.

The sound of an opening car door fills me with hope and desperation all at once. I don’t know if it’s really him, but I scream at the top of my lungs, “KIIILAA!”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 24

KILA

“We’re being followed,” Vala says as we round a corner at top speed.

“You are driving like a maniac,” Kiva shouts as he knocks against the interior wall of the door. Pakka and Mori have braced themselves against the ceiling, contrastingly un-flustered by the turbulence.