“Fucking hell, hurry up, man! I’m gonna get tetanus or some shit from this.”

“You’re fine. All of them have clean medicals. Anyway, I got it. Here we go. Nighty night, Princess.”

There was a prick of pain in my neck, then a creeping, liquid burning, spreading under my skin.

And then, there was only darkness.

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWO Cece

“Y’all think she’s OK?”

“How the hell should I know? I don’t even know if we’re OK.”

“You know what I mean. She’s the only one who hasn’t woken up yet. She looks like she got banged up real good.”

“Hold up! I feel like I just saw her eyelids move.”

“Bullshit.”

“I swear! Dude, look! She’s totally waking up.”

Strange voices swirled around me, their words coming tantalizingly close to being understood in my foggy brain. I was tired. So tired. Everything felt heavy. Even my tongue. And especially my eyelids. There was pain, too. In my arm and my shoulder and my face.

I’m just going to sleep a little more...

“Oh, no you don’t.”

I was being shaken, now. And the words were coming in more clearly.

“This is no time for nappin’, hun. Wake up.”

Is that you, Grammy?

I forced my eyelids open, my eyes tracking left and right as I tried to focus in on the face in front of me. It wasn’t Grammy. Of course not. Idiot.

The face above me was young, maybe even a year or two younger than me, with high cheekbones and almost invisible blond brows, one of which was pierced, set over deep blue eyes. A stud in her nostril glimmered, and she had another piercing in her nose, a ring that hung down low, between her nostrils. In my confusion, I couldn’t remember the name of that kind of piercing. All I could conjure up was the image of a bull. I looked closer at her, trying to get my eyes to focus better. Though her features were lovely, delicate, even, her shaved head gave her a take-no-shit appearance, and her stormy expression could rival the anger of any bull on the planet.

“Why isn’t she answering? Maybe she hit her head.”

Huh? Had someone been asking me a question?

“Give her a minute and let her catch her breath. Dang.”

The piercings girl’s face got closer.

“Whaaat’s youuur naaaaaame?” She said slowly, dragging the syllables out. I heard someone scoff behind her.

My name? That was something I could remember.

“Celia. Cece.” My voice cracked. Damn, my mouth was dry.

“Here, give her this.”

A hand came into view, passing Piercings Girl a metal bottle which she opened and pressed to my lips.

Um. Should I really be drinking this?

I had no idea where the hell I was, or how I’d gotten there. But I was so, so thirsty.

Screw it.

I took a sip, relieved to find it seemed to be just plain old water. I took another sip before inhaling some and starting to choke, each cough sending shooting pain through my head.

“Quick, get her sittin’ up.”

Piercings Girl passed the bottle to someone else, then reached around my back, helping to pull me upright. It took a minute for the coughing and the pounding in my head to subside, and when it did, I finally raised my eyes and looked around.

I, we, were in a strange-looking room. The walls were grey, as were the floors, shining like brushed metal. I was sitting on the bottom of what seemed to be a bunk bed. There was another set of bunks directly across from where I sat, and I noticed another girl sitting there, staring at me. Her pale face had a bruise blooming along one side, and when she saw me looking, she shifted her glossy black hair to try to hide it.

“I’m Katerina. Kat for short,” the girl with the piercings, who was sitting next to me, said. She had the water bottle back and held it out to me again, and I drank, being careful not to confuse my stomach and my lungs this time. “That’s Melanie.” She pointed at the dark-haired girl across from me, who nodded stiffly.

“And I’m Theresa,” said a voice from beside me. I looked to the side, then up, to meet the gaze of another girl around my age standing next to me, leaning one elbow against the metal frame of the top bunk. Her straw-coloured hair was cut bluntly at her shoulders, and her brown eyes were looking at me kindly. Her yellow sundress looked strangely out of place in the metallic grey of the room. When I looked closer, I noticed one of the straps was ripped and hanging down by her side. As if someone had torn it. As if she’d been in a struggle.

“Here,” she said, sitting down on the mattress beside me and reaching for the water bottle.

Wordlessly, I handed it to her, and she poured a little of the liquid into her hand before moving her cupped palm up to my chin. I sucked in a breath and jerked back at the stinging sensation. She dabbed lightly at my skin, then frowned.

“Well, that didn’t do a whole heck of a lot, hun. Sorry. Nasty gash you got there.” It was only then I noticed the Southern drawl that shaped her voice. She must be American. An international student?

But wait. This definitely didn’t seem to be the University of Toronto. At least, no building I had ever seen.

“Where are we?” I croaked, gently touching my chin and wincing.

Kat snorted.

“No fucking clue, dude.”

Melanie’s mouth thinned into a grim line and Theresa shook her head.

“Yeah, none of us know. I was the first one to wake up in this here room. Then some army guys brought in Melanie, then Kat. And then you.”

“Army guys?”

What was she talking about? None of this made any sense.

“Yeah. They were wearin’ army uniforms of some kind. And they spoke English when they talked to each other. But they didn’t say anythin’ to us.”

“Are we... Are we in the US?”

“Fuck if I know,” Kat replied. “I mean, I kind of hope we are. That means we haven’t left the country yet.”

“Well, I’m from Canada, so I don’t know what that tells us,” I said with a harsh sigh.

Kat’s pale brows shot up.

“Seriously? Shit. Well, I have no clue then. The three of us are American.”

“Do you know how we got here?”

There was a series of memories flickering at the edge of my brain. I was doing everything I could to latch onto them, but they kept fluttering away.

“I woke up the soonest, and so far I remember the most,” Theresa said. “But even that ain’t a whole lot. I remember I was walkin’ home from my boyfriend’s. Well, ex-boyfriend’s. I’d just dumped his cheatin’ ass. It was late and dark, and then someone grabbed me and tossed me into a truck or a van or somethin’. Then I woke up here. And that’s all I got.”

A van.

That was just enough to click things into place. I stared down at my outfit. Running clothes.

“Yeah, I think I was out for a run. Someone grabbed me...”

Melanie nodded from across the small space.

“Yup. It’s the same story for all of us. From what we can remember. We think we were drugged.”

“Well, that would explain the memory loss and headache,” I muttered, rubbing my fingertips against my temples in small circles. I knew I should be thinking, trying to come up with a plan, trying to do something. But I just couldn’t. It was like my brain and body had just totally given up.

“Anyway, that basically brings you up to speed. You know what we know,” Kat said, scooting her hips forward then flopping back on the mattress, arms akimbo.

It didn’t feel like I had been brought up to any kind of speed. At all. It felt like I was at a total standstill.

A sudden sound at the door at the far end of the small room made us all jump. Kat immediately shimmied upright, and Theresa and Melanie both stood. I followed suit, the four of us turning to face the door as it swung inward.