Nails In A Coffin (Demi Reynolds Book 1) (5 page)

They had put something over her head. Whatever it was, it felt rough against her skin. She couldn’t see anything. Everything around her was pitch black. Not one glimmer of light was able to make its way through the fabric. She came to the conclusion that she was wearing a bag of some sorts. Maybe a knapsack. Possibly something else. But whatever it was, it wasn’t comfortable. She was attempting to feel her way about as she walked, but both the driver and the passenger of the car were escorting her someplace. They had her arms firmly interlocked between theirs. It was a strange sensation, but it certainly worked. They were able to overpower and maneuver her easily. She didn’t have any freedom of movement. Every stride she took was planned and acted out for her. The only thing she had control of was her thoughts; the rest of her was under siege by fear and panic.

Sweat was dripping down her face. Her chin was getting dabs of the stuff as it dripped off her eyebrows and coated her nose and lips under the tight and stuffy knapsack she was wearing on her head. The sound of footsteps echoed under her. She was sure that they belonged to her and her captives. Two of them. For now.

After a couple of minutes of walking and turning, which to her mind must have occurred in some sort of hallway, they came to a halt. The man on her left, whom she guessed to be the driver of the car, put his arm out in front of her. She crashed into it, chest first. Her breasts pressed up against his bony elbow and forearm. He held his arm out for a long while, as if he was attempting to get a feel of her chest or something. She didn’t say anything. She just breathed. Everything sounded raspy under her knapsack blindfold. She heard a faint giggle from the man on her right. He was the passenger. She recognized his smell. She could smell it from under her hood. They stood there for a while, and then suddenly the sound of an opening door and footsteps filled the room. The feet were heading their way. A slight tinge of anticipation surrounded all three of them. Even her captives were stunned into silence.

She knew it could only mean one thing. Her boss, Donny the Hat, was there, and he was heading her way. She felt a cold rush of air hit her, and then milliseconds later, her hood was ripped off her head. The first thing she saw was a golden watch. It belonged to the man who’d ripped her hood off. And that was Donny. She blinked a few times and noticed him smiling. Her vision was a little off center, but she focused some more, and his smile became brighter. The creases around his eyes were deep, and his teeth were gleaming with happiness.

She had never seen him like this.

“It’s good to see you, kid,” he managed through his smile.

He always referred to her as “kid” for some reason. It wasn’t like she was that young or he was that much older. She guessed it was more to do with respect. It was a “respect your elders” thing. Maybe even a “respect your don” thing.

“Hi, Donny,” she managed to say, to her boss’s delight.

“Oh, it speaks,” he said, moving closer to her and caressing her hair. “You know, if I’d known you were such a cold-blooded cunt, then I wouldn’t have slept with you all those years ago,” he said, taking a few steps back and turning on his heels. He then seemed to disappear into the darkness and seconds later reappear with some bolt cutters. He stepped back up to her and waved the cutters around, trying to intimidate her, which wasn’t hard, seeing that she was in what seemed to be some sort of abandoned building, in the dark, surrounded by three men who could easily snap her neck. Bolt cutters or not, she knew she wasn’t getting out of there.

“I use the word ‘cunt’ a lot, don’t you think, Demi?” he said, running his left hand across the cold surface of the bolt cutters.

“I wouldn’t know, Donny. I guess everyone uses it a little,” she replied. She was at a loss as to what to say.

What do you exactly say to somebody who’s about to use bolt cutters for something other than chains?

“You can be honest, Demi. If you think I use the word ‘cunt’ a lot, then just tell me. I’m a big boy. I wouldn’t want to offend a woman in my presence.”

She stood there and blinked. The two guys stood beside her, still holding her arms on either side. One of them jabbed her in the rib with his elbow, as if to make her reply to her boss.

“I’m not offended,” she gasped, trying to suck up some air, but it was futile. Air wasn’t going into her lungs. It was as if air didn’t exist, and she had to dig deep to find some other way to stay alive. But she was still there, still breathing, if not struggling.

“Well, I suppose a woman like you wouldn’t be offended by such language. I mean, you kill men for money,” he said, still stroking the bolt cutters.

“I kill people for money,” she reiterated.

“Ah, I see,” Donny said abruptly, waving her off with his free hand. “You don’t like it when I say that you kill men for money.”

“I have no problem with that — it’s just not true,” she said.

“Oh, but it is,” Donny replied. “You’ve only ever killed men for money. All the other victims, the women, have been for other reasons. I’ve never hired you to kill a woman, have I?”

“No, but I don’t just work for you,” she said.

“I thought you did, Demi. I was under the impression that you were loyal. But I guess I was wrong about you. I guess I was wrong about women like you.”

He began to pace. The two men beside her gripped her tighter, as if they were aware that something was going to happen. They could tell when their boss was seething. They’d seen this routine many times before, so they were acclimated to his mannerisms, and they knew when he was about ready to crush whoever was in front of him.

“Women like you,” he continued, still pacing, still stroking. “Women like you are the reason men like me go bald at twenty-something. It’s women like you, Demi, who make men fat. It’s women like you who drive a man to drink. Drive a man to abusing you. Beating you.” He took a deep breath. “Killing you.”

Demi stood there and closed her eyes. She thought her time was running out and figured that at any second she’d be dead. But seconds turned into tens of seconds, which soon turned into a minute, and then she reopened her eyes and was met by another smile.

“But not yet,” Donny said, dropping the bolt cutters with a
clang
as they hit the floor. “Not yet,” he repeated.

He then turned to the man on her right and said, “Take her to the room. Keep her there. Let her stew. And when I’m ready, we’ll get this thing started.”

They did as he asked. They dragged her off. She watched as Donny carried on smiling. The farther they dragged her, the dimmer his teeth became, until they melted into the darkness.

She was kicking and screaming by then. Her will was finally broken. But she didn’t have much time to resist. The room they were talking about was only a thirty-second walk. If she knew how, she would have done something, anything, to get the upper hand. But before she knew it, she was being pushed into a dark room, eight by ten across, and the door was being slammed on her. It made a metal ringing sound as the vibrations from the force of the door echoed off the walls. She felt as if she was on a submarine. But she wasn’t.

She had no idea where she was.

Darkness is a horrible thing to endure. It surrounds you and suffocates you. It chokes you. It haunts you. And for Demi Reynolds, darkness was beating her. It was abusing her. It was messing with her head, turning her consciousness against her, mocking her, ridiculing her. Their plan was working. She was breaking. She was weak.

She didn’t know how long she’d been in there, but her best guess was ten to fifteen hours. At first she didn’t know why they were keeping her locked away. It hardly made any sense to her. She’d thought that Donny would just kill her and get it over and done with. There wasn’t any point in prolonging it. But what if there was a point? What then?

Those were the sort of thoughts that were crashing around within the confines of her skull. She was trying to work out what was going on. The formula for her captivity, as if there was some sort of equation that would give her the answers. But with all her rational thinking and logical thought processes, she couldn’t come to a conclusion that made sense.

Donny was either trying to scare her, or he was really planning on killing her. But neither of those two alternatives made sense to Demi. The man was all about power and abusing it until it couldn’t be abused any more. And for a man like that, when the day came that his power was no more, the world would have frozen over half a dozen times.

So for a man like him to play mind games with the person who killed his own brother was far from logical. Donny was known to be a loose cannon. He’d stab a guy over a spilt drink. He’d murder a hooker for grazing her teeth on his dick. He’d cut a man’s heart out for looking at his wife, let alone touching her. So for a man like him to be beating around the bush didn’t make sense.

Demi’s thought processes soon quietened down. Fifteen hours soon turned into twenty. Then twenty-four. She’d been falling in and out of consciousness. Sleep was beckoning her. It was pulling her into a deep trance of repeated sounds and echoing drips. The room she was in had its own character. It growled a certain way. Its hum was constant on her eardrums. Its personality was making itself known, forcing her to question what was real and what wasn’t. She could have sworn that the door to the room she was in was opened once or twice. A bowl of water was dropped on the floor and then taken away a few hours later. Footsteps could be heard making their way up to the door and then away from the door every twenty to thirty minutes.

They were guarding her, like a prisoner in solitary confinement. It certainly felt like the shoe, not that she had ever been to prison. It was dark and lonely. Her mind was escaping her, and she grew tired of trying to guess how long she had been in there. Sleep was all she did. At first when she awoke, she’d ignore the bowl next to her. She could smell the damp coming off it. The heat in the dark room was palpable. The water in the bowl was starting to evaporate. She attempted to deny them the satisfaction of drinking their water. But she soon succumbed. The human body does that often. It’s usually the first to fail. The brain and spirit are next, in that order. But Demi, she was different. It would take a lot to make her brain or spirit fail.

But she found herself drinking out of that bowl and feeling as if she was closer to failing altogether. They’d bring her another bowl after a while, and she’d drink that. Part of her was hoping that they laced it with poison so it could all be over with. But her wish didn’t come true, and after a while, the doors opened again and a new bowl was placed on the ground. It had two compartments, one with water and one with food.

They were keeping her alive. But she didn’t know why. She attempted to speak to the mysterious person who kept leaving her bowls of food and water, but her vocal chords were strained and paralyzed after not being used for such a long time.

The hours and days soon turned into something more. A week? Maybe two? She wasn’t sure. But by the time they opened the door one last time, they were greeted with the foul smell of faeces and urine. She had soiled herself in that room. She hadn’t even noticed.

A light came on and blinded her. A shadowy figure stood in the doorway. It didn’t move, it just remained there, still and silent until it spoke. She recognized the voice. It belonged to the driver who’d brought her to this place.

“It’s time,” he said, moving in and dragging her out of the room by force.

Demi was disorientated by the transition from darkness to light. Her eyeballs felt as if they were about to pop. She could feel the surface of her eye whites stretching, as if they were being strained by the light. She blinked a few times and the pain eased, but the smell didn’t. Demi could smell the foulness coming off her. She looked down at her front and saw smear marks of God knows what. She knew what it could be, but she dreaded to think that it actually was what she thought it might be.

The man was dragging her toward a new room. They were in a narrow hallway. The walls were metal and looked rusted. Specks of brown and yellow stained the wall. She could tell that the walls were once metallic and shone. Every few meters or so, the rust got worse, and the metal shine that once covered the walls dissolved into a derelict mesh of melted metal. The door they were approaching was large and made of steel. For the first time since she had set foot in that place, she was able to get a feel for where she was. She figured that they had taken her to an abandoned warehouse, and she was right. The place was full of warehouse paraphernalia, if there is such a thing. For instance, right next to the door was a trollies dolly. It had a box on it, half open, half shut. On the side of the box, the word “ammunition” was tattooed in big black bold letters.

“The arms warehouse,” she whispered under her breath, immediately realizing that she was audible.

The man dragging her to the room smiled at her. She looked at him and then looked back at the ground.

“Clever girl. You catch on fast. But I’m afraid it doesn’t really matter what you know now. Knowledge tends to die with the people who possess it,” the guy said, both of them reaching the big steel door.

He knocked on it and waited a second or two. A muffled voiced beckoned them inside. He held her with one arm and opened the door with the other. It creaked and protested as it swung open. A bright light blinded Demi in the face. She attempted to shield her eyes, but it was no use. She was limp and had no energy. It was a good job that the man escorting her to the bright room was holding on to her, or she feared she would have collapsed because she had no energy.

“Welcome,” a voice said from within the room. Her eyes were attempting to adjust to the light, but it was no use. They were tired and lazy. They weren’t willing to put in the work required for them to function properly.

The man shoved her into the room and closed the door. He stood next to the door, behind her, breathing heavily. He must have been a little unfit or was excited. She couldn’t work out whether he was panting for breath after dragging her to this new place or if he was reeling in excitement, like he knew something she didn’t.

“Sit down,” the voice said, emanating from a shadowy figure that was being blackened and blocked by a bright light in the middle of what looked like a desk to Demi.

She couldn’t quite see any chairs, so she sat on the floor.

“No, not on the floor. Come closer. Sit down on a chair. What are you? A kid?” the voice said.

Suddenly the man behind her picked her up with ease and shoved her forward. She nearly fell across the desk in front of her. It was large and made out of wood. It had a kerosene lamp in the middle that was blazing a hot white light into Demi’s face. But now that she was closer, she could see who was sitting behind the desk. It was Donny. For some reason, she hadn’t recognized his voice. She put it down to being in captivity for so long.

“Sit the fuck down!” Donny said.

Now she recognized his voice. It had that flair for aggression he was so well known for. She did as she was told. Felt around for a chair and found one. She plonked herself down. It was wooden and uncomfortable, but she welcomed the new sensation. It sure beat lying on a concrete floor for however long she’d done so.

“You know why you’re here?” Donny asked. His face was still partially obscured by the bright light coming from the old-style kerosene lamp that sat in the middle of the desk.

“I know you want to punish me for killing your brother,” she said, finding the sound of her voice strange. It had been a while since she’d last heard it.

“Exactly. I’m punishing you for your disloyalty,” he said, edging forward, his face that little bit more visible the closer he got to the lamp.

“I didn’t mean to kill him,” she said.

“Accidents happen, I guess,” Donny replied, moving the flaming lamp to his right. In doing so, the light and ambiance in the room shifted dramatically. Shadows moved across the room, and the whole place went a little dimmer. She could now see her boss’s face. He wasn’t sporting a very readable expression. It was blank and without emotion, which was strange, considering the situation.

“He tried to rape me,” Demi said.

He looked at her from across the desk and remained emotionless. He didn’t say anything. He just sat there and waited. Demi realized that this was her chance to explain herself. He was giving her a street-style trial. This was unheard of for him, but she knew that there was still a chance. A tiny chance, if that, but still a chance nonetheless that she would walk out of there.

Hope is a strange thing. It can spur a person to achieve the impossible, but it can also destroy a person’s ability of rational thinking. Demi was hopeful, and that meant one of two things: She’d either achieve the impossible, or she wasn’t thinking straight. It soon became clear which one applied to her.