(Blood and Bone, #2) Sin and Swoon (9 page)

8. The dugout

 I
remember very little, but I know I fell asleep in the black oblivion, and when I wake I’m still in it. Only I don’t feel like I’m in the Jeep.

I’m somewhere else.

The air is thick and cold—heady, if that’s a possible trait for air. I feel as though I exhale and then inhale the very same air. My lips hurt when I open my mouth. I honestly don’t know what to think.

My eyes fuzz in and out, unable to catch one thing to focus on here in the dark. I shiver and lie back on whatever surface I am on. My fingers come back to me, finding their senses in the black, and discovering a blanket. I brush my fingertips across it, feeling the soft fuzzy cloth and wishing I were home with my cat.

The ache in my body and the apparent swelling on my face have me frightened.

I roll over, griping and groaning as pain shoots through me.

We must have had an accident.

I must have fallen asleep and we crashed.

But where am I?

Something moves in the dark, but I sense it’s behind something or in another room. I feel like I am alone in here, and the space is small.

Is it a hospital?

My insides clench, sending me on my side and then off the bed I didn’t even realize I was on. I land with a painful thud on a strange-feeling floor. My fingers grasp the surface, tickling almost until I recognize it as straw. I’m in a room with hay.

Not a hospital. Unless it’s an animal hospital. Did he carry me here, and this was all he found on the way? Where is he, Rory Guthrie? His name isn’t Derek.

I lift one hand, breathing raggedly, and touch the bed. It too feels like straw beneath the blankets. I force myself up, pushing with my hands and legs until I am finally standing on wobbly feet and rubber legs. It’s like having been on a boat all day and then staggering up the dock.

“Hello!” I croak into the dark. I’m not afraid of what’s here with me. I am afraid of being here alone.

“Shhhhhhhhhh. It’s all right. Don’t panic.” The woman’s voice is one I don’t know, but I don’t care. I’m not alone. I stumble to the wall, running my hand along the cool surface. It’s wood, I think, but damp wood.

“Are you a nurse? Or a tech? Is this an animal hospital? Can you help me?” I call out to the woman. “I think I’m hurt, pretty badly. I think we might have been in a car accident. My boyfriend, Rory, is he okay? Is he here?”

She giggles, nervously. It’s a strange sound to hear in the dark when you’re scared. She sounds crazy. “He’s my boyfriend too, and because of him we’re all hurt. But survival is staying silent. When Rory comes, just lie there and don’t fight him. The ones who fight don’t last.”

Tears stream from my cheeks instantly. “What?” The word is more of a ghastly whisper and less of a question. “Where are we? Can you hear me? Are you talking to me? Can you just open the door? My boyfriend is named Der— Rory, has he been here?”

“Oh, he’s been. He’s been and gone. He’s the one who locked you up, you idiot. He’s gone most of the time. When he comes back we do what he wants, and it gets better. We all start in the dugout, but now I have a full room. And he’s not so bad. Just don’t make him mad.”

Another voice joins the conversation. “You have to be quiet. I’ve heard him moving about today since he brought her. He’ll be down here soon. We have to be quiet.”

I slap the wooden wall. “What is this place? Rory! You let me out! If this is some kind of fucking joke, it’s not funny!”

A voice that hasn’t spoken yet, but is very close to me, whispers harshly from a crack in the dark wall. “This is hell, and we are his. Just do everything he asks and be everything he asks. There’s no escape. Only madness. He’s locked you up like he did all of us. This is a prison, you understand?”

“No.” I lift a finger to the corner where her face is and feel her breath as she continues.

“My name is Be— Jane. My name is Jane. I came here six months ago, I think. But I can’t be sure. What’s the date?”

My brain pauses, fully frozen, to try to answer her. “March 22, I believe.”

“2014?”

I shake my head. “15.”

A soft sob slips from the crack in the wall. “Oh God, of course it is. I’ve been here since last May. Nearly a year.” Her voice breaks, and for a second I think she might fully cry. But she doesn’t. She accepts it and moves on almost immediately. It’s creepy and not very reassuring. It’s much more a sign of what is to come for me than I think I can comprehend.

“I was in a car with my boyfriend. And now I’m here.”

“A Jeep?” she asks softly, her delicate word ripping a huge hole in my stomach and heart.

“Yes.”

She whimpers again, but it sounds like a laugh. “He’s the best boyfriend ever, isn’t he?” She giggles again, but it’s as if someone is dragging a knife down her arm, forcing the pained giggle out. “Until he’s not and you’re here.”

“Where are we?” My throat is dry and coarse.

“I don’t know. It’s underground—I know that. But there is nothing else. No water dripping, no traffic, no noise whatsoever. It’s just us and silence and him. But he’s not here all the time.” Her voice is so familiar, like it’s been inside of my head.

I immediately know where we are. We’re at his cabin. The dank air doesn’t smell the same in here as the crisp air outside, but I know that’s where we are. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. “Has anyone ever escaped?” I whisper back into the corner, feeling my own breath landing back on me.

“I don’t know. A couple of the girls have been here longer than me. Some have left, but not ’cause they escaped.”

I don’t want to talk anymore. I need to find a way out. I rifle my pockets for my phone, but it’s gone, so I lift my hands and run them along the walls the whole way around. I am truly in a dugout. It’s a room surrounded by dirt and wood, and the floor is straw the entire way. My brain tries to whisper things about bugs and the stuff I can’t see, but I don’t let it. I sit back on the bed and wait. He will come, and I will kill him.

“You have food in the corner at the end of the bed. It’s in a bar fridge next to the toilet. There is food and water there.” The girl, Jane, whispers, “The light can be a friend in the dark.”

I scramble to the end of the bed, feeling for the fridge. I had noticed the toilet on my circle around.

And there it is. I fling the door open, flooding the dark space with light. As my eyes adjust I am surprised by what I find. It’s much nicer than I anticipated. Much.

It’s cleaner and less like a dug hole in the ground. More like a cellar. The ceiling is cement, perhaps the oddest part of the room, and the floors are cement with straw covering them. Some of the walls are wooden, and others are old cement that’s broken down and looks a bit like dirt. The bed is stacks of hay with blankets over the top, and the small white bar fridge is my only company. The crack where Jane whispers from is in one of the cement-and-dirt walls. The cracks are decay. In the dim light I can see her dark eyes in the shadows. I might not have seen the color if not for the ghastly state of her pale skin. She is white like I have never seen. Gray almost. When she leans in I can see she has different-colored eyes. One is dark blue and the other pale. She blinks and backs up, making them both appear dark again. Her face changes in the shadows, making me think I have seen her before, and then maybe not.

“The food gets refilled when he comes, so it’s feast or famine, but he always comes.” Her puffy lips are cracked and sore. She looks exhausted and hollow. Her oddly colored eyes reflect only blankness.

“Do I know you?” I ask, thinking I can’t help but feel like this Jane has crawled around inside of my head.

She shakes her head slowly. “I don’t think we have ever met. I’d remember.”

I shrug. “What does he do with us here?”

A single tear slips down her cheek, washing away filth and leaving an even whiter streak of skin that glows in the muted light. “He will bathe you, show you how much he loves you.” She cringes. “Then he bathes you again and puts you back in the cell. Sometimes he makes us put on dresses and dance with him. Other times, when he thinks one of us has misbehaved or we’ve talked too much, he beats one of the girls, and we all have to hear it.” Her expression tightens a slight bit. “Try not to be that girl.”

I close the fridge and let the darkness rush back in. I don’t want her to see me lose my self-control. Even if it is a useless cry for help, I make it as silent as I can.

9. Handsome Prince Nutbag

 I
am still sore and frightened I have a UTI. I had one when I was a young teenager, and now it feels as though I have another. Being locked away and abused randomly has damaged more than my spirit. We sit in the dark and wait for him to pick us, frightened by either outcome. The suspense of possibly being chosen each time he enters the dungeon is horrifying, but it is nothing compared to the moment his fingers clasp the lock on your door. In the silent suspense, the sound of your lock clicking can drive you to madness.

Today it was my lock, my madness.

I blink away the remains of the drugs he filled me with. He does it every time he takes us out of our cage. I sit up and find my way to the fridge. It helps metabolize the drugs if we eat straight away.

The girl in the room next to mine stands at the crack in the corner of our shared wall that we have picked at, making it a little bigger day by day. Her face is odd, almost like she’s Asian, but I can tell she isn’t. She’s pretty, though I suspect we are all pretty in one way or another. I swear I have seen her before, though—as if she’s been my best friend or something so close I can’t help but know her better than I know myself.

“So he gave you the spiel about being a cop or whatever? That you were in danger?”

I nod, eating the packet of cheese I’ve just grabbed from the fridge. It’s not the best cheese, but after a while you get used to it. The fridge is loaded with healthy food. Sometimes I just want a piece of chocolate.

“The worst part for me is I nearly got away. He tried his bullshit, and I tried to run, but he caught me and knocked me out. A lady saw me trying to get away. I just remember how wide her eyes went when she saw him hit me. It was the last thing I saw.”

I pick at the cheese with my newly cleaned hands and nod. “I was an idiotic fool. I fell for his story right away. I liked him.” It makes me feel dirty now. The feel of his breath is like poisonous vapors. His skin is sandpaper against mine, stripping and sanding away the layers of dignity and respect. Even boundaries I worked my whole life putting up are knocked down.

“We were all idiots. And we are paying for our sins now.”

I give her a look. “I don’t think any of us ever did a single thing to deserve this. I know we didn’t.”

She shrugs, leaning against the wall. I can barely make out her shoulders through the thin crack. “One day we will be out of here, and it will all be a bad dream. A nightmare we share.”

A slow and bitter grin slides across my lips. “We can all do a talk show about how we’re survivors.”

She parts her lips to speak, but there is a noise we don’t expect, not so soon. He has only just left me. My insides twist and turn. Jane reaches a hand out to me. I close the door to the fridge so the light dies. I jump up and grip her fingers. “It’s okay, Ash. Be strong and remember the smell of your mother and the feel of rain on your face.” She says the thing I have told her that I miss the most. I was so tired of the rain that never seemed to end this year, and yet I would die happy if I felt it on my face again.

Tears stream on my cheeks as we hear the outer door open followed by his footsteps, bold and purposeful footsteps. They stomp across the gravel floor of the main hallway, taunting us as they pass the horse stalls, each filled with girls of every flavor.

We have discussed it once. Calling out what we look like in turn. Some are blonde and others are brunettes and one girl is a redhead. All Caucasian, which we know is most likely because Rory is a Caucasian. We all weigh around 120 pounds and are all about five foot five. Here in the dark we are all unnaturally pale.

He has a type, and we are it.

Now we sit in the darkness, each waiting for the sound of our doorknob and lock to click, each silently praying it is not our turn. We betray those girls closest to us, wishing horrors upon them instead of ourselves. When it comes down to it, human nature means we will all betray one another to survive. It’s the basest instinct we have, survival.

The echo of his footsteps could drive you mad in the dark, if you weren’t already there. But the sound of a doorknob being manipulated is worse than a blade slicing through the air.

When a lock rattles and it isn’t mine, I exhale my hurried breath, realizing how desperate I am for air, even this dank air.

The girl in that cell, I think the redhead, starts to sob. She’s newer, like me. She still cries every time, like me.

“Princess, are ya so happy to see me rescue ya from the evil prison that ya weep?” he asks in his full Irish accent, no longer hiding it from us. He closes and locks the door behind him until he gets his needle and injects her with the tranquilizer.