12. Twelve
Twelve
Amara
I woke up with a pounding headache and a shooting pain in my hand. I immediately looked for Enzo. He was hurt too. I thought he had a broken rib. Then my stomach sank, and I remembered it was a dream. He wasn’t here in the cabin with me. Shit. It had felt real. I pushed up with good hand and moved my feet to the floor slowly. I couldn’t get my bearings. I couldn’t shake the conversation I had with Enzo in the dream. I shook my wrist and wiggled my fingers, trying to get sensation back.
I took a deep breath of hot air. The damn radiator had started hissing again. I had no idea what time it was. I wanted to see Luka’s eyes. His grin. Hear his sexy voice say he was back with tons of food. My stomach rumbled at the suggestion of eating anything. I’d pay a hundred dollars for a croissant right now.
I closed my eyes reliving bits and pieces of the dream. I couldn’t put all the parts together. It was blurry and fading from my consciousness like a wafting fog drifting through the cabin. God, he had looked terrible in the dream. His five o’clock shadow was starting to show. The dark circles under his eyes made it seem like he hadn’t slept at all.
“Where are we? Who put us here?” I asked him, feeling the hysteria in my chest. I didn’t want Enzo to see it or recognize it, but it was harder to push it down. We had been in the cabin for over a day at that point. “Why? Why the hell are we still here?” I ran my fingers through my hair. I was still wearing the silk suit from the office meeting with Luka. I felt dirty. Exhausted. It looked as if someone had dragged me through the mud. Even my knees were caked in dirt.
“Do you have any idea where we are or how long we’ve been here?” I pressed Enzo. I wanted answers.
Enzo rested his hands on his knees. “I’m not sure. I woke up not long before you. I haven’t seen or heard anyone.” He made the same scan of the room as I did.
“The heat,” I groaned. “Did they leave us any water?”
Enzo searched the cabinets. “Found it.” Enzo grabbed two bottles out of the small refrigerator, twisted off the caps, and handed one to me. I drank greedily.
Whoever had left us here, dropped us on the floor and took off.
“The door?” I lowered the bottle from my lips.
Enzo shook his head. “I tried it.”
The windows were boarded up. “Are any of the boards loose?”
“I didn’t find any, but there’s nothing in here. I don’t know what we could use.”
Neither of us were survivalists. Enzo had a degree in accounting and marketing, and I was a mafia queen.
“Shit.” I whispered more to myself than to illicit a response.
“I don’t know why I thought I could just get out of New Orleans. Start over.” Enzo hung his head. “It was never going to happen.”
“You still can leave with her. We’ll get out of here.” He couldn’t give up this easily. Not this soon.
“Do you think they have Katya too?” His eyes landed on mine.
“Oh God. You think this is about you two?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” He seemed startled. “This is exactly what we were worried about. This. Being discovered. It has to be the reason we’re here now.”
I cleared my throat and took another sip of water. “It could be,” I admitted. “Or you could have been in the wrong place. There’s no way to know until we hear the demands. Enzo, this could be a deal gone bad at work. You know that.”
“But Katya.” He was panicked. “Oh God, Katya,” he whispered.
“I’m sure she is fine,” I tried to reassure him. “We have to figure out as much as we can from inside this cabin so we can get out of here.” There was a sliver of fear that she was also wrapped up in this. Would one of the organizations hurt a pregnant woman? Had the families fallen so far into a dark hole we had become unrecognizable?
“I agree, but how?”
“Let’s start in one corner and work our way around the room,” I suggested.
“What are we looking for?” Enzo helped me to my feet. The room began to sway as I tried to get my bearings on wobbly feet. The water made me feel hungry. My stomach growled.
“Anything. Everything. Maybe there is something in here that would at least tell us who owns this place.” It was wishful thinking, or resourceful. It kept us occupied. It gave us a tiny scrap of control. At least the illusion that there was something we could do to get out of here.
“I wonder if we’re in the city.”
“We’ll get out of here,” he assured me.
“How?” I knew he didn’t have the answer, but I asked anyway.
“I know we will. No one would go to all this trouble just to lock us up in a cabin to die. That doesn’t make sense, does it?”
I exhaled. I wanted his argument to be true. I didn’t want to leave Luka this way. He was searching for me. I knew he was. If he never found me. If this was how it ended, he wasn’t going to forgive himself. I didn’t want this kind of ending for either of us, but especially for him to have to live with that kind of guilt.
The dividing wall to the bathroom was nothing more than a sliding sheet of plywood. There was a toilet in the corner and a sink attached to the wall. I closed it behind me and ran the water. When I emerged a few minutes later Enzo was trying to pry the boards off the windows.
“I don’t think it’s going to suddenly work,” I advised. He was breaking out in a sweat.
He huffed. “Maybe it will one of these times.”
“Bathroom’s open,” I announced.
“Thanks.” He stepped away from the window and walked past me. I took his place at the window and started using my body weight to pull against the planks.
It took more than one tug, but I was finally able to pry a board free. I looked out the window, trying to figure out where in the hell we were. This cabin felt familiar, as if I knew it and it was completely different.
“What? How did you do that?” He stared at the board on the floor. “But good work. I think I loosened them up.”
I groaned. “Does it matter?”
“Now that the window is open we can signal. Someone can find us.”
“Enzo, there is no traffic out there. This cabin is remote. For a good reason. It’s not as if someone is going to walk by and hear us. That would be stupid. Utterly ridiculous. Do you know how dumb that sounds? Do you even hear yourself right now? What are you thinking?” I was exasperated with him. Did he have to be optimistic all the fucking time?
“Hey, hey. I’m sorry.”
My hands had begun to shake. I didn’t realize just how harsh I sounded until I saw the look on Enzo’s face.
“I-I didn’t mean that, Enzo. I don’t know why I said it that way. I’m the one who is sorry.”
He moved from the window. “Hey, it’s not easy being stuck in here and not knowing when we’ll get out. I don’t blame you. It’s okay. You’re just letting off steam.”
“Still. I shouldn’t have said it that way.”
“We’re both frustrated. And hungry,” he added. “But they should bring a tray down soon. They do it like clockwork.”
I blinked. “What?” The fear rippled in my chest. I must have misheard what he said.
“You know, the guy who leaves the tray at the bottom of the stairs.”
I shook my head, realizing, the cabin had morphed into part of the basement. There was a staircase where the kitchen table used to be. The staircase. And cement walls replaced the wood paneling. I turned to tell Enzo something about this prison I recognized. I needed him to know it was the same kidnapper. It had to be. We were in the basement. I knew this place well. When I turned he was gone. Vanished.
God, the nightmare was different now. It had come back stronger.
I pushed off the bed, aware of how tender my head was from the headache. The pounding hadn’t eased much. I waited a second to get my bearings before trying to take a step. I didn’t like feeling dizzy on top of everything else.
The door handle rattled, and I saw the deadbolt twist.
This time I ran straight toward it.