Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
BAILEY - BEFORE
Unrecognizable voices pull me from unconsciousness.
Deep and grating against my throbbing skull.
I crack my eyes open but can’t see a thing.
There’s nothing but pitch-black. Something’s covering them, my nose, my mouth.
It’s a thick fabric blocking out any trace of light.
I know I can breathe but can’t seem to pull the air into my lungs.
I try to move my arms but they’re heavy and tightly bound. Some kind of restraints bite into my wrists.
Oh God.
Reality slams into me, the memories coming back like light beams through fog. The club, waiting alone on the curb, the black car, the stranger’s face before everything went dark.
“Help!” I attempt to cry out, but my throat is raw. My voice is no louder than a whisper. “Help me.”
The words are barely audible even to my own ears, but I have to try, have to make someone hear me before—
The voices are closer, and I freeze, holding my breath as footsteps approach. Panic tightens my chest, my already heavy limbs shake, but I steel myself. I’ll hold it together, figure out where I am, who has taken me.
“We’re moving her tonight. I don’t care what he said.” Whoever it is sounds tired, like his last nerve is frayed.
“But—”
He lets out a long breath.“I’m not in the mood, Yuri. We don’t answer to him, despite what he believes. Get the van ready and call Ace. You’ll pick up the others on the way.”
The others?
I don’t have time to think, to move, to scream before heavy footsteps reach the space around me.
I can almost hear his bones creak as he bends, his breath close enough that I smell the alcohol escaping his lips as he sighs.
“You’re awake.” Not a question, but an observation.
I stiffen, keeping my mouth closed tightly. “Would you like some water?”
I don’t want anything from him, I just want to go home.
The air shifts around me as he stands, stepping far enough away that I release the breath I’d been holding. If I could see. Move my arms. Then maybe I could figure out how to get out of this. I test moving my legs. They feel weighted down and tingly but I think I could walk.
A sound—maybe a twist of a water bottle, a cap being flung against the hard floor. Then he’s there, lifting the rough fabric away from my mouth. I suck in a breath, not caring that I’m swallowing his scent too. He brings the water bottle to my lips and tips it back. “Drink.”
I don’t have a choice. The second the cool liquid hits my lips, I gulp it down greedily. I shiver as it spills onto my chin and drips down my chest. It’s only now that I realize I’m freezing. My damp dress clings to my skin and legs are bare against the cold floor.
“That’s good, Bailey. Drink more,” he orders. And I do. My throat feels less raw with each sip.
He knows my name. Do I know him? Someone from campus, maybe? Could this be a terrible prank gone wrong?
Or is this an act of kindness before brutality? Some kind of penance from a monster? He must need to keep me alive and well for whatever he has planned next.
He takes the water away and pulls the cloth back down. My claustrophobia makes me feel like I’m dying.
“Please,” I rasp. My voice comes out less gravelly, but my throat is still sore. Not as painful as my head though. “What—what do you want?”
No answer, just a slow emptying of his lungs. “Do you need to use the bathroom?”
I haven’t even fully assessed my body, but this could be a chance to escape. I nod, and the movement sends a pulse of pain behind my eyes that has me biting back a whimper.
Without another word, he lifts me by the waist, hauling me onto my wobbly feet. Positioning himself behind me with his hands on my shoulders, not tight, almost gently, like the time my dad had me close my eyes as he led me into the garage to show me my new bicycle.
“Walk, and don’t try anything.”
The first step I take is painful, like pins and needles.
I stumble but his grip tightens, holding me upright.
Our footsteps echo against what must be concrete, bouncing through the space around us.
I focus on the sounds, trying to piece together where I am.
Each noise travels too far, like we’re in some giant empty room. A warehouse, maybe.
My pulse pounds as he guides me forward. There’s a change in the ground, the sounds, even the air smells different here. Thicker, like sweat and metal.
“Three steps up,” he says flatly. I lift my feet carefully, testing each step before moving up.
He holds me still, and I hear the squeal of hinges.
“It’s a bucket,” he says. “I’ll loosen your hands, but the hood stays on.”
A bucket? He pulls on my restraints, slicing through them until my hands drop apart. I stretch and test the strength in my fingers which tingle as blood rushes back to them. After a moment, I don’t hear his retreating steps.
“I can’t… not with you standing there,” I whisper, clinging to whatever shred of dignity I have left.
He sighs, that same tired sound. “Get used to it, Bailey. Privacy isn’t something you’ll have anymore.”
“But I—”
“You have thirty seconds,” he says, voice more on edge than before.
Shame creeps over me, stronger than fear, as I fumble with my dress, trying to position myself over what feels like a plastic bucket.
He’s watching me, probably getting off on this.
His words play on loop while I manage to go.
Get used to it, Bailey. I’m truly fucked.
No one knows where I am. What will they do to me? I’ll probably die here.
When I’m done, he ties my wrists again, looser than before, but still secure. As we walk back, I pick up other sounds. The whir of machinery in the distance, far away voices, metal clanging against something hollow.
“Almost time to move,” he mutters, sounding like he’s talking to himself more than me. He pushes me back to the floor. It’s colder now, the concrete feels like ice. “Stay here, and stay quiet so I won’t have to drug you again. Nod if you understand.”
I nod as his phone rings, echoing through the space like an alarm bell. But it’s the man’s next words that have my body shaking.
“I’ll bring her out back.”
His name is Sweeper. That’s what the other guy, Yuri, calls him before he closes the van door. I have a feeling I’ll wish it was Sweeper here with his exhausted sighs and gentle grip soon enough.
The van door only opens once in the long drive, letting in crisp autumn air that feels like a blessing in the stifling space.
I count four women, five including me. Four different cries and pleas with gravelly voices echoing my own fear.
One of them whispers a prayer that has tears leaking onto the fabric of my mask.
Wherever they were before now, at least they were together.
I want to talk to them—the others. Ask names and offer what little comfort I can, but fear holds my voice captive.
Fear that the man seated back here with us will do what he threatened, and it’s not killing us, not in the literal sense. What he threatened was much worse.
After hours of driving, we’ve stopped. Yuri and the other man climb out of the van, speaking loudly in Russian. Their voices fade as they move away. Now’s my chance.
“Hello,” I whisper. “Are you all okay?”
A few hopeless seconds go by before someone answers. “Not really.”
She sounds young, barely out of her teens like me. Those two words shake yet they have this inkling of defiance to them. Something I can admire.
Then another, small and meek. “I’m scared.”
I want to reach toward her voice, offer some comfort in this darkness, but my bound hands and frozen limbs hold me back. Instead, I use my voice. “I’m scared too. What’s your name?”
“Don’t tell her,” the first voice says sharply. “She can’t be trusted.”
I should feel hurt, but she’s right. If they’re also masked, they have no idea I’m in the same position they are. I stay quiet to save my strength.
“Listen to her voice, Cat. You really think she’s one of them?” another woman to my left says, her voice nasally.
“What the fuck, Lydia? Why did you tell her my name?” Cat seethes.
Lydia—I think she’s the one who was praying earlier. I file their names away in hope that we’ll be alive long enough to use them later.
We’re cut short by the van door sliding open again. “Time to go,” one of the men barks.
All at once we’re grabbed and pulled out. Some of them fight, probably Cat, but I keep quiet. I don’t think I’d have the strength to fight if I wanted to.
I hear a hard smack, and someone yells, “Move your fucking feet!”
There’s crying. So much crying that it takes everything in me not to join them.
“We should have drugged the bitches,” the other man says.
I’m shoved hard in the back and stumble forward, knocking into one of the others.
We both go down hard, but with my hands restrained I can’t break my fall, so I land awkwardly on my side, scraping my covered face and bare shoulders against the rough ground.
I cry out, but before I can fully register the pain, I’m hauled back to my feet with a punishing grip. “Walk!”
Tears stream down my cheeks, making it harder to breathe in the hood.
The fabric clings to my nostrils as I try to inhale.
Cold air hits my skin through my thin dress.
I may as well be wearing nothing at all.
My brain struggles to make sense of anything without the ability to see, but I force myself to focus.
Count steps. Memorize turns, note sounds and smells. Anything that might help later.
Leon would be calm in this situation. He’d tell me to be patient, to observe. The thought of him centers me momentarily. Does he know I’m gone yet? Has anyone realized? I imagine my phone, abandoned outside the club, lighting up with messages from him. From Layne. From my parents.
My mom’s voice plays in my head. That final talk we had on move in day. “Always be aware of your surroundings, Bailey.”
But how can I when everything is shrouded in darkness? Still, I try.
The man digs his fingers into my upper arm as the ground changes beneath my feet. Uneven concrete to what feels like threadbare carpeting. We’re indoors now. It’s warm but somehow I know I’d be safer back outside. The air reeks of cigarette smoke and body odor.
“Bring them in the main room. He’ll be here soon,” Yuri says.
The man’s grip eases slightly on my arm, and I store this information away. Maybe they relax when they think we’re secure. That might be useful knowledge later. I’m not going to scream or fight like Cat—not yet. I’ll find a moment, an opportunity, and I need to be ready for when it comes.
We’re herded into a room and told to sit on the floor and not move.
At least it’s covered in musty smelling carpeting and not more cold concrete.
My whole body aches, and the reprieve from being on my feet is welcome, even as my mind races through scenarios, possibilities, escape routes I can’t even see.
Heavy footsteps pace the floor and one of the others trembles close enough that I feel her against my shoulder.
“It’ll be okay,” I whisper, not believing it myself but needing to say something.
She trembles harder. I shift over so our bodies are touching, seeking comfort for us both, but something hard presses against the side of my head.
“I told you not to move, bitch. Maybe I should teach you a lesson? You’d like that wouldn’t you? Asking for it in that dress.”
My stomach drops. “No, please. I’m sorry,” I manage to say through chattering teeth. “I won’t move.”
The sound of his belt unbuckling has me curling into a tight ball. The object against my head—a gun, most likely—slips down. Time slows as I calculate my options, none of them good.
“Don’t touch her!” Cat yells. More of the girls cry. But me, I’m frozen, mind racing as my body refuses to move.
“Shut the fuck up or you’re next!”
His zipper sounds so loud. It’s the only thing I hear.
Until another voice, cold with an accent slighter than Yuri’s, pulls me to the present. “Anton.”
One word and Anton stops moving. The authority in those two syllables is unmistakable.
“King—I wasn’t. It’s not—”
A single shot fires and something heavy crashes down in front of me. Anton. Hot liquid sprays my legs. The warm wetness soaks through my dress instantly.
Oh my God. Holy shit. I’m going to die.
I bite my lips so hard I taste blood, swallowing down the scream that threatens to escape.
Footsteps come closer and I smell it, even through the metallic scent of blood. Cologne, so strong my eyes sting. I’ve smelled it before.
“Don’t worry, girls. I took care of him.”
As a large palm glides along my shoulder and toward my hood, I know in my gut that this man is so much worse, and as the fabric lifts away, revealing his face, my suspicion is confirmed.