CHAPTER TEN
C old.
Why is it so cold?
Madison’s eyes snapped open, her pulse pounding in her ears as she struggled to focus on her surroundings. The sharp tang of mildew and stale cigarette smoke filled her nostrils as she tried to breathe. Her hands were bound tightly behind her, and as she tried to move, a wave of panic hit her like a freight train. She tried to get up but the best she could do was turn to the side where she was met with the eyes of a dozen other young women.
She blinked the dryness from her eyes and her throat burned as she tried to speak and failed. Her body ached from where she’d been knocked out, her head still fuzzy, but the instant realization hit—she was in trouble. Real trouble. Her thoughts scrambled back to the parking lot outside The Serpent Pit. She had just gotten out of her car and went to lock it when she was attacked. Now, here she was, tied to a radiator in what seemed like a small hotel room. She wasn’t wearing her clothes. Where were her clothes? Why weren’t the girls talking?
Help me, she wanted to scream.
But all she could do was try not to go into hysterics. She tugged against the ropes binding her wrists to the porcelain behind her, but they were too tight. The cold air of the room nipped at her exposed skin, her breath shallow as the anxiety began to threaten to take her vision. She was vaguely aware that she still had her bra and underwear on but the bottoms were wet like she must have pissed herself while unconscious.
Stay calm.
Footsteps outside the door made her freeze. Madison could hear their muffled voices from outside. The girls looked at each other nervously and one blonde girl started to silently cry as she laid her head in the lap of a dark-skinned girl with black braids down to her waist. All the women were only in underwear like her and carried some very obvious bruising on their arms, legs–faces, even. The blonde seemed to be holding an injury on her thigh as she cried, and when the woman whose lap she found solace gently pried her hand away, Madison saw it wasn’t an injury but a very fresh tattoo of what looked like a Green Lightning bolt.
As she looked around the room, all the girls had the same tattoo somewhere on their bodies. Most only had that one singular tattoo, but others had body art beside that from before it seemed. All of them had a lot of face piercings, too. It made no sense why they would have taken her, she didn’t look like the kind of girls they kept on hand.
“She awake?” one of them said, his voice muffled by the door.
“Probably,” another voice answered. “Let’s see how long it takes before she starts begging.”
Madison gritted her teeth. She wasn’t going to beg. Not for them. Not for anyone.
The door creaked open, and one of the men entered—tall, with scruffy stubble, and a smirk that made Madison’s skin crawl. His eyes roamed over her body with a predatory appreciation as he took in her form, but his gaze quickly turned to the ropes.
“You’re up,” he remarked, as if it were a casual statement. “Thought we’d have you out for a little longer.”
Madison jerked her head toward him, defiance shining through the green in her eyes.
“Go to hell,” she spat, her voice finally coming back to her.
Her chest tightened in fear, but she wasn’t going to let them see it. She wouldn’t give them that satisfaction.
The man chuckled low in his throat, leaning casually against the doorframe. “You think you’re in control here, huh? It’s cute. You’re not, sweetheart.”
Madison heard a sob from the group of girls but didn’t look towards them.
“You know,” he continued, taking a slow step toward her. “You’re gonna be here for a while. We’re going to have some fun and then we’re gonna make some nice change off of those pretty green eyes.” His eyes bored into hers, but she held his gaze, unflinching. “It’s a real shame I can’t sample you until the weekend. Boss’s rules, ya know. But you’re gonna love it,” he paused to turn to the others. “Right, ladies? Don’t you just love our parties?”
Madison’s heart kicked into overdrive as the girls wailed and a chorus of “No!” echoed around her pounding head. Her mind instantly began piecing things together.
A party.
The masks.
Everything connected.
She remembered the words she’d been told back at The Serpent Pit, how they had tried to get her to stay for their party.
“You get to wear one of these too, sweetheart. It’s tradition ,” he added, pulling a plain black mask from his pocket and dangling it in front of her. The mask was simple, nondescript, but the fact she had seen it before on a group of strangers and Kade made her stomach twist with nausea.
Madison reeled back and jerked forward, spitting on the mask.
“Ohhh, fucking damn. You’re a feisty one. I like that.” He took a step closer, looming over her. “But don’t get too comfortable pulling shit like that unless you like it rough. You’ll learn your place soon enough.”
Madison jerked against her restraints, but the ropes were unforgiving, pulling taut against her skin. “You won’t get away with this,” she hissed. “There are people who will come for me.”
He just smirked again, wiping the spit off the mask onto his jeaned thigh.
“That’s what they all say, sweetheart.” He nodded to the door. “But don’t worry. You’ll have a nice buyer soon enough.” With that, he turned and exited the room to join the other man outside, leaving her alone again.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” a small voice whispered from the group of girls.
Ignoring her, Madison focused on her surroundings; The red wallpaper was peeling from the walls. The girls were huddled on the floor and an old, stained mattress where they tried to share a torn brown blanket. Some of the girls had bruises and cuts. Others looked untouched but their eyes were unfocused like they were in shock.
“What are your names?” Madison whispered as she looked them over with a sad expression. These poor girls. And she was about to be one of them.
No .
Not yet.
She was a fighter. She was smart. She could still get out of this. Maybe she could convince them to rally with her and kick past the men the next time they opened the door. There was probably something they could make a weapon out of—something, anything. They couldn’t just do nothing.
The woman with the braids cleared her throat and shook her head as she played with the blonde’s hair on her lap. “No names. It hurts too much to get attached.”
Now that Madison looked closer, the girl she was comforting couldn’t have been more than 15 or 16. She was still crying softly and refusing to look at Madison.
Oh, my god.
She was going to be sick.
“Should we tell her?” a different girl asked.
Madison followed the voice to see a frail body splayed out against the far wall. She was playing with a piece of the wallpaper that had come off. The woman was a little thing, and she was beautiful with her striking dark eyes and straight black hair, even though a nasty bruise covered her right eye.
“Tell me what?” Madison swallowed hard as she watched the girl drag the paper edge over one of her wrists as if it could make a papercut deep enough to end her life. But it was old and brittle and fell in tiny clumps onto the dirty carpet.
“No point,” another said from the bed but Madison couldn’t tell who said it because she was behind the others. Footsteps stopped outside the door again. “He’s already here.”
“She in there?” a deep voice asked, the sound muffled.
“Yep, she’s in there. She’s awake, too. Want us to move her to your room, boss?”
There was a long pause and Madison’s eyes locked with the woman in the braids who looked away with tears in her eyes.
“No,” he spoke. “Leave her there. I want them to watch.”