Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Bree was having a dream that she was late for school and running through a snowstorm to get there. She’d just opened the door to the school, only to find she’d entered some kind of barn instead. She was freezing. Looking down, she saw she didn’t have any shoes on. Or clothes.
Damn, she was having one of those “naked” dreams. She hated those.
Shivering, she opened her eyes…and realized she wasn’t dreaming. She really was freezing. Her hands felt like ice, and whatever she was lying on was hard as a rock.
Confused, Bree turned her head, wondering why Smiley wasn’t in bed next to her, keeping her warm.
But instead of seeing Smiley, she saw bars.
Bars?
Scrambling to her knees too fast, she yelped when her head hit something hard. Bending again, Bree tried to understand what was happening. Where she was.
There was a weird red light above her head, giving her the ability to see, but things were almost distorted. The rods and cones in her eyes were having a hard time adjusting to her surroundings. Whimpering in confusion, she turned her head the other way—and froze.
“What the hell?” she whispered. It was comforting somehow to hear her own voice. “Fiona?” she said a little louder.
And just like that, she remembered everything.
Well, not everything, obviously, but enough.
She, Julie, and Fiona had been in My Sister’s Closet, looking at the newest donations, when three men had come in and grabbed them.
The last thing she remembered was being shoved into the back of that black SUV and realizing the fog in the air was actually some sort of gas or sedative.
“Fiona!” she said again, louder, getting as close to the bars of her cage as she could.
She was in what looked like some sort of dog crate.
Metal bars all around her, plastic tray under her ass.
Looking down, Bree saw why she was so cold, as well.
All she had on was a spaghetti-strap gown.
A negligee or slip. She wasn’t sure what it was, just that it barely covered her ass and wasn’t nearly enough material to keep her warm.
But for the moment, she was more concerned about Fiona. She was lying unmoving in the cage next to Bree’s. Stretching her arm through the bars as much as she could, Bree couldn’t reach her.
“Fiona!” she yelled, desperately wanting the other woman to wake up.
“Bree?”
Looking past Fiona’s cage, Bree saw Julie on the other side, also in a cage of her own.
“Julie!” The relief she felt at not being alone in this hell was almost overwhelming. Julie wore the same skimpy outfit. Of course on her, since she was so petite, it came down almost to her knees.
Fiona groaned, and Bree turned her attention back to the other woman.
“Fiona! Wake up! It’s me, Bree. Julie’s here too. Please, wake up.”
It took a little bit, but eventually Fiona regained consciousness.
Bree wasn’t sure how the other woman was going to handle the situation.
She’d kind of frozen when they’d been locked in the back of that SUV.
Shut down. Bree didn’t blame her. How could she, when she was literally reliving her worst nightmare.
“Where are we?” Fiona croaked.
“From what it feels like, we’re in a truck or something,” Julie said.
“What’s that smell?”
Bree had been so focused on waking Fiona and trying to get her brain to catch up to what was happening, she hadn’t realized how bad it smelled in whatever container they were being held in.
“Look around. Chickens.”
Bree did just that, and she realized Julie was right.
They were surrounded by cages filled with chickens.
She’d obviously pushed the sounds of the birds to the back of her head as she processed everything else.
But now, as reality set in, the stench of excrement from all the animals surrounding them registered. She gagged.
“I can’t believe this is fucking happening again!” Fiona seethed.
Surprised at the venom in her voice, Bree looked at her once more. She was sitting cross-legged in her cage now, her head bent since she couldn’t sit up straight, and glaring at nothing.
“Fiona?” Bree asked, worried about her mental health.
“What?” she barked, turning to look at her. “Fucking kidnapped. Again! As if once wasn’t bad enough. Fuck!”
Relieved she wasn’t sobbing her heart out and completely on the verge of a mental breakdown, Bree still wasn’t sure how to respond to the pissed-off woman. She considered her a friend, but hadn’t known her long enough to know if her current emotions were a precursor to losing it altogether or not.
“Fiona, are your earrings in?” Julie asked.
Fiona reached a hand up to touch her ears, then swore again. “Shit, no. You?”
“No. They also took my barrettes.”
“And our clothes. All of them,” Fiona said.
Bree was confused. They were in some sort of truck filled with livestock after being kidnapped and gassed and stuffed in cages…and Fiona and Julie were worried about their accessories?
“And my ring too. The one Cookie gave me,” Fiona said, sounding sad for the first time since she woke up.
“Mine too. Bree, do you have any of Tex’s trackers on you?” Julie asked.
Finally, understanding dawned. They weren’t upset about losing jewelry. Taking a mental inventory, and feeling her throat for the necklace she’d chosen to wear this morning—and not finding it—she said softly, “No.”
Without the trackers, how was Smiley going to find her? How were any of the SEALs going to find them? As much as she tried to tamp it down, panic began to creep in.
“Okay, nobody panic,” Fiona ordered, as if she could feel Bree’s downward slide. “Anyone know who these assholes are who took us?”
Bree hated that Fiona didn’t know this already—and she was terrified to be the one to have to break the news.
But it was too late to try to protect them now.
They were in deep shit. Taking a resigned breath, she said, “Mateo Castillo. I’m so sorry you two got caught up in this.
He’s the guy who bought me from my ex. He’s the one who’s been looking for me for so long, who I’ve been trying to hide from.
He was supposed to be taken into custody today.
Tex said there were all these task force people who were going to surround his hotel and get him. ”
“That was obviously a major fail,” Julie said sarcastically.
Bree wasn’t tempted to laugh at that. Not even a little. “And there’s more,” she said a little reluctantly. So far, Julie and Fiona were handling this situation better than she was…but they didn’t know the rest.
“More?” Fiona asked.
Bree forced herself to meet the other woman’s gaze.
“Yeah. Mateo? He was a part of the group that took you guys, all those years ago. He wasn’t in charge, and he wasn’t there when you were rescued, but he was a low-level player in that group.
Tex said that he rose in the ranks over the years, and then started his own organization. ”
“Are you shitting me?” Julie asked.
Bree didn’t take her eyes from Fiona’s. “No. Tex didn’t want to tell Cookie and Hurt until he knew for certain and had more intel on the guy.” She held her breath, praying Fiona wasn’t going to completely lose it.
To her surprise, Fiona shifted to the side of her cage closest to Bree’s. She reached her fingers through the bars and wiggled them impatiently.
Bree’s hand came up without thought, and she gripped Fiona’s fingers.
“This isn’t like the last time,” she said firmly. “First off, we aren’t alone. We have each other. And even if these assholes separate us, we have an ace up our sleeves.”
“What’s that?” Bree asked, the thought of being separated from these women enough to make her want to have a complete breakdown. The only reason she was handling this as well as she was, for the moment, was because she wasn’t alone.
“Our guys. Cookie said something to me once, back after I was rescued and when I had that little…episode, where I thought my kidnappers had found me. He told me, and I quote, ‘I’ll always come for you.’ I’ve never forgotten it.
Ever. Cookie is never, ever going to give up until he finds me. Of that I have no doubt.”
“Our SEALs are probably turning Riverton upside down right about now,” Julie agreed.
“But I’m guessing we aren’t in Riverton,” Bree whispered. “And we don’t have Tex’s trackers anymore. We could be anywhere. How will they find us?”
“I don’t know. But I trust Hurt. And Tex. And Cookie. And Smiley and his team. All we have to do is hold on. No matter what happens, we have to hold on. They’re coming for us,” Julie promised.
Fiona squeezed Bree’s fingers, hard. “Positive thinking, Bree. You have to stay positive.”
“I don’t know if I can,” she admitted, suddenly terrified of what was to come.
All these months she’d been hiding, living out of her car, she hadn’t ever really thought about what would happen if she was caught.
Intellectually, she was aware of what Fiona, Julie, and countless other women went through when they were forced into sexual slavery.
But it had all been an abstract concept.
Now? Sitting in this cage, surrounded by livestock, on their way to who knew where…reality was hitting home. Hard.
“You can,” Fiona told her sternly. “Nothing they can do to us will make our men love us any less.”
Bree let her words sink in. Fiona and Julie were married.
Had been for years. Were in committed relationships.
She and Smiley…what were they? They were still practically strangers.
She didn’t even know what his favorite color was.
Or if he was allergic to any kinds of foods.
Or where his favorite place to vacation was!