4. Luxurious Captivity
Luxurious Captivity
Hope
I wake with my cheek pressed against carpet and no idea where I am.
My head feels packed with cotton. There’s a bitter chemical taste at the back of my throat, and when I try to push myself upright, the room tilts badly enough that I drop onto one elbow.
Stanford.
Parking structure.
A man coming toward me between two cars.
Another behind me.
Something pressed over my mouth.
I force myself to stop there before panic takes over.
The room is enormous. Floor-to-ceiling windows look across Las Vegas, the Strip spread below in bright afternoon sunlight. Cream furniture. Glass tables. Artwork that probably costs more than my tuition. There’s a bar along one wall and two closed doors opposite me.
Luxury.
Mercy told me about places like this. Beautiful rooms designed to make ugly things easier to hide.
My backpack is gone. So are my phone and watch. I’m still wearing my shoes, jeans and Stanford sweatshirt I put on this morning when my biggest problem was getting across campus before my research meeting.
This morning feels like somebody else’s life.
I sit up slowly and check myself. No obvious injuries. My wrists hurt, and there’s a red mark inside my left elbow. Injection site, maybe. I don’t remember anyone using a needle.
The door opens.
A man in a dark suit walks in carrying a bottle of water. Mid-forties, maybe. White. Close-cropped brown hair. No tie. He sets the bottle on the table without coming within reach.
“Drink.”
“Where am I?”
“You’ll be told what you need to know.”
“Who are you?”
He ignores that.
My fear sharpens into something colder. “What do you want?”
His gaze settles on me.
“Your sister.”
For a second, I can’t process the answer.
Mercy.
He doesn’t have to explain anything else.
My sister survived Meridian. She married Jax. She became part of HAVEN, and our family became close enough to them that I’ve spent the past year teaching Danger app workshops at Baby Bump and helping women protect themselves.
They didn’t choose me because of my research. They chose me because of Mercy. Because of what HAVEN’s been doing.
“You made a mistake.”
The man almost smiles. “No, Ms. Chan. We were very careful.”
He turns toward the door.
“What are you going to do with me?”
He looks back.
“That depends on what your sister’s friends decide to do.”
The door closes behind him. A lock engages.
I stare at it until the meaning becomes impossible to avoid.
They don’t need anything from me. I’m not here because I know something. I’m not even the real target.
I’m leverage.
Bait.
A message wrapped in a Stanford sweatshirt and aimed straight at Mercy.
Somehow, that scares me more than believing they kidnapped me for myself. Messages only matter until they’ve been received. They can be ignored, deleted or destroyed once they’ve served their purpose.
Sitting alone in this beautiful room, I understand what that could mean for me.
They may never have planned for me to leave it.
Fleur de Lis Penthouse, Fontainebleau Las Vegas. 1240 hours.
I wait until the lock clicks and his footsteps disappear before I move.
My hand slides down over my jeans, fingers searching around my ankle.
There.
The narrow rubberized strap is still snug against my leg beneath the denim, exactly where I fastened it this morning. My Beacon phone sits flat against the inside of my ankle, small enough to disappear beneath my jeans unless someone knows to look for it.
Thank God.
They took my phone, watch and backpack. They searched the obvious places.
They missed the one Mercy taught me mattered most.
I don’t pull it out here. There could be cameras anywhere, and whoever took me knows enough about Mercy’s connections to use me against her. I need to assume they know about Beacon too, even if whoever searched me didn’t find the device.
I get slowly to my feet, steadying myself against the wall before I cross toward the bathroom.
I keep one hand trailing over the furniture as I go, using each solid surface to keep my balance and forcing myself not to hurry.
If someone’s watching, I’m a frightened woman who’s been drugged and needs a bathroom. Nothing more.
The bathroom is bigger than my apartment bedroom. White marble, double vanity, freestanding tub, enormous shower, no windows. I close the door and lock it, although I doubt the lock would stop anyone who actually wanted in.
I turn on the shower. Water crashes against stone, filling the room with enough noise to give me a little cover.
I pull up the leg of my jeans and work the Beacon phone free.
The screen lights dimly against my palm.
SOS Active.
My knees almost give way. I grip the edge of the vanity and stare at those two words.
Active means the alert went out. Active means somebody knows.
Mercy knows. HAVEN knows. Maybe they even know where I am.
I switch the screen off immediately and secure the device around my ankle again before turning off the shower.
Mercy survived Meridian.
I was younger when she disappeared into Arizona, still far enough outside her world to believe adults with badges and titles would eventually fix things. Mercy taught all of us differently.
She told me later what kept her functioning when panic tried to take over.
Observe. Conserve. Don’t break.
I look around the bathroom again, properly this time.
One door in. No second exit. Vent above the shower, too narrow for me. No obvious camera, though that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Toiletries lined beside the sink, all hotel issue. Two towels missing from the rack, meaning someone may have used this room before I woke up.
I return to the penthouse and start cataloguing everything without making it obvious.
Two doors beside the bathroom. Main entrance requires electronic access from outside. Windows don’t open. Sliding door to terrace key locked. One man has entered so far. Dark suit, no tie, close-cropped brown hair, American accent. He brought water but no food and stayed out of grabbing distance.
Careful. Professional. Someone trained to handle frightened people.
I leave the bottle exactly where he put it. For all I know, whatever they used on me at Stanford could be waiting in that water too.
The bathroom water is different.
I turn on the cold tap, let it run for several seconds, then cup my hands beneath it and drink. Small sips, enough to take the dryness from my mouth without making myself sick.
If they want me drugged again, they’ll have to come in here and do it themselves. Or put it in food. I’ll have to be careful.
Mercy’s rules. Watch everything. Save my strength. Don’t let them break me.
Mercy made it out.
I’m going to give HAVEN every chance to do the same for me.
Fleur de Lis Penthouse, Fontainebleau Las Vegas. 1300 hours.
I repeat Mercy’s rules until they sound less like advice and more like orders.
It works until I think about Mom. Then Dad. Then Mercy.
They’ll know by now. The Beacon alert will have reached HAVEN, which means Mercy is probably sitting somewhere staring at a screen, trying not to imagine the worst. Mom will be asking questions nobody can answer yet.
Dad will be pretending he’s calmer than he is because that’s what he does when the rest of us are scared.
My hands start shaking. I press them flat against my thighs and focus on the carpet beneath my feet. Pale geometric pattern. Cream and gold. Tiny flaw near the leg of the coffee table where one thread has pulled loose.
I let my gaze travel without moving my head too much.
Cameras.
If they’re using me as leverage, they’ll want to watch me.
Smoke detector near the ceiling. Vent above the bar. Dark glass panel beside the television. Tiny black dome in the corner where the wall meets the ceiling.
There. Maybe a camera. Maybe two.
I keep looking. If I can work out where they can see, I can start working out where they can’t.
My breathing steadies enough to keep going.
Mercy survived Meridian. She survived being isolated and controlled while Meridian started working on her head, trying to wear down her resistance and make obedience feel easier than fighting.
But Mercy has always seemed stronger than me. She’s the one who argues when everyone else backs down. The one who notices when somebody needs help and steps in before anyone asks. Even before Arizona, she had this way of making fear look temporary.
I’m twenty-four. I was supposed to spend today in a research meeting, complain about coffee on campus and text Mercy later about whether I’m heading into the city this weekend.
Instead, I’m sitting in a locked penthouse while strangers decide what happens to me based on what HAVEN does next.
The questions start coming faster.
What if they hurt me because Mercy refuses whatever they want? What if they hurt me anyway?
I did the self-defense training. I know how to strike, how to break a hold, where to hit someone if I get one chance to fight back. But those classes were about giving me options, not making me invincible.
Would any of it work against trained kidnappers who already managed to take me once?
I don’t know, and my hands start shaking again.
What if the Beacon stops transmitting? What if nobody reaches me in time?
My breathing gets too fast. I press my palms harder against my thighs and force myself back to the carpet, the window, the room around me.
My eyes sting and I clamp my jaw shut. I don’t want them hearing me cry. That matters more than I can explain.
They already took my phone, my freedom and whatever time they decide belongs to them. They don’t get this too.
I wipe beneath my eyes with the heel of my hand and make myself look around again.
Mercy’s rules. Watch everything. Save my strength. Don’t let them break me.
I can be terrified and still pay attention, so I start counting again.
I shift closer to the window without making it look deliberate. From here, Las Vegas stretches below me in hard sunlight, traffic moving along the Strip far beneath the glass.
I don’t know how high up I am yet.
That can wait.
Right now, I only need to hold onto one thing.
HAVEN knows I’m alive.
Fleur de Lis Penthouse, Fontainebleau Las Vegas. 1320 hours.
I keep watching the camera in the corner until the man returns in the same dark suit, carrying a tray with food and another bottle of water. He places both on the coffee table, checks the room once and leaves without asking a question or saying a word.
I wait and keep track of the minutes. Five pass, then ten, and nobody comes back. They’re checking on me, but they’re not staying, which means I may have something useful if the pattern holds.
I move toward the windows slowly, keeping my pace casual.
If the camera covers the room, I want this to look like a frightened woman staring outside because there’s nowhere else to look.
The Strip stretches below me, sunlight flashing from glass towers while traffic crawls along Las Vegas Boulevard.
I scan the view beyond the glass until a huge roadside sign catches my eye, towering above the traffic below.
Fontainebleau.
I stay by the glass for another few seconds before heading back to the bathroom. The shower goes on again, and once the sound fills the room, I close the door, pull up the leg of my jeans and remove the Beacon phone from the strap around my ankle.
SOS Active.
Location Sharing Active.
HAVEN Response Active.
Below that is the secure message field I’ve demonstrated dozens of times during Danger app workshops. My fingers shake as I type.
Alive. Fontainebleau Las Vegas. High floor, likely penthouse. One male captor seen. Drugged during abduction. Regular phone taken.
I pause before sending and think about what else G would want to know, then add: Camera in main room. Electronic lock on entrance. Captor checks periodically, doesn’t remain inside.
I press send.
Message Delivered.
I stare at the confirmation long enough to let it register. HAVEN knows exactly where I am now, and they know what I’ve seen so far.
I secure the phone around my ankle again and leave the bathroom before the shower has run long enough to look suspicious.
Back in the main room, I sit where I was before and study the tray without touching it. The food stays untouched too. I don’t trust anything they hand me yet, and hunger is easier to manage than waking up drugged again.
I return to the bathroom for more tap water, then sit where the camera can see me while I keep watching the clock. If the man comes back on anything close to a schedule, that gives me something else to work with.
Every visit, every gap and every sound in the hallway matters now. They’ve locked me in here because they think the room does most of the work for them, but every minute they leave me alone is a minute they’re not controlling what I see or what I learn.
I don’t need to overpower anyone.
I need time, information and one opening wide enough to use.