Chapter 27
EMBER
My mind has been working since they took us. We were tied up and blindfolded, then thrown in the back of a car. Now we’re here in the dark with the smell of dirt and metal all around us.
I think it’s an abandoned building or a warehouse, but in this darkness, it’s impossible to tell. Sergei took the blindfold off, I guess, as a courtesy. Some courtesy. I can barely see anything at all in this room.
He sat us down on these chairs that feel like metal against the backs of my shoes, arms tied behind our backs.
I can hear Sasha sobbing next to me—little quick breaths as if she’s trying to hold back from making too much noise.
My heart goes out to her, more so because I’m probably just as scared as she is.
I don’t know why Sergei’s done this or what the end game is supposed to be…
but he hasn’t killed us, so there must be something he wants.
The downside to that is that he knows that I know who he is.
He didn’t even bother covering his face.
That could mean that once he gets what he wants, he’s not planning on keeping us alive.
In any event, there’s no way we can wait for someone to come get us. We need to get out of here somehow.
“Sasha?” I whisper. I feel movement against my arm as she starts, her breath hitching. “Hey, it’s okay. We’re okay. We’re alive and that’s good. It means we’ve still got a chance to get out of here.”
“Who are these people?” she asks in a small voice. “Are they enemies of my father?”
“I don’t know. Seems likely, though, right?” I swallow hard. My mouth is so dry, it feels like the desert. “Whoever they are, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we get out of here and away from them before they carry out whatever plan they have for us.”
She sniffles and says, “You don’t think… you don’t think they’re going to kill us, do you?”
I want to lie to her, tell her no and that everything is going to be fine and dandy. But Sasha’s a smart fifteen-year-old girl who has lived in this world her entire life. I can’t do her the injustice of lying to her.
“Listen,” I say, “I’m going to be straight with you, okay?
I don’t exactly know what they plan to do with us.
What I do know is that at the moment, we’re serving some purpose.
As long as that’s true, they won’t kill us…
but that doesn’t mean that they won’t hurt us in some way, so we can’t stay here. ”
She whimpers and the sobs start up again.
“Hey, hey. I know it’s scary, Sasha, but we have to pull it together if we’re going to get through this, okay?”
“Is Daddy coming to get us? He’s got to come, right?”
“I’m sure he’s going to try, but Sasha…” How do I say this? How do I tell her about the possibility that he might not make it to us in time for whatever may happen? How do I tell her that it may come down to us fighting for our lives against these men?
I take a quick breath and steel myself. Now is no time for doubt. And it’s no time for me to flake out. If I’m not strong, then she won’t be.
“He’s going to do whatever it takes to get to us,” I tell her. “In the meantime, we need to make it easier for him when he shows up. Okay?”
She sniffles again. “O–Okay. I’m so scared, Ember.”
“I am, too. And that’s all right. It’s okay to be scared. It doesn’t mean that we can’t fight for our lives. Whatever these guys have planned for us, we don’t have to make it easy for them to get it. “Right?”
I feel her shoulder moving against mine as she takes a deep breath and blows it out. “Right,” she says with a hard sniff.
“Okay.” Then I say again, more to myself, “Okay.” I adjust myself in the chair. My arms are wrapped around the corners of the back and tied securely together at the wrists. As I move my arms, there’s the distinct feeling of plastic digging into my skin.
Zip ties. Of all the things they could have used to bind us… My stomach tightens as my mind spins, trying to remember the trick I’d learned years ago.
“First things first,” I say, sliding my feet forward. They didn’t tie my feet to the chair, so I can stand up. This is good. Very good. “We’re getting out of these things binding us.”
“How? These things are tight. They hurt my wrists.”
I stand up slowly. The chair slides slightly back against my movement. The room fills with the quick metallic sound of the chair legs scraping.
“What are you doing?”
“Listen carefully,” I tell Sasha. “Your feet aren’t tied to the chair, are they?”
A pause, then, “No. I don’t think so.”
“Good. Stand up, slowly. Try not to knock your chair over. We don’t want to make too much noise.”
I hear her chair scrape the floor and feel the heat of her arm as it aligns with mine. “Okay. I’m standing.”
“Good. Good.” I hope this works. I haven’t actually tried this since I first learned about it from some social media trend years ago.
The video was about protecting women from being kidnapped and, at the time, I only thought that it was good to know ‘just in case’.
Never once did I think that I’d actually have to use it.
“Okay, lean forward,” I tell Sasha as I lean forward, “lift your arms as high up as you can…” I feel her movement as I follow my own advice. “Now bring your arms down across your back really hard. As hard as you can do it.”
I do it… and nothing. My heart sinks for a moment. “Try it again. Keep doing it until the ties snap.”
I do it again and I hear the telltale snap of the ties and my wrists loosen. I’m free. I hear Sasha grunting as she does it once more… then another time and snap.
“Oh, my God,” she gasps. “It worked! We’re free.”
I want to jump for joy, but I know better.
We’ve got a long way to go before we’re out of this mess.
“We are,” I say to her, reaching out and patting her on the shoulder.
My eyes are finally starting to adjust to the shapes in the room and I can make out the soft shine of her face as she smiles up at me.
“What now?” she asks.
“Let’s find the door and try making a run for it.”
I step away and she grabs my wrist. “Hold on a second,” she says. “Those men… they had Russian tattoos. Gang symbols.”
I thought back to Sergei and his heavily tattooed chest that went all the way up to his neck and the backs of his hands. “Right. Sergei, the main one, he’s former Bratva.”
“There are no ‘former’ Bratva,” she says. “It’s kind of a lifelong commitment. You don’t get to just quit.”
My stomach tightens. “What are you saying?”
“He probably is an enemy of my Dad’s. Like part of another Bratva. He might even be another Pakhan. If any of that’s true, then they operate out of the same playbook. He’s going to have us under guard.”
I raise an eyebrow in the darkness. For a child, she certainly knows a lot about the lifestyle. “You… know that for sure?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s what my Dad would do. I’ve never seen him keeping people hostage or anything, but I know that sometimes I can’t go in the basement because Uncle Ares or somebody else is guarding the door.”
It makes sense. I can’t deny that. Even with us tied up, Sergei probably wants to protect his interests. “Good point,” I say. “We need a plan.” I pace the floor in small steps, thinking. There’s no way the two of us can overpower even one of those men. They’re all built like brick walls.
My foot nudges the chair, nearly knocking it over. The sound of metal scraping stops my thoughts.
I wonder how many hits from a metal chair it would take to topple one of those walls.
“Okay, I think I’ve got something. I’m going to need your help, though.”
“Anything.”
I nod in the darkness. Please, let this work.
The room splits with the sound of my voice. The way it breaks the utter silence around us almost startles me into being silent and my voice cracks on the first yell. I clear my throat and try it again, yelling louder.
“Somebody! Please! Something’s wrong with her! I need help!”
It took me a few minutes of walking around the perimeter of the room with my hand on the wall’s cool concrete surface, but I was finally able to find the door and then the handle and hinges to figure out which way it was going to swing open.
Lucky for us, it’s going to swing toward the outside world.
I won’t have to worry about accidentally hitting the door instead the goon’s head.
I stand at the edge of the doorframe with the metal chair lifted over my head. It’s heavy as shit. Almost too heavy for me to hold, but that’s good. The heavier it is, the harder it’ll hit.
Sasha joins my yells into the darkness from her place on the other chair, moaning loudly. “My stomach… Oooooh! My stomach!”
It’s almost too hokey, actually. I really hope whoever’s guarding us buys it.
From the other side of the door, I hear, “Shut up in there!”
Okay. Confirmation. There is a guy guarding us. Sounds like only one guy, too. “Please!” I shout back. “She’s really sick. She’s been throwing up and she feels really hot. I think she might pass out.”
Nothing. No response. Shit.
“If something happens to her, your boss is going to be pissed,” I say, hoping my original theory was right. “Especially if you didn’t do anything to help!”
More silence. My arms are starting to get tired, so I start to lower the chair. The telltale sound of locks disengaging grabs my attention and I lift the chair up again. My arms shake under the weight, but I’ve still got a firm hold on it.
I keep my eyes in front of me, watching and listening for the door to scrape the dirty floor… and it finally does.
The dim blue light from outside of the room spills in like random moonlight, highlighting the back of a large man’s head and shoulders as he steps over the threshold. The light shines directly on Sasha, still in her chair. I wait for him to notice there’s only one person and one chair in this room.
It takes him a second to realize what’s happening, which is more time that I actually need. With a yell, I heave the chair as hard as I can, aiming for his head. The metal collides with the back of his neck and shoulders, sending him stumbling forward.
He’s still on his feet. He reaches to the back of his head as he grunts in pain and goes to turn toward me.
I bring the chair up, swinging wildly in the hopes of catching him as he turns.
The chair legs connect with the side of his face, cracking him hard.
He stumbles sideways, then falls to the floor with a solid thud.
The blue light highlights the pool of blood forming under him.
Sasha stands up, her eyes wide. “Wow,” she says. “You really clocked him one.”
I drop the chair and grab her hand. “Come on. Let’s go.”
We run out of the room and into the blue haze of the hallway. I don’t know which direction to run or where the door is, but wherever we run, it’s got to be better than here.
We sprint down the hall until we get to another door that leads out into a massive space with high ceilings. Strategically placed skylights throw shafts of blue light every few feet, highlighting some dozens and dozens of wooden shipping boxes.
Storage. The coffin shaped boxes make me sick to my stomach. I have a feeling if we’d just stayed captured, we might end up in one of those boxes, never to be found again.
“Come on,” I tell Sasha as we walk along the aisle of one of the rows of boxes. Surely, one of these rows has to lead to the exit.
We get a few feet before we hear footsteps. Several of them scuffle somewhere behind us.
I hear someone say something in Russian and the footsteps move in all directions. Sasha looks up at me with wide, fearful eyes.
“That was a pretty smart move.” It’s Sergei.
His voice echoes all around me, bouncing off the walls.
“I knew I should have used rope or duct tape or something. Both tend to leave a trail when police start investigating, however. Zip ties are much easier because people use them for just about anything.”
Sasha starts to shiver next to me. I tug her arm and start moving slowly, keeping my ears pricked up for any sound of anyone near us.
“I’m going to find you,” Sergei says. “This warehouse isn’t that big. Not many places to hide.”
This is like some insane action movie. Here’s the part where I’m supposed to answer him. Some witty response while I sneak around and take out his men one by one. The only problem here is just that I’m not some super savvy secret agent. I’m just an ordinary person trying to survive.
I pause as we get to the end of one row and whisper to Sasha, “Hold on.”
I peek my head around the corner. There’s no one in this aisle. I tighten my grip on Sasha’s hand and we rush across the aisle to the next row of boxes.
“You know,” Sergei’s voice says, “you could make this easy. I don’t plan on hurting you or Sasha. Not if you don’t make me. Surrender now and this will go much easier on you.”
I’m ignoring him completely at this point. I’m looking for any sign of freedom while navigating these makeshift rows of wooden coffin boxes. They’re not going to get us quite that easily.
I make a turn down one aisle and I notice a sliver of light across the floor, beckoning to us like the line of the horizon. The door. The way out. I quicken my steps toward it.
Sasha’s hand is ripped from mine. She screeches out, but it’s cut short and muffled. I whirl around to see Sergei holding her—one hand over her mouth, the other holding a gun to her temple.
“There you are,” he says with a sickening laugh.
I waver with one of my feet still pointed toward freedom. I can’t leave without Sasha. I can’t—
I’m grabbed from behind. A strong arm lifts me up off my feet and starts to drag me backward. Over my screams, Sergei says, “Use duct tape this time.”