Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
Her head buzzed.
Like a nest of angry wasps had taken up residence inside her brain.
Lifting a hand, intending to try to swat away the noise, Makayla found that her arm felt heavy, like it had been encased in concrete.
What the heck was wrong with her?
Trying to reach for a memory that felt important, it seemed to slip right out of her grasp as her fingers tried to close around it. Something deep and instinctual inside her, prodded her to know that it wasn't acceptable. She needed to know what was going on, why she felt so heavy and confused.
The first thing she needed to do was open her eyes. Maybe once she could see where she was, she’d know what had happened. They felt sticky, and it took her a few tries to pry them open, but eventually they did, and she found herself staring up at a concrete ceiling.
A concrete ceiling?
Where on earth would she be that she’d be looking up at a concrete ceiling?
She’d been on her way to check up on a little boy.
Doyle Smith. Six years old, badly abused by his parents, placed in a foster home where he’d begun to thrive, only to be returned to hell.
Makayla had told everyone who’d listen that it wasn't a good idea.
That people like Mr. Smith didn't suddenly become capable parents or decent human beings.
But no one listened, and the boy went back.
She’d been there.
At the Smith house.
Doing a check, hoping to find something that would convince the system to remove him from the home again, while simultaneously dreading seeing something that would get him removed because it would mean that the innocent little boy would have been hurt all over again.
“Someone drugged me,” she growled as she bolted upright, the last of her memories snapping back into place.
The growl turned into a gasp when she looked around to find herself in a wide open room, maybe thirty feet by thirty feet, with six mattresses lined up, three along two walls.
A small metal toilet, like the kind that was used in prison cells, and a metal sink were bolted onto the far wall, and the final wall had a door in it.
A metal door that she wouldn't have a hope of breaking through, although she was sure as hell going to give it a try.
It was clear she’d been abducted, because cops didn't drug people before arresting them, and she’d done nothing worthy of being arrested anyway.
The man in the barn had grabbed her without identifying himself.
She had no idea who he was other than he wasn't Mr. Smith, and then after she’d run, he’d knocked her down and knocked her out.
That was a kidnapping if ever there was one.
She had no idea who had taken her or for what purpose, and for now, none of that mattered because she wasn't alone in here. There was no huge man. Wherever her abductor was, it wasn't inside this concrete, windowless room, but there were five other women.
One was still lying flat on her back on the floor, clearly still unconscious from whatever had been used to drug them.
Another woman was curled up on one of the mattresses.
From here, Makayla couldn’t tell if she was awake or asleep.
Two more women were clinging to each other in one corner of the room, their terrified gazes locked on her when she pushed to her feet.
And the final woman was standing in another corner, her back pressed to the wall, crying loudly.
She was surprised she hadn't registered the sound before now.
“Is everyone okay?” she asked. They needed someone to take charge, and it seemed like that was going to be her.
For the first time in her life, she was actually grateful for her abusive upbringing because it meant that it took a lot to rattle her.
When you’d been held under the water in your bathtub at four years old by your mother as she tried to drown the devil out of you, it took a lot to unsettle you.
No one answered, but the woman on the mattress lifted her head. Not asleep after all.
There were six of them to just the one assailant.
Well, if there was only one. But six women, not restrained in any way, was a lot for one person to handle, even if he was bigger and stronger than them.
Maybe there were more of them out there somewhere, although she guessed for the moment that didn't matter.
It wasn't like Makayla wasn't afraid, she was damn terrified, but being scared wasn't helpful. They needed to work together, share information, and then try to figure out a plan that got them all out alive. She was used to being in danger and not being able to get herself out, that had been pretty much her entire childhood. She’d learned both not to rely on anyone but herself, and that there were actually more good people in the world than bad, despite that not being what her childhood had taught her.
“Please,” she said as she took a shaky step. “We have to work together if we want to live. I'm Makayla Adair. I'm twenty-nine years old. I'm a social worker who was doing a home visit when I was attacked and drugged by someone.”
The woman in the corner continued to cry, and the two women huddled together stayed right where they were. But the woman from the bed moved so she was sitting up, the blanket still tucked around her, but at least she seemed to be paying attention. Makayla wasn't so sure about the others.
“I know you're all scared, I am too, but we need to fight,” she insisted as she crossed the room and dropped to her knees beside the unconscious woman. At least she hoped the woman was still unconscious, but it was possible that she’d had a bad reaction to whatever they’d been drugged with and had already passed away.
Touching two fingertips to the woman’s neck, she prayed for a pulse and was rewarded by small bumps against her fingers. Alive.
“Can you hear me?” she called, deciding for the moment she’d focus on this woman since the others were still too stuck in shock to be of any use. When she gave the woman’s shoulder a shake, hoping to rouse her, the woman suddenly screamed and grabbed her wrist, slamming it into the ground.
Of course, it was the same wrist that she’d hurt earlier, although she’d forgotten about that pain until the moment her wrist once again took the brunt of an attack.
“Don’t touch me,” the woman shrieked, her eyes popping open as she jerked up onto her feet. “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me!”
Ignoring the throbbing pain in her joint, Makayla fought for a soothing tone despite the adrenaline pumping through her system. “It’s okay,” she murmured. “I'm not going to hurt you. I was just trying to wake you up. Do you remember what happened to you?”
The woman’s gaze darted around the room, no doubt taking everything in and jumping to her own conclusions.
Eventually, that gaze returned to Makayla, and the woman nodded.
“I was supposed to be showing a house, I'm a real estate agent. But the person never showed, and when I went to lock up and leave, a man grabbed me. He stabbed me with a needle, and then everything disappeared.”
“I was drugged too,” she told the woman. It was safe to say that was the MO of the abductions. Find a woman alone, then drug her, and while she was unconscious, transport her here. “I'm Makayla.”
“Cecilia,” the woman said.
“Bethany,” the woman from the mattress piped up. “I remember waking up in the back of a van. There was a man driving us, and then we stopped, and another man threw you into the back with us.”
“Me?” Makayla asked.
“Yes. Everyone else was already there when I woke up,” Bethany explained.
“Did they say anything?” Makayla asked, information was what they needed more than anything else right now. It would be a whole lot easier to figure out a plan if she knew exactly what they were fighting against.
Bethany’s brow furrowed for a moment. “The guy who had you said you fought back, you must have hurt him somehow.”
“Kicked him a couple of times in some specifically chosen areas,” she said with a smile, and beside her, Cecilia actually chuckled.
“Good for you.”
“Didn't stop him from taking me, though.” If she got out of here, she was going to double down on her self-defense training because it clearly wasn't good enough. “What else did they say?”
“That six was enough for now,” Bethany replied. “That they had to set up somewhere. That a man named Griffin had tested someone and that another man, Mateo, had disappeared from Azure. Two men had gone in the last few weeks.”
“Azure?” one of the women from the corner of the room asked.
“That’s what they said,” Bethany confirmed.
“Do you know what Azure is?” Makayla asked. The name sounded familiar, like she’d heard it somewhere recently, but she couldn’t seem to place it.
“They’re a sex trafficking ring,” the woman said softly. “They take women with blue eyes and sell them off to men overseas in countries where blue eyes are seen as more of an exotic type thing. They’ve been all over the news lately after a reporter did an expose on them.”
A sex trafficking ring?
That’s why they’d been taken? To be sold off to some sick pervert who got off on buying a woman and then forcing her to cater to his own sick whims?
Maybe her mother had been right. Maybe she really was cursed, because she sure as hell seemed to attract the worst the human race had to offer.
August 25th
7:51 A.M.
“You coming to watch us get them prepped?” Henry asked, sticking his head into the room Van was trying to set up as the guard station.
That was where he’d spent most of his time back at the warehouse. Some of the guys thought it was because he got off from being so close to the caged women, but it was nothing of the sort. It was just the best location to watch the camera streams without drawing undue attention.