28. Sadie
Twenty-Eight
Sadie
I see the second bullet hit Miles.
It punches into the space just under his collarbone.
His whole body jerks like someone yanked a string.
Blood blooms instantly across his bare chest, dark and fast. He staggers, still trying to lift the gun, still trying to put himself between me and the men.
His eyes find mine for half a second, they’re wide, furious, and he’s terrified for me, before his legs buckle and he goes down hard.
They drag me out of the bedroom by my arms, there are two of them and I’m doing everything to fight them off, but it’s hard when they’re three times your size.
“Miles!”
The scream rips out of me so loud it hurts my own throat.
I fight. I kick, twist and claw at the hands holding me.
My nails catch skin. Someone curses something not in English, sharp and angry.
Another voice snaps an order I don’t understand.
A hand clamps over my mouth. I bite down as hard as I can.
The man yells and rips his hand away, then backhands me across the face so hard my vision explodes into white sparks.
They haul me down the stairs like I weigh nothing. My bare feet scrape and bang against the wood. Outside, the night air hits my skin like a slap. A dark van waits with its rear doors already open.
They throw me in.
I land hard on the metal floor, shoulder first. The impact knocks the air out of me. Rough rope is yanked around my wrists and pulled brutally tight. The fibers dig into my skin, and the doors slam shut with a heavy sound.
I can’t stop seeing the blood.
There was so much blood spreading across his chest. The way his body jerked, and the look in his eyes when he realized he couldn’t reach me.
Whatever happens, I promise I will find you. Just have faith I will find you.
I cling to the words like they’re the only solid thing left. He has to be alive. He has to be. The alternative makes my stomach heave so violently I nearly throw up on the van floor.
There are three men in the back with me.
Two more up front. They speak in rapid, low Romanian words I can’t understand, but the tone is clear, urgent, angry, and professional.
One of them keeps glancing at me, his jaw tight, like I’m a problem.
I test the rope. It’s coarse and already cutting into my wrists.
There’s no give, and no sharp edges nearby. There’s nothing I can use.
I start counting. Turns. Stops. The sound of the engine. The way the van leans on corners. I force myself to memorize every voice, every face I can see in the dim light. If I survive this, I will remember everything.
The van finally slows, then stops.
The second the rear doors open, I explode into motion.
I kick the nearest man as hard as I can in the knee.
He goes down with a sharp shout of pain.
I scramble out on pure adrenaline, my bare feet hitting cold, wet concrete.
The warehouse looms ahead of me, it’s huge, dark, industrial, and like something out of a nightmare.
I run. I only make it a few steps.
A hand fists in my hair and yanks me backward so hard I feel like my scalp is tearing.
I scream. Another set of hands grabs my arms. The slap comes open-handed and vicious against my face.
My head snaps to the side. The world tilts.
Blood fills my mouth, warm and metallic.
My ears ring so loudly I can barely hear my own breathing.
Pain blooms across my cheekbone and eye socket.
They drag me inside.
The temperature drops the second the heavy metal door clangs shut behind us.
The air is cold enough to raise goosebumps across my bare arms and legs.
It smells of rust, old machine oil, damp concrete, and something sour underneath, like metal left to rot.
My bare feet slap against the floor, the concrete is rough and freezing, scraping at my skin with every step.
The space is vast. High ceilings disappear into thick shadows.
Dim yellow industrial lights hang from the rafters on long chains, casting sickly, uneven pools of light that leave most of the warehouse in darkness.
Long shadows stretch and shift whenever someone moves.
Somewhere far above, a broken window lets in a thin whistle of night air.
They force me into a smaller side room off the main floor.
The walls here are bare cinderblock, and cold when my shoulder brushes them.
A single bare bulb hangs from the ceiling, buzzing faintly.
They re-tie the rope so my hands are bound tightly behind my back.
The coarse fibers bite deeper into the already raw skin of my wrists.
Then they loop the rope through a thick metal ring bolted into the wall and yank it tight.
My shoulders are pulled back until the muscles burn and my chest is forced forward.
I can’t straighten fully. I can’t sit. I can only stand half-turned against the wall, every breath pulling at the restraints.
They leave without a word, the door shuts, and a heavy lock turns.
Silence rushes in, broken only by the low buzz of the bulb and the distant drip of water somewhere in the dark.
I look around the room hoping there is something I can see a small window.
Nothing. The walls are all blank, then I see something in the corner, is that a camera?
I stare at it, a second, two, then a red light blinks. Two more second it blinks again.
They’re watching me, that means Miles will find me, like he promised.
My cheek throbs where I was slapped, in time with my heartbeat. The taste of blood is still thick and metallic on my tongue. My left eye is starting to swell, the skin feels tight and hot. Every small movement makes the rope dig deeper, sending sharp stings up my arms.
I force myself to breathe through my nose.
The cold air burns a little. I catalogue everything I can see from this angle, the camera high in the corner with its tiny red light, the stains on the concrete that look older than tonight, the exact distance to the door, the way the shadows pool in the corners.
My bare toes curl against the freezing floor, trying to find any warmth that isn’t there.
Time stretches. The cold seeps deeper into my bones. My shoulders ache with a deep, grinding pain. I keep testing the rope in tiny movements, feeling for any give, any weakness. There is none.
Then the sound reaches me.
It’s soft at first. Almost like wind moving through the high broken windows. But it isn’t the wind.
Somewhere deeper in the warehouse, through the thick walls and the dark, comes the faint, muffled sound of a girl crying. And under it, quiet, rhythmic, unmistakable, is the rattle of chains.
The noise is small, but it fills the entire room. My stomach drops. My bound hands curl into fists behind my back until my nails cut into my palms. The red light on the camera seems to watch me more closely.
I’m not the only one here.
The cold feels sharper now. The rope feels tighter. The taste of blood in my mouth is suddenly harder to ignore.
I close my eyes for a second and cling to the only words I have left.
Just have faith I will find you.