Chapter 24
Lauren
Hangovers have nothing on what it feels like to wake up from a drug-induced stupor. The headache is different, more intense.
I have no idea why they let the drugs wear off, but it can’t mean anything positive for me. These types of men don’t change overnight. They don’t get a rush of conscience. Maybe they were tired of my lethargy and are in need of more of a fight, more struggle.
I do my best to paint a smile on my face. Nothing riles them up more than a different response than they’re expecting. It may mean more pain for me, but it also opens the door for mistakes on their part.
My arms are heavy, but it doesn’t take me long to realize I’m tied up, arms splayed out to the sides. It’s not ideal, but I’ve gotten out of such restrictions before.
Normally, my first considerations would be helping those around me. I’ve never focused on my own needs because that’s not the reasoning I use in situations like this, but I can’t keep those ideas away—the need to escape, the self-recrimination for being here in the first place.
This time is different, and it has nothing to do with how I’m being treated. There’s only so many ways an evil man can hurt a woman. As sinister as some of them can be, their means of torture and pain have easily become rather run of the mill, common, uncreative.
Right now, I just want to be someplace safe, someplace where I can relax and recover, reevaluate what the fuck I’ve been doing.
It’s so dangerous to want those things, to think even for a second that I deserve it.
My dreams have been the most brutal of all—thoughts of Angel being my white knight and rescuing me. I’d laugh if my throat wasn’t so fucking dry.
He’ll never be someone to go out of his way and help someone he loved to hurt so much.
I squeeze my eyes closed, hating the burn of tears behind them. I blame the drugs in my system for my lack of controlling my emotions.
With a deep breath, I let that pain sink inside of me. This is what I deserve. This is how I honor my sister. I asked for this, and wishing things were different have never benefitted me in the past. Why change things now?
I roll my body, taking care to feel the soreness in my muscles. It’s an inventory of sorts, allowing me to determine where my injuries are and if my body would be capable of fighting back if given the chance.
I ache from the top of my head to the balls of my feet. Everything hurts, but I’m no stranger to pain.
What’s new is the desperate urge to cry, to beg for mercy, to ask my captors to set me free.
I don’t want to help others. I only want to help myself at this point.
I make a plan in my head to seek my revenge, and it’s not on those that have me bound to the bed.
No, that energy is focused on Angel. He made me weak.
He made me want things I have no right to consider.
He made me lose sight of what I need to do and how I need to spend what little life I may have left.
If I ever escape this time, I’m going after him.
Darkness swirls around me, very little light filling the room as the bed dips.
I sneer, turning my head toward the intruder. He’s just another man who wants to hurt me, to take things from me.
Maybe he’ll be surprised when he discovers I have nothing left to fucking give. I’m drained of it.
I flinch when a finger presses into a bruise on my arm, and I hate myself for it.
I’m all big talk in my head.
I have so much to lose, and pretending in front of one more person doesn’t seem possible right now.
I attempt to jerk away from the man, but my restraints are tied tighter than I initially realized. I fight down the urge to sob at knowing it might actually be impossible to get away.
I’ve never let defeat sink inside of me. I’ve always had a plan and then another plan if that one didn’t pan out.
I have nothing right now, and for as long as I thought I’d be relieved to die, I find myself wanting to fight those thoughts.
I have nothing to live for, but it doesn’t stop that intrinsic need to live from bubbling up and taking over.
I open my mouth to speak, but it makes my throat hurt, makes the corners of my mouth tear because of their dryness.
When a cold cup is placed to my lips, I want to jerk away, refusing to take anything that’s offered to me because it’s never done in kindness.
A slick throat is easily fucked, and I learned my lesson long ago about biting.
It left me with a concussion, forcing me to spend several more weeks in captivity, whereas just letting it happen would’ve meant I could’ve helped other women quicker.
My body’s responses aren’t my own, and I drink greedily, grateful that it’s actual water and not a cup full of vodka or whiskey. The cup is pulled away when I start to cough and choke. I lift my head as high as I can manage to get another sip, but it doesn’t come.
Teasing with food and drink is a common tactic by these guys, so I’m not at all surprised, but it doesn’t stop me from begging for more.
The shadow lifts the cup to my lips once again, and I don’t waste the opportunity I’m provided. Taking any form of kindness from them seems counterproductive, but I can’t do much when I’m starving and dehydrated.
Without a word, the man leaves. He doesn’t hurt me again or say a word.
It doesn’t take long before darkness takes over again.
The second time I wake up, the evaluation of my body doesn’t take as long. I’m still tied to the bed, naked and starfished on a mattress.
With the bedroom door open, more light is cast into the room.
I cringe at the sight of the IV bag hanging near the bed, and I’m not surprised to follow the plastic tubing to the back of my hand.
I must’ve been sold without realizing it, but experience tells me that just because I’m being nursed back to health doesn’t mean I’m safe.
There isn’t a single person in the world that buys someone out of the goodness of their hearts. If that were the case, I would be covered instead of freezing with the ceiling fan blowing cold air on my body. I wouldn’t be tied down and alone.
Hell, I would be in a hospital, surrounded by helpful staff, not in someone’s dark room.
I do count the good things. The mattress I’m on is soft.
I’m not surrounded by putrid scents of an area that hasn’t seen disinfectant and a scrub brush in a decade.
I hear no screams or begging from other women.
All in all, I can say that this place is much better than some of the others I’ve been, but I don’t allow false hope to settle in.
Some of the most sinister people I’ve come across are capable of some of the evilest ways to hurt people.
Class and sophistication just mean they have the money to hurt someone differently, more creatively.
I focus on the backlit body of a man as he nears the bed, and I run through the ways I can react to his presence.
Some men want a woman that will obey, someone they can manipulate and groom to be who they think they need.
These are the best kinds because freedoms are earned which means the ability to kill them or escape.
“How are you feeling?”
Every muscle in my tired, exhausted body locks up.
The voice is familiar, and I just know it has to be another fucking dream.
I try to reach for him, but the ropes on my wrists prevent it. The thought of him is painful, but the need, the desire for this to be real, hurts the most.
Hope that I realize is false washes over me before I can even consider how to shove it back down. Sadness leaks from my eyes as I turn my head away from him. Mistaking him for someone he isn’t is so fucking dangerous.
“Lauren? I asked you a fucking question.”
I shake my head, sobs bubbling out of my throat. Hope is such a cruel fucking thing.
“Look at me when I speak to you.” A rough hand grabs me by the jaw, forcing my face in his direction.
I know I should keep my eyes closed, but instinct has me facing my attacker.
He doesn’t fade away. Angel doesn’t disappear, doesn’t transform into a monster.
“Angel?” I swallow down another sob. “How?”
I try to shake my head, but his punishing grip on my chin prevents it. He’s forcing me to see that it’s him.
Anger swarms around me before settling so deep inside those hidden parts of me, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to dig them out.
“Fucking untie me,” I demand. “Right fucking now.”
His laughter is somehow both welcome and the cruelest thing I’ve ever heard.
I struggle against my restraints, the burn of the ropes on my skin, sweeping down my arms like wildfire.
He doesn’t speak, doesn’t reach for the ropes.
I expect him to walk out when he releases my face, but he doesn’t budge from the edge of the bed.
“Why am I hooked up to an IV?”
His focus is on the skin on my shoulder, not my face, when he speaks.
“I’ve kept you sedated.”
My breaths are ragged as I try to understand exactly what he’s explaining, but it’s difficult. Whatever is in my system isn’t allowing me to think in a straight line.
“How long?”
“Ten days,” he replies, like it’s not a big deal to keep a woman tied down for a week and a half.
He’s given me more information than I think he realizes, but I’ve been in this situation before. I know exactly what it means.
The IV ensures hydration, meaning I’ve been pissing this bed the entire time. I can only hope my fucking bowels have shut down due to the narcotics those other fuckers were pumping into me, but it won’t stay that way forever.
He’s been taking care of me because I can easily tell I’m not lying here in my own fucking filth.
This enrages me more than anything else.
I don’t want to be fucking cared for.
“The other women?” I ask, because focusing on myself might invite in those pesky fucking emotions I haven’t been able to control recently.
I never want this man to see me as weak.
I watch his shoulders lift. “I gave them every opportunity to get away. No clue if they took it or not.”
Rage boils inside of me, but I shouldn’t be surprised he doesn’t give a shit about others.
He’s no FBI. The man is a hired fucking gun.
Green is the only damn language he speaks.
The other women there aren’t his concern.
I’m left wondering why he cares about me at all, but maybe that’s a mistake as well, because being naked and tied to his bed for ten fucking days doesn’t exactly spell affection.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” I snap when his finger trails over my shoulder and down my left breast.
I’m not surprised by the laughter that rumbles out of him, but I am worried about the way my body threatens to delight in the actual sound.
I don’t know that I’ve heard him laugh and the gravel of it affects me in a way I refuse to focus on.
I hiss in pain when he twists the tip of my breast between two punishing fingers.
“You seem confused, so let me explain it to you.” His face drops lower, mere inches from mine. “I fucking own you. I bought you with the deaths of three men.”
I’m only now realizing the depth of my depravity because a thrill at his words races up my spine.
“I was working,” I say on a gasp of relief as he releases my nipple, only to trail his finger further down my stomach.
He presses a rough finger into a sore spot on my hip, smiling when I try to fight the discomfort by not moving or complaining.
“I think you’re mistaken. Paperwork has been filed with the Bureau. Lauren Vos is not only no longer employed by the FBI, but she’s also actively being sought for crimes against the government.”
Knowing it was a possibility and actually hearing that those things have come to pass are two very different things.
“That means you either got yourself abducted on purpose without the backup of your agency or you were so distracted that someone grabbed you by surprise. Which is it, Lauren?”
I clamp my lips closed. He has no right to any explanation from me.
His eyes sparkle with mirth in the limited light as he watches my face. “There she is. I thought those men beat and fucked that spark out of you.”
“Untie me,” I demand again, but it falls on deaf ears.
Angel stands, running his eyes down the length of me one last time before walking away.
“You can’t keep me tied up forever,” I yell to his back.
This makes him stop in his tracks as he turns back to face me once again.
“I’m willing to test the theory.”
“Why are you fucking doing this to me?”
He’s silent for a long moment. “You seem to need it. So I’m going to give it to you.”
“Does this mean you aren’t going to hurt me?”
That same sinister laugh flows over me once again. “Oh, no, baby. I’m going to hurt you more than anyone ever has.”
The door closes behind him, and I try not to think of the way his statement makes me feel.
I’m so beyond fucked up, doctors could spend their entire careers, working through all the shit that’s wrong with me.
I jolt at the sound of a crackle coming from the bedside table.
“In today’s podcast, we’re going to discuss how to overcome childhood trauma.”
My eyes widen. For a man that likes to live in virtual silence, he sure as fuck doesn’t seem averse to using psychological warfare as a means of torture.
“I’ll fucking kill you!” I scream as the speaker starts to list the ways to overcome the horrors someone has experienced.
Louder than ever, that same laughter echoes from the other room.