39. Janie
Chapter 39
Janie
“ I ’m going to the bathroom!” I announced. As Teresa cleared her throat, I winced at the grating sound it produced. Pursing my lips, I turned toward her.
“Can you take that box to the trash?”
I winced. “Why can’t you ask one of the guys?” I jerked my thumb toward the window that connected the lab with the lathing room.
“They can’t come into the lab, you know that. It’d be a big help.”
I blew out a breath of air. “Sure. Sure.” I grabbed the box and walked to the changing area. Throwing the box down, I took off my lab coat and hung it up. I carefully did the clean sock to the dirty shoe shuffle. After going to the bathroom, I grabbed the box and walked outside. A shiver went up my spine as I stepped down the concrete steps. The dumpster was on the side of the factory, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched. It had been a problem since this morning, which was weird. Meical never set my senses off like this. I glanced at the shadow against the wall. There was a slight vibration to the edge. I was being watched by Meical at all times, but this felt different. Shaking my head, I hefted the box over my head and threw it into the dumpster. Would have been better if she got one of the guys to do this. She could have thrown it out the door for one of them to catch. At least I could get a breath of fresh air for a moment.
As I stood glaring at the dumpster, hands wrapped around my waist and pulled me off my feet. A hand with a cloth slapped on my mouth and nose. Desperate, I flailed my arms and tried to recall any self-defense techniques I had learned over the years. I tried to kick, elbow, and swing away, but whatever was in the cloth affected my reaction time. I screamed underneath the hand over my mouth, but it was muffled. There were no windows nearby to catch anyone’s attention on this side.
“Stupid bitches,” he muttered as he threw me in the back of a van. My head hit the side and everything went black.
It was the crying that woke me up. “Please, please don’t hurt me. What did I do to you?” she pleaded.
It was Tana’s voice. I found her. Except . . . memories of what just happened came to mind. I was caught in the web, too. My eyes snapped open and in the dim light, a figure was tied to a heavy table. The smell of mold and rust filled the room. My eyes darted around the room—assuming it was a basement—because the man stood at the bottom of the stairs. Through the shadows, I barely could see his features, but his voice and outline didn’t seem familiar.
“All of you are the same. Use people like my brother. I’m protecting him by getting rid of your kind,” he muttered as he stormed up the stairs. The door slammed shut and the sound of keys and locks twisting filled the room.
Panic filled me. Where was Meical? He said he would protect me.
Tana started crying even harder. “Tana?” I whispered.
Her tears stopped. “Janie? What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been looking for you. We imitated your profile and figured out the potential suspects, but this guy wasn’t on the list.”
“We?”
“Uh, my . . . boyfriend?” My eyes darted to the shadows looming around me. I kicked at the wall and shadow. Where was the asshole?
“You have a boyfriend now?”
This wasn’t about me. I ignored her question. “I was worried about you. Who is this guy?”
“He’s the brother of one of my dates. I never met him. He’s trying to prevent ‘whores from breaking his brother’s heart before it happens’. Which is?—”
“Obviously, he’s not mentally stable if he’s kidnapping women.”
“He said after he got you, he was going to kill me,” she whispered.
And next would be me. I kicked the shadow again. Wake up, Meical. “Fuck.”
“Your plan didn’t include a crazy brother, right?” Tana laughed lightly, but in the circumstances it felt sick and twisted.
“No.” I kicked the wall, hoping it was a shadow. “Where is my fucking monster?”
“What?”
“When we came up with this plan, he said he would protect me. I hated it, but I wanted to help you. ”
“How’s this new boyfriend deal? Pretty quick.”
“I . . . he’s okay. I think he’s the only one that’s okay. He saved my life. Probably some psych thing.”
“Shit, that’s rough. But it was quick. Are you sure you’re in the right frame of mind considering . . .”
“I don’t know. He wanted to help me find you.”
Tana snorted. “You flirted with other men to find me?”
“They were creeps.”
“The last one was sweet from the DMs. I kinda liked him. Just a puppy.”
“Who’s related to the psycho upstairs?”
“I don’t know yet,” Tana whispered. “My luck, the one I wanted to call again and I was excited to see him.”
“The last one I met was talking about how women ghost him all the time. Guess you ghosted him.”
“I was kidnapped!” she exclaimed.
“He doesn’t know. He grabbed me all excited like. Scared me to death. What has he done to you?”
“Janie, I hope your guy finds you in time. I don’t want you to get hurt like me.” Her voice sounded weaker now. The bravado of our conversation in the last few minutes was gone. She was broken. The psycho broke the beautiful flower that was Tana.
“Tana!”
“He’s killing me tonight! But he’s?—”
“No. I think my boyfriend will come in time. He has to. He promised.”
“You’re not dating a superhero.”
“You’re right. I am dating a monster.”
“The monster is upstairs.”
“Tana.”
“Janie, I’m sorry you got dragged into this.”
“I had to save you. You know all the rules. Cannot call the cops unless it’s been too fucking long. I couldn’t do it. I had a bad feeling.”
“Aww. But it sucks that you were right.”
Tears slid down my face. “I wanted to be wrong. Meical tried to give me hope. But . . .”
A heavy silence filled the air. I tried to wiggle out of the ropes, but I couldn’t get out. The more I struggled, the more they dug into my skin. I was tied to a pillar on the far side of the basement. My eyes darted around the room and saw a giant meat hook suspended on the ceiling. What did this man do with that hook? On a table underneath a dirty window, knives and more implements were spread out. Some were covered in fresh and—what I could only guess—old blood. My mouth became dry, and I shifted back into the shadows. Maybe they could protect me.
“Meical, if you can hear me, you better come save me and Tana right now.”