Chapter 11 Lia
LIA
When I open my eyes, everything is dark. I try to open my mouth, but there’s something keeping it closed.
The last thing I remember is using the bathroom. I was going to splash some cold water on my neck, cool down the heat from dancing with the enemy, and then…
I hear a woman’s voice echoing someplace beside me. She sounds far away and yet close at the same time. Then I remember.
The bathroom.
The woman in the shredded jeans who was grinding on Josh’s lap the other night.
The second set of shoes in the stall next to me.
Then everything went black.
My eyes are open, but it’s so dark. I struggle to make sense of the shapes that spin before my eyes. If I look up, I can see streetlights passing. Windows. I can feel that we’re moving.
I’m woozy and dizzy. Opening my eyes makes the sensation rolling around in my belly kick up.
I keep my eyes closed while I try to calm the immediate panic that forces my heart rate into high gear.
“She’s up,” the voice says, loudly this time.
Goddamn it. It’s the woman from Checkers. That skank who had herself slathered all over Josh’s lap.
A male voice from the front seat jump-starts my frantic pulse again. “Keep her quiet.”
That voice is familiar, but I’m not sure who it is.
I try to talk, but all that comes out are mumbled sounds, trapped behind duct tape or whatever it is they’ve put over my mouth.
“Stay quiet,” the woman barks. “Make a sound, and believe me, he’ll stop the truck before we get where we’re going. And I don’t think you want that.”
They’re taking me somewhere.
The reality starts to hit me, and I can’t help it, I’m struggling against the restraints to try to sit. My feet aren’t bound, but I’m not going to be able to do much more than sit up.
“Listen up, bitch.” The asshole in the front looks back at me in the rearview mirror. I can see him trying to meet my eyes. “Stay cool. We don’t want to hurt you. Keep quiet and let us do our thing. We’ll let you go once we have what’s ours.”
Have what’s theirs? I don’t know who the hell these people are, let alone what they want. Or what they think I have that’s theirs, but I can’t exactly have a conversation about it…not like this.
I lie back against the seat cushions, my face pressed into the seat.
If I could just sit up, I could at least see where they are taking me, but I’m on my side with my hands in front of me, and the night sky and a few streetlights are all I can make out.
I try to watch for any street signs or other landmarks through the windows.
The few signs I can see go by too fast for me to read.
And within a few minutes, the sky gets darker, the lights fewer and farther between. There are no more signs. Nothing to tell me where I am or where we’re going.
Where they’re taking me…
I rack my brain to think about what happened at the bar. Who these people could be and what they could want?
Their faces aren’t covered. I may not be a true crime junkie, but I know enough to know they probably have no plans of letting me leave. Ever.
My purse is still slung over my chest, which means my wallet and phone should be close by. I can’t tell if they’ve gone through the bag, but it’ll be good if my phone is still there. I try to shift my elbows a bit and get my fingers within reach of the zipper, but the woman beside me barks a laugh.
“Don’t bother,” she says. She holds up a glittery, charm-laden phone in its custom carrying case. She has my wallet too and looks damn happy about it.
“What do you want?” I grit against the tape over my mouth, but it comes out as an incoherent jumble.
“Shut. Up,” the man up front says. He reaches up to adjust the mirror, and I catch a glimpse of the scars on his hand.
My eyes widen. I do know who he is.
Shit. Fuck. Goddamn.
It’s the man I was chatting up at the bar last night.
How the hell these two know each other and what they want with me is a mystery, but it’s one I don’t have much time to think about as the truck veers sharply around a curve. I have no way to stop myself, and I roll off the bench seat, falling roughly into the footwell of the back seat.
“Damn it, B,” the woman hisses. I’m not sure if the woman beside me almost says the guy’s name or if B is something they’ve agreed she’ll call him. If she was about to say his name, she stops herself at that single letter.
“Problem?” he asks.
She shakes her head. “Dumb bitch fell off the seat.”
He barks an order, loud, obviously directed at me. “Stay where you are. Don’t try to move.”
I do as he says, even though my head is throbbing from being banged around. The footwell is wide open, but it’s dirty, leaves and muck back here on the plastic mats.
I try to support my head and neck without causing myself too much pain until the truck stops sharply and the guy in the front gets out.
He slams the door, and I listen, praying they won’t pull me out of the truck to hurt me.
They want something. I tell myself, until they get it, they have every reason to keep me alive.
Otherwise, they could have killed me in the bathroom and left me at the bar.
“Get out,” the guy huffs, but I don’t move.
He grabs my arms and yanks me out of the footwell of the truck.
I yelp in pain, but again, sound doesn’t really come out. I try not to use my mouth, because when I do talk or move, it makes it harder to breathe through my nose.
I need to stay calm.
Breathe through my nose.
Stay aware of my surroundings.
I spent a lot of time alone on the road before I settled in with Leo. I was never in any kind of trouble like this, but I’ve been in some tight spots before.
All that matters is taking it moment by moment.
The thought of Leo brings a sting of tears to my eyes. He and Josh have got to know something’s happened by now. There’s no way someone could take me out of the bar and Josh not realize something was very, very wrong.
They’ll come after me.
They will.
I have to believe that, and until they do, I need to stay calm and stay alive.
I follow the asshole through some marshy, wet grass to a dark building.
It looks like a warehouse or big garage.
I try to turn my neck to look around, see if I make out where we are, but the scary guy keeps me close to his side and moves fast. He’s gripping my arm hard, but he isn’t intentionally hurting me, which I hope is a good sign.
Any little sign that I’m going to make it through this is a sign I’ll cling to with all I’ve got.
The woman unlocks a door, and they bring me into an empty-looking warehouse. It’s dark, but I can make out what looks like a small office. Desks and chairs sit in the corners, and shelves line one side of the space.
There’s nothing to help me identify anything, and that terrifies me. This looks like a location they’ve prepared for this purpose. Keeping people and things out of sight.
The man turns on a few lights, but what I can see doesn’t help me feel any better.
I debate yanking the duct tape off my mouth and screaming, but as I’m about to do it, the man stands in front of me and stares me down.
“You scream, I punch out your teeth. Punch. Out. Your. Teeth.” He holds up the hand with all the scars on it. “We clear?” he asks and waits.
I nod.
He puts a hand against the tape over my mouth. “I’m not a nice guy,” he says, “and I have no problem hitting a bitch like you.”
He takes his hand away and whistles through his teeth. From an unlit corner, a dark gray dog limps forward.
He looks like a pit bull, and he’s tied to a heavy collar and chain.
The man drags me over to the corner where the dog stands in a small beam of light. He kneels in front of the dog and holds his mouth open with his hands.
“The first time you scream,” he says, “this happens.” He holds the dog’s mouth open, and I can see the dog has no teeth. None. “I take your teeth,” he reminds me. “If you still think screaming is a good idea, I start with this.”
He turns the dog so its flank is facing me. I can see deep, poorly healed cuts scarring the dog’s back and sides. I flinch at the sight of what this poor creature’s been through. More than I am worried about my own teeth, my heart breaks for this dog.
“Be like him,” B says. “Be quiet. Stay on your chains. And you’ll be fine.”
I nod, but tears sting my eyes.
I have no doubt this guy is brutal and would hurt me if I didn’t listen, but how he could keep an animal like this chained up.
It’s more than I can understand. I think of my girls back home, and how I practically lose my lunch if I accidentally step on one of their paws when we’re playing.
I watch the poor dog and trudge back to my dark corner of the warehouse, like an obedient, broken animal. Except I have all my teeth, and no one is going to mark up my back without a fight.
B comes up to me and yanks the tape from my mouth with one pull. “Pass code to your phone,” he demands.
I tell him, and the woman unlocks my phone. She scrolls through my contacts and shakes her head. “I’m not seeing a contact number.”
The guy stands beside me, his beefy hands in fists as she scrolls through my phone.
“How do you reach Tim Hawk?” she asks me.
“Tim?” I repeat. “I don’t know how to reach him.”
B steps closer to me. “Should we add lying to the list of things you really shouldn’t do?”
I take a deep breath as the reality hits me.
Of course. This somehow has something to do with Leo’s brother.
I feel so stupid.
I was out there playing private detective, when all the while, I was setting myself up as bait.
“I have never met him,” I say calmly. “I moved in with his brother after Tim went missing. Nobody’s heard from him in over a year.”
“Let’s call him,” the woman suggests. “If he knows how to reach his brother, I think Leo will let us know.”
She holds my phone in her lap while she punches what I assume is Leo’s number into a cheap phone. Probably a burner. I pray to God that Leo answers. It’s got to be late, and maybe he’s already in bed. Maybe he drank himself to sleep again, or who knows what he’s doing.
I hold my breath as the phone rings and rings but eventually goes to voice mail.
She hangs up and gives me a look. “He didn’t answer.”
B looks like he is debating how many of my teeth he can knock out with one blow.
All the fear, all the anxiety wash, over me. I’m alone with two maniacs who beat the shit out of a dog that they keep alive in this warehouse for who knows what reasons.
I mean less to them than this dog must. If I don’t give them what they want, I’m sure they’ll make good on their threats. But I can guess they won’t keep me chained up in this warehouse forever.
“I’m going to be sick,” I say.
There’s nothing else I can do. I didn’t eat dinner, and all the fear and the beer in my belly mix together and revolt. I turn my head away from B and empty the contents on my stomach onto the concrete floor.
“Goddamn it.” B seems inconvenienced but not surprised. He gives the woman a look. “Get her some water.” He grabs a fistful of rags from a shelf and throws them at me. “Clean that up.” He kicks a plastic bucket my way. “Use that if you’re going to do that shit again.”
I take the rags as best I can with my hands bound, cleaning the floor before I dab my mouth with the end of my shirt. I want to cry, but I won’t. I won’t let them see me any more vulnerable than I already am.
I shiver, suddenly cold.
I slide down to sit on the floor and tremble, trying to control my breathing.
Remain calm.
The woman returns with a bottle of water in her hands. She glares at me before she untwists the cap and holds the bottle out to me. “Don’t be stupid,” she warns.
I shake my head, and my instinct is to say thank you for the water, but I don’t.
Fuck these two.
I’m not going to thank them for anything.
I take a sip of the water, and before I even taste it, the cool sensation on my mouth feels so good, I suck down several large sips before I register that the water tastes funny.
I stop drinking, thinking maybe it tastes weird because I puked, and take another mouthful, swishing it around to get rid of the odd flavor.
“You want me to call him back?” the woman asks.
The man nods but doesn’t say anything.
I silently pray that Leo answers the phone.
Maybe he’ll think it’s Tim calling. Maybe he won’t care but will get pissed off enough to answer.
All I can do is wait and pray.
I watch as she dials the number again, but when her face falls, I can tell it’s gone to voice mail again.
“Send a text?” she asks. “Can’t hurt.”
“Hold off,” B says.
I gulp down almost the entire bottle, trying not to lose my shit.
My fingertips feel numb, and there’s a light sensation in my body like I’m both heavy and weightless at the same time.
I’ve been drugged. I know I have. My body doesn’t feel right at all.
I panic, dropping the water bottle on the ground. It falls with a dull thud against the concrete, and the last of the contents spill out on the floor. I try to stick my fingers into my mouth to make myself sick, but B holds his fist in the air, and I stop.
I’m too weak to think through my options.
I’m too tired to even feel fear. Maybe that’s a good thing.
Images swim in front of my eyes, the colors muted and dark but so real.
I see Josh at Checkers, the fabric of his shirt against my cheek as we danced. I see the dog in the corner, straining silently against his chains.
And then Leo. Leo’s here.
In front of my eyes, at least, the scruff of his beard under my hands as I hold his face close to mine.
“Leo,” I gasp. “I love you.” And everything goes dark.