Chapter 13 Lia
LIA
I see Leo’s face. He’s far away, and he looks so, so angry. It has to be about Josh. He knows we slow danced. He knows we almost kissed.
I want to explain to him what happened. That I only went there with Josh to try to help. To save the house. But Leo won’t listen. He’s angry, and he’s pulling away.
He’s leaving. For a minute, I want to cry.
Leo isn’t only leaving.
He’s leaving me.
He’s walking away from everything.
The house, the business.
I watch him go.
He climbs on his bike and rides away. I’m standing in the driveway of the house looking after him, and a storm rolls in. I feel cold now, the chill seeping down to my bones.
“Leo,” I call out. I want to call after him, but everything I say sounds like I’m crying. I can’t make his name sound right. It sounds like I have cotton in my mouth, and my tongue is sticking to the roof of it every time I try to call out to him.
Before I know what’s happening, he’s pulled away and I’m alone, standing in Leo’s garage.
I smell smoke, but I can’t find where it’s coming from.
My first thought goes to my dogs, and I try to pry my eyes open so I can run to them.
My girls could be in trouble, but somehow, I can’t manage to open my eyes.
I’m floating somewhere between sleep and being awake. I can hear sounds around me, but I don’t know what I’m hearing. I’m not sure where I am. I only know I’m cold, so cold. But when I try to cover up, there’s nothing there.
I roll onto my side and try to stretch, but I can’t move my hands. The smell of smoke sends my heart into a panic, and I kick my feet, my high-heeled sandals scraping across a hard, cold surface.
I crack my eyes open, and through the blurry haze, I see the ember of a cigarette being smoked far in the distance.
“You think we should feed her?” It’s that skanky woman from the bar.
The fog dissipates, and I remember the threats.
The dog with no teeth.
“Fuck her,” the guy says. “She’ll be fine for a day.”
I shift onto my back, and everything—and I mean everything—hurts.
I must have passed out on my shoulder, and with my hands bound, I can’t straighten out.
But I lie flat and try to take deep breaths.
The scent of smoke hits me like a ton of bricks, and I manage to roll over and hit the bucket before I throw up again.
There’s nothing in my stomach other than a little water, but my body doesn’t seem to get it. I heave and cough, crouching over the bucket until my body gives up.
“I need to pee,” I plead.
“So, go.” The man called B nods toward the bucket. “No point in being modest after all that.” He waves a disgusted hand toward the bucket.
I want to tell him to go fuck himself, but I hold up my hands. “I would, but someone’s going to have to help me.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Not you. Her.”
I’ll play their little game for now. I’m too weak to try to attack her if she does come close enough to help me pee. I remember his warning about punching out my teeth.
“Please,” I beg nicely. “I’m dehydrated, and unless you want me to piss all over myself…”
They trade looks and the skanky woman comes over to me. She grimaces when she sees the watery puke in the bucket and looks away.
“I’m going to help you stand,” she says. “Your shit’s practically hanging out of those shorts. You can just pull them to one side and piss in the bucket.”
Damn.
On the one hand, I’m relieved because I wouldn’t relish having my pants off and being even more vulnerable in front of these two.
The woman grabs my bicep and helps me to stand. I spread my legs over the bucket and turn my head to her. “Some toilet paper?” I ask.
“Jesus Christ, would you piss already?” The guy flicks his cigarette at the dog, who whimpers quietly in his dark corner.
The woman hands me a single paper towel, one of those rough, commercial-folded ones. Whatever. It isn’t soft, but it will dry me off and keep my shorts from getting wet.
I pee in the bucket, for once thankful that I’d traveled in my van for so many months without access to a toilet or sink. I’ve mastered peeing in places that would make the average woman miserable.
Once I am done, I lean my back against the cold, hard wall and slide carefully down to my ass so I can sit.
“Can I get some bread or crackers? Anything to eat?” I know they already said they weren’t going to feed me, but maybe my persistence would change their minds. “And I wouldn’t mind some undrugged water.”
B looks as if he wants to punch my teeth out there and then, but the woman looks to him.
“Can’t hurt,” she says. “I have some crackers in the desk. Maybe it’ll stop her from puking.”
The man shrugs and looks away while the woman yanks open a drawer and pulls out a sleeve of crackers. They are open and the end hasn’t been twisted closed, so they are probably stale as hell, but I don’t care. Anything to take the taste of sick off my tongue.
She slides the crackers across the concrete toward me, but they don’t quite reach me, so I struggle onto my knees and crawl over to reach them.
“Thank you for these,” I say.
The woman doesn’t respond but rolls a bottle of water my way. It isn’t cold, but it is unopened, so I trust it isn’t drugged.
The restraints on my wrists are loose enough that I can eat a few crackers and drink some water.
The good thing about snacking is B and the female captor are talking and ignoring me as I listen to every word carefully.
“I can’t sit here all day and babysit this bitch,” the woman says.
“Go home. What the fuck do I care,” the guy replies.
“What are you going to do with her?” she asks.
He glares at me, and I lower my eyes. “She’s going to sit there and keep her mouth shut.” He cracks his knuckles loudly, reminding me of his earlier promise. “And I won’t have to do a goddamn thing.”
“Are you going to leave her alone?” the woman asks.
It sounds like she’s concerned what he might do with me, or to me, if we are alone.
I am concerned about that too.
The terrifying man stands up from the desk he’s been sitting on, and he walks over to me. He sets a roll of paper towels beside my bucket, along with another full bottle of water.
He crouches down beside me. His face is level with mine, and I look away so I won’t have to smell his breath.
“I’m going to show you a little trick,” he says.
He points with a finger to the ceiling of the warehouse.
In every corner, cameras are mounted, pointing at various angles across the space.
He swipes at his cell phone and opens up an app.
I can see on the display a really high-quality image of the warehouse.
I can see him, me, and the woman as though I am looking in a mirror and not at a camera feed.
“You make a sound, I’ll know,” he says. “You move, I’ll know. You scream for help, you try to leave, you do anything but piss, sleep, and drink your water, I’ll know.”
I nod. “I’ll be quiet.”
“We made contact with your dumb-ass boyfriend,” he tells me. “We’ve arranged a trade. So, don’t do anything stupid, and you’ll be back home safe by midnight.”
“Really?” I can’t even hope what he’s saying is true.
“I’d show you, but we turned your phone off. No need to make it easy on the cops or your friends to find you. If they come through with their half of the deal, you’ll get your phone, and you can go home and forget any of this ever happened.”
Tears sting my eyes at the hope that what he’s saying is true.
“But wait,” he says, taking on a sick, game show host voice. “There’s more. Watch and wait.”
The woman starts to chuckle as if she knows what’s coming.
He stands up and walks out of the warehouse altogether. I don’t hear any doors slam, so I don’t know where he is, but a minute later, I hear his voice coming from some kind of sound system.
“Mikey,” he calls out, his voice echoing through the empty warehouse. “Attack!”
At that, the dog on the chain immediately responds. The scarred, toothless barrel of a dog is snarling, barking like a hound out of hell, pulling at the chain that’s attached to his collar like he’ll kill anything and anyone in sight.
I’m not sure what good a toothless attack dog is going to do, but the point is made. They’ve got me. They have the means to scare me and even hurt me.
“I get it,” I say quietly. “I won’t give you any trouble.”
“It’s just a couple hours now,” the woman says, but there’s no sweetness in her voice.
To my shock, my kidnappers leave me alone in the warehouse. Before they pull away, I hear through the speakers, “Remember, we can see and hear you.”
As if I could forget.
As soon as they are gone, I lie back down on the floor. I use the roll of paper towels as a pillow, and I sob. Tears coat my face, and I pray harder than I’ve ever prayed before.
What if Josh thinks I ran out on our date? It would have been a shitty thing to do, but what if he thought I got cold feet or something and left him instead of leaving to go to the bathroom?
What if no one knows I’m missing?
No. Those people told me they reached out to my…boyfriend.
The tears flow harder as I realize that my boyfriend could be Josh or Leo. I have them both in my phone, but I was planning a hot date last night with Josh.
I’m so stupid.
I should have stayed home.
Talked to Leo.
Gone to my dad.
By now, we might have figured out a plan to save Leo’s house. We could have hired a private investigator to find Tim and Juliette.
So many could-haves. But I had to butt my big booty into the mix and follow my hormones instead of my better judgment.
I turn my head, and I see Mikey, the chained-up dog, lying with his chin against the concrete.
“Mikey?” I say his name really quietly, hoping the speakers won’t pick up my voice.
The dog’s ears perk up a bit, and his tail flops hard against the concrete in a single, cautious wag.
My heart melts into a million pieces.
“Are you hungry, baby?” I ask.
I pull a cracker out of the sleeve and peek up at the cameras. If I don’t move from my lying-down position, I can probably slide the cracker close enough for him to get it. I try with the first one, but it doesn’t quite reach far enough.
Mikey looks at it curiously, his tail whomping against the floor.
“I’ll try again. Watch,” I tell him, still whispering.
It’s no easy feat getting him a cracker with my hands bound, but I end up flicking the cracker with my fingers like I’m playing a game of table football. The cracker is stale enough that it doesn’t crumble but skids across the floor close enough for Mikey to snap it up between his gums.
“Might be tastier if you had teeth, but most dogs don’t really chew anyway.”
Mikey starts creeping closer to me. His belly is flat against the concrete, and he’s doing this frog-like army crawl to get closer.
How could these monsters keep this dog chained up?
“When was the last time you saw the outside, boy?” I ask. “You want another cracker?”
Mikey is panting now, and it’s impossible not to see his toothless mouth as anything but adorable.
I slide another cracker over, and Mikey wiggles his way as far as the chain can reach. I scoot slightly closer to him. I move the roll of paper towels with me, so that if they are checking the cameras, they will see me in the same position I’ve been in.
And hopefully they won’t notice that I’ve shifted.
Once I’m close enough to Mikey to feed him, I give him crackers from my hand, one after another until the sleeve is gone.
“I’ll probably regret that,” I whisper. “I’m going to get hungry at some point.”
I sit up and unscrew the top from my water bottle. I take a sip and wait, hoping that if my movement sets off the cameras, they’ll think I’m drinking water.
When nothing happens, I pour a little water in my hand and carefully hold it out to Mikey. The doggie doesn’t hesitate for even a second. He laps up the water like he’s dying of thirst. He probably is.
I give him the rest of the water in the first bottle those assholes left for me.
“We’d better pace ourselves,” I whisper. “We only have this one other bottle, and it has to last us.”
I have no idea how long I’ll be here alone. There is nothing I can do except lie here, waiting. If I try to leave, they’ll come back, and who knows whether they’ll be armed or what. If I make too much noise, try to escape, anything…
If there were no cameras, I’d take my chances, but they showed me the cameras were there for a reason. They want me to know they’re in control.
I’m stunned out of my mind when I feel a hot blast of breath against my leg. Mickey has snuggled up beside me. He’s lying on his belly, his chin on the floor, but his warmth seeps through and warms my cold body.
I can’t snuggle him with my arms bound, but I curl up as close to him as I can for warmth.
As I start to cry again, I pray to God, Leo, and everyone I’ve ever loved. “We’re going to make it, Mikey. We’re going to be okay.”