Chapter 4
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Hours later Tricia woke up from her spot in the back seat of the vehicle.
The silent guy drove, while the other guy who talked the most to her sat in the passenger seat.
She slowly reoriented herself to the fact that she was no longer a captive.
Yet she didn’t know exactly how these guys found her or where she currently was.
Or who these men were who’d supposedly come to rescue her. She lifted her head.
Rubin, as he had called himself, twisted to look at her and smiled. “Hey,” he greeted her. “How are you feeling?”
“Like shit, but I’m not with that asshole anymore. So, I’ll take it.”
“Good answer,” he quipped.
“Where are we?”
“Heading through Kazakhstan,” he replied.
“Kazakhstan?” She blinked at that. “That’s where I was?”
“Yeah, that’s where you were.”
“Formerly of the Soviet Union?” she asked, frowning.
He glanced at her curiously, questions in his gaze. “You didn’t know?”
“No. I went from being thrown in the back of a vehicle to some cart to yet another strange container. I am completely unaware of where I was or how we got from point A to point B. There was a lucid moment in some train station, but I wasn’t allowed to look around.
” She frowned at him. “I’ll need papers to travel. ”
“Agreed,” he said, with a nod. “Your father’s working on it. We have informed him that you have been freed.”
“And he’s obviously delighted,” Oakley added, with a wink and returned his gaze to the road. “He’s anxious to talk to you.”
“Right,” she muttered, staring out in the distance. She didn’t know what to say. He could chastise her for getting into trouble in the first place or could be relieved that she was alive and finding it hard to express his emotions. “Kazakhstan is one huge country.”
“Good thing we’re driving, not walking, but don’t rule out a private plane.”
Tricia shook her head. “You don’t really realize how your life changes after something like this.” Rubin glanced at her, and she noticed the hint of sympathy in his gaze.
Rubin added, “Right, and we’re not out of trouble yet.” He masked any expressions coming through on his face. “We’re trying to get you back to the US, but it’ll still take a little bit because, as you already stated, you don’t have the proper paperwork.”
“So, what’s the plan?”
“We’re trying to get you to the embassy, where they can look after you.”
“Okay.” Then she frowned. “And yet these kidnappers—or their boss—seemed to have a lot of people they knew, people to help them. So, I don’t know exactly where I’ll be safe.”
He grimaced and asked, “Was anything in particular mentioned which you took note of?”
“No, just an awful lot of conversations that didn’t really make a whole lot of sense.” Then she was lost in thought for a moment. “What about the two others who were taken with me?”
“You were there with them, right? You don’t remember?”
“I remember just fine. I just want to know if they’re alive.”
“The one who was shot, Shirley, is dead,” he replied. “The other one who was beaten, Sam, is in the hospital.”
Her facial expressions must have revealed a lot because Rubin stared at her in concern.
He continued. “Sam was alive when we found her, but she wasn’t in great shape.” Tricia just nodded and didn’t say anything. He hesitated and asked, “Did she do something that pissed off the guards?”
“Yeah, she tried to sell me out—to protect herself.” He nodded. “I don’t hold it against her by any means, but the guards didn’t appreciate it. They called her all kinds of names.”
“Was Sam a friend?”
“No. We went to the same school, and I knew of them.” She sat up, brushed her hair off her face, and added, “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but—”
“You have to go to the bathroom?”
“Yes, please,” she replied. “I would love a bed and a shower and a change of clothes and a three-course dinner. But, barring all that, a bathroom stop would be very helpful.”
He laughed. “We need to stop for gas anyway, and a station is just up ahead. We’ll make that our first stop.”
They pulled in, just in time because her bladder was screaming. She got out of the vehicle, grateful that the washroom was outside. Much to her dismay, there was a lock on the door.
“Hang on. I’ll go get the key from inside.” Rubin went inside and came back out a moment later. She was already standing at the door, trying hard not to shift from one foot to the other. He quickly unlocked it for her.
She stepped in and closed the door behind her and relieved herself, feeling as if that in itself was huge.
She was not allowed to use the washroom in the small hut that Double Chin had kept her in.
He made her go outside, which she didn’t have a problem with, except that he was not at all generous with the toilet paper.
She was just grateful she hadn’t been on her monthly cycle, as that would have been beyond brutal. She washed her hands at the broken gas station basin, then looked up, catching sight of her face in the mirror.
Ugh. She noted a minor cut above her left eye, a bruise on her cheek, and her hair stuck out in every way that it could. She scrubbed down her face and her hands and her arms, as much as she could reach. Her feet were puffy, sore, swollen, and she still didn’t have any socks.
When a knock came on the door, she hesitated, then opened it slightly to find Rubin there, holding a plastic bag.
“It’s not much, but I got you a pair of leggings, a T-shirt, a sweatshirt, several pairs of thick socks, and some slip-on shoes.”
She looked at the shoes and chuckled. “Are we in the Netherlands?”
He raised his hands and shrugged slightly. “I wasn’t sure what shoe size would fit, and it needed to accommodate the thick socks. I just figured you might want something clean. And I’ve got some ointment for your back and feet. I’ll have to clean them first.”
Something was steady about him—quiet and grounded too. She stepped aside, saying nothing, and let him in.
The cramped space was dim and worn, lit only by the soft flicker of the overhead bulb. A rusted sink leaned under a cracked mirror, and the scent of dust and old soap lingered in the air. Rubin hung the plastic bag from the doorknob.
Tricia sat on a small wooden bench and turned away from him and pulled up her bloodied shirt to reveal the angry belt marks across her back. She knew she was cut and bruised because she had felt drops of blood trickling, and a bad itch from time to time, clear reminders of what she’d endured.
Rubin knelt behind her, wringing out a sponge he’d soaked in water. His movements were slow, careful. When the sponge touched her skin, she sucked in a sharp breath.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “I’m trying to be careful.”
“You’re doing fine,” Tricia muttered, keeping her voice soft but steady.
He continued cleaning her wounds in silence. His fingers moved, almost reverently, and, for a moment, neither of them spoke. Outside, the wind rustled the trees, but, inside, time seemed to slow.
Once the cuts on her back were clean, Rubin repeated the same on her feet, placing them on paper towels once he was done. He set aside the sponge and opened the ointment. He glanced at her back, then added, “This might sting.”
“It already does,” she replied, with a dry smile.
They both let out soft, tired chuckles.
He began applying the ointment with his fingertips. She leaned forward slightly, her back rising and falling with each breath. Rubin’s hand paused at the curve of her shoulder blade. “You didn’t deserve what they did to you,” he murmured.
Tricia turned her head slightly, just enough to catch his gaze. “You came for me,” she pointed out, shaking her head. “That matters more.”
After a beat, Rubin pulled his hand back slowly and worked on her feet. Then he reached for the bag of clothes. “Here. I’ll wait outside.”
He stepped toward the door, then paused and looked back over his shoulder. “If it ever hurts too much,” he said, his voice low, sincere, “you don’t have to hide it from me.” Then he stepped outside, pulling the door closed behind him.
Inside, Tricia sat still for a moment. Her hands closed around the folded clothes he’d left. She let out a slow breath, one that trembled somewhere between pain and relief. “Believe me that I’m grateful either way,” she whispered to the empty room.
She quickly changed, feeling like a different person.
She tried to straighten out her hair, but it was tangled.
She found an elastic band on the floor, so she snatched it up happily, gave it a rinse in the sink, and dragged her hair into something like a ponytail, trying to get everything to behave—or at least tamed enough to look almost normal.
And, with that, she opened the door and smiled at him. His eyebrows shot up. “You look totally different.”
“Yeah, it’s amazing what clean clothes can do,” she noted, with a dry laugh. “I don’t know where you got them from, but thank you.”
He laughed. “Let’s get you back to the vehicle. Just don’t ask too many questions.”
Her eyebrows shot up as she looked around at the very tiny store and beyond and realized he probably stole the clothes she wore from the laundromat. “Did you—”
He cut her off right away. “Don’t worry. I left cash behind.”
“Oh, thank God,” she whispered. “There’s been enough times this week when I definitely wanted clothing, but I’m not sure stealing is the answer.”
As he hustled her back into the car, she noted bags of groceries sitting on the seat beside her. She waited until he got in and then asked, “Stole that too?”
“Not exactly,” he replied, with a chuckle. “I got about twelve sandwiches and some fruit, granola bars, chips, water, and milk.”
“Wow.”
“I wasn’t sure what all you wanted, so there’s a mix of everything.”