37. Amalia
For the love of Fibonacci, why can’t I lift my eyelids?
A current of panic floods my bloodstream as I try to move my fingers, but the movement is far too heavy.
“Stay still, bella. The effect will pass soon enough,” says a male voice from somewhere in front of me, and I try even harder to open my eyes, but a blinding headache stops me.
What is happening?
Before I can analyze the situation, instinct takes over, and I try to feel whether the bracelet is still on my wrist. A month ago, when I came to MIT to study, Julia forced me to wear a bracelet every day, one that Luna, her sort of sister-in-law, programmed with a panic button.
At the time it seemed like an excessive precaution, but right now I’m thanking Diosito that I never took it off and that whoever took me didn’t realize what it does.
My movements are still sluggish, but I manage to press the button, and I have to suppress the exhale that wants to escape.
I pry one eyelid open, then the other. In front of me sits a man around fifty, gray haired, wearing a dark green suit and loafers. I know him from somewhere, but my mind can’t hold onto that detail long enough to place it.
His fingers cup my face, and with a phone held up in front of me, he takes a photo.
He smells of tobacco and sweat, and every instinct in my body wants to pull back from his touch, but I don’t have the strength to even push myself slightly away.
“The bastard is going to love this photo.”
I don’t know how many minutes pass, but my mind starts to clear. I take in that I’m in some kind of house where all the furniture looks like it hasn’t been replaced in at least forty years.
Chicago is over fourteen hours away by car from Massachusetts, but I know they’ve received my signal, so within a few hours they’ll be here. Because I know my sister, and she’s capable of teleporting if she knows I’m in danger.
What if we are not close to Massachusetts? What if we are not even in the US anymore?
Breathe, Amalia!
Maksim prepared me for situations like this and explained that the best strategy is silence. Not to try to gather information, but to stay still and observe.
I can see two more men somewhere at the far end of a hallway, and I know that even if I managed to get up from this chair, I couldn’t get past them without being hurt.
Could these people be connected to human trafficking? Has someone made the link between me and Julia?
But as I try to work through it, I look at the man in front of me, and a memory surfaces.
Silas’s apartment. This man coming to ask for his help, and Silas refusing.
My heart has started pumping too much blood, and I think I’m hyperventilating, because these people have nothing to do with Julia and Maksim, they have something to do with him.
The man who broke my heart and kept all the pieces.
There’s laughter from the far end of the hallway, and when I look toward them with a knot in my chest, Silvio — the man in front of me — drops to one knee.
With a smirk, he tells me, “I hope Silas is ready to make a lot of money disappear, because otherwise, bella, you’d better get ready to work in his place. ”
My first instinct is to flinch, to drop my head, to make myself small.
But no.
Julia and Maksim are coming. Until then, I retreat into my own mind, the only place where they cannot touch me.