16. Lola #2
I call her. Maybe she’ll answer. Just a ring, then dead air. It shouldn’t be dead. Why is it dead?
My jaw tenses. I try the home phone. The line is flat, hollow, no sound at all. Panic swarms. Crawling, gnawing, biting me up from the insides. I grip my phone so hard I feel it crack.
Then there is a loud crash. Glass or wood breaking.
A flood of footsteps follow, fast and heavy.
Shadows slither across the walls. Men. At least two, maybe three.
Black masks. Gloves. They don’t hesitate.
I scream, or at least, I try, but there’s leather slammed over my mouth before a sound escapes.
Someone yanks my arms, wrenching them up behind my back, sharp zip of tape at my wrists.
I thrash, I kick, I claw backwards. They pin me face-down on the floor, knee in my side, one fist grabbing my hair until my scalp feels like it’s on fire. Rough hands shove something over my face. Linen hood, thick. I can’t see. I can barely breathe. I want to bite my tongue off.
In the distance, Marcus shouts. The voice is less a word, more a roar. “What the hell is this? Who the fuck sent you?”
A crash. Desk overturns. Silence. Sick, total silence. All the air gets sucked out of the room. My whole body is filled with terror. Worse than when Marcus gives me punishments.
This is the kind of fear that makes me wonder if I am about to join my mother in the grave. I never felt like that with Marcus, because I know he does not want me dead, despite his cruelty.
But now? I do not know what is going to happen next.
I want to disappear into the floorboards, but the masked men don’t give me a chance. They wrench me up, rough hands everywhere, gloved fingers digging into the soft parts of my arms, my ribs. I try to scream but the linen hood smothers everything. I gag, choke, swallow a mouthful of my own spit.
They drag me. Slam me into every corner, every rough edge in the hallway. My shoulder cracks against the doorframe. My knees scrape tile. My wrists are useless behind my back, throbbing under the tape.
Can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.
One of them yanks my head back so hard my neck snaps. My body slams into a wall. My face bashes into cold glass. My cheek splits. I want to retch, but I keep it down.
The front door swings open. Night pours in, frigid air bites through my sweat-soaked skin, burning every exposed inch.
They haul me across the porch, down the steps.
My heels scrape against concrete and I hear one snap, plastic splintering.
I fall, knees skid on ice. They pick me up by the armpits like I weigh nothing.
The neighborhood is dead. No lights, no faces, just the static of my pulse and their boots hammering the sidewalk. I kick. I scream into the hood. It’s worthless. The air gets colder, thinner.
Van. I can smell it before I see it. Old oil, dust, cherry tobacco.
Someone opens a sliding door and shoves me in.
I land on my stomach. Hard, cold metal digs into my hip.
Blood floods my mouth. I spit, try to breathe through my nose, but it’s stuffed up, running.
One of them shoves my ankles together and wraps tape around them.
Tight. Too tight. My skin tingles, then goes numb.
They’re arguing. Voices thick under the mask. I can’t make out words, just the sound. Frantic. Threatening.
“Watch the fucking house, idiot.” “You left a trail.” “Doesn’t matter, she’s ours now.”
I try to scream. It comes out as a thin whine.
The van slams shut. I’m alone in the back, wrists and ankles stuck, rocking on every bone. My ribcage scrapes metal. My jaw throbs. Another set of hands search me. Pat me down. My bag, my phone, it’s all gone. Nothing left but skin and fear.
The engine roars to life. We jerk forward so hard I slam into the wheel well. Something cracks. My vision fuzzes with pain. I start to cry; I can’t help it. Hot tears bleed down my cheeks, under the hood, smeared in blood and snot.
The van peels out, cornering at high speed. I’m tossed from side to side. Every bump sends agony up my spine.
I beg somebody to save me. I beg Sophie. I beg Brody.
Nothing. My thoughts splinter. Dizzy. Dizzy.
How are no cops pulling us over? I know we must be going over the speed limit.
The van jerks. Pain blooms. My arms twist behind me, useless, taped tight, and my breathing is wet under the hood.
I can’t brace myself. I can’t even twist away.
My scalp burns where one of them grabbed my hair.
My wrists are already going numb. Ankles are worse.
I whimper. Try to swallow the noise but it creeps out anyway. The men in the front argue with each other, voices chopped and warped by the cage.
It’s dark. I glimpse through the fabric of the hood. No city lights anymore. Just black trees, pale swipes of snow on the edges of the road. Streetlights thin, then gone. The van’s headlights are the only glow and it makes the snow look like bones.
I want to puke. My stomach clenches so hard I taste acid at the back of my throat. Every jolt hurts. My vision pulses, white at the edges. I can’t see faces. Just shadows. Black gloves, black masks. I could scream and nobody would come.
How far are we going? How long until I disappear?
They take a turn sharp enough to throw my cheek against the wall. I want to scream. I want to die. I want someone to save me, to make this stop, even if it’s with a bullet.
Out of the thin view, I see snow, heavier now. The street is swallowed by white and gray. Trees crowd up against the shoulders of the road. We’re leaving the city. We’re almost in the woods.
The men start shouting. Something’s wrong. Tires squeal. The van skids. Hands grab me just before—
Impact. All air crushes out of my chest. There is sound, but it’s not human. Screaming, metal bending, bone snapping, a howl like a dying animal.
My ribs ache. I lose time.
When I blink back, the world is split open. Everything tilts. I’m upside down, ropes of blood in my hair, cold air rushing in. The men are cursing, one of them sobbing, and glass is everywhere. My brain sparks and fizzes.
The doors rip open. Not the same men; different.
More shouting. Hands close around my ankles, then under my arms, yanking hard.
Concrete, then snow, bites through my clothes.
Nothing but cold and pain and boots slipping on ice.
Rough hands grip me, holding me like I’m a bag of meat, then tosses me down, face down in the snow.
Blue-black, freezing. The dark envelopes me.
Rough hands clamp around my arms; whoever’s dragging me doesn’t say a word.
I try to scream, but it’s muffled by fabric and panic.
All I can hear are my own ragged breaths, the scuffle of boots behind me, and the crunch of ice beneath my knees.
My legs give out and I’m half-carried, half-dragged across the darkness.
The night is split by distant screams. Until even that fades, and there is nothing left except the silent dark.
The moon hangs heavily in the sky, watching, soundless.
My body aches, a thousand bruises blooming beneath my skin, but it’s the fear that hurts most. We stop. The hands tighten. I twist, desperate, but I’m pinned, unable to fight or run. Something cold presses against my neck. I barely register the prick before a burning numbness blooms under my skin.
A voice—low, distorted by the mask—whispers in my ear. I can’t make out the words, only the command in them. My eyelids flutter. The world tilts and shrinks. I try to fight, to hold on, but my limbs turn to water.
I hear the masked man breathing, close and steady. He lifts me, holds me against his chest for a split second—almost gentle, almost safe. Then everything fades. The sky spins above me, dark and endless, and I tumble down, down, down into blackness.
The last thing I feel is the snow melting beneath my body, the sting of the needle, and the certainty that I am lost.