Chapter 2
Taken
The thing about running from your own stupidity is that it follows you everywhere. Like a shadow. Or a hundred thousand dollar bank deposit that burns in your account like a neon sign screaming "SOLD."
"You've been weird lately," she said on day three, passing me a beer while some reality show played in the background. "Like, weirder than usual."
"Thanks for the pep talk." I took a long pull from the bottle, trying to wash down the taste of paranoia. Every car that drove by made me tense. Every unknown number on my phone sent my heart racing. "Just work stuff."
"The tattoo shop or the bar?"
"Both." Neither. The secret third thing where I'd apparently sold myself to a psychological research facility run by a man with a voice like expensive whiskey and intentions I didn't want to think about.
Mika studied me with those dark eyes that saw too much. "You know you can tell me if something's wrong, right?"
I could. I could tell her everything. Show her the contract, the texts, the money that still sat in my account like evidence of my spectacular fuck-up. But what would I say? "Hey, so I might have accidentally agreed to be a sex slave for science, and now they're trying to collect"?
"I know," I lied, curling deeper into her couch. "Just need to lay low for a while."
Laying low worked for exactly nine days.
On day ten, they started calling. Not from blocked numbers or the disconnected line on the business card. From everywhere. The tattoo shop. The bar. My dentist's office, for fuck's sake.
"Is this Miss West?" The receptionist at my gyno's office sounded confused. "I have a note here about rescheduling your appointment for your... participation physical?"
I hung up.
They called from the pizza place I'd ordered from once. From my old high school. From numbers that belonged to my neighbors, my coworkers, my fucking cable company.
"Miss West," that same cultured voice every time, no matter what number appeared on the screen. "Avoiding your obligations doesn't nullify them. We can do this the easy way or the difficult way."
I chose option C: throw my phone in Puget Sound and buy a burner from a sketchy convenience store.
That bought me another week.
Then the letters started. Not mailed—appeared. Under Mika's door. In my work locker. Tucked under the windshield wipers of every car I'd ever driven. Same expensive paper. Same neat printing.
Your participation period has begun, Miss West. Continued avoidance will result in collection protocols as outlined in Section 61-A of your agreement.
I didn't remember a Section 61-A. Probably because I'd been too busy counting my money to read about "collection protocols."
"Okay, what the actual fuck?" Mika held up one of the letters that had somehow appeared in her locked mailbox. "Who's the Mire Institute?"
"No one. Nothing. Junk mail." I snatched it from her hand, shoving it into my pocket with the dozen others I'd collected. "Probably a scam."
She crossed her arms, hip cocked in that way that meant she was done with my bullshit. "Junk mail that knows your name? That appears in locked boxes? Lilah, if you're in some kind of trouble—"
"I'm not." Another lie. They were piling up like the letters, like the days I'd been running. "I just need a few more days here, okay? Then I'll be out of your hair."
"You know that's not what I meant." She touched my arm, gentle in that way that made me want to tell her everything. "Whatever this is, we can figure it out together."
But we couldn't. Because what I'd signed, what I'd agreed to in that coffee shop with my cocky signature and my certainty that I was smarter than everyone else—that was mine to figure out. Mine to run from. Mine to eventually face.
I lasted three weeks.
Three weeks of hiding, of jumping at shadows, of collection protocols that escalated from calls and letters to more creative methods.
My boss at the bar received a generous donation "in honor of Lilah West's upcoming sabbatical.
" My tattoo mentor got a letter praising my "commitment to personal growth through intensive study.
" My bank account showed pending transfers labeled "PARTICIPATION INCENTIVE - PENDING COLLECTION. "
They were tightening the noose without ever touching me. Reminding me that they could reach into every corner of my life whenever they wanted.
"I can't do this anymore," I told Mika on day twenty-one, standing in her kitchen at 2 AM, exhausted and frayed. "I'm going home."
"Finally." She pulled me into a hug that smelled like her vanilla shampoo and felt like safety I didn't deserve. "Whatever this is, Lilah, running isn't fixing it."
She was right. Running wasn't fixing anything. It was just delaying the inevitable.
I went back to my apartment the next morning. Everything was exactly as I'd left it—bed unmade, coffee cup still in the sink, contract papers still scattered across the floor like accusations. The only difference was the envelope on my kitchen counter.
Same expensive paper. Same neat printing. But this time, just two words:
LAST CHANCE.
I crumpled it up, threw it in the trash with the others. Showered. Changed into fresh clothes that didn't smell like three weeks of couch-surfing and fear. Tried to pretend my hands weren't shaking.
The smart thing would be to hire a lawyer. The smarter thing would have been to never sign that contract in the first place. But I'd blown past smart about a hundred thousand dollars ago.
So I did what I did best: pretended everything was fine.
Went back to work. Ignored the knowing looks from my coworkers who'd all apparently received calls about my "upcoming opportunity.
" Poured drinks. Practiced linework at the tattoo shop.
Acted like the sword hanging over my head was just another Thursday accessory.
It worked for exactly one week.
The rain started around midnight, Seattle showing off with the kind of downpour that turned streets into rivers and windshield wipers into suggestions.
I'd picked up a closing shift at the bar, partly for the money, mostly to avoid going home to my empty apartment and the weight of what waited for me there.
"You sure you're good to drive?" Marcus, the other bartender, watched me count out my tips with concern that would've been sweet if I wasn't so fucking tired. "This weather's supposed to get worse."
"I'm fine." I shoved the damp bills into my pocket, seventy bucks that felt like pennies compared to what sat in my bank account. "Just tired."
"You've been tired a lot lately." He moved closer, voice dropping. "If someone's bothering you, if you need help—"
"Jesus, does everyone think I need saving?" The words came out sharper than intended, but I was so sick of concerned looks and careful questions. "I'm fine. The weather's fine. Everything's fucking fine."
He backed off, hands raised. "Okay. Just... be careful out there."
Careful. Right. Like being careful had ever been my strong suit.
The parking lot was a lake with ambitions, water ankle-deep and cold enough to soak through my boots immediately. I ran for my car, keys already in hand, rain plastering my hair to my head and making my bar shirt cling like a second skin.
The engine turned over once. Twice. Then nothing but a clicking sound that might as well have been the universe laughing at me.
"No. No, no, no." I turned the key again, foot pumping the gas like that had ever helped anything. "Come on, you piece of shit. Not tonight."
Click. Click. Click.
I slammed my hand against the steering wheel, horn blaring into the empty night. Of course. Of fucking course my car would die tonight, in this rain, when I was alone and exhausted and so tired of running I could barely see straight.
My phone—the burner I'd bought to avoid them—showed no signal. Because of course it didn't. The universe wasn't done teaching me lessons about thinking I was clever.
I sat there for a moment, rain drumming on the roof, considering my options. Walk home in this weather and probably drown. Sleep in the car and deal with it in the morning. Or...
The tap on my window made me scream.
A man stood there, umbrella in hand, looking like every stranger-danger warning my mother had ever given me. Tall, broad-shouldered, face obscured by shadows and rain.
I cracked the window an inch. "I'm fine. Just waiting for AAA."
"In this weather?" His voice was pleasant, concerned. Normal. Which somehow made it worse. "That could take hours. I've got jumper cables in my van, if you want to give it a try."
Every instinct screamed no. But what was I going to do, sit here all night? I was already soaked, already fucked, already living on borrowed time.
"Yeah. Okay. Thanks."
I popped the hood, stepping out into the rain that immediately drenched me all over again. The man—mid-thirties, clean-shaven, forgettable face—was already pulling cables from a white van that looked like every serial killer vehicle in every true crime show I'd ever watched.
"Battery's probably dead," he said, voice raised over the rain. "This weather's been killing them all week."
I nodded, hugging myself against the cold, watching him attach the cables with practiced efficiency. Something felt off, but then again, everything had felt off for weeks. Paranoia was my new default setting.
"Try it now," he called.
I slid back into the driver's seat, turned the key. Nothing.
"One more time."
Still nothing.
I was about to get back out when I felt it—a hand over my mouth, something sweet and chemical pressed against my face. I thrashed, kicked, tried to bite, but he was stronger and I was already breathing it in, the world going soft around the edges.
"Shh." A different voice now, calm and controlled and terrifyingly familiar. "No more running, Miss West."
Dr. Gabriel Mire. Of course. Of fucking course he'd come himself.