33. Chapter 33
Chapter thirty-three
Lucy
Istayed still for several minutes until the armed guard eventually turned around and walked away into the darkness. The only sounds were my own ragged breathing through my nose and his footsteps until my ears picked up the faint swish of a door being opened and closed.
I waited until I was sure he was gone before I whipped my head toward the girl in the cell next to mine. Phoebe Griffin’s tired eyes looked back at me with dejected concern.
“Hmmmgffff!” I tried to talk through the gag even though I knew she wouldn’t be able to understand me. Phoebe Griffin watched me with worry and exhaustion through the bars of our separate enclosures.
“I can’t understand you,” she whispered as she approached the bars, shooting a sharp look over her shoulder like she was waiting for someone to storm in.
“Hmmmgfffgfffgfff!” It’s you! Bianca’s been so worried about you, was what I wanted to say.
I wished I could communicate to her with my hands, but unfortunately those were of no use to me either since that evil bitch strapped them behind my back.
I blinked at Phoebe slowly, trying to communicate something to her.
“I can’t help you,” she whispered, casting another nervous look behind her before turning around so I could see her own wrists were held together by the same zip ties.
Frustration chewed at my insides as sweat dripped down my back. There had to be a way I could talk to her, I needed to get this fucking thing out of my mouth.
I paced my way over to the bars between us where she stood, pressing my face between them, my nose and the half-sphere of the ball poking through the cold metal. “Gffffffhmmmm.” I blinked my eyes deliberately, trying to indicate my own mouth.
Phoebe’s bruised face pinched together. I noticed the letters JP had been seared into the side of her neck like a brand, the skin red and blistered. “Yes, I see. You shouldn't have screamed like that or maybe they wouldn’t have gagged you. They didn’t do that to me.”
Ugh, I could see why Bianca and her were friends.
Even though she was starting to grow on me, Bianca tended to victim-blame as well.
I remembered that first night at Bellissima when she thought I’d been trying to dine and dash.
I rolled my eyes, stepping back from the bars, my bare feet against the dirty concrete floor.
An idea struck me and I sank down to my knees on the floor, adjusting my arms behind me so I could lean forward and touch my face to the ground.
My limbs protested, but I arched my face toward the ground and tried to roll the ball from my lips.
The strap was tight against my jaw, and it didn’t budge.
I tried again and the rubber of the ball squealed against the floor but didn’t loosen the pressure of the strap on my face.
I let out a flustered snarl from my nose and glanced back up at Phoebe.
She was watching me intently, and a look of pity seemed to flicker across her beautiful yet marred features. I shot her a look of irritation with only my eyes before pressing my face back toward the ground.
“Stop, Jesus fucking Christ, you’re not gonna get it off like that,” she whispered harshly through the bars. “I’ll try to help you only if you promise you’re not gonna scream, okay?”
I glanced back up at her and nodded, my eyes big. Yes, I promise. Please.
“Come over here and sit with your back against the bars. I’ll see if I can try to unclasp it from behind.” She licked her torn upper lip. “Just please don’t scream.”
I nodded again and made my way to her, sitting like she said with my head against the bar.
“I’m gonna try to get it off, but I won’t be able to see anything. If someone comes your way, you need to make some kind of noise so I can stop. God only knows what that crazy bitch will do to us if she finds out I’m doing this.”
I gave her a single nod to let her know I understood.
I heard the soft sound of feet padding toward me, and then nimble fingers feeling around the back of my head.
Her bound hands patted up and down my scalp, shifting lower and pulling strands of my hair with them in little pricks.
I kept my neck still as her fingers explored blindly until I felt a tug that pulled my head flush against the bars.
“Okay, I think I found it. Give me a second.”
Phoebe spent several minutes tugging at the strap and my hair kept getting yanked out in the process.
I wasn’t going to complain though, the pain felt like a minor, inconvenient price for what she was risking for me.
Then I felt a sudden tightening of pressure before it released, and the strap came undone against the back of my head.
I shook my face and opened my jaw wide, the ball sliding from my lips with thud on the floor in front of me.
I coughed, my stomach rolling as I stood and turned around to face her again. “Thank you,” I gasped, flexing my jaw as temporary relief tingled across my lips.
Phoebe gave me an analytical look, like she wasn’t sure if I was about to break my promise and start yelling. “Don’t mention it,” she said. “Seriously. If they ask how you got it off, you tell them you managed it on your own.”
I knew exactly what she was implying, and I understood why. The last thing Chase and Wrangler needed to think was we were collaborating behind their backs. What Phoebe didn’t know was I’d already been on her team for a while now.
I wasn’t sure how to start this conversation, but I decided the time for formalities had long passed. “You’re Phoebe Griffin, right?” I asked even though I already knew the answer.
She was startled by this. “Yes, how do you know that? Are you friends with my brother?”
I didn’t know why this would be the first question that came to her mind, but I decided in that instant it wasn’t the right time to tell her Teddy was dead.
“I’m Lucy, and it’s a long story, but I’m actually a friend of Bianca.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, but Bianca probably wouldn’t have said the same thing about me. That wasn’t important right now.
Phoebe’s brows shot up. “Bianca? Oh my god, please don’t tell me she was with you when they took you.” Genuine worry and fear coated her hushed voice.
“No,” I assured, “she’s not with me, but she’s been very worried. We found…a video of you online. Here. Speaking of which, do you know where the hell we are?”
She grimaced. “I’m pretty sure we’re in New York. I think this place used to be some kind of a deli or something.”
New York? How long had I passed out before I woke up in that ice chest? Apparently long enough for them to drag my unconscious body clear across the country.
“Why do you say that?” Beside the fluorescent light right above the cages, the rest of the space around us was hidden in the dark. I couldn’t tell what lay beyond the iron bars beside what looked like some knocked over shelving units and a few folding chairs stacked together.
“Because they give us these as toilet paper, though it’s not like they’re of any use.” She walked over to the corner of her cell where a dirty bucket stood. I glanced at the one in mine with disgust. I hadn’t needed to use it yet, but I wasn’t looking forward to when I’d inevitably have to.
She walked back over and turned around to slip something through the bars, and I spun around to meet her hands.
I dropped what she handed me onto the floor and kneeled to inspect it.
It looked like carbon copy tickets, the kind that restaurants and delis used to take orders.
My eyes narrowed in at the printed logo at the top of the forms, the ink of which was slightly smudged like something wet had spilled on them.
Ferraro Delicatessen, Brooklyn NY
My sore jaw dropped a little as I reread the name over and over again in my head. It couldn’t be, could it?
Had I been kidnapped and dragged to the deli that Dax’s parents used to own? There were probably thousands of delis in New York, but what were the chances of ending up at one with his namesake?
Dax. A warm, sick feeling fluttered through my chest as I wondered where he was right now. He must have shown back up to Echelon Developments to find me gone and then…well, I wasn’t sure. Knowing him, he was probably going mad trying to figure out where they might have taken me.
“How long have you been here?” I asked Phoebe, lifting my eyes back up to meet her tired gaze.
“Four days.” She sighed. “I’ve been on the run ever since they threatened me at the club I used to work at in San Francisco.
I’d almost made it to Oregon, but they caught me in Eureka.
Drugged me and stuck me on a cargo plane with two other girls before we got here.
They shoved me in one of those ice chests before we landed, so I can’t be a hundred percent positive that’s where we are.
” She nodded toward the stack of tickets on the floor.
The next question I asked was one I didn’t really want the answer to, and I arched my knees up to my chest. “Where are the other girls now?”
Phoebe gave me a sullen look, and I didn’t need any other explanation.
According to Emile and Dax, a lot of the women in those videos ended up dead.
“Just do whatever they tell you, and hopefully they’ll keep you around.
The last girl kept fighting against them and they cut her apart with a chainsaw… while she was alive.”
I shook my head, nausea throttling back into my system. “It’s not up to us what happens. It’s up to the sick fucking monsters who are watching all this happen from the comfort of their homes. They pay for requests, and those bastards do their bidding. They make a fortune doing it.”
She stared at me for a moment, her face pinched together. “How do you know all this?”
I spent the next few minutes trying to give her the bullet points of everything that happened since the first night I met Dax.
I stumbled over my words when I tried to explain what the hell I had been thinking when I decided to seek vengeance on Tara’s behalf.
She actually laughed at this, and I wasn’t sure if it was because she thought I was an idiot or if she was impressed.
By the time I finished with what happened at my interview, I felt like I was going to pass out again.
My stomach rumbled, my bones ached, and I was simultaneously thirsty while needing to pee.
“So, what you’re saying is there’s an underground militia of vigilantes called CIPHER who are out there looking for us right now?” She sounded amused, but not necessarily hopeful, echoing my own sentiments.
“That’s the gist of it,” I muttered, my voice scratchy.
Defeated, I pushed myself up onto my feet and went to the corner where the dingy bucket sat.
I didn’t even attempt to grab the ticket pad, kicking it to the side as I walked past. Modesty was definitely not a luxury afforded to those in this place, but Phoebe turned around politely and walked a few paces away in her cell.
Finally relieving myself, my eyes focused on the wall to my side.
Bricks had been painted over in hasty swaths of black paint, and it looked like there might have been something painted underneath it at some point.
My gaze attached to a brick that seemed to jut out just a little from the others on the wall.
After I’d finished tugging my pants back up, which took way longer than getting them down, I walked over to it.
Turning my back against the wall, I bent down and trailed my fingers alongside the wall until I found the sides of the brick and grasped onto it, stepping forward and twisting my fingers back.
The brick jostled, and I slid it out until it clattered to the floor behind me.
Phoebe spun around when she heard the noise. “What the hell are you doing?” Her hiss carried through the bars of our prison.
Ignoring her, I turned toward the wall and peered into the hole.
“Oh my god,” I whispered, my eyes catching on a folded piece of paper tucked deep into the wall.