Chapter 27 Kiera
KIERA
Kiera woke to jolting motion, a pounding headache, and the sickening realization that she couldn’t move her arms.
For a moment, she had no idea where she was–everything was dark and shaky and wrong.
Her cheek was pressed against cold ribbed metal that smelled like oil and dust and old blood.
Every few seconds her whole body bounced hard enough to make her teeth click together, and a sharp ache pulsed behind her eyes in time with the bumps.
Then memory came rushing back in a jagged blur. Waiting for Iyanna’s shuttle…the stink of body odor and sour cream and onion chips…a huge hand over her face and that awful sweet smell.
Higgs. Higgs had her–there could be no doubt.
Panic surged through Kiera so hard it made her stomach turn over. God, she had to get away–right now!
Kiera tried to sit up and nearly rolled straight into the low side rail of whatever she was lying in. Her wrists were tied in front of her and her ankles too—bound so tightly that every movement made the ropes bite into her skin.
She was in the back of some kind of farm hauler, she realized dimly.
Not quite a truck and not quite a wagon.
The front section was a squat, four—wheeled utility rig with oversized treaded tires and a whining ion—motor instead of an engine, and hitched behind it was a flat cargo sled with metal side rails and no suspension to speak of. That was where she was–in the sled.
The whole rig lurched again as it hit a rut. Kiera tried to brace herself and failed.
Her shoulder slammed into the side rail and then the cart dropped into a deep hole with a bone—jarring crash that bounced her clear off the metal floor. Her head struck the bottom of the cart hard enough to make white light explode behind her eyes and pain shot through her skull.
The world turned gray and wavery. Oh God, she felt so dizzy…
Then everything slid away again.
When she came back, her head was pounding so badly she thought she might throw up.
The sky overhead was a strange washed—out blur of pale purple. Hands that were rough and meaty had her under the arms and were hauling her bodily out of the cart like a sack of feed.
Kiera moaned and tried weakly to twist free.
Above her, Higgs laughed.
“Finally waking up, are you? Well good—now you get to see what turning me down gets you, girly. I'll give you a hint, it was a bad mistake, treating me like you did. A very bad mistake.”
His voice was thick and ugly with satisfaction.
Kiera’s stomach dropped and she blinked hard, trying to clear her vision.
At first all she could make out was Higgs’ his bald, pickle head looming over her like a diseased moon.
It was shining faintly with sweat and his overalls were grimy and stained, his bumpy skin damp and glistening.
He smelled even worse up close than he had before, all sour body odor and that awful fake—salty snack smell that somehow clung to him no matter what.
She struggled again, but her head was still swimming, and her arms and legs were tied too tightly for her to do anything useful.
“Lemme go,” she mumbled, though the words came out slurred. “You don’t own me–let go of me.”
Higgs just laughed again.
“I don’t think so, girly.”
He had her hooked under one arm and was dragging her toward a huge metal building set apart from the rest of his structures she could see around her. He must have taken her back to his ranch because they were vaguely familiar.
The building he was taking her to looked more like a warehouse than a barn—long and low and built from dull silver panels reinforced with dark support beams. Frost rimed the lower edges of the exterior and a strange vapor drifted around the seams of the door.
A freezer, Kiera realized with a fresh stab of fear. A meat locker. What else could it be?
No. No, no, no–she couldn’t let him take her in there!
“What…why are you bringing me in here?” she managed, more awake now and getting more frightened by the second.
Higgs only grinned.
“You’ll see.”
Then he kicked the metal door open.
A blast of freezing air hit her in the face and Kiera gasped.
It was like being slapped with winter itself—dry and bitter and sharp enough to steal her breath for a moment.
The cold cut straight through her t—shirt and jeans as though they weren’t even there.
It woke her up fast, though. Fast enough that when Higgs dragged her over the threshold, she was horrified enough to truly understand where she was.
It was his slaughter freezer.
Huge metal rails ran the length of the ceiling, and from them hung skinned, split carcasses of the two—headed canthors Higgs raised and butchered.
Their flesh was dark and glossy in places, frosted white in others.
Green blood had dripped and pooled below them and frozen into slick dark puddles on the concrete floor.
The whole place smelled of iron and cold fat and old death.
Kiera gagged and barely managed to keep from getting sick. Oh God, this was horrible! She struggled again but it was useless–she couldn’t get away when she was tied like this. There was nothing she could do as Higgs dragged her deeper into the freezer.
Cold air blew all around her, making her shiver. The sound of the refrigeration units was a constant low mechanical roar, broken now and then by an icy hiss from vents running along the back wall. Somewhere deeper inside the freezer, a chain clinked softly against metal.
Higgs hauled her farther in and dropped her with no ceremony at all against the freezing wall opposite the hanging carcasses.
Pain shot up her spine and she bit back a cry.
“What are you doing? Why are we here?” she demanded, trying to make her voice strong.
“Just going to leave you here until you cool down some, girly,” Higgs told her. “I find that spending some time in the deep freeze tends to make all the girlies a lot happier to see me when I come to get them again.”
Kiera stared at him in horror. All the girlies?
“What are you talking about?” she demanded, the last of the drugged grogginess burning off now from pure fear.
But he was already straightening up, looming over her with that same awful smirk.
“Now you just cool off for a while and think to yourself about how bad you treated me and how sorry you are,” Higgs told her.
“And maybe think about what you can do to make it up to me.” He grabbed his crotch suggestively.
“I'll give you a hint, girly—I like to get my pecker sucked. That always puts me in a good mood.”
Kiera’s face twisted in pure revulsion.
“What the hell are you talking about? You put that thing near my mouth and I swear I’ll bite it off!”
Higgs frowned down at her.
“Now is that any way to talk to the only male who can let you out of the deep freeze? I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “Guess I’ll have to let you cool down your temper here for a while. I’ll come back and check on you later.”
He turned to go and the full reality of it hit Kiera all at once–he was leaving her here. Leaving her tied up, half concussed and wearing nothing but a t—shirt and jeans in the middle of a giant industrial freezer.
“Hey, wait—you can’t leave me here. I’ll f—f—freeze!” she exclaimed, her teeth already beginning to chatter.
Higgs gave her an unpleasant grin.
“That's the idea, girly. You get cold enough and maybe getting a belly—full of my nice hot cum won't sound like such a bad idea." He leered at her. "You might even want a pussy—full of it too. Who knows?"”
Then he turned and lumbered out.
“W—wait!” Kiera gasped.
But it was too late. The metal door slammed shut with a heavy clang that echoed through the whole freezing warehouse. A second later she heard the lock engage with a solid, unmistakable click.
Then there was only the drone of the cooling units and the hanging carcasses swaying almost imperceptibly overhead.
Kiera sat there for a moment, shaking hard, her bound hands numb already from the cold. Cold, hard truths began to creep into her mind.
Nobody knew where she was–nobody.
Iyanna would think she was waiting at the sanctuary and Brux—oh God, Brux— wasn’t even on Plo’nix anymore. He was on the Monstrum Mother Ship, standing trial before the Council while she sat tied up in Higgs’ meat freezer like something waiting to be butchered.
If only her friend would call her again–but maybe she was trying to.
Maybe the special industrial metal the meat locker was made of was blocking the signal of the Think-Me.
Kiera had heard of such things happening–metallic signal interference it was called and it made it hard to connect with someone, especially long—distance.
Her breath came too fast.
Think. Think–she had to think. She couldn't lose herself to panic or she’d never get out of here alive.
She twisted her wrists experimentally and winced. The cords were synthetic farm line—thin but brutally strong, biting deep into her skin every time she moved. Her ankles were tied too, though with slightly more slack.
The concrete floor under her was slick with old frozen blood and so cold it burned through her jeans and her toes were already going numb in her boots. She didn’t have much time.
Kiera looked up at the hanging carcasses and had to swallow hard against another wave of nausea. She didn’t want to end up like one of them.
The canthors hung split and gutted on their hooks, their two heads lolling at awkward angles, empty eye sockets crusted with frost. Green—black blood marbled the concrete below them in frozen streaks.
The metal hooks overhead creaked now and then, the sound small but awful in the endless refrigeration hum.
She was trapped here, and the worst thing was that when she remembered Higgs’ ugly words and the look on his face, a sick little voice in the back of her mind whispered that freezing to death might be the better option.
Kiera squeezed her eyes shut. No. No, she was not going to think like that. She was not going to die in this place. And most of all, she was not going to let Higgs come back and do whatever sick thing he had planned.
Her teeth were chattering so hard now she could barely feel her jaw.
“Think,” she whispered aloud into the freezing air. “Think, Kiera.”
Then she opened her eyes and started looking for a way out.