10. Adriana
10
ADRIANA
PRESENT DAY
Loud banging at the door has me jerking from the fitful sleep I finally fell into. I glance at the clock by the bed. It isn’t even six in the morning. What the hell kind of hour is this for a delivery? I wait for Hana to move her lazy ass but hear nothing. Another bang rents the air. Sighing, I get up, pulling my long t-shirt nightie down from where it’s gotten rucked up in the night.
On my way down the corridor, I check in on Cade. He’s still miraculously sleeping. Then again, the kid can sleep through the loudest movie. I smile fondly and pad down the stairs, yawning.
I open the door and stare in shock at the figure on the other side.
He grins at me.
“Ari?”
“You remembered my name,” he says with a smirk.
“Um, yeah, um … let me go get Hana.”
“No need.”
“Sorry?”
He leans in. I shrink back but his arm goes around my waist and pulls me into him. His other hand slaps over my face, and something wet covers my mouth and nose. I struggle and inhale desperately. I can breathe, thank God, but then the smell hits. Something sickly sweet but with a harsh overtone. What the fuck?
I struggle more, screaming into the material over my face and kicking my legs at Ari.
“Don’t make me choke you to sleep,” he snarls in my ear.
“ Hana ,” I manage to gasp around the cloth.
He laughs darkly. “Hana has her ear plugs firmly in place. She can’t hear a thing. She will wake up, and you’ll be gone.”
I scream louder.
His next words chill me to the bone. “She put her ear plugs in on purpose. Her white noise machine is turned up too. Plausible deniability.”
What the hell? Is he saying Hana knows this is happening?
The conversation from only a few hours ago floats back to me, but I can’t make sense of it because my head is swimming. I think I’m going to be sick.
“Jesus fucking Christ. Go under already.”
He pushes the cloth harder against me, and I can’t get in air. My blood pounds in my head, and my hands curl into claws as my legs shake and start to buckle.
Sweat breaks out all over my body, pinpricks of panic as lights flash in front of my eyes.
Then nothing.
Darkness.
Pain.
So much pain.
My eyes open, and the light explodes, burning my retinas.
Holy hell. Where am I?
I turn, and oh, that was a mistake. Sickness washes over me so sharp I bend over the bed and vomit. All over the floor. The plush carpet below me is soaked with watery bile.
Carpet. Am I at home? But no, this is not my carpet. This is thick and mink colored.
“Fucking bitch.” The deep male voice startles me. I turn and whimper as hammers pound my skull.
A man is watching me. He’s young, with a buzz cut and rings on every finger. Ink crawls all over his hands and up his throat. The white shirt he’s wearing is tight and fits his skinny body like a glove.
“That carpet is gonna be a bitch to clean, stupid cow.”
I frown. He sounds British. English, from the south. Am I back in England?
“Where am I?” I ask. My voice sounds like a frog croaking.
“In the bay,” he says. “Don’t even try to escape. You jump overboard and the cold and the currents will kill you.”
“What bay?”
God. My head!
“The San Francisco Bay, you dumb, stupid cow.”
He likes to use cow as an insult.
“Who are you?” I moan and put a hand to my head as if I can stop the pain.
“Your guard.”
“Why do I need a guard?”
He shrugs. Then he starts to bite his nails and spit them out. I must look away in case I’m sick again.
Terrified, but in so much pain, I can’t quite bring myself to care. I fall back against the sheets and close my eyes.
When I blink them open next, it’s dark. I put my hand out and yelp. There’s a warm body next to me. Oh, God. Is my guard in bed with me?
The thought has that sickness rising again.
The body next to me moans, and it’s a distinctly female sound. Thank the Lord it isn’t my guard.
I do a quick inventory of my body. I’m still sick as hell, my head still pounds, but less so, and my vagina feels normal. No pain. No stickiness from what I can tell. Surreptitiously, I slip my hands down my body and into my panties. Nope. No fluids. No soreness. Surely, I’d know if I’d been taken advantage of.
The girl next to me moans again.
“Hey,” I whisper into the dark. “Are you okay?”
She coughs, and it sounds pathetic and small. “My head hurts.”
“Did they use the cloth?”
“Yes,” she says. She sniffs and coughs again. “Who are you? Where do you think we are?”
“We’re in the bay,” I say. “That’s all I know. I was taken, and we’re in the bay. My name is Adriana.”
“In the bay? Still? God, they are idiots. Why didn’t they leave?”
Leave? Then I feel it. The movement below me finally registers. The swaying is gentle, but it’s definitely there. “I think we’re on a boat,” I say.
“Yes, we are. But why didn’t they leave the bay?”
“I don’t know. What’s your name?” I can’t make my mind work, and thinking logically is harder than advanced algebra right now.
“Josie,” she says. “My name is Josie.”
“Well, Josie. At least if we’re on a boat and still near the city, we can maybe escape. Did they…. Um, have they hurt you?”
“No.” She sniffs again, and I reach for her. “They moved me in here, though, and I don’t know why.”
My fingers find hers across the ocean of the bedding separating us, and I give her hand a gentle squeeze.
“Be brave,” I say, even though I feel anything but. “We will get out of this somehow.”
“Oh, yes, we will. I’ll be getting rescued and when I do, I’ll make sure they help you too.”
What? How does she know this?
“These men will pay,” she says, and it’s guttural.
The hairs at my nape tingle. “How do you know?” I ask.
“Because there is a girl here whose father is a very important and dangerous man, and her uncle, even more so. He will find her. She told me so. She said when he does, we will be freed, and these men will be dead.” She coughs and sucks in a breath. “I was in her room at first, but then a man came for me, and then I woke up in this room.”
“Her uncle will find her?”
“Yes. That’s what she told me.”
She is so certain that I don’t want to break her bubble, but how can she be so sure?
We spend the next few hours dozing on and off, but we talk too.
“How old are you?” I ask.
“Eighteen. Nineteen in a few weeks.”
“Are you in college?”
She sighs. “I’m not going. I need to find a job and start making money. I won’t be able to afford the loan payback if I put myself into any more debt.”
She touches my finger with her own. “What about you?”
“I studied in England. I was hoping to do a creative writing course after my degree, but my father couldn’t afford to help me with fees and living expenses. So it would have meant debt upon debt, and my accommodation ran out, so I came back; pretty much the same issue. I hate student debt. I missed my dad too, and I told myself it would be just for a while, and that maybe I could take courses here, or work and study part time. We lost Mum a while ago, and my dad remarried recently.”
“I’m sorry about your mom. You’re British, right?”
“I have dual citizenship. My Dad is American, and my mum was English. I met my stepmom at the wedding; can you believe that?”
“How is that going?” She starts to giggle. “I mean, other than the whole being kidnapped thing.”
I laugh too, shocked that she can make light of this but finding laughter a much-needed tension reliever.
“You won’t believe this, but I think my stepmom is the reason I’m here. I think…” My voice catches in my throat. “I think she did something terrible. I think she arranged for me to be kidnapped.”
“Oh my God. That’s awful. How could she?”
I shrug in the dark. “She has a lot of issues. I don’t think she’s capable of normal love. I don’t even think she loves her son, my stepbrother, and he’s a cute little gremlin. She fakes it to my dad. He’s lonely and tired, and she dazzled him.” I pause and then share more. After all what does it matter? We’re probably going to die here on this damn yacht. “My dad drinks too much. It started after Mum died and he’s only got worse. It’s how I think Hana fooled him. She’s also kind of gorgeous. Anyway, I think she owes a lot of money to these people because I overheard her talking, and then they took me.”
Josie drums her fingers on the bed beside her. “So perhaps you’re collateral?” she suggests. “Or like a loan, to pawn brokers. That might be good. It means they might not hurt you.”
I suck in a breath and tell her my fear. “I think it’s way worse than that. What if I’m the payment for her debts?”
The door opens, and I stiffen. Every muscle and tendon in my body locks with fear.
Josie’s fingers brush mine again, wrapping around them. “Promise me we’ll look out for each other as best we can.”
“Pinkie promise,” I say with a sad smile as our fingers lock, only for them to be tugged apart when Josie is pulled from the bed.
She shouts and screams, and her cursing is impressive. I try to help her, pushing the covers from me, but a big hand pushes me down, right in the center of my chest. I’m pinned against the bed like a bug on a board.
My arms and legs kick, but it’s useless against the huge palm pinning me, and a second hand joins it, this one wrapped around my throat. I get the message and stop fighting.
I’ll try to find her. I promise it to her as she is dragged from the room.