6. Amy

6

AMY

T ime stood still. I rolled back to the other side of the van's cargo space as they sped away. My head hit the cold metal surface hard. I wasn't knocked out. My eyes worked. I saw the darkness back in this windowless space.

But I was stunned, suspended in this numbing paralysis of stark, sickening terror. My heart thundered a furious beat against my ribs, and I couldn't suck in enough air. I didn't think. I couldn't. My body did what it had to do, and I couldn't control any motion. Thoughts didn't file through my mind.

I locked down, frozen with the utter doom that I'd been kidnapped.

A gag was strapped down over my mouth, roughly and hastily tied there by one of the masked thugs as they'd carried me to the van.

Hard braids of ropes cut into my wrists and ankles, coiled there by yet another thug.

In the blink of an eye, I was captured, mercilessly thrown back here with no hope. I couldn't run. I couldn't even sit up. No options were available to me .

All I could do was stare out at the walls of the cargo space, zoned out and too worried and frightened to register a single damn detail. They sped through the streets, taking me away from my distracted walk home from work. Hard and rumbling, the growl of the engine reverberated up from the bare, cold floor I rocked and rolled over.

Fuck! It was the only thought, only reaction, I could scream in my mind. With this nasty strip of cloth over my mouth, I lacked the ability to shout or make noise beyond a grunt.

I had nothing prepared to say. Nothing to demand, other than the obvious request to be released.

Time remained stuck in place because I was trapped under the pressure of freaking out. It happened so quickly. So suddenly. I hadn't been able to run or fight with them outnumbering me. A stubborn part of my brain resisted accepting that this was my reality. In a flash, my fate was changed. I was kidnapped, and without any coherent thoughts or actual visions in my mind, I dreaded what would come.

Another hard turn had me swaying, rolling, and sliding to the opposite side of the cargo space. I closed my eyes and winced, bracing for impact. My limbs were bound. I couldn't stop the hit against the opposite wall from coming, but it didn't hurt.

I didn't crash into another hard wall. Something soft cushioned me and stopped my momentum, and I blinked my eyes open to see what it was.

Now I screamed. A woman. She slumped there unmoving with blood streaking over her brow.

My reaction was muffled, and the effort of screaming had me panting and straining to breathe. I shuffled and wriggled, using my whole body to edge back away from what looked like a corpse.

A dead person. A woman who looked dead . Shivers raced along my skin as my previous terror escalated into a gut-wrenching horror .

They'd killed her. I couldn't reach out and know it. I couldn't check her pulse, but the freakish stillness of her limp weight had to indicate she wasn't doing well.

They're going to kill me. Seeing evidence or the implication of this unconscious woman sliced through my thoughts as I snapped further out of that paralyzed state of shock and fright.

They're going to kill me. I'd never wasted time thinking about life or death. About when my time would come. I'd always had a busy experience of trying to make things work, to get jobs, study, stay out of trouble. All those things prevented me from having idle time to wonder about my mortality, and I'd never been philosophical like that. I preferred to get shit done, to focus on the now and work my ass off to be successful and seek a stable life.

Now, I knew it was over. Unfairness panged deep in my soul, and I wanted to cry at the cruelty of facing my end. I was only twenty-two. It was too soon. I had so much more I wanted to do. I had so much more to give to the world, and I scorned these criminals for daring to snatch me off the streets and?—

I slid again, and I braced for the hit. My feet smashed into the divider between the cargo space and the cab up front where the thugs drove. Bending at the knees helped, but my calf dragged along a rivet or screw on the floor. Blood oozed, slickening the floor and my leg, and the warmth of the sticky liquid made me want to gag.

They'd stopped. The brakes had been hit so hard, the whole vehicle had lurched. But that woman remained limp and heavy where she was.

Dead weight.

I focused on breathing and not puking. If I threw up from this traumatic reality, I'd choke with this gag on.

In. Out. In. Out. Breathe. In and out .

My pulse still pounded fast, and I tensed, fearful of what would come next.

The engine remained running, giving a steady vibration that shook me from lying on the floor. Footsteps hurried around the van. I heard the steady thumps of many people moving, and further out, the sounds of men arguing, yelling, or laughing reached my ears.

The roar of my blood rang too loud in my ears, and I blinked, still focusing on breathing the best I could so I could strain to hear past my terror. My body was locked down in panic, but I tried to stay with it and not slip back into that paralysis of fright and rigid doom.

Bright light blinded me, and I squinted to combat the sudden glaring illumination that filled the cargo space. Men stood there, looking in. I hated the position, being looked down on, but with my limited vision as the spotlights burned so harshly behind them, I noticed one clear thing.

They wore no masks.

They didn't care if I saw them. They didn't count on letting me escape or live to identify them.

I'm going to die.

I knew it now, and with a last reserve of energy at that terrifying thought, I kicked and thrashed, bucking and growling as they reached in and hauled me out. Nothing worked. I couldn't hurt them with my mouth gagged and my limbs bound.

But I tried. I refused to go down weak and docile. I resisted the touch of their filthy hands and fought the best I could. Like one of the feral, rabid cats that sometimes came to the vet clinic, I twisted and exerted all my strength into trying to break free.

They dropped me roughly in a warehouse room. Cold concrete didn't buffer my fall, and they didn't care. My fellow passenger was dragged in too, and I saw that she was alive, moaning and moving slightly. Behind her, four more women shook and trembled along the wall.

Every one of them were bound, tied to meaty hooks on the wall.

White, clinical dresses covered them, and with their frightful eyes trained on me and the other sluggish woman, they watched as I was stripped.

The men spoke in Spanish, and I couldn't follow what they were saying as they roughly ripped and cut my clothes off. I'd struggled so much already, and my body was spent from the terror and panic, so I could only suck in hard breaths to stay with it.

Or maybe passing out would be better. It couldn't hurt as much if I were out cold.

They gave me no such mercy, but as they scolded and bickered, seeming to hurry to strip us, they mentioned Diego .

They didn't grope me. They didn't rape me. The one dragged his lustful gaze near my pussy, but he didn't touch me. It seemed like an offensive, hurried strip search, and I trembled with relief when it was done.

Were they looking for drugs? A recording device? The idea that they worried I could be a threat to them was ridiculous.

Tense and watching their every move, I realized they weren't going to defile me. Not now, at least. Once they stripped me, they shoved one of those stiff white shifts over my body. Barefoot and trembling from the cold fear that encompassed my body, I staggered to the wall and felt the tugs of being secured.

Before they left me there in the lineup, the taller but lankier brute cut my gag off. His knife slid against my cheek so swiftly that I flinched. A hoarse scream waited on my tongue, but when I opened my mouth, he simply moved the knife up and gripped it .

I choked with his fingers squeezing my tongue, and I blinked with the awkward, painful tug down that had me stretching my mouth open wide.

"You scream, and I cut this out." He narrowed his eyes on me with such loathing, I knew that this was the only time he'd tell me this ultimatum. "Got it?" he added in that same broken English.

I blinked quicker and replied with a sloppy uh-huh without the means to move my mouth or tongue.

He released me and glowered at all six of us in here before he and his companion stalked out of the room.

The metal door slammed shut, and I felt the vibration of that closure deep into my soul.

"Don't fight back," one woman whispered. She sported a black eye, a cut lip, and was missing one hand. The bloodied, bandaged stump at the end of her arm was too much.

I leaned over and puked. I was so used to the heaving force of the action now that I did it quickly. Efficiently, almost, and I tried to step aside from the puddle of bile.

"They drugged you too?" another woman asked quietly. She had blood dripping down the insides of her legs, and her eyes had that vacant hopelessness that I tried to fight back.

I shook my head. My God, how long had they been here?

"I miss my mama," the shortest one said, crying silently. Big, fat tears leaked down her cheeks that hadn't lost the chubbiness of babies.

She was a baby. A child. My stomach tensed again.

"I… I wasn't drugged. Just walking home, and they got me. How long have you been here?" I scanned the room, eager for a clue of how to escape. We had to !

That girl cried out for her mother, and I didn't blame her for the sobbing vocalization of wanting rescue. I had no family to count on or wish to see, but from the back of my mind, one face showed in my memories. One rugged, strong man.

Nate. I wished to the bottom of my soul that I could have such an Alpha, protective man to count on. But I didn't. I only had myself, like always, and that would have to be good enough. Somehow, some way, I had to give up the idea of depending on a man to want and love me enough to be there as a symbol of security.

"Couple days," one replied, scowling at me. "You weren't drugged?"

I shook my head, trying my best not to cry along with the young girl who'd been kidnapped. She was too young, too innocent for this hell.

"You pregnant?" she asked instead, firmly. "Or sick?"

I opened and closed my mouth, hesitant how to answer. Deep down, I wondered. I shook my head. "No. I've got PCOS. I can't…"

"I can't imagine bringing a baby into a life like this." A short woman sniffled.

"They said they'd drug us," the one said. "That the customers like to see us docile."

"Customers?" I felt the burn of bile again. The idea of being kidnapped and captive was bad enough. Imagining a future of being sold like a slave was worse.

Before we could whisper any more, the door opened again. As one, we all flinched and reared back from the entrance.

More men filed in. The thugs in their street clothes, none of them masked. They were silent, glowering at us all, but I dismissed them.

The man dressed in an impeccable suit stole my attention. His garments were clean and pressed, not a wrinkle in sight. Tailored to a T, he stepped into this room carefully, as though he didn't want to risk the filth of blood on his shiny shoes.

The lewd hunger in his eyes scared me, and when he locked his predatory gaze on me, almost immediately, I fought back the urge to puke once more.

He strolled back and forth, inspecting the line up with all the care and patience in the world. Nothing bothered him in his deliberate pacing as he checked us out, one at a time.

When he lingered at the young girl, I gritted my teeth. No. Not her. She's a child!

But I had no reason to worry about her.

I had to worry about myself.

He'd noticed me as soon as he'd entered. And now, with this godawful silence as he browsed his selections, a quiet that ate at me and had me near erupting with a scream, he returned to stand in front of me.

That instant interest hadn't been a trick on my mind. He'd singled me out from the first second he saw us.

As he lifted his finger to point at me and smiled cruelly, I shook with the realization my hellish future had been decided.

"This one. I want her," he dictated with smug authority.