turn on my heel, ready to go. I look at Denis. “All right. Put the bag over her head, and we can go. We have a long journey ahead of us.”
Then I make my way out of the airplane hangar, ripping my face mask off and tossing it to the ground.
4
Katherine
I have a vague memory of being injected with tranquilizer a few times. I remember being awake enough to recognize a plane and a car. I know that the man that taunted me after he bought me was nearby that whole time.
I see him in my mind. His strange grey eyes and his dark brow, his large frame and black clothing, the dark stubble on his cheeks. His skin isn’t the same tone as mine… it was more olive in complexion. When he spoke, his English was accented…
But I was too far gone from the drugs to determine any more than that.
I wake again, coming fully into consciousness, and I look up at a royal blue ceiling. I groan to myself, leaning up to look down at my body. Gone is the dress that I wore at the auction. In its place is a deep, blood red sleeveless shift dress.
My fingertips accidentally brush a spot on my collarbone and even that slight touch stings. Carefully, I pull my dress away from my skin, peering down at a smoothly bandaged spot about an inch by an inch. It’s then that I remember his expression when he dug his knife into my flesh, the glee I saw in his eyes when he marked me forever.
Even though I am careful not to disturb the spot further, I have to struggle against the tears that prick my eyes. What kind of monster just outright mutilates another human being?
To my utter humiliation, my panties and bra are gone too. I feel naked, knowing that someone looked at my completely nude body while I was unconscious.
My shoulder throbs, reminding me of that moment back at the auction, when he showed me who he was by carving something into my flesh. I lift my hand to touch the spot that he marred with his knife. A gentle clanking draws my attention to my wrist, where I find a finely wrought handcuff attached to a delicate-looking gold chain.
I tug on the chain and find that I’m tethered to some place behind the bed. I have enough chain to move around the room, but not enough to go anywhere outside the room.
This is… bizarre. Where exactly am I? I know it’s the daytime, but I have no other clues.
Then I think about where my family is, and it all sort of hits me at once.
Gone, that’s where my family is. They’ve left me, intentionally. I’m not the kid from Home Alone, I’m Liam Neeson’s daughter in the movie Taken.
Worse, I’ve been sold.
Just what am I supposed to do with that information? As tears start to well in my eyes, I can’t help but see the events of the last few days play out in my head.
Tony’s expression when he betrayed me to the cops.
The cop’s face when he hauled me out from underneath the desk.
The horrible misery that I faced when I woke up in my cell at the auction house.
And him. The man who bought me. His eyes… the cruelty and derision I saw there gave me chills.
I roll onto my side, my tears escaping onto the grey fabric under my body. What could I have done to drive my family to sell me? Sobbing, I think of Tony’s warning.
Did Dad really sell me because he was running out of money? Could I really be worth so little to them?
Don’t they love me?
Snot runs from my nose, and I wipe at it with a corner of my shift dress. I let my tears overwhelm me for a little while, crying until I feel completely hollow inside.
No one comes to the dark wood door at the sound of my tears; there isn’t anyone here that is very interested in whether or not I am comfortable, I know that for sure.
I blink a few times, looking at the large bed I am in. There are no sheets or blankets, just a soft grey cover over the entire thing. The room itself is pretty large, with no decoration except a window seat built into a bay window. There is no cushion, and the window has no drapes or dressing.
I scoot myself off the bed, standing on my wobbly legs. The floors are all dark wood, smooth and cool against the pads of my bare feet. I go to the door first, but find it locked.
Unsurprising, I guess. After all, I am chained up. It’s not like I could leave if I found the door open.
Next, I explore the other side of the room, going to the window seat. The window is thick double-paned glass, and it doesn’t open. Outside the window is shockingly picturesque; I’m high up, overlooking a small orchard in full bloom. Behind that is a crumbling brick wall, with lush greenery and mountainous terrain. Everywhere that I can see in the distance is just hills upon hills, jungles on top of jungles.
Wherever I am, I am definitely not in New Orleans anymore.
That brings on another crying jag, even though I still feel empty from earlier. This one isn’t quite so energetic, more just weeping quietly while staring out the window.
Though I’m distraught, I realize that I’m hungry. I’m not really sure what to do about that. I try to remember my last real meal, and I can only think of the morning that Tony sold me. We stopped at McDonald’s that morning, went through the drive-through.
I had half of an Egg McMuffin and dumped the rest in the trash. I think about that other half, and my mouth salivates. How wasteful I was when I knew where my next meal was coming from.
I spend a couple of hours examining my room in the most minute detail. I look at all of the walls, examine all the baseboards. Under my bed, I find a large golden box, maybe five feet by three feet, and a foot and half tall. It is very heavy and pulling it out and pushing it back is almost too much to ask of my food-starved body.
I look into the bathroom attached to my room, a simple enough affair. A toilet, a clawfoot bathtub. All done in white, down to the floor tiles. I figure out that I have just enough chain to get to the toilet, but not enough to reach the bathtub.
I return to the bed when my curiosity is sated, sitting to think. At length, my jumbled thoughts turn to my captor again. I have so many questions about him.
Who is he? What does he want with me? Where did he bring me?
More importantly, will he let me go?
I lie down on the bed again, growing tired. My eyelids are heavy, so I close them.
When I wake again, he is sitting right beside me, his grey eyes piercing me. He looks down on me as if I were a spoiled lover and he the older beau that liked to indulge me.
I sit up, recoiling from him. As I stare at him distrustfully, his lips curve upward in the hint of a smile.
His expression doesn’t reach the cool
