“Should’ve dosed her right off,” one of them murmurs.
And then everything goes black.
2
Katherine
I wake slowly, realizing that I am lying face down, resting on something hard. I push myself up on shaky arms, looking around the space I find myself in. I’m on the floor of the room, my body heat being seeped away by the cool cement. I try to focus.
I’m in a small bedroom of sorts, with a cot, a scratchy gray wool blanket, and a bucket. Everything is dreary and gray, the same color as the cinder block walls. There is no window in the whole space, which can’t be more the eight feet by eight.
It’s a jail cell, I realize. I’m in a jail, and no one knows or cares that I am here.
That thought swirls around in my head, but I can’t hold onto it. I can’t hold onto anything for too long, which is okay with me right now.
The world is still fuzzy, which I blame on the drugs the cops gave me. Whatever I was injected with, has left a bitter tang in my mouth, and makes even my bones feel weak. I sit up, noticing that my pale pink dress is gone, replaced with a starchy grey shift dress, the material prickling my bare skin.
My bra is gone too, which means that someone saw me all but naked when they changed my clothes. I check for my panties, and I’m relieved to find that I’m still wearing the same slip of white satin as before.
At least there is that.
I get to my feet, my whole body aching from running for my life yesterday. My bare feet protest the most. I can feel fresh blisters that have sprouted all along where my toes were in contact with my shoes and the pads of my feet.
I limp over to the cell-like door, pressing my hands against the flat metal. There is a slot halfway down the door, just six inches by three. I bend down to look through it, my body protesting. On the other side, as far as I can see, there is just a stretch of bare wall.
“Hello?” I call out. “Hello? Anyone?”
Silence is the only answer, and it is deafening. I turn around, facing my tiny cell. My brain is still mushy, which keeps me from pondering the worst parts of my situation.
The look on Tony’s face just before the cops hauled me away. Guilt, anxiety, maybe just a little bit of smugness.
My father, who apparently, sold me to an unknown buyer. I can’t even unpack those feelings without feeling enraged, so it’s better to just leave them be.
The future shrouded in mystery.
Where will I be going?
Who will I meet there?
Will I even survive very long?
College is seeming like a faraway dream right now.
Instead, I spend the next few hours learning every inch of my cell. I trace the seams of the cinder blocks. I pull the cot away from the wall, finding a spot in the corner where somebody chipped out a pocket in the floor with some kind of tool. I fold and refold the blanket, searching it for hidden mysteries.
I realize about two hours later, that I have to pee. Like, really, really badly. I call out the door’s slot for a while, but there is no response.
With no one coming to my aid and my bladder about to burst, I am forced to use the bucket. I squat over it, hovering, and relieve myself. There is no toilet paper or anything, so I am forced to let myself drip dry.
Then I lie down on the cot, shivering and afraid. Eventually, the hazy effects of the drug are gone from my system. I draw the wool blanket around my frame, shaking. But the wool only keeps out the cool air; it can’t keep out the thoughts that threaten to overwhelm me.
The mysterious future. Tony. My father and the rest of my family. Will anyone even know that I’ve been kidnapped?
These thoughts, and variations thereof, repeat and repeat until I’m a sobbing, crazed mess. Then I cry myself out. I sleep for a while. I wake and remember where I am. The cycle begins again.
Stress. Cry. Sleep.
A whole day passes without any sign of life from outside my door. At one point, I sit by the door and yell for someone to come, but no one does. Not even when my belly starts to cramp with hunger
It’s only at the beginning of the third day that I hear heavy boots coming down the hallway, toward my cell.
I scramble off the cot, holding the wool blanket close.
“Hello?” I say, putting my eye to the slot.
Straining to look down the hall, I can see the shape of a large man dressed all in black heading my way. I stare at him, at his bald head, at his beady eyes, and the grim expression on his mouth, at the rigid, unyielding set of his shoulders. If I saw him on the street, I would cross to the other side to avoid him. But he’s a person, and I haven’t seen a person in three days.
When he approaches my door, I don’t know whether to be more excited or frightened. He doesn’t say anything as he unlocks my door and swings it open.
“Come,” he says simply, gesturing for me to leave the cell. I realize that he’s Russian, or maybe Polish or Ukrainian, just from the way he speaks.
“Where are we?” I demand, shivering with a mixture of cold and fear.
“You no talk,” he orders, moving toward me. “Just go out.”
I look at him for a second, wondering if I should resist him. Then again, what am I really resisting? I have no idea where I am now or where he is supposed to lead me to.
“Just tell me where I am—” I plead.
He cuts me off by grabbing me by the shoulder. He inserts a thumb into the flesh there, digging painfully into my skin until I cry out and begin to shrink from his touch. I reach for him, my fingernails finding purchase in his meaty forearm, but he doesn’t even blink in reaction.
“Move!” he yells, giving me a shake.
He rips the wool blanket away with his free hand as he shoves me out of my cell and into the long, sterile hallway. The hallway is shockingly white, broken up only here and there by doors to other cells.
He starts to propel me forward down the hallway. The white tile underfoot is as cold as the cement floors, and it shows some aging, the tiles chipped and cracked.
What is this place? How many other people have been kept here? I count at least six other cells as I am frog-marched past them, but they are all empty.
At the end of the hallway, my guard leads me to a painted white stairwell. I’m half-dragged down the stairs, flight after flight, each flight looking the same as the hallway I just left behind. Six flights, or seven… I lose count of them quickly.
“Where are you taking me?” I try again, but my guard only scowls.
When we reach the bottom floor, he opens the door and pushes me inside. I’m faced with another long hallway of cells, but this one is different.
Though I can’t see anyone, these cells are full of people. Women’s voices. Some calling out for help, some crying, some just murmuring quietly.
“You go,” my guard says, pushing me forward. “Third on right, that is yours.”
I drag my feet, trying to see through the tiny slots in the grey doors, but all I can make out are a couple pairs of eyes. My guard has no interest in the moans or pleas coming from the cells; it is almost as though he is immune to them somehow. He hurries me along, swinging the door to my cell open.
“Go