Fear was quickly turning to rage and determination. “Yeah, we will.”
6
Rachel
WHEN I WOKE AGAIN, there was no dizziness, no need to empty the contents—or lack thereof—of my stomach, no headache, and no sense of how much time had passed. But there was fear, and very vivid memories of being taken.
Kash. My chest ached and tears burned my eyes. He has to know by now that I’m gone. What is he thinking? What is he doing to find me? And I had no doubt that he was trying to find me. I just didn’t know if he would.
Finally opening my eyes to the dark room when a sob tore free from my throat, I covered my face with my hands and curled into a ball on my side before I heard a shuffling noise, and my entire body stilled.
There was someone else in the room with me.
Was it him? The man who had dragged me out of the closet and kept me from escaping the last time I’d woken on this mattress?
I brought my hands down from my face and waited the few torturous seconds while my eyes adjusted to the dark. Even having had my eyes closed for so long, it was still nearly impossible to see anything past my mattress, it was that pitch-black in the room. A large shape came into focus before I was able to make out legs stretched out along the floor and crossed at the ankles, large arms crossed over an equally large chest, and the whites of a set of eyes fixed directly on me.
“Are you awake now?” his low voice rumbled through the room, and for some reason I shrank away from it. “Do you feel up to eating?” When I continued to stay silent, he rose from the floor with a grunt and I watched his shadowed body stretch before turning toward the wall he’d been up against. “Don’t go back to sleep. I’ll be right back.”
A bright light filled the room for the short time it took him to slip out the door, and I immediately bolted off the mattress and headed in the direction of the door. The room went pitch-black again and I felt along the wall for a handle. Beeps sounded—like electronic buttons were being pressed—before a series of short, staccato beeps, and then the sound of his heavy footfalls as he walked away from the door.
I finally found the handle and tried futilely to open the door, even though I knew, deep down, those beeps had been a code to lock the door from the outside. The tears were now falling freely as I alternated slapping my hands against the wall and screaming for help, and trying to open the door. I’d continued my useless attempt to get someone to help me even after I’d fallen to the ground, and after what seemed like half an hour later, the beeps came back and I shot to my feet in preparation.
As soon as the door cracked open, I pushed through it only to be caught by a pair of large arms and walked back into my room as I screamed for anyone to save me.
“Get off me! Someone help!”
He shut the door behind him with a foot and continued walking us both until my feet touched the mattress and he started pushing me down.
Oh God, no! “No, stop! Help me, please!” My body hit the mattress, and he kept his arms on my shoulders as he knelt to the ground beside me and I struggled against him.
“I need you to stay here, and stop fighting against me. If you get out of this room, I promise you there is no one who is going to help you. I can only keep you safe if you stay in here, do you understand me?”
My head was shaking back and forth as I sobbed and fought against him. I’d dealt with Blake and his psychotic claims; I wasn’t about to believe this man.
“Stay here so I can bring you your food.”
His body wasn’t coming closer, but I continued to push against him and struggled to get out from under his strong hold. Without warning, his hands were gone and he was stalking back over to the door. I shot upright, and my mind screamed to make another attempt at getting away from here, but I knew he would bring me right back in. Besides, he only had the door open long enough to bend down and grab something on the other side of the wall before it was shut and he was making his way back to me.
He set something down on the bed next to me and walked quickly away again. “Close your eyes,” he said in warning.
I kept them open.
The light flipped on and I blinked rapidly against it, refusing to cover my eyes for fear of what he would do if I stopped paying attention. When my eyes had finally adjusted, I looked to my left and saw a plate full of chips and a gourmet-looking turkey sandwich. The guy came back to me briefly to set a bottle of water down next to the plate, before retreating to the place and exact position he’d been in when I’d woken up. We stayed just like that for hours.
Him, sitting on the floor in front of the door, watching me.
Me, sitting on the bed with my knees up to my chin, staring directly past his head to the handle of the metal door.
The food untouched.
“GET UP, LET’S GO,” the man ordered the next time I woke up.
Afraid of where he was about to make me go, I stayed on the mattress, staring at my knees, which I had pulled up to my chest.
“You haven’t left this room since I brought you in. I know you need to use a bathroom, so either we go now, or you can wait until tonight.”
I didn’t even know how far away tonight was. I’d just woken up, but I’d been sleeping almost the entire time I’d been here. I desperately wanted to take him up on his offer, but a part of me didn’t want to acknowledge that I needed him for a task as simple as going to the bathroom.
Wait. “Go.” He’s about to take me out of the room! My body began pumping adrenaline at a fast pace as I thought about what this could mean. Forcing my face to not give anything away, I kept my eyes off him as I stood and met him near the door.
“Don’t try anything, and don’t leave my side.” When I didn’t respond, he grabbed my elbow. “Understood?”
I looked up at him, making deliberate eye contact for the first time since I’d woken up here.
With a curt nod, he opened up the door, keeping his hand on my arm the entire time. Looking to the side, I saw a long hallway in one direction, and a much shorter one in the other with a door where it ended.
I didn’t know if that was a closet, or a door to the outside, but when the man began walking me in the other direction, all I wanted to do was go to it.
We passed multiple rooms on each side and a kitchen before he stopped in front of a shut door. Opening it slowly, he flipped on a light inside and started to look around. His hand still hadn’t left my arm, but he was facing me. I knew I wouldn’t get another chance like this, so before he could look back at me, I quickly lifted my leg before shoving it into his groin as hard as I could. He bent and his hand loosened, but it was all I needed.
Wrenching my arm from his hand, I turned and started sprinting down the hall in the direction we’d come. Not long after, I heard heavy and quick footsteps behind me, but I didn’t look back. Another few rooms had gone by when one of the doors ahead opened, and a guy stepped out. He wasn’t facing me, but with the sound of our approach, he’d stopped walking and started to turn.
A muscled arm wrapped around my waist, yanking me back and into the kitchen. My scream was cut short when a hand slammed down over my mouth, and I opened my eyes to see my captor directly in front of me, his eyes dark and a finger in front of his own mouth, telling me to stay silent.
My back was against the wall, the man caging me in so I couldn’t move. Every heavy breath from him had his large body brushing against mine.
“Oh, little girl,” a sinister voice rang out in the hall behind me, and every hair on my body rose. “Have you finally come out to play with the rest of us?”
A low growl built up in my captor’s chest, and my body started shaking uncontrollably.
“I won’t bite . . . hard.”
My captor pressed his body closer to mine, and after slowly moving his hand away from my mouth, moved close to whisper in my ear. I cringed back but couldn’t go far. “Don’t say anything.”
“Where’d you go, you little bitch?” the voice said again, but this tim
e the sinister tone was laced with hatred.
When my captor pulled back, his face was murderous. Tears sprang to my eyes, but I somehow knew that I needed to listen to him. Suddenly his head turned to the side, and I froze . . . not wanting to see the man that voice belonged to.
“Damn, bro, already claiming her?”
“Leave,” my captor growled. “Now.”
“No need to get touchy. I’ll wait for my go at her.”
“I said get. The fuck. Out.”
“I’m going . . . I’m going. You better keep an eye on your bitch. Because next time she’s alone, Marco might be the one to find her . . . and you know how bad Marco wants her.”
“No one touches her.” His body was vibrating, and I looked up at his face to see the barely concealed rage.
“For now,” the voice said in a mocking tone. “Possessive doesn’t suit you. You might want to be careful with that, you know how we all like a challenge.” With a deep laugh, I heard footsteps retreating from us. “I’ll be seeing you soon, sweetheart.”
A few seconds passed before my captor looked back at me. His face was dark when he whispered, “Do not run from me again, understood?” Not waiting for me to respond, he pushed off me, grabbed my arm, and started walking out of the kitchen.
I shrank into him when he suddenly stopped, and we came face-to-face with three men.
“Look what we have here,” one of them said.
“Told you I’d be seeing you soon, sweetheart,” another said, and I would have recognized that disturbing voice anywhere.
“We need her.” The third spoke directly to my captor, his eyes never once looking at me.
The man holding my arm pulled me behind him. A move the first two didn’t miss. “You’ve gotten by fine without her, Marco. I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”
Moving me to his other side, and closer to the wall, he began walking again. Not four steps later, pain spread over my scalp, and a cry burst from my chest as I was yanked back by my hair. My captor’s arm moved around my waist as he put himself between Marco and me, and his other arm was straight in front of him with a gun pointed at Marco’s head.
“Someone’s moody.” Marco never flinched. But a smile slowly crossed his face as he let my hair fall from his fingers. “You have beautiful hair. What a shame.”
“No. One. Touches her,” my captor said low, his words full of warning.
“Just fuck her and get that pent-up anger out of your system already,” he said to my captor, his smile never fading. Marco stepped back to the other two guys, his hands raising up in mock-surrender. “Until next time.”
My captor quickly pushed me back, the hand not holding the gun never leaving me until we were in the room I’d originally woken in. Scrambling away from him, I darted toward the mattress and pressed myself to the wall. Our eyes never left each other until I broke down crying. My adrenaline had faded, and the fear of seeing the other men consumed me as I shrank down until I was sitting with my knees pressed to my chest.
I wanted to know what Marco had meant by “What a shame.” I wanted to know what my captor planned on doing with me. I wanted to know why it felt like he’d just saved me, when he’d been the one to take me from my house. And I wanted to know why, for those few minutes, I had felt safe next to him.
7
Kash
“WELL WHAT ARE THEY DOING to try and find her? How are they going to get her back? Will those men in prison say anything? Will they give any type of hints? How could you wait two days to tell us about something like this, Logan? How could you keep this from us?!”
“Marcy, stop.” My dad cupped Mom’s shoulders and leaned in to whisper in her ear.
I rested my head in my hand and propped my elbow up on the granite counter as they spoke softly back and forth to each other. Well, Dad spoke softly. Mom was borderline hysterical and getting louder by the minute.
“She’s been through enough! That poor girl has been through enough!”
“Marcy, sweetheart, why don’t you go lie back down and—”
“No! No, we need to go find her, we need to call the news station, and we need to get people looking for her!”
“There are a lot of people doing everything they can . . .” Their voices slowly faded as Dad pulled her out of the kitchen and I just sat there, staring.
Not really seeing anything. Not really thinking anything. And sure as shit not feeling a damn thing. I was numb. I didn’t even remember driving to Mom and Dad’s, actually, I didn’t even know if I’d driven or walked. I just remembered seeing Dad’s face as he opened the door for me near five this morning, and finally telling him and Mom everything that had happened. I’d spent so long doing jobs where I couldn’t tell them anything, that a part of me had been subconsciously rebelling against telling them; whereas the other part had finally realized that I was keeping it from them, and I couldn’t continue to.
Chief was forcing me to take the week off. I’d spent all day and night yesterday going over everything I remembered from Mason’s and my time with Juarez, and coming up empty. I hadn’t slept, I couldn’t remember if I’d eaten or not, and I felt like I was going insane with trying to make connections to other gangs that I knew weren’t there. If I didn’t get Rachel back soon, I was going to lose my goddamn mind.
Dad breathed heavily through his nose as he sat down on the barstool next to me. For a long time we both just sat there without saying anything. Eventually he got up, made coffee, and sat back down after placing a mug in front of me as well.
“She’s not mad at you, you know. Your mom, that is. She’s just scared.”
“I know.”
“Are, uh . . . shit, Logan. I don’t even know what to say. I want to ask if you’re going to be okay, but I wouldn’t want someone asking me that.” He set down his coffee mug and lifted both his hands in the air before letting them flop down onto the counter. “I just can’t believe this is happening. This doesn’t seem real; this is something you see in movies, and on TV shows. It’s something you read about in the newspapers, but you never think about it happening to your family.”
“This is my reality. This happens all the time in my job, but it wasn’t supposed to happen to her. I caused this, Dad—”
“No, Logan, don’t start going down that—”
I dropped my arm and looked up at him, noticing for the first time the redness and fear in his eyes. “But I did! My job, what I’ve done . . . that is why she’s gone.”
“I’m not going to let you put blame on yourself for this. I had to watch you blame yourself for what happened to her back in Texas when you did everything you could to prevent it. You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Logan. It’s not your fault; none of it is your fault. Blaming yourself is only going to make it harder, it’s only going to cause you to go down a path that is dangerous for you.”
I snorted. I was pretty sure I’d already been up and down that path a few times.
He rested a hand on my shoulder and waited until I was looking at him again. “I’m serious. This is going to be a difficult time for all of us, but especially for you. We’ll be here for you every step of the way. We’re all hurting, we’re all scared for her, but no one other than the people who took her are to blame. All right?”
My eyes squeezed shut as my head fell back into my hand, and I took a deep breath in and out without responding. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t agree with him.
“I saw what happened to you before, and I see what’s happening to you now. I know you’re hurting, son. I know”—he choked out and his hand tightened—“and I can’t imagine what this is like for you, but we can’t lose you too.”
The air in my lungs left in a heavy rush, and when I blinked my eyes back open, I watched as tears dropped onto the counter. I hated that he was talking about her like she wouldn’t be back.
Rachel would be back.
I needed her back.
LOOKING AROUND THE OFFICE a few hours later, I wondere
d where the other detectives were as I quietly made my way toward my desk. If anyone aware of the situation were to see me, I knew they would make me leave. But I needed to look up records on Juarez and his boys that would be inaccessible from anywhere else, so I was willing to risk the suspension that would be coming for me if Chief found out. Turning the corner, I stopped midstep when I saw Mason hunched in on himself at his desk, his entire frame shaking and tense.
“Mase?”
His hands dropped from his face to hang between his knees, and he lifted his head like it was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. When he turned to look at me, my day of going in circles with my parents quickly fell from my mind. Fear gripped my chest, my legs felt like they would give out on me at any moment, and I felt hot and cold all at the same time.
“Kash, you know you can’t be here right now,” he choked out.
“What—what happened? Why are you crying?” I knew that whatever had him looking like he wanted to die had to do with Rachel, I knew it to my core. I’d never once, in the years I’d known Mason, seen him cry.
Heavy tears fell down his cheeks, and I watched as his face crumpled before he burst into strained sobs.
I stumbled back until I hit a wall and fell down it as I waited for him to say words that I didn’t want to hear . . . couldn’t hear. It felt like my heart was being torn from my chest as I watched Mason struggle to speak. As the minutes passed, my dread began turning into a sorrow unlike anything I’d ever felt before, but no tears came. I was in shock and having trouble breathing. This couldn’t be happening, she couldn’t be gone.
“We’ll find her, Kash, I swear,” Mason choked out, and my head snapped back up to find him looking at me. “I swear to God we’ll find her before they can do anything else to her.”
“She’s alive?” I whispered, and hope surged through me before his words sank in. “What happened?”
“You’re not supposed to know anything, you’re supposed to stay completely separated from the case.”