Laney
There was a scrapingsound at the door. I slowly opened my eyes, wincing at the slight stinging from the tape that used to be there.
The masked man who’d tortured me was back again. Even though he’d changed clothes, I could tell it was him because he was the exact same height and weight, and he also stood the same way—broad shoulders squared, head held imperiously high, one gloved hand in a jacket pocket while the other rested at his side.
I sat up with a grimace. Every single part of my body ached. I was losing my mind from boredom, too.
I had no idea how much time had passed since my captor left after the cruel torment with the sand and slideshow. He took my phone with him, along with the tablet he used to communicate, so I had no way of keeping track of the minutes and hours unless I sat and counted them out in my head.
The lights were always on too. A bright, steady reminder that I was stuck in this cell. That made it almost impossible to sleep the hours away to stave off the boredom, so I was stuck trying to amuse myself with absolutely nothing but my own imagination, which at this point could only conjure up terrible images of what might happen to me soon.
I knew what my captors were up to. This was another form of torture—the waiting game. They were purposefully keeping me in solitude for days, making me agonize over every thought and question. What were they going to do to me? When would they return? When would the real pain begin?
I guess the time had finally come.
I crossed my legs and took a deep breath, keeping my head respectfully bowed. The masked man wrote something on his tablet and showed it to me. Are you still going to be good for me?
I nodded. “Yes,” I murmured. “But… can you tell me how long it’s been?”
41 hours since we took you from RFA.
My eyes widened. It felt like it had been at least four days. “Is that all?”
He nodded.
“So it’s only Sunday afternoon.”
Another nod, and then another typed message. Do you want something to eat?
“Yes, please,” I said softly. I was absolutely ravenous after being deprived of food for so long. The only thing I’d had in my stomach for hours was water from the tap in the little bathroom.
I didn’t move as the man went over to the door and opened it. I wished I could sneak up behind him, knock him out of the way and run outside, but I couldn’t. I knew well enough by now that my loved ones would be hurt if I defied my captors and behaved badly.
The man returned with a tray of food—a big salad sandwich with a side of thick-cut fries and a bottle of blackcurrant and guava juice.
I wolfed it all down, and then I licked my lips, brushed the crumbs off my hands and looked up at the man. “Thank you,” I murmured. “That was good.”
He reached out and stroked my hair, letting out a soft, taunting chuckle beneath his heavy mask. Then he wrote another message to me. You break so easily.
“You didn’t give me any choice,” I said. “If I threw the food at you and tipped the drink on your head, you might send someone to hurt my mom.”
He laughed and stepped over to the other side of the room to grab the wingback chair. Then he dragged it over to the bed and sat down, facing me.
“I know you think you’ve won,” I said in a low voice. “Because you got me to agree to do whatever you want. But you haven’t really won. Not in the end.”
The man held up the tablet again. Why not?
“Because I know who you are. Who all of you are,” I went on. “I know what you’ve done, too. And if I can figure it out, other people will eventually figure it out too. Too late to save me, probably, but maybe not too late to save the next girl you go after.”
The man clicked his teeth and wrote another message. Who do you think we are?
“You’re part of that secret society everyone at RFA whispers about. The one that’s been there since the beginning,” I said, lifting my chin. “You think you’re above the law, so you get up to all sorts of horrible, twisted stuff. Like kidnapping young girls so you can rape and murder them. For fun.”
So you actually have no idea who we are, then, he replied.
I frowned. “I don’t know who you are personally, no. But like I said… if I can figure out what organization you’re from, others will eventually figure it out too, and they’ll hunt you down and expose every single one of you,” I said. “You might be rich, but that doesn’t mean the world will turn a blind eye to what you’ve done. Not forever.”
The man chuckled. The secret society you’re talking about is just an urban legend in Royal Falls. As far as I know, it never existed, he wrote.