The first thing I did was check for the screw.
It was gone. All I felt was the fabric of my underwear. Someone had found it, taken it away from me. I wanted to kill them. Instead, I decided to look around.
It was a pretty bedroom, more like a boudoir. Beautiful ivory bedding lay all around me, the sheets heavenly soft and light pink, like nothing I’d ever felt before. A chandelier hung above me, though the lights were out. Sunlight was streaming in through a large, barred bay window. And the room looked like it belonged in a magazine.
Bookcases stacked with endless reading material, clothes hanging in neat order in an en-suite wardrobe, and a white door leading into a gorgeous pink marble bathroom. Luxury like I’d never seen, let alone felt in my previous life, and I didn’t feel worthy of it. Then, I remembered why I was there. I remembered I’d been taken, stolen. I remembered I was a captive, and my blood boiled in anger.
I jumped off the bed, my eyes bulging when I realized I wasn’t wearing my tattered dress.
I felt a sob threatening to rip through my chest, but I made it stay down. The longer I was alone, the better aware I could become of my surroundings. If they realized I was awake, I would have no time to explore without their supervision.
I was wearing a floral dress, pretty and fitted on top and flared out at the bottom. I somehow looked older, maybe because of what they’d done to me and because I knew things would only get worse. Or maybe it was because of the pained, fearful expression in my eyes that almost made me look like a feral animal.
I reached the window in three long steps. My fingers wrapped around the bars and I rattled them to no avail. No escaping this place.
Next, I knocked on the glass through the bars, testing it, but coming up disappointed. The glass was thick – seemingly impossible to break. I sighed in exasperation, but the next second, I was already scanning the room for more clues.
Just as I was getting ready to check out the bedroom, a voice interrupted the soft quiet of the room.
Someone was laughing, chuckling at me. And the sound was coming from all around me.
Confused, I ran to a wall and pressed my back against it, trying to protect myself from the unseen intruder. The voice was coming from above me, still laughing at my misfortune. It took me a few moments to realize it was coming through a speaker. There was nobody in the room with me, but when I looked up at the ceiling, I saw a white speaker accompanied by a small red dot.
They were filming me. And somebody was watching.
I wanted to scream, but I told myself to stay calm. I’d have to keep up my strength, so I could take on whoever was doing this to me. God, I was going to kill them for taking me. I already knew I wouldn’t sleep peacefully until they were six feet under. But in the moment, I decided to stay calm, not say a word and just wait for them to say something.
“Good morning, little one,” the voice told me over the speaker. “I see you’ve woken up.”
Staring into the camera, I raised a hand and flipped it off, which only made the voice chuckle again. I figured it was the man who had been in the car with me. By then, I was starting to recognize his voice, but I still had no idea what his name was or why he’d taken me.
“Do you like your new outfit?” he asked and I growled in response, which made him sigh. “Don’t act like a wild animal, little one. You’re going to have to get used to a new set of rules here. I said, do you like your new outfit?”
“It’s…” I fought the urge to spit out the venom I felt in the pit of my stomach. “It’s pretty.”
“There you go.” The voice sounded pleased. “Isn’t it better when you act all nice, little one?”
I didn’t reply. He was pushing me too hard. There was no way I was going to submit to his sick fantasy this fucking fast.
“I won’t see you today,” the voice said.
Was I imagining it or was there a hint of regret in his tone? What a sick fucking bastard he was.
“But you will still have company.”
The words made me shiver in fear, which made him chuckle again.
“Don’t worry, nothing bad will happen to you,” he said slowly, then, after a small pause, added, “Yet.”
I hated him. My body throbbed with the anger I felt for this stranger who’d taken me away from my life. And it had just gotten started… Finally, after years of hard work, it was starting to pay off. And now here I was, in a strange place I didn’t know and with people who wanted to harm me. How could this happen? How could I have let him take me? I should’ve put up more of a fight.