Page 79 of Devoted in Death

Remember, she ordered herself. Remember everything in case, just in case she lived through this.

They had her strapped on some sort of board, tied and taped down. Rope around her waist, her belly. Sometimes they choked her with another until she passed out.

Plastic—she thought—under the makeshift table. She could hear it swish and crinkle under their feet when they hurt her.

A window. She could just see a window, barred, and a big brown couch where they sometimes had sex. And a screen—they watched porn and game shows on it.

An apartment. Maybe street-level, she thought because she could hear traffic when they went out or came in through the door.

A white ceiling—dingy white, be specific, Jayla—dingy white ceiling with those round lights inside it.

They never turned the lights off.

They brought in takeaway food—never deliveries, at least not when she’d been conscious. A lot of beer and jug wine. And once, at least once, she’d smelled Zoner.

She could describe them perfectly.

All she had to do was get away, and she could describe them both perfectly right down to the matching tattoos.

Little hearts with D and E inside, etched in blue and red over their own hearts.

People would be looking for her, she could comfort herself with that. She had people who cared about her, and would be looking for her.

But how would they find her?

Why hadn’t she called a cab? Why hadn’t she used her head and called a cab when she’d walked out of that stupid party? Why had she gone in the first place? Why hadn’t she stayed home and watched vids with Kari?

She began to weep again, struggled again. And slid into shivering sleep.

The noise woke her. For a moment she was back in her college dorm with Kari, trying to sleep while a party went on in the next room. She tried to roll over—and the grinding pain brought her back.

They had music on—shit-kicking country music with some woman yodeling about how she was gonna hunt down her man. They sang along, top of their lungs, while they set up some sort of folding table.

The woman danced around it, rubbed her ass into the man’s crotch, danced away again on a giggle.

Jayla could see the plastic on the floor now.

And the body sprawled facedown on it.

Her first reaction was a kind of crazed jubilation. She wouldn’t be alone. They’d have someone else, might forget to hurt her, even for a little while.

Shame avalanched over the ugly joy, reminded her whatever they did to her, she was still human. She could still feel shame. And pity.

Together they rolled the body over, began to undress the man—no, she saw and the pity heightened. A boy. Younger than she was. Twenty, maybe twenty, and pale as glass.

He stirred a little, moaning. Darryl picked up the sap—they’d cracked at least one of her ribs with that weighted leather bag—and slapped the boy on the side of the head with it. Like you might slap a fly—absently, with a mild annoyance.

“Don’t want him waking up as yet,” Darryl said. “Need to get him situated first.”

“He’s about the whitest thing I’ve seen outside of that snow on the ground outside.” Ella-Loo snickered as she dragged off the boy’s pants.

She dumped out the contents of the pockets while Darryl finished getting him stripped down. And opened the wallet.

“Got less than twenty on him. Shit, and no wrist unit or nothing. Name’s Reed Aaron Mulligan.”

Jayla repeated the name over and over in her head. She’d remember Reed Aaron Mulligan. About twenty, on the skinny side, milk-white skin and some freckles, reddish-blond hair with a sorry-looking goatee on his soft boy’s face.

“Key swipe, few loose credits, nice little pocketknife. One of those—what-do-you-call-thems?”

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