Page 47 of The Dollhouse

Yeah, okay, maybe I was a little stupid, hoping for something like that.

My chin was tucked against my collarbone as I walked along, my gaze firmly on the concrete sidewalk. I passed a car parked on the side of the road, thinking nothing of it since cars could parallel park on certain parts of this street. A big, black vehicle, its windows tinted. Again, not shocking, since a lot of cars around here were the same.

This city was not the sparkling white, crime-free place Hillcrest pretended it was.

Oh, Hillcrest had crime. Murder, serial killers, all that good stuff. No place in America didn’t have crime. No matter where you stepped, odds were the ground beneath your feet was stained with red at one point or another.

I neglected to hear something behind me: the car door opening, footsteps on the pavement. My bad, and I was about to pay for being so oblivious, too.

Before I knew what was happening, a thick black sack was shoved over my head, strong, leather-clad hands gripping my arms and forcing them behind my back as a zip tie was hurriedly clasped around my wrists, keeping my hands together behind my back. I was quite literally pulled off the sidewalk and shoved into what I assume was the backseat of that same damned car.

I tried my wrists to no avail; they were stuck, bound tightly by that zip tie. Whoever had nabbed me got in the car beside me, slamming the door shut as someone else began to drive. I could not see anything out of the sack on my head, my world completely black, even as I whipped my head back and forth. Inside my chest, my heart raced.

Was I being kidnapped? Did someone realize I was from Hillcrest and decided maybe they should try for a ransom or something? And, of course, I wondered: did this have something to do with Roman?

“Who are you?” I asked through my sack, getting nothing as a response. Not even a one-word answer to satisfy my curiosity. The car was silent, save for my hard breathing, nothing but the bumps in the road as the car drove on. No radio, nothing. “I said—”

I couldn’t get out the question again, for a strong hand grabbed the back of my neck so hard the rest of the words died in the back of my throat when he squeezed me, his fingers digging in through the sack roughly—and it wasn’t a soft sack, either. It was rough, the very opposite of satiny or smooth, like burlap. My skin would not be happy once it was free.

Although, I thought bleakly, maybe none of me would be happy. Maybe I’d die here. Maybe these guys would kill me, harvest my organs for the black market or something. That was real, right? Maybe I’d seen too much TV lately…

When I said nothing, the man sluggishly let me go. The back of my neck felt bruised already. Talk about a hard grip.

I shifted in my seat, trying not to lean back because of the awkward placement of my hands. I tried to tell which way the car was turning—that’s what they said to do, right? Try to track your own movements even if you couldn’t see where you were going, but that had to be more if you were on foot, since I had no clue how fast the driver was going.

Well, whatever came of tonight, whatever happened after this, it wasn’t like I could stop it now. I was already taken and in an unfamiliar vehicle; going to a secondary location was pretty much a death sentence. All girls knew that. That’s where they’d rape you and then kill you, maybe not even in that order.

Hey, there were some freaky, gross, despicable people out there. This was America. Land of the not-so-great most of the time.

Oh, excuse me. That’s just my cynicism seeping through. I mean, I’d felt dead inside for a while after seeing my boyfriend and my sister going at it like rabid animals, so why not just end it all? It would be easier and save me a lifetime of disappointment.

I had no idea how long it was until the car rolled to a stop, had no fucking idea where the hell I was as the man beside me pushed open the car door and dragged me out. I stumbled when I got to my feet, nearly tripped as the man lugged me up what felt like stairs. We must’ve gone into a building, for the air around me suddenly felt different. Less humid, less natural, more cool and dry.

It was hard to walk sideways, but that’s how I had to do it, considering the man held onto my right arm as he dragged me along, paying no heed to the fact that my arms were tied with a zip tie behind my back. Eventually, my phone and my keys were dug out of my pocket, taken away from me.

What sounded like a door opened before us, and I was shoved inside the room, hearing nothing but the slamming of the same door behind me. The sack still rested on my head, and I felt so discombobulated I could hardly do anything for a few moments.

My ears heard nothing, no sounds around. “Hello?” I asked. When I got no answer back, I walked. Didn’t take too long to ram the side of my hip against a sharp corner of something, and I winced.

Ow.

Okay, clearly walking around with a sack over my head was not something I was good at.

I backed away from the sharp thing, stepping back to where I was before. I was so turned around, it was ridiculous, not knowing where the hell I was or why I was here. Since I got no answer, I figured I was alone, so I lowered myself to the ground, feeling it was carpet. I kicked off my sneakers.

It was a damned good thing I was so skinny, not to mention the flexibility I’d gained after working at the Dollhouse and practicing my dancing. My hips moved more than they ever had, which was the only reason I was able to bring my knees to my chest, roll backward onto my upper back, and inch my restrained hands around the curve of my ass.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but I managed. I did it, and once my hands were no longer behind me, once I brought them around my legs and my feet, I was able to tear off the sack on my head. I looked around the room.

I… I was in abedroom?

A bedroom that was a hell of a lot nicer than the one I had back in Hillcrest, and that was saying something. A large bed with a sheer canopy on top, complete with two matching dressers made of dark mahogany. The thing I’d rammed my hip on was a small table, tucked against the wall, near a bookcase.

I got to my feet, not bothering to put my shoes back on since this room looked to be untouched by anyone. Not a single window in the room, though I did notice there was an adjoined bathroom with a whole lot of marble. Marble countertop, marble floor, marble shower tile… all very fancy. Very clean, too.

Where the hell was I?

Emerging from the bathroom, my eyebrows came together. This was just too weird, wasn’t it? My feet drew me to one of the dressers, and I tugged on one of the drawers, finding new clothes were folded up, tucked neatly inside. Women’s clothes.

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