Page 116 of Jessica, Not Her Real Name
If anything, daylight only made the room drearier. It seemed to ooze through the dirty window and illuminate just how filthy and dilapidated the place was.
It illuminated other things, too.
The dried blood that was smeared on the concrete and floor. On the table, too. And on the power tools. The blades of the circular saw. And the angle grinder. She realized they hadn’t been using them for kitchen renovations.
Terry had left, thank God, but he’d ordered the dog to stay. It sat in the middle of the floor, a yard away from the bars, and stared at her. Like it was trying to work out why she was in the cage, and he was out of it.
He looked like he was quite enjoying the switch in the dynamic.
She finally mustered the courage to face the dead woman again. It seemed necessary. Facing her felt like facing her future. She had to not be frightened. She had to at least try to be as brave as that woman must have been, right until the end.
Crawling on her knees, she crossed the cage until she was staring right at her. And the woman stared right back.
She looked to be a few years older than Jessica. Very pretty, although it appeared she’d had a hard life even before her terrible death. Her red hair was frizzy and dry, and her face, now ashen and waxy, was lined prematurely around her mouth and eyes. Jessica couldn’t help but notice the purple needle marks on the inside of her forearm.
She noticed another mark, this one collaring her neck. It was almost black against the woman’s white skin and had the unmistakable imprint of thick fingers.
There was no way to tell in this dim light if that had been her cause of death. But she kind of hoped it was. There were no good ways of dying at the hands of these men, but when she thought of the power tools on the table, she knew that there were worse ones.
They had stripped her down to her underwear, which made Jessica want to find something to cover her. But there was nothing nearby, and no way she could reach far enough through the bars of the cages, anyway.
One of the woman’s legs was pressed against the railings, as if she too had tried a futile escape from the inescapable. Jessica noticed she had a small tattoo on her upper thigh, right below her hip joint. It was a love heart with a name in the middle. The kind of tattoo you got when you were young. And dumb. And in love.
It readRyan.
Jessica exhaled, resting her forehead against the metal.
So this was Kylie. Ryan’s Kylie.
Suddenly, it all made sense to her. Why he’d done what he’d had. Why he’d betrayed his oath and risked everything. Why he’d betrayed her.
It wasn’t for money.
It was for love.
She wrapped her fingers around the bars and squeezed, feeling hot liquid burn the backs of her eyes. He didn’t know she was dead. He couldn’t have known. He probably still didn’t know.
She rested her head right next to the woman’s stiff one. She couldn’t cover her with anything. All she could do was reach through the bars with shaking hands and close Kylie’s eyes for her one last time.
* * *
Jessica kneeled on the concrete floor and rasped, “I need water.”
Milo leaned back in his chair, clamping the tourniquet between his teeth and pulling his head back. The rubber bit into the skin of his upper arm. He spat out the tourniquet and said, “Bitch, you got water.”
She looked at the dirty dog bowl they’d provided for her. It sat two feet outside of the cage. Wedging both her hands through a gap in the bars, she could just about reach it at full stretch.
But the dog sat another foot away, watching her intently. And every time she so much as placed her fingers through the gap, it lunged for them.
She didn’t know if Terry had trained it to do that, or if it was just a sadist like everyone else in this place. And she realized now that some of the blemishes she’d seen on Kylie’s wrists were bite marks.
So, the thing had a taste for humans. She kept her hands inside the cage and went thirsty.
Milo and Ponytail were sitting around the table, shooting up from a dose they’d cooked up on a metal spoon and drawn into a syringe that they then shared. Terry had disappeared. Which was a good thing. Of the three of them, these two were the weaker links, especially if they were high as fuck.
Which they were right now.
Milo dropped the syringe, his head lolling back against his shoulders. She had a brief flare of hope that maybe he’d ODed and that would be one down. But no, he was still breathing, just in la la land.
