Page 7 of Jase
“I’m working on it. It’s not that easy. First, I need to find you. There’s a block on the location I’m trying to get past. Do you know where you are?”
“I…no. I don’t remember what happened yet. I’m trying. I’m…I’m from San Francisco. I…My name is Kody Marshall. I don’t know how long I’ve been gone. Three days maybe? Please, you have to find me. You have to help me get out of here.I don’t want to die.”
“I’m trying my best. For now, I need you to pretend this never happened. If you tell him or try to talk to me and he hears, he’ll know I broke into his system, and he’ll kill you. Okay?”
“Y-Yes.”
“Good. Only talk if I talk to you first. For now, I need you to be quiet.”
I didn’t even answer. I nodded, closing my eyes as I clung to hope for some sort of miracle. This stranger had to save me. If he couldn’t, I was doomed to return to being tortured. Possibly even killed. In the meantime, I had to try to remember more of that day. What happened after the coffee?
Think, Kody. Think!
I left. Yes. I went to work.
“Tiffany.” I blinked rapidly as my eyes fluttered open. My hand was throbbing with my heartbeat, but I couldn’t focus on that. Tiffany, she’d met me in the lobby as I walked in. Her smile immediately made one come to my face as tears rolled down. She was beautiful. Famous beautiful, with dark, dreamy skin and full, curly hair that reached just past her shoulders. She turned every head that caught sight of her. She was tall for a woman. Almost five-feet-ten-inches, and she stood every inch proudly. She had curves and charm. If there was ever the perfect package it was her.
“God…if you can hear me, can you please let my best friend Tiffany know I love her. And…I’m sorry for.” I sniffled, trying not to break completely. “She’s all I have. I haven’t been a great friend lately. I’ve been distant and…I just don’t want her to think it was something she did. I love her so much, and she deserves the world for who she is, and what she’s been through. Tiffany Welsh. She has to know in case. If I—”
“Got it.”
My eyes squeezed shut again at the voice, and I nodded, thankfully. The sobs were still coming. My hand was starting to feel extremely cold. It was turning to a throbbing numbness. Nothing felt right or real. Was I even talking to anyone at all, or was I hallucinating? It made sense. I wasn’t right. Even now, I felt myself slipping away.
It was my cry that pulled me from some deep place inside, but not enough to cause me to wake. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed as I went in and out of consciousness. At one point I thought I heard the voice talking again, but it could have all been a dream. Maybe I was still dreaming. I didn’t want to come back to the room yet. I didn’t want to remember any of this. I wanted peace. I wanted freedom.
“Yeah, I told you I did that already.” Footsteps got closer. I slammed back into consciousness like a rubberband, but I didn’t dare open my eyes. “I’m positive. I didn’t fuck with anything. This has never happened before.” He growled. “Don’t talk to me like I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I run this shit. This is my house. My red room.”
Banging sounded near the direction of the desk.
“I did that too. It’s not working. I have a fucking connection, it’s just that no one is joining the room. They were there, and then they were gone.” A pause. “Are you stupid?‘Maybe they just didn’t come back’—of course they tried, you fucking moron. Someone is sabotaging my connection or some shit. You’re the computer guy. You tell me.”
The chair rolled along the floor.
“Yeah, let’s try that. Click the link in the forum and let’s see. Hmm. Wait! There it is. I see you. You got through just fine. I…No, dammit. I’m telling you; something was different. Someone kicked them off.” Silence. “Okay. I’m going to put it on speakerphone for a minute. Let me get my mask on. I’ll turn back on the cameras.”
My eyes did crack open then. If the man who took me had turned the cameras off, how did the stranger talk to me or see me? Dammit! I had been hallucinating.
“There we go. They’re on. Let’s see what happens.”
“I’m telling you, you lost service. My connection fucks up all the time. You’re freaking out over nothing.”
My captor didn’t speak right away. “Okay, we’re up again. Yearly viewers are returning. Gotta go. I’m waiting for the bidders.”
Sickness swarmed as anxiety surged. Movement had my head rolling to the side just as my captor turned to stand over me in his mask. My body shook uncontrollably as I met his eyes. He didn’t say a word, but he didn’t have to. He was ready to continue, and me, I wasn’t being rescued.
Chapter 3
Jase
“Come on, you son of a bitch. Let her off the table and put her back in the room. Come on, come on.”
I kept looking between monitors. Now that I was in the zone, I must have been breaking a record with how fast I was dropping bombs on these viewers who kept trying to join the chat. It wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t necessarily easy either.
“Take her off. Call it a night. Give me some time here.”
A curse left me as the man paced between the metal table and the computer. The spiked hammer was clasped tightly in his grasp, and I hated that I’d even let it get this far. I should have started searching out his true information hours ago. I shouldn’t have given the situation the benefit of the doubt. There had been too much risk, and once again, I made the wrong call. Now an innocent woman could end up dead because of it.
Again, my stare went back to her. How had I fucked up so bad again? Had I learned nothing? Was I so far removed from reality that I’d let anyone get this hurt, consensual or not? True, I never thought it’d get this far. A beating or superficial cuts, but a fucking hammer? I was sick over what I’d seen. This was real. No one voluntarily brought that sort of misery on themselves. This red room was legit.
