Page 19 of Love Bleeds Red
This poor girl has already gone through so much. Thought she’d found love, only to be dragged into the biggest hell imaginable. I feel sick.
Shaking my head, I try to come up with a response, but nothing I can think of carries the weight of what I want to say.
Cat nods. “I know.”
“What about you?” I ask tentatively.
Cat scoffs. “Don’t worry about me, new girl. They won’t break me.”
Her words say one thing but her tone tells another story. I turn, giving her space, and stare out the window at the green overpass signs flashing by.
One reads fifteen miles to Manhattan. We’re still in New York. Somehow I thought we had to be much farther from my school. I feel worlds away from that life.
Mile by mile, the scenery changes from shadowy trees lining the highway to towering buildings and glowing lights. Traffic slows to a crawl as we hit the city. Stop and go hell that has the driver cursing and banging the steering wheel.
Through the windows of passing cars, I catch glimpses of passengers singing along to their music, couples talking, people simply existing without fear. Just normal life that I took for granted. Help is so close, I could reach out and touch it. People surround us on all sides, but I’d be dead before I could even grab the door handle.
“Even if we were right in front of them, they wouldn’t see us, you know,” Cat says. She releases a long breath and continues. “We’re the invisible ones. The ones they send thoughts and prayers to online so they can feel better about their own privileged lives. One look at us and they’d turn up their noses, cross the street, pretend we don’t exist. We’re dirty now. Broken. The kind of problem that makes them uncomfortable because helping us would mean admitting this shit actually happens in their perfect little world.”
I scrunch my brows and start to retort, but she cuts me off.
“Trust me on that, new girl. I’ve seen it firsthand… more than once.” She nods toward the men arguing in Russian. “That’s how they keep us. They know we’re beyond help. They make sure we look like the kind of people society has already given up on.”
“Shut the fuck up back there!” the passenger spits, then immediately starts back with his argument.
My entire body clenches but Cat just holds Jasmine closer.
“Have you ever tried to get out?” I ask after a few minutes pass.
Cat scoffs and turns to stare out the window. “Can’t.”
“Why?” I ask so quietly I barely hear myself.
“Because they’ll kill her if I do,” she says, looking down at Jasmine. “And probably make me watch first. That’s their favorite game… making us choose between saving ourselves or protecting someone weaker. They know exactly which choice we’ll make every time. Fucking bastards.”
There’s so many more questions I want to ask her, but now’s not the time, especially as our captors quiet down and Jasmine stirs. So instead, I count cars, silently wondering if Cat’s words are true. Would my call for help be ignored?
Finally,we park around the back of a building. I have no idea what it is or where we are, but nausea rolls in my gut and anxiety grips my chest, making it impossible to take a full breath. They haul us out of the van. Jasmine can barely hold herself up on the stilettos they forced us to wear. She cries out as she’s yanked from Cat’s grip and dragged ahead by the driver. I hold back the cry that tries to escape, while Cat’s body goes rigid. She’d kill them if she could.
It’s a brisk night and standing out here half naked in nothing but sheer lingerie doesn’t help. If I didn’t already feel raw and exposed from everything done to me at the house, this would do it. But there’s no time to dwell on that, not as the passenger pulls something from the glove box.
His oily dark hair shines in the dim streetlight, and pockmarked skin stretches across gaunt cheekbones. When hesmiles at Cat and I, he reminds me of a skeleton. “Back up against the van,” he says. “Fight and I’ll make it hurt.”
My heart pounds but Cat holds her head high and obeys. She’s done this before. Been in this exact situation. So I follow her lead. That’s when I see what he’s grabbed. A syringe.
No, no, no.
“Please,” I whimper as I watch in what feels like slow motion.
His eyes narrow and he moves in front of me first. “What did I say? Bitch and moan and I’ll make it hurt.”
Then he jabs me in the upper arm—hard. In a matter of seconds, my cry of horror warps and my eyelids droop. The world tilts sideways and shadows bleed together like dripping black paint. My knees buckle and darkness creeps in from the edges of my vision, pulling me under.
I fight it, desperate to stay conscious, but I know the drugs will win.
I blink, and suddenly I’m staring at a popcorn ceiling, water-stained and gray. The musty smell of mold and cigarettes fills my nostrils as I try to focus on my surroundings.
It looks like some kind of run-down motel room. I’m alone… or I think I am. The bed beneath me, firm with coils digging into my back, feels like it’s swallowing me whole.
