Treasure Series Boxed Set

Chapter 3

3

Katherine

I stare out the window of the Escalade, looking at the streets of New Orleans pass me by. Tony and I are supposed to be going grocery shopping, but he drove us in the opposite direction of Rouse’s Supermarket, heading east up into the Gentilly area.

I pull my too-short pale pink dress down, puzzled as to why Tony would suggest that I wear it today. It’s a Christ store purchase, something that I grabbed for myself and hid in my room. My father would flip if he saw me wearing it, honestly.

Tony found it a couple months ago when he was digging through my laundry, looking for God knows what. He mocked me but never said anything to Dad about it. He never brought it up at all, and I sort of forgot about it.

Until today, when Tony said I should wear something nice, and suggested this dress. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but… I don’t know. Something is off, but I can’t figure out what.

I look at Tony, who’s driving with one hand and chewing a nail on his free hand.

“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” I ask, frowning as we hit a particularly broken-down stretch of the city.

The little shotgun houses here have peeling paint and ratty yards, barefoot kids in diapers taunting mean-looking pit bulls that are chained up outside. The homes are half-collapsing, leaning far too one side or the other. Even the streets are messed up here, the concrete so busted up and broken that Tony has to drive slowly over it.

“Yeah,” Tony grunts. “We’re almost there.”

I glance at Tony, feeling that something is wrong. His eyes are fixed on the rearview mirror, his posture so tense that he’s sitting forward instead of leaning back. He’s been sweating bullets since we got in the car, biting off terse answers to my questions.

I lay a hand on his arm, and he practically jumps out of his skin. “Jesus! Don’t f*****g touch me, Katherine.”

I narrow my gaze and speak slow and low. “What’s going on, Tony?”

He glances at me; the whites of his eyes are a little too wide. Maybe he’s on some kind of drug? It would explain the sweating and the nervousness.

“Nothing you need to worry yourself about,” he says. He tenses his jaw in such a way that I know he’s lying. I just don’t know what his lie is about.

I push back in my seat, unsatisfied. Tony keeps looking in the rearview mirror, driving all of twenty miles per hour. I start wondering how long it would take me to get out of the car, here and now. If Tony’s on drugs and running from the cops, I need some kind of backup plan in case something goes wrong.

Even as I think it, I see the blue flashing lights of the New Orleans police behind us. I swear, a minute ago I didn’t even see the SUV, but now it is flagging us down.

Tony doesn’t stop right away, forcing the police SUV to turn on its sirens. I look at Tony, who is staring in the rearview mirror and gripping the wheel so hard that his knuckles are turning white.

“Tony, you have to stop for the cops,” I tell him gently. Obviously, he’s in a pretty altered state because I shouldn’t have to tell him stuff like that. What, are we just going to run, and see who wins?

On these streets? I don’t think so.

His eyes roll over to look at me. He starts shaking. “You don’t want that, Katherine. Really, you don’t.”

“Pull over, Tony,” I plead, looking him in the eyes. I know I have no real authority here.

“You don’t know…” he says, glancing in the rearview again. “You have no idea what’s about to happen…”

“Tony,” I say, placing my hand on his arm again. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay, I promise. Just pull the car over, all right?”

He looks straight ahead, then grabs the wheel and jerks it to the right, braking abruptly. We jerk to a halt, hard enough that I’m worried about having a mark where the seatbelt went taut against my chest.

“Jesus, Tony,” I mutter, looking behind the car.

Four uniformed N.O.P.D. are already climbing out of their SUV, pulling their guns as they begin to approach us. They flank the car, moving quickly.

“f**k!” Tony says, turning halfway around in his seat. “f**k, f**k, fuck.”

“It’s okay,” I try to soothe him, though I am very worried about the police officers rapidly approaching just outside our windows.

“Unlock the doors!” commands the officer on Tony’s side. “Both of you get out of the vehicle right now, slowly.”

My puzzlement is evident. I look at Tony, who just puts his hand on his unlock buttons. He glances up at me, his too-wide eyes filling with tears.

“I’m sorry,” he says, as he presses unlock.

What is he talking about? I wonder.

I don’t have time to process his words fully, though. My door is yanked open, and I turn away from Tony. There is a burly officer there, reaching in the car, trying to unfasten my seatbelt.

“Okay! Let me just…” I say to him, but he reaches in anyway. He manages to detach my seatbelt. Grabbing me by the shirt, he pulls me from the car, slamming me against the Escalade’s side. “Jesus!”

Through the windows, I see Tony getting the same treatment. He’s arguing with the cops, probably trying to talk his way out of jail.

“Hey man, you have her,” he’s saying. The cops frisk him and start to frisk me. The hands that go up and down my legs are rough, and I’m distracted as I strain to listen to what Tony is saying. “That’s the deal, right? Y’all take her, and I go free?”

“Shut the f**k up,” the cop frisking him says. “Just stop talking, and we’ll get you on your way soon enough.”

The cop on my side pulls my arms together behind me, fastening them with a zip tie. “Wait a second… Officer, wait, what did I do wrong?”

The cop spins me around, grim-faced. “Born into the wrong family, I guess.”

“What?” I ask, mystified. “I—”

“This’ll go a lot easier on you if you shut up,” he says. Pointing me at the police SUV, he starts to frog march me toward it.

“No, no, this is a mistake,” I say, growing desperate. I look around the neighborhood, hoping that someone is watching, maybe recording my arrest. But no, there isn’t anyone. The street is deserted.

I look back at the Escalade, expecting to see Tony in handcuffs too. But instead, he’s standing by the car, watching me sullenly. The cops have left him alone, and they are all following me toward the police SUV.

“What the hell?” I ask. “Tony! Tony, what is happening?”

Tony glances away, breaking eye contact. He opens the door to his car, and it sure as hell seems like he’s just about to leave me with these cops.

“Tony!” I shout, tears breaking through in my voice. My heart rate starts pounding, the sound of all the blood rushing through me echoes in my ears. “Don’t leave me! Please! What did I do?”

“I told you to shut up,” the burly cop that holds me says. “Dean, get the back.”

One of the younger cops hurriedly goes to the SUV’s rear, opening it. I start to tremble, my body rebels by going boneless. The burly cop seems prepared for me to do it. He quickly puts his whole hand around the back of my neck, forcing his thumb deep into my neck, making me cry out with pain.

It’s all too fast for me to resist, to form any real plan or to escape. I am marched around to the SUV’s open rear gate. I stare at the blue plastic tarp that they have laying there, and all my senses scream, GET OUT OF HERE.

I scramble for the words to describe what is happening to me. I am bewildered and very, very afraid. “Help! Help! No, no, don’t! Rape!!”

For some reason, my brain supplies the word rape as a thing you say, because I vaguely remember reading somewhere that it’s a word that stands out.

Even as I am saying the words though, the burly cop grabs me by the waist, lifting me up and dumping me into the back. I immediately try to crawl out, but he backhands me, hitting my skull with a white-hot crack.

His blow felt like a thousand shards of agonizing heat, blooming outward from my temple. Stunned and temporarily too shocked to move, I allow the back door to be shut on me without protest. There is some kind of beige barrier thing that is blocking me in on top. The door lock clicks, leaving me in a blue tarp and car-seat beige kind of hell.

I immediately grow insanely claustrophobic. I can’t see any light, I just see the blue tarp beneath me and on my sides, and the beige barrier overhead. It’s like I’ve been sealed in a tomb, making me panic even more.

My head throbs and my blood rushes in my ears. I have this sensation like a million little bugs are crawling around me, just far away enough not to touch my body.

I wrestle with the handle on the door, pulling frantically. It doesn’t budge. I hear the doors open, feel the cops climb in just in front of me. I kick the seat as viciously as I can.

“Let me out!” I scream, my mind whirling. I scratch at the tarp where the door handle must be, trying to rip a hole in it, but it is too thick to be ripped. “Tony, don’t let them take me! Tony!! Tony! Don’t let them take me! Help!!! Anyone, help!”

“Shut the f**k up,” one of the cops says, although his voice is a little muffled.

One of them says something that I can’t quite hear, and the engine roars to life. My head throbs as I try to figure out what I am supposed to do now.

Oh s**t. Oh s**t, oh s**t, oh s**t. Think, Katherine. Think!

I roll around as the SUV progresses, my body crackling the tarp beneath my body. The men in the front are mostly silent, occasionally making a comment here or there, but it’s too muffled for me to hear.

I push at the barrier above my head, thinking that maybe it’s meant to be removed, but it doesn’t budge. I push again, out of desperation, and it moves the tiniest bit.

Good to know, I guess. I file it away, wracking my brain for what to do next. I remember an article that I read online that was how to escape a potential kidnapping, but that was a list of ways to avoid being put in a car.

Never let anyone take you to a second location. I remember that specifically.

But what are you supposed to do if you’ve already been put in a car?

Think, Katherine.

Maybe I can scream then we are at a traffic light, and get someone outside the car to notice me then? The SUV rolls to a stop, and I hear the faintest thud-thud-thud of music… maybe from another car, or a business?

I take a deep breath, fortifying myself. I can do this.

“Help! Rape! Helpppp!” I scream.

Then there is a scuffling sound as one of the cops turns around, rips the barrier above my head off, and points a gun directly at me. I blink at the sudden explosion of sunlight, freezing in place, my hands shooting up by my sides. It’s a gesture that says, don’t shoot me!

The cop’s head appears over the back seat, and he looks surly as hell. He motions to me with the gun.

“I won’t tell you again,” he growls.

“Please,” I beg, my eyes filling with tears. “I don’t know what my brother told you—”

“Will you shut her up?” someone else in the car complains.

The cop pointing the gun at me glances over his shoulder for just a second, annoyed with the person speaking. Then he looks at me.

“It wasn’t your f*****g punk-ass brother. Your father sold you. Now you belong to the buyer, as simple as that. And we are just carrying you from one place to another, nothing more. So, shut the f**k up, and don’t make me shoot you.”

His words are incomprehensible to me.

“My— my father?” I say, trying to understand.

The cop doesn’t say anymore. He just disappears and then the barrier comes down again.

“No!” I say, shrinking away from the barrier. “No! Stop! Please, I can’t breathe in here!”

It feels true; I feel like I can’t breathe; like I’m suffocating. I feel the cop shift in the seat just in front of me, and I feel my head throb once more.

I suddenly realize that I’m running out of time. If the cop was telling the truth, pretty soon I am going to be in the hands of some stranger… and it sounded like that stranger would be better equipped to deal with a struggling girl.

I definitely don’t want that. I’d rather take my chances with the cops, to be honest. I think for a second, then realize that I want to go through the tarp and out the back, if possible.

I just need something sharp to cut the tarp, something metal. I glance at my watch, which has a metal band. Yes.

I scramble to unsnap the watch, then find the sharpest part, just where the band links together. Forcing it into the sharpest shape possible between my fingers, I s***h at the tarp.

No luck, though I can tell that I damaged it a little. Biting my lower lip, my head pounding and crazy thoughts trying to intrude, I try again… and again…

I manage to open a gash in the tarp about the size of my hand. From there, I work my hand through the gash and pull. It’s tough going, but I struggle with all my might.

The tarp finally gives way with an audible ripppppppp. My breath freezes in my lungs.

Please don’t let the cops have heard it. Please let my prison have muffled the sound.

But a few breaths later, I realize that they can’t hear it. I quickly rip the plastic again, my movements frenzied. I put my head through the hole, then work the tarp down the rest of my body.

I grab the door latch, forcing myself to wait, wait until I’ve gathered enough breaths. The vehicle slows, and I take that opportunity to open the SUVs rear door.

Paltry light greets me as I tuck and roll out of the SUV. As I do, my dress catches on the SUV, but I’m not worried about that. I shred the pale pink tulle, my heart threatening to explode from my chest.

Ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump.

The sun has set, and I’m bathed in the resulting light, the street lights just coming on here and there. I’m in the Lower Ninth Ward somewhere, on a desolate-looking street that houses some old warehouses.

I hear the vehicle slam on its brakes. I spring up, immediately running off the road since they’re probably going to follow me. The yard in front of me is fenced, so I veer right, running into an open gate of what looks like some abandoned power station or something.

“Hey! Stop! Man, what the f**k!!” I hear one of the cops yell behind me.

I don’t look back, though. I just start sprinting as hard and as fast as I can, looking at a spot in the power station’s yard that narrows, two buildings forming a funnel of sorts.

As I race towards the funnel, my heart pounding, my lungs already burning in my chest, I see that both of the buildings are abandoned-looking warehouses.

“Stop! Girl! I’ll shoot!” a cop says, somewhere behind me.

Like hell, I’ll stop. Not now, not ever.

Seeing as I can’t run forever, that doesn’t seem like too bad an idea. Stop and hide—

A gunshot cracks across the dusky sky, going quite wide of me.

Fuck! I almost look back, trying to surmise how far the cops are behind me, and how serious they are about shooting me.

But I steel myself, instead focusing on the fact that I’m closing in on the two warehouses. As I come upon the rusty gray buildings, seeming to peer down at me like two giants, I realize they are identical.

I just have to pick one. Left, or right?

Another gunshot cracks through the air, this one hitting the warehouse to the left. It’s much closer this time.

“f*****g get her, Hunt!” I hear one of the cops behind me say.

As I reach the bottleneck, I know I have to decide. My lungs are screaming with pain, my legs are cramping, everything is throbbing. I’m soaked through with sweat, my eyes feel like they’re going to burst from my skull.

So, I just have to make a choice. Left, or right?

It’s a sudden death sort of moment, the choosing. An animal instinct and I’m completely blind to the outcome. At the mercy of some strange god, who is looking down and laughing like a jackal.

I run through the narrow gap between the warehouses, and sprint to the right.

Ready for more? Read Control next!

I wake up terrified, humiliated, and chained to a wall.

The shackles around my wrists mean only one thing.

He owns me now. With his dark glares and barked orders, he is dangerous.

He is my tormentor, my captor, a threat to my very existence. Not to be toyed with.

Even if my frightened mind whispers maybe…

Even if I am very curious how such a man came to be.

I am still his dark and twisted pet, to cherish or to scorn.

And I am starting to love the darkness...

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