Danni jolted awake, the memory of rough hands violating her body far too fresh in her mind.
For perhaps the first time in months, her dreams hadn’t bothered her, especially not once she realized she’d be waking up to a nightmare.
Opening her eyes, she saw a roof above her. Wherever she was, it was dimly lit – torchlight or maybe a low-wattage bulb. It was better than waking up in total darkness, if only marginally.
She gingerly sat up, taking it slow as a wave of vertigo passed. The memory of what had happened slowly filtered in to her waking mind, but it was cloudy, hazy, as if her brain was wrapped in cotton.
Once she was up in a sitting position, she swung her legs off the crude wooden cot she’d been placed on. Her bare feet landed upon packed dirt and she took a moment to look down at herself.
With a start, she realized she hadn’t imagined the grabbing hands or the torn clothing. Gone was the outfit she’d worn into the woods – not just pieces or swatches ripped away, but all of it. She was clad in nothing but a filthy, oversized t-shirt. It was ripped and threadbare in places, barely providing even minimal coverage.
All at once it hit her, the grogginess finally fading away and leaving behind the stark terror of her situation. They’d been in control, the creature was surrounded, their guns covering him. Then, in a heartbeat, it had all changed.
Now all pretense of that control was gone. She’d been knocked out and kidnapped, but deep down she knew that was likely the least of her worries. They’d groped her with wild abandon, responding with violence when she made even the slightest protest. What else had they done to her?
Danni didn’t want to even consider it. She’d never been victimized in such a way before, could barely even imagine it. The closest she’d ever come had been her high school prom date – he’d gotten a little grabby in the backseat of the limo afterwards. But that had been nothing, easy to set straight. This...
Tears, unwanted yet seemingly unstoppable, began to well up in her eyes as she considered what might have happened to her.
Slowly, fearfully, she reached a hand beneath her meager clothing, trying at the same time to take in her surroundings – anything to distract her from the awfulness of what she was doing.
She was in a crude cell – small, barely six by eight. The walls were wooden planks. The bars of the cage were rusted and aged, but they also had the appearance of something that had stood the test of time. A small circular pit in one corner was the only amenity in sight.
Danni closed her eyes as she probed herself, sickened to her stomach to think that other hands, or worse, had touched her there.
No pain, soreness, or blood. She breathed a sigh of relief, although she knew that didn’t necessarily mean much. There was little doubt she had enough adrenaline running through her system to stave off nearly anything. The fact that her jaw only dully ached as opposed to throbbing told her as much. Time would tell.
But, even if nothing had been done to her, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be. Why bother to strip her otherwise, leave her with barely nothing on? If they were simply making sure she wasn’t armed, they could have easily done so while she was unconscious. No. She had to assume the worst.
The others, the ones who’d surrounded them, they’d all been male – some of them more human-looking than others. What the hell were they? What was this place? When would they come for her again? And, perhaps most importantly, where were her friends?
Danni forced herself to stand, her legs still shaky beneath her. She approached the bars and took a look outside her cell. There wasn’t much of a view to either side, but across from her were other cells of a similar crude nature. The dim light made it difficult to tell if they were occupied, but she thought she spied a figure curled up in the corner of the one opposite her.
She opened her mouth to speak, but for a moment, no words came out. Reminding herself of the murderous monsters she’d faced in the past, she took a deep breath and tried again. “Derek? Frank? Are you there?”
The words sounded louder than they were in the awful silence of the prison, the only other disturbance the drip of water somewhere close by. After a minute of waiting, she tried again.
Though her friends didn’t respond, someone else did.
“Shhh. They’ll hear you,” came a low female voice from somewhere off to Danni’s left. She couldn’t see anyone, leading her to believe that maybe they were in a cell on her side of the hallway.
Detecting no threat in this newcomer’s tone and not wishing to scare her off, Danni likewise lowered her voice. “Who’s there?”
“My name is Sar...” Her voice trailed off into heavy, hitched breathing, as if terrified of saying more.
That alone told Danni far too much. The woman’s tone spoke of hopelessness and despair, both feelings that threatened to overwhelm her, too. A part of her wanted to give in, to curl up into a ball and let the horror of her situation take over, but she refused. She fought back against it, remembering her training and the creatures she’d overcome.
Though she didn’t feel particularly brave herself in that moment, she forced her voice to be strong for the other woman. “I want you to listen to me. It’s going to be okay. I have friends. They’re looking for me. They’ll find us.”
“Y-you don’t know that,” the woman replied after several seconds, her voice shaky but under control.
“And you don’t know my friends. They’re not the type who give up or get frightened easily.”
“I-I can’t...”
“I can,” Danni replied, realizing the more she spoke, the more she believed her own words. Even if she was mostly talking to herself, she didn’t want to stop and let the fear take hold again. “We’re going to find a way out of this. I promise you that.”
“W-who are you?”
“My name’s Danni.”
“I’m ... S...” Again the woman hesitated, as if fearful of speaking her name, but finally, after several seconds, she said, “I’m ... S-Sophie.”
Sophie?! “Sophie Guiterrez?”
“What? H-how did you...?”
“We, my team that is, were looking for you.” That wasn’t entirely true. There hadn’t been much faith that she was still living, but there was no need to share that information. She was alive. That was what mattered.
“John, too?”
Danni opened her mouth to reply but couldn’t form the words.
“It’s okay,” Sophie said after a moment. “I know. I knew it when I ran away.” Her voice began to waver. “I t-tried to fool myself that I was going for h-help, but the truth is I left him. I left my husband to die.” She broke down into heavy sobs, loud in the claustrophobic confines of their prison.
Danni listened, tears forming in her eyes as she wanted nothing more than to join Sophie in her misery. But she realized that wouldn’t solve anything. As much as she wanted to offer comfort, she waited until the other woman had gotten herself under control again before continuing.
“Sophie, I need you to listen carefully. We’re going to get you out of this. That’s what I want you to focus on. You and everyone else here.” Danni glanced across the hall again, noting that the figure in the opposite cell had shifted a bit but still hadn’t turned to face her. “First, I need you to tell me who else is in here with us. Can you do that?”
Sophie took several deep breaths before replying. When she spoke again, her voice was stronger, as if the crying had helped wash away some of her sorrow. “T-there were two other women here. Both Sarah. I mean, I’m not sure what their real names were.”
“Were? Where are they?”
“One of them... Maybe a week ago. She didn’t...”
“It’s okay,” Danni quickly replied, fighting against the horror of what she was hearing. “You don’t have to say it. What about the other?”
“I don’t know. They took her away a few hours ago. She’s close.”
“Close?”
“The one across from you is ... Abby. She’s...”
“Don’t call me that.”
Danni turned to look across the hall. It had been the first sound the other prisoner had made. “What did you say?”
The occupant turned halfway and Danni saw she was a young woman close to her own age, off by no more than a few years. “I s-said, don’t call me that. It’s not my name.”
“Abby...”
“Don’t call me that! My name is Sarah. So is yours.” She turned and pointed at Danni. “You, too.”
“No. My name is...”
“IT IS!” the woman screamed. “Just shut up! I’m Sarah! I’m Sarah! I’m Sarah!” She beat her fists against the wall as she repeated herself, loud at first, but then growing softer until wracking sobs made the words nearly unintelligible. Yet still she repeated her mantra.
Danni’s heart broke for the poor girl. She’d seen people, friends, whose minds had been pushed past their capacity to cope. Abby sounded that way now – broken – as she keened in her cage, rocking back and forth in an attempt to find some small measure of comfort where there was none to be had.
Both of these women, so terrified, so utterly hopeless. As scared as Danni was, the sight and sound of their anguish began to kindle a different emotion within her: anger. She latched onto it and used it to steel her resolve, pushing her own dread away and locking it up in a corner of her mind. She wouldn’t be a victim and she wouldn’t let these women down, not if she could help it.
Danni opened her mouth to say as much, but there came the screech of metal grating against metal, followed by a hollow boom. It sounded like a door being thrown open somewhere close by.
A few moments later, heavy footsteps approached and, despite her best efforts to keep the fear at bay, it returned nevertheless.