Alone with Abby again, I dropped onto my mattress and unwrapped my burger, determined not to dwell on Ryan’s betrayal. I had no doubt he’d get what he deserved in the end, whether from my father or from Miguel. Or from me.
My burger was tasteless, in spite of the tantalizing aroma of grilled onions, but I ate it anyway. “You should eat that,” I said to Abby between bites.
“I’m not hungry.” She lay on her stomach on her mattress, her chin resting on one arm. Her other hand hung over the concrete at the end of the mattress, tracing a swirling pattern in the dirt she’d scraped from the bottom of her shoes.
I drank from my water bottle, still watching her. “Yes, you are. Eat. You can’t fight them off if you don’t.”
“You can’t fight them off anyway.”
“The hell I can’t.” I tore into the burger again, pretending it was Miguel’s throat.
“You don’t understand,” she said, staring at me with haunted eyes. “If they can’t make you cooperate, make you play their game, you’re no use to them, and they’ll kill you.”
Like Sara, I thought, finishing her sentence in my head. As badly as I wanted to know what had happened, I wouldn’t ask. I had to wait for her to bring it up on her own. So I said the only thing I could think of to comfort her. “Ryan said we were too valuable.”
“I don’t care what he said. Miguel will kill you if you push him too far.”
I plucked a fry from its cardboard carton, miming a sword fight with an imaginary foe. “I’d like to see him try,” I said, lunging to slit my invisible opponent’s throat. Abby didn’t even crack a grin. Tough room.
“If you die, I’ll be alone with them again.” Her voice cracked on the last word, and tears formed in her eyes.
Damn. Stuffing the fry in my mouth, I watched her expression grow from fear to terror as I chewed. “He won’t kill me,” I said. “I won’t give him a chance. And he won’t touch me, either.”
Abby sat up, brushing moisture from her cheeks with dust-streaked palms. “Faythe, you can’t fight him. You don’t know what he did to Sara.”
My heart pounding, I froze, waiting for her to continue. But she didn’t. She wasn’t ready to tell me yet. I took another swig of water, trying to wash down the lump in my throat along with the last bite of hamburger. “Yes, I do.”
Abby’s eyes widened, her mouth forming a silent circle. “How do you know?”
I hesitated, but she looked desperate for information, and I knew the feeling. “They took her home and propped her against a tree in her own backyard. Vic found her.”
Blood drained from her face, and even in the dim light, I saw her bottom lip tremble. “Wasn’t killing her enough? Why did he have to humiliate her like that? Her poor family… Why would anyone do that?”
“Because he’s sadistic.” I dropped my carton of fries back into the bag, my appetite gone. “He had to know a stunt like that would make the council even more determined to find him. And punish him. But he doesn’t care. He thinks he’s invincible.”
Careful of my skinned right hand, I rolled down the top of the fast-food sack and tossed it into the far corner of my cage. “So what do you think they really want?” I asked, gently touching my injured skin with one finger. The bleeding had stopped, but the edge of my palm was still an angry shade of red.
“What do you mean?”
“This can’t be it.” I waved my battered hand around the basement. “If this was their grand scheme, they wouldn’t need Ryan because they wouldn’t care what the council was doing. They’d have their fun with us, then kill us, like Miguel did with those human girls.”
Abby’s hand clenched around the hamburger she’d been staring at. “What human girls?”
I exhaled slowly, trying to decide how much to tell her. “Dr. Carver’s office received the body of a girl raped and killed by a cat. A jungle stray. Owen went to investigate and came across another murder fitting the same pattern. It happened three days earlier in New Mexico.” Where Ryan had said he’d met Miguel.
“I knew it,” she moaned, squeezing her burger until juice from the beef ran down her arm. “They’re going to kill us.”
“No, that’s just my point. They’re not. Not intentionally, anyway,” I amended, thinking of Sara. “If Miguel was looking for disposable playthings, he’d have picked a couple of human girls. But he didn’t. He went through a lot of trouble to snatch us. Ryan said we were too valuable to kill, but too valuable for what? Or to whom?”
Abby frowned, confused. “But Miguel killed Sara.”
“I know.” I sighed, trying not to get impatient with her just when she was starting to open up. “Maybe he lost his temper.”
She nodded vigorously. “Which is exactly why I said not to fight him.”
“If we don’t fight, we won’t get out.”
“And if we do fight, we might not get out alive.”
It was my turn to frown. “Your logic sucks, Abby.”
“So does yours.”
I laughed, and it felt so good, I did it again. After a moment of hesitation, Abby joined me, and her smile was radiant, almost bright enough to make up for the tiny, grimy windows.
Feeling a little better, more from laughter than from the meal, I walked to the center of my cell with my hands on my hips, studying the enclosure carefully. The cinder block basement wall served as one side of the enclosure, and the remaining sides were made of a series of one-inch aluminum bars, welded to a square frame of the same material. The frames were attached to the floor with huge metal screws and secured with bolts more than an inch in diameter. The metal was welded together at the corners and bolted directly into the cinder blocks at the back. Overhead, a nearly identical frame was covered with a sheet of steel mesh, and either bolted or welded to all three aluminum sides and the cinder block wall.
“What are you doing?” Abby asked around a mouthful of hamburger.
“Checking for weaknesses.” I pulled on each individual bar, making my way around the cage until I’d tried them all. It was a long shot, but I had to try. Not one bar budged, which wasn’t surprising.
Next, I tried every bolt I could reach. None of them moved. I stuck my arms through the bars on the front wall and pulled on the lock, wedging my feet against the frame for support. I’m pretty strong, but the damn thing didn’t even creak. It was made of aluminum, too. Great.
As a last resort, I looked up, studying the steel mesh. The basement had a low ceiling—only about seven feet from the floor—and the top of my cage was maybe six inches below that. I could reach it easily, but tugging on the mesh would do me more damage than good. It was made of a single sheet of steel, punched through with row upon row of vaguely diamond-shaped holes. And each edge of each hole was sharp. Very sharp, from what I could see. Any attempt to grab the mesh would shred my hands, seriously hampering any other escape effort I might come up with.
Having exhausted all of my options, I sat down on the mattress and took another swig from my water bottle. “So, what happens when I need to pee?”
Abby wadded up her empty burger wrapper and dropped it into the paper bag. “Do you?”
“Yeah. Not horribly yet, but yeah.”
“There’s a coffee can back there by the wall. See?”
Following her pointed finger, I saw an empty plastic Folgers canister just outside the bars at the back of my cell. “That’s what I was afraid of.” Wiping sweat from my face with my sleeve, I trudged to the back corner of the cage and pulled the canister through. I had to hold it by the bottom because it was too wide to go through with my fingers wrapped around the sides.
Abby smiled sympathetically. “It takes some getting used to but they come empty it pretty often. They don’t like to smell it when they’re down here.”
“I don’t blame them.” I stared into the container in distaste. “I’ll just hold it.”
“Why? They aren’t going to let you out to use the restroom. Besides, Ryan said you were in a cage for nearly two weeks, once. What did you use then?”
“Something similar to this, actually.” I tilted the can toward my nose and sniffed. It was clean and still smelled like coffee. I could really use some coffee, I thought, uncomfortably aware that the smell of my makeshift toilet was making my mouth water. Yuck.
“They can’t keep us in here forever,” I said, tossing the can into the corner with my other trash. “They have to know we’ll escape eventually.”
“Why would we?” She ripped the top edge from a tiny paper packet of salt and upended it over her fries. “You didn’t escape the cage at the ranch.”
I smiled ruefully, lounging on my mattress with my bottle of water. “Only because no one gave me a chance. But unless I’m wrong, Miguel is going to want to join me in here eventually—”
“You can pretty much count on it.”
“—and he’ll have to either bring the key with him or leave the door unlocked.” I paused, picturing his face covered in blood. “Every time he opens that door, he’ll be giving me a chance to escape. He must know it’s only a matter of time.”
Abby plucked one fry from her carton. “He’s probably counting on keeping you too busy to snatch the key.”
“Then I’ll just have to make sure he can’t.”
“What if he brings another tranquilizer?”
I thought aloud, watching her eat. “I don’t think he wants me sedated. He had ample opportunity to do whatever he wanted with me while I was unconscious, but he didn’t. I think he wants me alert and scared.” Sick bastard, I added in my head.
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Last time he had the element of surprise. He’s lost that now, and I’ll be watching for a needle. If he brings one, I won’t give him a chance to use it.”
“Yeah. Good luck with that,” she said, her skepticism obvious as she munched on a limp fry.
“Thanks.”
Overhead, the loose floorboard groaned again and my head swiveled toward the stairs before I could stop it. Wow, I thought, I’ve only been here for a few hours, and already I’m acting like one of Pavlov’s dogs. Only my conditioned response was not salivation, but fear.
“It’s Miguel,” Abby whispered, a thin tremor in her voice.
“How do you know?”
The soft whoosh-whoosh of her pulse sped up as she dropped her fries back into the paper bag. “Trust me. It’s him.”
Wonderful.
“Carpe diem,” I mumbled, scrambling to my feet as I tried to recall the Latin translation for “Seize the cat by the balls.” Marc had taught it to me years ago. Too many years ago, apparently. “Any advice?”
Abby scooted backward on her rear. “Think about something else.”
“Like ripping his throat out?”
She stared at me in astonishment, then a grim smile spread slowly over her face. “That might work.”
I had my doubts, but the image of blood pouring from Miguel’s neck was pretty damn appealing.
The creak of the door opening interrupted my fantasy with an unhealthy dose of reality. A sudden flood of light from the staircase made me instantly alert. I forgot my need for the restroom. My hand clenched around the plastic bottle. Water spilled over my fingers and onto the mattress. Fresh sweat broke out behind my knees and on my forehead. My muscles tensed. My chest tightened.
The woman in me watched the steps in dread, but the caged cat was eager, because everyone who entered the basement represented my shot at freedom. Even if I had to fight for it. And I was ready to fight.
I screwed the lid on my water bottle and let it fall to the mattress as I stepped onto the concrete, struggling to control my pounding heart.
Black work boots appeared on the top step. Abby glanced up.
“Buenos días, chicas,” Miguel said. His words sounded beautiful and exotic, in startling contrast to his apparent intentions.
But I didn’t give a damn about his intentions. I had plans of my own.