It had been hours, maybe a day—she had no concept of time anymore—since she was taken from the back of that van and into a building. They led her into a basement before entering a tunnel carved out of the wall there.
She didn’t speak and didn’t try to get away as they guided her deep into the cool, damp earth. The beams of their flashlights played over the jagged rocks surrounding her. She worried about spiderwebs, but they were so far beneath the ground that spiders didn’t dwell here.
At the end of the tunnel, they turned right, then left, before going right again. Despite having a good buzz before this all started, she was completely sober, and she memorized their turns as they walked.
She held out little hope of ever escaping, but if she did, she would know how to do it. That little hope vanished when they came to a cross section of tunnels. They entered the second one before making a couple more turns.
The place was one gigantic maze; even if she remembered every turn, she would most likely end up lost in this hellhole. The walls were so close, she felt like she was walking through her tomb. And then she realized this most likely was… her tomb.
Finally, they came to a stop, pulled open a gate, unbound her wrists, and shoved her inside. Callie spun back to them as the gate slammed closed. She opened her mouth to scream at them to come back, but she bit back the words. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of hearing her pleas.
When she turned back, she discovered she was not alone in her narrow cage inside one of the tunnels. There were four other women with her. They huddled in the shadows, their eyes wide and their arms around their legs as they sat on the ground.
“Where are we?” she demanded.
Two of them shook their heads, a third cried, and the fourth choked out. “We… we don’t know.”
“How did you get here?”
That only made the two cry harder while the third remained little more than a vegetable. The fourth told her they’d taken her from a jogging trail, tossed her into an SUV, and transported here. She had no idea how long ago that was.
Callie paced the confines of the tunnel. She could traverse about thirty feet before another gate stopped her. Standing on her tiptoes, she gripped the bars of the window high up on the door and tried to see what was on the other side.
It was too high to see anything, but the light flickering in the room beyond dimly illuminated their prison. At least they had that light. She couldn’t imagine being trapped here and completely unable to see anything. Just the idea of it made her feel a little insane.
She continued to pace before realizing she was wasting her energy and slid down to sit on the ground near the fourth woman. It took all she had not to leap up and start pacing again, but if she had any chance of getting out of this, she had to conserve her strength.
However, it was difficult to sit still when she was becoming increasingly sure her life was about to end.
One of the crying women became so loud she drowned out all other sounds. Callie almost told her to be quiet, but if these were the last moments of the woman’s life, who was she to tell her how to live them?
The third woman remained unmoving as she stared straight ahead with glazed eyes. Callie had worked with enough animals to recognize the look of the rabbit caught in the crosshairs of a coyote. Instead of taking off, this rabbit had decided not moving was her best option.
She’s in shock.
But Callie guessed she was in shock too. However, she would not spend her last seconds crying or trying to hide in plain sight. She wouldn’t go down without a fight; she just wanted to know what she was fighting.
Was she facing sex traffickers or a group of serial killers? Would they auction her off or stick her in a pit and lower a bucket of lotion to her? Or maybe they were a Satanic cult looking for a sacrifice.
Out of the many unnerving options, she wasn’t sure which she preferred. Killing her right away would be better than being a sex slave or skinned alive. But considering she was sitting in the dark with four strangers, she didn’t think the odds of instant death were in her favor.
How swiftly her life had changed. Earlier she was celebrating her newfound freedom, returning to her old life, and laughing with her friends while she looked forward to a shining future.
Now, she was sitting in these dank shadows with her back against a cold rock wall while she prayed for instant death.
Something shifted, and she turned as stone scraped against dirt. The two crying women sobbed louder, and for a second, Callie almost joined them, but then she gathered the remaining dregs of her courage.
Resting her hand against the wall, she ran her fingers over its damp surface as she rose. If they decided to sell her off as a sex slave, she would make them regret the decision by biting off the first dick shoved in her mouth. The idea of it made her stomach turn, and the action would most likely get her killed, but death would be preferable.
Beyond the bars of the gate they led her through, a dim light pierced the gloom of the tunnel. She had no idea what was coming toward them, but dirt crunched beneath the weight of whoever approached.
When those footsteps got closer, the person lifted the beam of their flashlight and focused it straight on her face. She recoiled and held up her hand as she turned her head away from the light.
As soon as it no longer hurt to do so, she lifted her chin and glowered at her approaching jailers as they stopped on the other side of the bars. These three were different from the ones who brought her here.
How many people are involved in this? And how can something like this exist?
She knew there was a lot of evil in the world. She didn’t live under a rock, she saw the news and heard the horror stories, but she chose to believe there was more good than bad in the world. Obviously, she was a naïve idiot.
She had no hope any good would come out of this mess. People didn’t kidnap you and take you underground so they could surprise you with balloons and a giant check.
Though she was determined not to show any fear, she stepped away from the man who approached the gate. The key rattled in the lock before the door swung open. The callous smile the man gave her, and the malicious gleam in his eyes, made her blood run cold.
When he grasped her elbow, she jerked at it, but his hand clamped down with so much force that his fingers dug into her bone, and it felt as if she’d hit her elbow on a rock. She almost cried out.
Instead, she bit her bottom lip and scowled at the man who ignored her. She opened her mouth to scream at him that she was a human being, but she doubted he considered her such. She was less than the dirt beneath his feet.
How can someone be so broken as to have no empathy for another?
She didn’t know the answer, and she didn’t care what made this man into the monster standing before her. She didn’t care if he’d been beaten, neglected, or tossed to the wolves as a child; nothing could justify his actions here.
None of their captors spoke as they entered the small prison. Another one unlocked the gate on the other end, and the others shoved them out of their cell and into what she could only describe as an underground arena.
Callie staggered forward when the man shoved her before releasing her arm. Realizing this was her last chance at freedom, she turned and ran. She barely made it three feet before the man snatched her hair and yanked her back.
She couldn’t stop herself from crying out as the man threw her to the ground. Kicking out with her feet, she tried to connect with the man, but he slapped her foot away.
Before she could recover, he was already walking away. Breathless and uncertain of what just happened, Callie watched as they closed the gate behind them. That man had moved so fast, or maybe she was too slow after everything she endured.
Pushing herself to her feet, she lifted her head to take in her surroundings and blinked against the torchlights spilling down from above. When her vision cleared enough, she spotted the people looking down on them.
Standing behind the torches set into the rocky ledge above them, she couldn’t make out any of their features, but their eagerness was palpable on the air. Her mind flashed back to her ancient history textbooks to the Coliseum and gladiator fights.
Was that why they were here? Were they supposed to battle each other to the death? Because if that was the case, they were going to be extremely disappointed. She wouldn’t allow these freaks to turn her into a monster for their entertainment.
But what if one of these women attacked her? She’d have no choice but to defend herself then. She didn’t want to be what these people were trying to turn her into, but she wouldn’t let them kill her without a fight either.
The hair on her nape rose as she became aware of another presence in the arena. Her mouth went dry, and a primal fear, unlike any she’d ever known, crept through her.
She became fully aware of what the term fight or flight meant as adrenaline spiked her heart rate. A cold sweat broke out on her body as she lowered her gaze from the spectators and turned her attention to the other side of the pit.
She instantly recognized her mistake. They weren’t the predators; they were the prey.
On the other side of the pit stood a man so covered in filth and dried blood on his arms and shoulders that she couldn’t tell what color his hair was or see any clean spots on his flesh. A scruffy, dirt-choked mustache and beard covered his face. His broad shoulders spoke of strength, but his visible rib bones and protruding collarbone belied that image.
The jeans hanging low on his waist revealed the sharp edge of his hip bones. She suspected they once fit perfectly, but now a tug would pull them free. Multiple punctures marred his shoulders and upper arms. Fresh blood trickled from some of the wounds, while dried blood caked around a few others.
No chains bound his ankles, but manacles encased his wrists. The chain between the manacles gave him at least a foot of space to move his hands as he flexed and unflexed them into fists.
However, it was not the man’s chains or his battered and filthy countenance that caused a scream to lodge in her throat. It was not even the way his shoulders heaved, his nostrils flared, or the murderous look on his face that gave her pause.
No, it was the burning red of his eyes that made the world lurch and her sanity come into question.
She suddenly no longer wanted to know why they’d taken her. Not having an answer seemed far preferable than the one staring at her. It wasn’t an answer staring her in the face; it was death.
Death was locked into this pit with her, and it would not stop until it destroyed every last piece of her.
There was nowhere to go, but everything in her screamed to run and never look back. She was about to turn and flee when the man burst into motion and flew across the pit.