Thumper by Marie James
Chapter 17
Cara
It’s surreal that someone can get used to the hand they’ve been dealt regardless of their situation. I was abducted days and days ago, but already I know that the first time the door opens after a long period, it means breakfast and a bathroom break. Before lunch, we shower. Not long after we shower, Angel comes down and gets me, taking me to Javier’s office. After I leave his office, it’s dinner, and then one more bathroom break before “bed.” We know it’s bedtime when the overhead lights are cut off.
It’s a routine I think all of us have grown accustomed to.
But today is different.
Today, Angel didn’t come get me. He pulled Lola out, and even though I was too late to catch a look at their faces through the front grate of my cage, I didn’t miss the way his hand settled softly on her back as they walked away. I don’t know what to believe. Is Lola capable of turning these men into people she can manipulate? Is being what they want her to be enough to finally be able to gain her freedom?
Would it work for me?
I stay with my face planted against the grate of my cage for so long waiting for Lola to return that I’m certain I’m going to have the grid lines pressed into my skin.
“What the fuck?” I hear Penny hiss when the basement door is opened and Angel and Lola return.
My eyes fly open, still unfocused a little as I watch Lola come back inside dressed in lingerie with her hair done and face covered in makeup.
We don’t say anything until Lola is back in her cage and Angel disappears back upstairs.
“What the hell is going on?” Amanda asks the second we hear the lock on the basement door click back into place.
Lola doesn’t answer.
“Lola!” Penny whisper-yells. “What the fuck?”
Lola still doesn’t answer. She doesn’t say a word, or offer a single sentence of explanation, and since she’s always the one to try and keep us motivated, telling us not to give up, attempting to give us hope that we aren’t going to die down here, her silence speaks louder than the blast of a shotgun.
I’m rubbing my hands over the goosebumps that have formed on my upper arms in fear when Angel returns to pull Lola from her cage. This time when they walk away, his hands are fisted at his sides rather than one being softly pressed to her back. The contrast from earlier in the day redoubles the chills racing all over my body. This isn’t good. The dynamic has changed, and it makes me wonder if she pushed things too far.
“I’m scared,” Amanda confesses after they’re gone.
“Me too,” Penny whispers. “Cara, what happens when they come get you?”
I shake my head because I’ve never been dolled up in heavy makeup and lingerie. What is happening with Lola right now is not something I’ve experienced.
“I just sit in Javier’s office.”
“Just sit?” Amanda asks.
“That’s it. I have no idea what’s going on right now.”
“Whatever it is, isn’t good,” Penny mutters.
The lights go out in the basement, indicating like every other day that it’s bedtime. I don’t know if they’re on a timer or something, but they aren’t out for long before they flicker back on. I curse myself for letting my anxiety drop before things started changing today by getting used to the routine.
Penny whimpers beside me when heavy boots can be heard on the stairs. God, if it’s Miguel, we’re all in trouble.
“Out,” Angel snaps as he pulls the lock from Penny’s cage.
I watch through the grate as he ties her hands together at the wrists before placing another rope around her waist. Then it’s my turn to be pulled from the cage.
Apprehension fills my insides, and I question if now is the time to fight him again. I haven’t since that first time he carried me out of here and up to Javier’s office, but it’s more than clear that today isn’t the same as other days.
“What’s going on?” I ask when he pulls the lock from my door and swings it open.
“Come on,” he urges without answering my question.
The only reason I comply is because Lola wasn’t mad or fighting him when she was escorted out of here earlier. She had to have some idea of what was going to happen to her and didn’t seem upset.
The tears are already falling when he ties my hands like he did Penny’s. Then he ties the rope hanging around her waist to the rope around my hands before tying another length of rope around my waist and continuing with Amanda. We’re all tethered together, trembling and terrified. Angel can’t even look us in the eye.
“What’s going to happen to us?” Amanda asks.
He doesn’t answer. Of course, he doesn’t speak up or give us even the slightest hint of what the hell is going on. He simply walks to the front of our line, gripping Penny around her bicep and urges us all forward. The ascent up the basement stairs is slow, something Angel doesn’t seem exactly impressed with, but he doesn’t shove Penny to go faster.
He leads us to a different part of the house, turning the opposite direction from Javier’s office, and this only ramps up the terror I’m feeling. Nothing physically bad has happened to me in that office. I wouldn’t exactly call it a sanctuary, but I’d much rather be heading in that direction instead of into the unknown.
Cool air washes over us when Angel pulls open a door off the kitchen, and fear settles in every muscle, every bone, until it’s nearly impossible to walk. My jaw is shaking, teeth clattering together because the last time we were outside was when we first arrived, when we were purchased.
Are we being sold? Was Lola right when she said there are worse men out there than the ones that are here?
“I’m scared,” Penny cries, her words not strong enough to describe how we’re all feeling.
“This is for your own good,” Angel says, his voice, as always, emotionless.
I’ve heard those six words many times in my life, and not once did I walk away from the situation feeling like what happened benefited me in any way. Actually, it was always some form of punishment—hot water on a sunburn when I was a little girl, spending several hours in the dark room when Charles Knight caught me kissing a boy from the public school when I was sixteen.
Darkness wraps all around us as we step outside, guided into the darkness solely by Angel’s hold on Penny’s arm and the small flashlight on his cell phone. Shadows dance all around us as clouds move in front of and away from the moon, and for a second, it seems almost peaceful. Then I realize that there’s no peace in the silence, remembering that animals can sense evil and, in some instances, know when something bad is going to happen. I feel that same fear in my soul.
My eyes dart all around. The direction we’re being led is nothing but forest, tall, looming trees that threaten to swallow us whole. We all watched when Miguel had to drag Juan’s body from the basement. Is this a way to get the final result without the same level of work? Are we being led to our deaths?
I plant my feet in the dirt, the socks Javier gave me that first day in his office providing little traction on the damp grass. Amanda bumps into my back and doesn’t immediately pull away.
“What are you doing?” she whispers in my ear, but before I can answer, the rope around Penny’s waist tugs me forward.
“Inside,” Angel says just as he swings open a rusty door.
“Please, Angel. Just tell us what’s going on,” I beg.
“There are some bad men coming to the house tonight. They’re worse than Juan ever thought about being. We’re keeping you out here until they leave. This is how we can keep you safe.” He doesn’t untie us as he goes to shut the door again. “Stay quiet and you’ll be fine. There are bottles of water down there to the left.”
I don’t know what to believe, but I do know I don’t feel an ounce safer after his explanation, especially after he snaps the door closed and slides a heavy sounding lock into place.
“What do we do?” Amanda asks after the sound of Angel’s footsteps fade away.
“He said it’s safer here,” Penny offers.
“This is the closest we’ve been to freedom,” I remind them.
“I bet we can kick some of the boards away. This shed doesn’t seem very well built,” Amanda adds.
“And what?” Penny snaps. “Run around in the forest until we’re eaten by wild animals?”
I feel the rope moving at my waist, telling me that Amanda is trying to get her hands free. Being able to move autonomously is a good idea, so I lift my hands to my mouth, working the knot loose on my wrists.
It seems like forever before Amanda is free, then she turns around to help me, and we work together to free Penny.
“I don’t want you to stay behind,” I tell Penny, knowing that Amanda is on board and Penny’s the only reluctant one in the group.
“We’ll die out there,” she says with a sob.
“And we’ll die if we stay,” Amanda explains. I know we all feel the same way, but Penny is still having a hard time.
“We have to decide,” I say, the urgency to get away boiling inside of me.
“I’m going,” Amanda says, and I sense her moving to the back of the shed, only able to see the outline of her person from the moonlight filtering in through the cracks between the boards.
Amanda kicks at one of the boards, and the sound echoes all around us.
She pauses, knowing she’s making too much noise to keep from being discovered. I don’t know how much time we have, but I know it’s going to take forever to get through the wall using only our hands.