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Hazel and Harper slowly dug into their pocket, retrieving their device.
I didn’t budge from where I stood on the cement floor. “Mine fell out when we were picked up,” I said, doing my best to lie. I refused to back down, my eyes stared into his.
If I so much as flinched, he might see through the charade.
His eyes narrowed as his eyes raked over my body. “I don’t believe you. Strip down.”
“I swear, I don’t have my phone.” I held up my hands in surrender. “You can search me,” I said. I hoped that would suffice.
I didn’t want to strip down, least of all for him.
Thankfully, Skylar had already been shuffled away or she might have given up the location of my cell phone.
She was the last person who I trusted, well, her and Ben.
Were they working together, or had she gotten herself involved inadvertently? They weren’t keeping her in prison with us.
The man with the bushy eyebrows stepped toward me.
His breath smelled of stale coffee, and he wreaked of day-old cigarette smoke. “Arms out,” he commanded.
I held out my arms while he patted me down a little too intimately. With one hand, his fingers cupped my breasts, fondling them in the process before he shoved his hand inside the waistband of my jeans.
“Please, stop,” my voice caught in my throat.
Bile rose to my lips. I swallowed down the burning liquid and pinched my eyes shut.
He lifted his hand with the gun, placing the barrel against my forehead. “I give the orders. Don’t ever forget that.”
His fingers grazed over my panties.
My stomach flopped and my body trembled.
He yanked his hand out of my pants.
“Turn around.”
Was it over?
His hand did the same dance over my buttocks, inside the waistband of my jeans, before he withdrew his hand away and lowered the gun.
A moment later, he stalked to the door, stepped out, and closed the iron bars. The metal squeaked as he latched the lock.
Once he was gone, out of sight, I collapsed onto the cold cement floor.
I didn’t feel cold.
My body was numb from the inside, and the tremors took over every ounce of my existence. I sat with my legs pulled up to my chest, shaking uncontrollably.
Hazel bent down and rested a hand on my back.
“We’ll figure this out,” she said, her voice soft and comforting.
I nodded solemnly and glanced toward the hallway. There were no guards standing in wait. Perhaps because we were behind bars they no longer considered us a threat.
With a quick glance around the room, I recognized no surveillance equipment. There were no signs of cameras and recording devices, although I wasn’t sure if they were listening to us.
I’d have to be careful.