Page 79 of His Toy
CHAPTER 21
Heather
A zip tie bound my wrists with searing pain, a gag stuffed into my mouth gruffly from the bottom of the hood. Hurled into the back of a van, I stumbled and fell on my side. The doors slammed shut.
The ride bumped along, coasting at a slow pace. I pressed my face against the fabric, willing my eyes to see, but it was thick and black, and the night didn’t help. It was useless. I inch-wormed my body, trying to writhe the hood off, but it was long and I was leaning on it. I grunted.
“She’s trying to get it off.”
“Who cares? We’ve got her, don’t we?”
“Were we supposed to get the other one too?”
“This is the important one. We’ll get the other chick later.”
The vehicle slowed, then the engine died. The car doors swung open and two hands grabbed my ankles, yanking me to the edge. They hoisted me to standing, then removed the hood.
We were at an unmarked factory with long stretches of land lit by street lamps. A small plane, humming to the side, waited on a makeshift runway. Next to it, there was a small cage big enough for a medium-sized dog. Or a crouched human.
Shit.
Another car parked, and the man with the angular chin stepped out and lit a cigarette. He walked closer, then yanked the gag out of my mouth.
“This is what the fuss is over?” He snickered, then looked at the men. “Did the boss say he was ready?”
“They made it to the property. Should find the fucker soon.”
“All right, then.”
He dug his fingernails into my shoulders, pushing me down with all of his might. I yelped. They shoved me into the crate, locking it, then two men took the sides to carry it.
“Much heavier when she’s compacted like this,” one grunted.
“Let me sit with you,” I said. I had to try. “You’ve already restrained me. I can’t go anywhere.”
“No way in hell.”
The plane ride was short. I had never been on a plane before, but I had always imagined that the turbulence would make me nervous. It was one thing to step to the edge of a cliff and look down into the abyss with your feet firmly planted on the ground, another to be in the air in a manmade object. But the adrenaline pumping through me made the turbulence feel like nothing. If my life was already in danger, crashing to my death didn’t seem so bad.
When the plane slammed into the ground, one of the men started pushing my cage with his feet, until I was inside of another large wooden crate. The bustle of other airplanes surged, the discussions between the marshallers and the men barely audible. Then the crate was loaded into another vehicle.
In the darkness, I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear the sound of traffic, feel the way the car twisted, the winding roads—I recognized it. When we stopped again, the smell of fir trees snuck inside the box. Mount Charleston. We were going to Zaid.
“Should we lug her all the way there?”
“What other choice do we have?”
“Get her out and let her ass walk there. That’s what.”
“The boss specifically said a crate. He wants her hidden—”
“Then we load her ass back into the crate before we go to the underground prison. What difference will it make?”
Underground prison? The cages. Those people.
They unbolted the crate, then unlocked the cage, yanking me out. My shoulders and knees were sore, but with my hands tied behind my back, I couldn’t stretch properly. I looked up; Zaid’s house remained dark, like the night around us.
“Lead the way,” one of the men said. He shoved my shoulder. “You know where we’re going.”