Page 3 of Seducing Scylla (Mated Myths #1)

Morgan

I ’m rocking, my gut twisting with the motion.

My eyeballs hurt and my lids do not want to open at all.

I let out a pained moan and go to crush the heels of my palms into my eye sockets just to ease the pressure.

But I can’t. I’m restrained somehow. The sharp ache in my shoulders comes rearing into focus with full force, the stiffness of being stuck in one position for too long burning in my limbs.

I can’t even feel my fingers. Forcing my eyes open, the room spins and sways.

Is it possible to spin and sway at the same time?

A familiar, sickly-sweet scent lingers in my nose, trying its hardest to cover the other more unpleasant smells of my surroundings, but only succeeds in making me nauseous.

The smell brings forth the panicked moments of before .

Of the dead-eyed man and his hands around my face and body.

The panic. Not being able to breathe. I still can’t breathe .

My eyes bulge, and I register a thin keening noise before realizing it’s me.

I gasp a shuddering breath before I heave.

The sour tang of bile fills my mouth before forcing its way out and splattering on the floor.

The motion has me tumbling, overbalanced, and I unceremoniously land face first in the sticky bodily fluids I just expunged, given the tang infiltrating my nostrils. I retch again, a sob quickly following.

Lying in my own filth, arms tight behind my back, I can do nothing but take in my surroundings.

It’s dark, wherever I am. A room, or a shed, given the thin streams of light filtering through tiny holes along the walls.

I imagine I’m a rat being kept in a cardboard shoebox, holes poked in the sides so I don’t suffocate.

The thin streams of light illuminate a long, cold metal enclosure.

The coolness of the steel is a relief where my face rests, easing the roiling in my stomach somewhat.

My eyes adjust to the dimness, and I realize I’m not alone.

A handful of bodies line the walls, most look as if they’re unconscious; slumped over with their heads drooping between their knees at an angle that is surely going to be painful when they come to.

Some are sprawled out over the metal floor, arms trussed up behind them like mine.

Someone weeps quietly further down, unnoticed earlier over the sound of my own panic.

“Hello?” I croak, my tongue darting out to wet cracked lips. My voice isn’t much more than a dry rasp and I’m not sure if I should be quiet or if our captors will hear me and come for us. The sniffling stops.

“Where are we?” I try again, my ragged voice bouncing off the steel walls.

“Shh, they might hear you!” she whisper-yells at me.

Well, that answers that question.

“Who? Who are they? Where are we?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know!” The woman begins to sob again, her own reprimand quickly forgotten.

“Hang on,” I grunt, rocking onto my side, and using my aching shoulder to prop me up.

I screech at the pain tearing down my arms as I lurch forward, tucking my legs under me until I’m on my knees, my head resting on the floor.

Panting, I sit back up and duck my head to wipe my vomit off the side of my face and onto my cardigan.

With all the grace of a newborn giraffe, I struggle to get my feet under me with my hands bound, but I manage to push myself up.

My legs tremble, threatening to collapse, and my head is still swaying.

I swallow the urge to vomit again, but I don’t think there’s anything left in my stomach anyway.

One shaky step in front of the other, I make my way toward the sobbing.

I yelp, wincing as I trip over one of the bodies lying across the floor, my foot making contact with something round and bony. Stumbling, I dive forward, twisting at the last minute to avoid my face slamming into the steel beneath me, my shoulder taking the brunt of the impact.

I cough and groan, tears leaking from my eyes at the additional pain to my already bruised and abused shoulders. Whimpering, I lie on my side, eyes closed and breathing heavily through my nose, trying to regain my composure.

“Are you okay?” the woman whispers, sounding closer than before.

I stifle another cough from my winded lungs. “Peachy.”

Silence answers me. Squinting into the shadows from where I lay on the floor, I realize the woman is beside me.

“Sorry,” I grumble, feeling guilty over the snarkiness in my tone .

“We’re all in this together.” I don’t realize I’ve whisper-sung the words out loud until laughter bubbles to the surface, exploding from my lips, a little manic, and uncontrollable.

She snorts, which makes me laugh harder, and then she’s laughing along with me.

I laugh so hard tears run from my eyes and then I’m sobbing deep racking sobs as the reality of our situation drives home.

We sober, the silence deafening after our outburst.

“I’m scared,” she whispers.

I sniff, stifling any more tears. “What’s your name?”

“Elena, you?”

“Morgan.”

“I’d say nice to meet you, but I’d rather I hadn’t.”

I hum in agreement. “So, what’s your story?” I ask, still lying on the cold steel at her feet., my previous burst of desperate energy sapped away.

Elena raises a brow. There’s just enough light filtering through one of the holes for me to see that her eyes are a grayish blue, and her hair is blonde.

It’s drawn up into a ponytail that’s looking more than a little worse for wear.

She looks fit, the shadows encasing broad shoulders, exposed by a singlet or a crop top. It’s hard to tell exactly .

“I was out running. I’m an athlete; a swimmer. I’ve got a comp coming up, so I beefed up my training. Kind of regretting it now, though. They got me on a secluded part of the trail.” Elena shudders.

I nod in sympathy. “Well, it’s not as bad as mine. I walked right up to them. Thought they were tourists and didn’t want them to get towed.” I roll my eyes. “I should’ve known better. Who else drives a beat-up old caravan, if not for creeps who go around kidnapping women?” I spit out bitterly.

Elena grimaces at me. “Yeah, that’s a no-brainer, sorry. Are you feeling any better? I heard you throwing up down there.” Elena nods toward the other end of our prison.

“A little. My head won’t stop swaying though. Whatever they knocked me out with has really messed me up.”

“I thought it was just me, but I’ve been awake for a while now, so I think the drug has worn off. I thought they got my dose wrong because I’m built a little bigger than most women, but my head hasn’t stopped swaying either.”

“Huh. ”

I close my eyes, hoping that’ll help with the motion. I take stock of my body and how I’m feeling. Elena is right. Besides the swaying, I feel fine now. My eyes spring open.

“We’re rocking.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.” Elena rolls her eyes.

“No, not swaying. Rocking. This, whatever this is,” I gesture to our enclosure, “is rocking. The room is rocking!”

“Wha—”

Re-invigorated, I scramble to sit up, pushing my legs back under me. I fall forward, my head landing in Elena’s lap.

“Do you mind?” she grumbles.

“Sorry.” My grunt is muffled by her leg as I use it for leverage to stand up.

I turn to where the light filters through one of the holes behind us and walk over to it, careful not to accidentally trip over anyone again.

I reach up on my toes to peer through the hole, the light searing my eyes after sitting in the dark for so long.

I hiss, pulling away sharply and blinking away the spots dancing in my vision.

Slowly, I peer back through the hole, careful to keep my eye half closed until it adjusts this time .

Bright white morphs into a palate of rusty browns, greens, and reds. A sea of steel in every direction. I let out a sharp breath.

“We’re in a shipping container,” I whisper.

“You can’t be serious?”

I turn back around to face Elena, eyes wide, and nod; although my eyes are adjusting back to the darkness so I can’t see her.

Elena huffs as I hear her moving. I can make out her shadowy form attempting to stand up. There’s some shuffling and one of the holes on Elena’s side of the container is suddenly covered by her head as she peers out. The cogs in my head are slowly turning.

“The only reason we’d be in a shipping container is if—” I whisper.

“We’re on a ship,” Elena cuts me off.

“No, no, no, no. This is not good. I mean, this whole thing is not good, but this is really not good. How are we supposed to be rescued if we’re in the middle of the freaking ocean?!” I screech, not caring if anyone hears me this time. Someone stirs and groans.

“I wouldn’t worry about that so much as I would worry about this storm rolling in. The sky is looking pretty nasty out there. It’s about to get rough. ”

As Elena points it out, I notice that the rocking has indeed increased. I groan, sliding down the wall onto my butt, and bang my head against the metal in frustration. How could this possibly get any worse?

The storm is upon us in minutes. Rain thunders violently on the steel roof in rapid sheets of water.

Some of the other women have woken from their drug-induced slumber, and most have also emptied the contents of their stomachs on the container floor.

The sour stench now permeates the darkness.

Someone cries softly while another attempts to comfort them as much as they’re able with their hands bound.

That’s something I noticed. We’re all women, we’re all bound, we were all drugged, and from the sounds of it, we were all taken while out by ourselves over the last few days.

Assuming we haven’t been unconscious for that long.

For all we know, our captors have been repeatedly dosing us and it’s been weeks. That’s a sobering thought.

How many of us have people back home? How many of us have someone who would notice we were missing?

I had no one. Well, Joe would probably notice when I didn’t show up for my shift at the library tomorrow.

But no one intimately, no family either.

My parents died a few years back and I’m an only child, which is really convenient for my captors.

“You got someone back home who’ll notice you’re gone?” I ask Elena.

“My coach.” She pauses. “No one else. Things weren’t really great when I was taken either.

I’d mentioned I was thinking about quitting swimming.

He didn’t take it too well. He’ll probably think I’ve run off or something…

I-I don’t know if he’d look all that hard for me, you know? Not like family would, or a partner.”

I nod in understanding, the same thought playing in my mind. Joe might ask around, but what else can he really do? He isn’t family. I don’t think he could even file a missing person’s report.

Our steel prison pitches back and forth with the storm, the ocean seeming intent on battering the ship with tremendous force.

I ease onto my side, the ache of trying to remain upright against the tilting a losing battle.

Suddenly, a violent grinding rips through the air.

Tense silence falls over us. We continue to rock back and forth like we’re a bunch of kids on a seesaw, but way less fun.

Another screech, like the sharp grinding of metal on metal.

We shift suddenly, those of us on my side are shunted forward into the women on the opposite wall. Elena grunts as I land on her again.

“We really have to stop meeting like this,” she jokes, but this close, I can see her eyes and mouth are tense.

I heft myself backward when another, much louder screech reverberates through the container, sounding like the moan of a dying beast. We pitch to the side again, but this time we don’t stop.

I’m thrown forward into Elena once more, gravity preventing me from pulling myself back off her.

Someone slides past me and into the wall beside Elena, one of the women who hasn’t woken up yet.

I suck in a deep breath as my stomach lurches into my sternum and then the entire container is rolling, the sounds of high-pitched screaming ringing in my ears.

There’s a feeling of weightlessness as we tumble and suddenly, I’m on what was the ceiling of the container.

Someone drops onto me with a thud, and I cough, briefly winded.

There’s no time for apologies before we’re in the air again, suspended as the container flips with us in it.

We’re nose down and everyone has been thrown into a pile at one end, limbs entangled and bruised. Wailing and coughing echo around us .

I feel sorry for those who landed at the bottom of the pile, but it’s short-lived as a loud thud reverberates through my bones when we hit what I assume is the surface of the ocean.

My head smacks into the side of the container, the impact jarring my body, and my teeth clamp down on my tongue, drawing blood.

A whimper escapes me as I watch water begin to filter in through the small holes littered through the container.

What I now realize are breathing holes are going to be the death of us as we slowly drown at the bottom of the ocean.

There’s a change in the air pressure inside the container, kind of like one of those gravity simulator rides at carnivals that spin so fast you get plastered to the edge of the ring and can’t move until it stops.

I’m frozen in place, an invisible force pinning me so I can’t move even if I wanted to.

My breath is caught in my throat, the edge of panic clawing at my heart, my eyes frantically searching for an escape despite knowing this steel box is now a tomb.

Sharp ringing in my ears drowns out the screaming.

I can’t get enough oxygen into my lungs, my breaths coming in short, sharp pants.

Black spots dance at the edges of my vision, and I know I’m about to lose it any minute.

I’m going to black out, my body succumbing to the panic. This—this is definitely worse.