Eluded (6 page)

I felt my nose begin to burn but
swallowed down the tears. I wanted her to think I was strong, when
really I felt like crumbling. Moving back home wouldn't be a bad
idea, but I wasn't sure it would allow me to gain a true
understanding of who I was.

"Thanks, Mom. I'll think about it.
I'll look at flights and probably book one for early next week.
I'll let you know. Maybe you can pick me up from the
airport?"

"That will be fine. Just let me
know or send me an email. I love you, honey. Remember that. No
matter what happens, your dad and I just love you to pieces. I
can't wait to see you."

"Love you too, Mom. Thanks for
calling me. I really needed it."

We said our goodbyes, and I let
out a sigh. It wouldn't be long before everyone knew that Henry and
I were over. He should be happy I wasn’t messy, that I was more of
an introvert and didn't use social media to blast my business.
Though our circle of friends might not ever forgive him. Well, some
would, but others wouldn't. On the outside, we were
that
happy couple who everyone wished they were. On the inside, I had
been slowly rotting away.

I pulled out the laptop and logged
on to the painfully slow internet. I searched flights, and it
seemed the cheapest one left in a week. Even if I stayed in a hotel
room for seven more days, it would still be cheaper than booking
the flight that left in two. I pulled the credit card out of my
wallet and paid for the ticket, then sent my mother the
confirmation. My next step was to search for a few tourist things
to do; Buckingham Palace, yes; Charles Dickens Museum, double yes;
and Kings Cross Station. If I was going to be here for another
week, I might as well make the most of my time.

My emotions were in a tangled
jumble, and I knew I wouldn't be able to loosen the knots. My
twenty-sixth birthday was exactly a month away. Yesterday, if
someone had asked what my plans were for my birthday, I would have
said dinner with Henry in London. Now I knew that I would be home
celebrating.

I continued to scribble little
circles on the paper until the marks of ink morphed into a flower.
On the side of the stem, I wrote “change is coming” in cursive,
then I closed the book. After a few minutes of staring out the
window, I opened my suitcase and took out a pair of pajama bottoms
and a t-shirt, then crawled into bed and grabbed
Pride and
Prejudice
. The side lamp barely lit the room as I thumbed
through the crisp pages. After minutes of reading, my eyes became
heavy. I tried to force them open as they gently closed, but it was
a losing battle. I turned off the lamp and rolled over onto my
side.

A loud bang pulled me from my
sleep. Tall figures rushing into the hotel room woke me in a panic.
I didn't know what was going on, so I stood to run away from them,
but they were too fast and too strong. Fingernails dug into my
skin, but I still tried to push them away. Hands flew over my mouth
as I screamed in bloody terror. I felt the blade of a knife press
against my neck, and I instantly stopped moving.

"Now," a husky voice screeched,
"you'll fucking come with us
without
a sound, or you'll die.
Choice is yours."

My heart hammered in my chest and
adrenaline pumped through my veins. The man laughed as he stared at
me. My small frame was nothing compared to their broad shoulders,
weight, and height. Not one of them looked familiar. One threw my
shoes on the floor, and I was instructed to put them on. I did as I
was told. Two of the men rummaged through my suitcase; one took my
laptop, and the other grabbed my wallet. They emptied my suitcase
and makeup bag, then threw the blankets from the bed until
everything looked completely wrecked.

"I found it," one of the men said
as he held my engagement ring up to the light. The leader of the
three laughed like a maniac as he placed my ring in his pocket. For
a just a moment, I thought they would leave me alone now that they
had found what they were looking for. I wasn't that
lucky.

With a tight grasp around my
wrists, the leader kept me close as another dug the point of a
knife into my back. They led me out of the hotel room, into the
elevator, and through the lobby. As we passed the front desk, I
made eye contact with the woman, hoping she would say something,
pleading with my eyes for her to help me.

She smiled then went back to her
computer screen. "Have a great night," the receptionist said, and
that was when I died inside. I had hoped that she would ask
questions because of the look on my face. I was fucking terrified.
The only person that could have possibly helped me did absolutely
nothing. The men who surrounded me were of all different shapes and
sizes. Some were short, while others were tall. They all wore the
same clothes—black slacks, shirts, and shoes—and all seemed a
little tweaked out. By appearance alone, they didn't look like the
most respectable people in Europe. Didn't any of that throw a red
flag to her?

"We will. We will, indeed," the
leader of the group mumbled as he patted the pocket that held my
ring. My emotions were a mess. I didn't know what to expect, where
I was going, or who the hell these men were. For a moment I thought
that maybe Henry was in on this, but why would he go to such
extremes? The pieces weren't aligning properly, and my mind reeled
at all the possibilities. When would anyone realize that I was
missing? I hoped it wasn't when my mother was set to meet me at the
airport next weekend. Just the thought of that destroyed me. I knew
that only one percent of women who went missing abroad were found.
The odds were already stacked against me.

The leader pushed me into the back
of a dark-colored sedan with tinted windows that waited outside the
hotel. Two men sat beside me in the backseat. The leader sat in the
front and nodded his head toward the driver. When I turned to look
at the man to my right, he pulled a knife from his coat pocket and
set it on his leg, taunting me, warning me that he would use it.
Just the thought of being cut was enough for me to keep my mouth
closed. I looked forward and tried to pull myself from the
situation at hand. I squeezed my eyes tight, hoping that I was just
stuck in a horrible dream. But I knew I wasn't.

The clock on the radio ticked to
midnight. I had only slept for a few hours, and now that I was
awake, I was living a horrible nightmare.

LAUREN

Eight

T
he car smelled like days
old sweat, leather, and cigars. The fat guy in the front seat kept
wiping sweat from his brow and popping his neck. He was antsy,
nervous almost. As the two men in the backseat talked about all the
women they had captured in the last week, the one in the front
turned around and demanded they shut the fuck up. A smothered
silence filled the car.

The men placed a cloth over my
head and secured my arms behind my back miles before we stopped
moving. My throat went dry. I needed water, but I knew that was a
need that wouldn't be met. I tried to calm myself and think of all
the things I loved at home—the beach, sand between my toes, silver
fingernail polish, and sunshine. I hoped that I would survive this.
I had no other options, really.

After the car stopped, the men
exited and left me to sit alone. With my eyes closed, my hearing
seemed more astute. Through the windows of the car, I could hear
muffled voices and was able to make out a few words,
kill,
searching, cocaine, trade, sex, money
. Whatever was about to
happen to me would not be good. I could tell by the tone and the
shouting.

Footsteps closed in and the car
door swung open. Someone forcefully grabbed my arm and we were
traveling at a fast pace. I tried to listen for familiar
sounds—trains, cars, anything that would give me an idea of where I
was—but I heard nothing but silence. It was so loud my ears rang.
We walked up stairs and I tripped, barely having time to get to my
feet. Whoever had me was dragging me to my destination, regardless
of whether my feet cooperated or not.

I tried to keep calm while every
nerve in my body went haywire. My arms were released, and I was
shoved into a room. As the door slammed behind me, I removed the
hood from my head. Darkness surrounded me.

In the distance, I heard the faint
sound of dripping water. When I backed up against the wall, I
slipped in a puddle of liquid and almost fell down. My legs refused
to hold me any longer, and I slid down the wall until I hit the
cold cement. I placed my arms around my legs, and tucked my knees
into my body. Fear coursed through me and released in the form of
tears. I couldn't hold back my emotions any longer. After a few
minutes of sobbing, a voice spoke from the corner of the room. The
tears dried up almost instantaneously. I wasn't alone.

"Shhhh. It will be okay," a soft
voice said.

"Who's there?"

"I'm Sophie. And once the initial
shock of it all passes, you'll be fine."

I didn't know what to say, so I
sat in silence until I did.

"Where am I?"

She laughed as if she had answered
this question thousands of times. I almost imagined her face and
features just through the tambour of her laugh. It was soft but
somewhat sarcastic.

"You're in London," she said, and
I rolled my eyes. She continued, "We're on the outskirts in an
abandoned building. You're the seventh one in the last few hours.
There are others, just a few cells down. We may meet them
tomorrow."

Her voice was clear, like a sky
with no clouds in the summer.

"It's been awhile since I've seen
my family. I'm surprised to be alive," she said, more to herself
than to me.

I couldn't imagine what she had
gone through, being in this place, surrounded by others. I felt
sorry for her. I felt sorry for me. Helpless. Hopeless. Then panic
built inside of me. How long had she been here and was this my path
as well? If I said a word, I might lose it, so instead of talking,
I allowed the silence to take over. I ran my fingers through my
hair, hoping it would calm me, but it didn't. I could feel myself
teetering on the edge of a panic attack.

Moments passed. I closed my eyes
and rested my head against the wall. I wanted to fall asleep and
forget the night ever existed, but too much adrenaline was pumping
through my veins.

"If you come to my voice, there is
another cot. It's not much, but it's better than sleeping on the
cold floor."

"Okay." I tried to talk while I
walked to her. "You said you were surprised you're still
alive?"

"Yes. They kill, rape, abuse,
sell, and humiliate women. We are nothing more than objects to
them. Property. We aren't seen as people or treated as people. We
are nothing more than dollar signs or toys. I've learned that over
the years."

Years? No. I won't last
years.
I swallowed, but she continued.

“
Let me guess your features.
Dark-colored hair, somewhat tall, thin, and pretty in your own
way.”

“
Yeah, in a general descriptive
type of way, I guess.”

She laughed. “And you’re married
to a high profile man who has an enormous amount of money,” she
continued.

“
No. Actually, I’m not. I was
engaged to . . . “ Then my thoughts trailed off, and she cleared
her throat, only validating my original thoughts.

"Exactly. They'll probably ask for
a stupid amount of money from him. If he doesn't pay, your life
will be a living hell, and if he does pay, it won't be much
better."

I almost tripped over the cot as
my shins hit the metal bars. "Shit. That hurt." I lay back on the
nylon-type material and sunk into it. I wondered how many other
women had slept in that same exact place and how many of them had
made it out alive.

Mold. Musk. Old blankets filled
with dust. I can't be here. I can't stay here. I'm going to die.
I'm going to fucking die. I will die here. With strangers. No one
knows where I am. I'll never be found. I'll be another picture on a
lamppost like all the others I have seen in the city. Maybe a
nameless body when they are done with me. My mother. My father.
What will people say at my funeral? Will it end quickly or will I
be tortured? Will Henry pay? Please God, please let him pay them
whatever they want. Please. Please. Please.

I squeezed my eyes tight as the
sobs took over. A tremor rushed through me, and I shook in fear.
Warm tears streamed down my face as the horrible thoughts
completely took over.

Sophie didn't speak to me as I
cried, but she knew I was crying. I knew she knew. She didn't
comfort me and tell me it would be okay or that we would be safe.
No. Those words never came. After awhile, she rolled over and fell
asleep. I stared into the darkness where time didn't seem to exist.
Eventually, I fell asleep and a little piece of me hoped I would
wake up in the flat with Henry and it would all have been a
horrible nightmare . . . but I knew better.

Dread, so thick and suffocating,
coated me, and I didn't know if I'd make it out alive. The future
was bleak, and the thought of dying scared me.

I sucked in a deep breath and
closed my eyes with hopes of dreaming about nothing.

ABBOT