Rise of the Dunamy (15 page)

As she sat in the darkness thinking of how much of a struggle her parents and she had endured to get to America, Sofia found hope. Feeling a surge of resilience, she began to run every possible scenario that she could imagine for what was about to happen. As she reran option after option through her head she heard a sound that she had hoped she would have had more time to prepare for. She heard footsteps approaching.

31

S
ofia made no attempt to conceal the fact that she had regained consciousness – these people were not likely to wait for her to wake up if they had questions for her. It was more likely that one of them would send a boot to her face or some other form of abuse than it was that they allow her to come to on her own. She felt that her best defense at this point was to try and get one of the members to listen to what she had to say in hopes that they would realize that keeping a detective hostage would ruin whatever they were working towards. The footsteps drew closer, echoing around the spacious room. It sounded as though only one person was approaching, and the lack of welcoming voices gave her a feeling that they were alone, which worked in Sofia’s favor. Getting a single member to listen to her was far more likely if they were alone.

“I’m a detective,” she blurted as the footsteps drew nearer. The walking stopped, but no one spoke.

“My shift starts soon and people will know something is up when I don’t show. Everyone knows that we have been investigating your gang, and this will be the first place they check.”

“I seriously doubt that,” came a gravelly response.

Regardless how unsettling the man’s voice was, she was able to find a tiny speck of comfort in the fact that he spoke to her. The voice sounded like that of a man beyond his teens, but determining an upper age limit was impossible. More than likely, he was in his mid to late twenties as maintaining usefulness in a gang became less common beyond thirty. He spoke in a harsh tone and with a raspy voice, but the words came out just above a whisper. He was approximately ten to fifteen feet from her, and his voice echoed from the walls as the footsteps had before, which let her know that they were in a sizeable room with hard, uncovered surfaces. She assumed that it was a warehouse or an auditorium of some sort, or maybe an abandoned gym; although it was impossible to rule out the chance it was a very large basement or storm shelter. These facts continued to narrow the possibilities for where she could be being held, but not enough to give her a solid idea. She needed to keep him talking in order to learn as much as she could about her surroundings, as well as keeping herself alive.

“Doubt it all you want. That isn’t going to change the fact that you and your crew are in deep shit once my ‘boys’ from station head this way.”

“That is very true, but the fact that you don’t work tomorrow will. I mean, how will anyone know you’re missing if no one expects to see you for the next two days?”

Chills shot down Sofia’s spine and brought the hairs on her neck and arms to attention. They had not even scratched the surface of who this gang was or where they were located, yet they already knew who was working the case as well as her schedule. She was terrified, but knew she couldn’t let him know that. One thing that had worked in her favor was that her eyes were covered and he could not see the shock and terror that lie within them.

“Even if you were working today, I doubt very seriously that anyone would be looking for you here.” He said as he circled around in front of her, finally finding his place directly in front of her.

“Why do you say that?” She realized that she had just missed her opportunity to refute the fact that she was not working that day. These were mistakes she could not afford to continue to make.

“For one thing, you don’t even know who you’re dealing with. You don’t have a single piece of evidence that could lead you to me. You don’t know who I am or what I’m doing. Second, you don’t know where we are, nor do your “boys” at the precinct.”

From the work that they had done on the case, Sofia knew that there were no weak links in this gangs chain; there couldn’t be in order for them to operate as smoothly as they had. Regardless of his position with the group, she knew he would be too smart for her to bluff, especially when she had absolutely nothing to use against him. Her safest bet at this point was to keep him dialoging while she tried to devise a plan.

“So, you know who I am, and what I do. You know my schedule. You seem to think you know what I have on you. What else do you know about me?” She was struggling to keep it together and doing everything that she could to keep from giving away how truly horrifying this situation was to her. She began working her wrists again, only much more slowly this time in an effort to keep from drawing his attention. She knew it was a futile attempt at escape, but things were going as far from her way as she could have imagined.

“I know a great many things about you Sofia. But that is not the purpose of this meeting.”

“This meeting? That would imply that you arranged this. Are you telling me that you planned this? That you planned to attack my boyfriend and me in the alley?Y ou planned to kill my boyfriend and take me hostage? Keep talking buddy, that’s called pre-meditated murder and it carries a nice little death sentence.” She spoke as confidently as she could, considering the subject matter and her current situation. Sofia was doing everything that she could to keep herself calm, but she felt that her nerves were beginning to show.

“Your charges do not scare me, Detective Milena.” Sofia’s heart sank. His comment had shredded her last hope that Lucian had been spared or possibly gotten away or that she could have been wrong about what happened as she hadn’t seen the bullet wound. She had been knocked out right after hearing the gunshot that she believed to have killed Lucian, so she was never completely positive of what had happened to him. She knew that it was a long shot for such a violent group to spare any possible witness, and now that she was able to look at the situation with no delusions, she realized that it was never a possibility. They had nothing to gain from letting him live. They would never let Lucian get away and warn anyone that she had been taken. She was beginning to feel the true pressure of the situation, but continued to keep her outward composure.

“I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know if I should be flattered or disappointed.” Sofia said, trying to bait him.

There was a long pause before he replied. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, we were operating under the belief that you were a group of methodical and calculating men. I had honestly developed a little respect for you. Your attention to detail, and ability to remove all trace evidence from the scenes has been nothing short of incredible. But now, after this, I just don’t know.”

She had decided that in a last ditch effort she was going to try and flip the tables on him. She was going to play against his vanity in hopes of proving that he had damaged the group’s reputation in her eyes. At the thought of this, he might let her go in an effort to redeem their name. She also realized that there was a much easier option for him to consider. He could just kill her, as they hadn’t disgraced themselves in anyone else’s eyes. This was a risk she was willing to take. Although catching those responsible for Lucian’s death was a motivation for her to escape, being certain he was gone was bringing her back around to the idea of giving up. Not only that, but she knew that getting past Lucian’s death was going to be next to impossible. Their connection had been short lived, but more intense than any she had ever felt before.

“Please, feel free to continue.” The voice finally replied.

Sofia’s tension eased ever so slightly. She knew that in getting him to ask that question, she had struck a nerve on some level. She just had to keep picking at that thread.

“Well, I just mean that you have given me more in this conversation than your entire gang had given me in months. It just shows me that you’re not as good on your feet as you are with a plan. You guys are smart, but apparently not very quick.” She was being completely condescending at this point, but she didn’t care.

“And what do you presume that I have given you?” He asked rather gruffly.

Sofia grew bolder with every word that she spoke. She felt as though the conversation could end a few different ways, and she was really fine with most of them. Live or die, she was not going to let this guy terrorize her. She had come to the conclusion the he was not overly violent. He sounded well-spoken and had not taken to beating her as she attempted to raise doubt in his mind, so she felt confident that he would be more susceptible to submitting than many of his peers would be. Sofia knew that she needed to make something happen quickly, before the others returned.

“Well, there are a few subtle things and a few that were more obvious. You know who I am and what I do. You have an intimate knowledge of my schedule and some knowledge about what we do and do not know regarding your case. Also, you have been masking your voice this entire time. There is no doubt in my mind that I know you, or we have at least met on a regular enough basis that you believe that I would be able to identify you by your voice.”

There was a brief silence at this giving Sofia cause to smirk. She felt as though she had gotten under his skin. She just knew that she had broken his concentration and his cool and he would begin to unravel at this point. Her confidence began to creep back into her body as she continued with her analysis.

“You have been keeping your distance from me this entire time, which lets me know that you’re uncomfortable with women or possibly intimidated by a police officer; or maybe there’s something about the way you smell that you believe might give away more about who you are. From what I can tell about our location, I know that we are nowhere near the airport and likely not by an interstate. The room is very large and has an echo, so I can start eliminating buildings that don’t include rooms that match that description for your hideout. See what I mean? You guys really shouldn’t have come after us. The only thing that has been working in your favor is the fact that you’ve been knocking off criminals. That man you killed last night was a great person and a friend of every officer in town. Killing him was the worst thing you could have done, especially when you couple that with the fact that you have abducted an actual police officer!” As she spoke of Lucian, she couldn’t keep her emotions hidden. The tears welled up in her eyes. She again pressed the blindfold against her face to absorb them before they were able to break free.

“What happened last night was impossible to avoid.” His voice had not become frantic as she had expected. He spoke calmly and even sounded somewhat apologetic. “Sadly, it is now I who feels disappointment in you.”

Sofia didn’t like the sound of this. She momentarily stopped mopping her tears and tried to figure out where she had gone wrong. What was she seeing that was not there? The confidence that she had felt before was now gone. She had an awful feeling in the pit of her stomach and felt as though she would be sick. The smirk was no longer smeared across her face. She quickly bit down on the inside of her lip in order to try and regain her focus. It was her only chance at warding off the waves of panic that were radiating throughout her body.

“You see, I was an admirer of yours as well. You have done quite well in your career and I believed you to be a top-notch detective. While it is true that you and I have come in contact with one another, the logic that you used in order to reach that conclusion is weak. You presume that we are close because I know your name as well as what you do. News flash, honey, you were unconscious for a while and you carry identification and a badge. You think that we are friends because I have knowledge of your schedule, but in all actuality anyone that watched you from afar would know that you work a schedule where you’re off every Wednesday. I’m keeping my distance from you because I like my personal space, and I see no reason to make myself uncomfortable in an effort to intimidate you; I imagine this situation is enough. As far as the case is concerned, I know every move that has been made on this end and none of it has gotten any publicity. That tells me that you don’t know that the deaths are any more than a rash of gang-related activity. If you had any idea what direction you needed to be going, you would have been feeding information to the news outlets in order to change the pattern or warn the public. Finally, the location that I have chosen for this meeting is of no importance other than the fact that it is a place that I knew I could conduct this sort of activity without fear of being bothered.”

At this point, Sofia had no idea what direction things were about to go. She did everything she could to remain confident, which became more difficult every time the voice came out of the darkness. She had been wrong about him. He was highly intelligent and very quick. Nothing that she had said to him had worked at all. The only thing that she had seemed to achieve was to have lowered his opinion of her, which was probably the only reason she had been left alive to this point.

“Now, since we have determined that I know all about you and your work…”He had moved incredibly close to her without her realizing. His breath was hot on her ear as he told her, “Let’s hear what you know about me, and mine.”

At this, Sofia considered another option about her captor that she had been forcing out of her mind throughout the encounter. She had hoped that she was dealing with a low-level crony or mid-level boss, but his words all but solidified the fact that she was dealing with a mastermind. The fact that he had referred to the acts as “his” work and he had made no reference to his cohorts made things very clear that he was in command. The thought that she was dealing with the person that had choreographed these beatings, killings, and mutilations, had been too terrifying for her to even consider to this point. Now, all bets were off. She didn’t care about trying to escape anymore, she knew that whatever she was doing there was by design and there was no hope for escape.

Her entire body began to shake with fear. There was nothing that she could do to control it any longer. Sofia decided that her best course of actions was to do as he asked and hope that someone would find her or that by some miracle he would decide to release her. She took a few breaths in an effort to regain some composure, and began telling him what she knew.