Chapter Nine
Savannah wasn’t sure what they had shot her up with, but it left her groggy and with the taste of sandpaper in her mouth. She also felt drunk. As if she’d been partaking in a three-week bender. Her mind didn’t feel like her own.
Oh, God. It had been one of the date rape drugs Preston was talking about.
Savannah kept saying over and over in her mind, “Turn it off. Ignore it. Stay together.”
But it was easier said than done.
Every turn the car took, she whooshed over to the other side. Savannah wasn’t sure if the group knew she had started to awaken, but she doubted they cared.
Were they going to kill her? What was their motive?
The car took another turn and Savannah rolled along the floor of what she assumed was an SUV. The nausea was overwhelming and before she could stop it, she vomited all over herself and the bag that still covered her head.
“Ah, man. She’s upchucked,” one of the men groaned as he flipped her over, causing the vomit in the bag and pool over her face. Savannah felt like she was drowning as it dripped into her nose and mouth.
“I don’t care,” another said, his voice with a Spanish lilt.
“Dude, it reeks.”
“We’re almost there.”
“Finally. Sure we can’t play with her a bit?”
“You know the boss's rules. She isn’t for our benefit. We get our reward when we dispose of her.”
“How would the old lady know? She’s spending the rest of her life in jail for that stupid time she tried to kill that FBI agent and got caught.”
“Harposia knows everything. If you shake it three times instead of twice, she knows. Now, shut your mouth and get the syringe ready.”
“You really think this will work? I don’t understand how offing a veterinarian is going to keep them from shutting down the dog fighting ring.”
“We’re not paid to understand. But what I know is that it sends a signal that we aren’t to be messed with. Turn a blind eye, or whatever Harposia would say.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
Savannah listened to the muffled voices as she tried to hold back from getting sick again. They’d laid out the entire plan knowing that she wouldn’t be alive at this end.
She could feel her phone pressed in the front pocket of her sweats, but they’d tied her hands behind her back. She knew there was no chance anyone would be able to find her. All she wanted was to let Beau know that she loved him. That she wished things had been different for them.
Behind the cotton bag, she could sense a glimmer of light, but as quickly as it turned on, it turned back off. Then the vehicle abruptly stopped, rolling her body along the floor until it hit the back of the seats. Three car doors slamming closed and a latch unhooking were all she heard before the silence.
The silence was the worst. Savannah wondered if she was still alive, forgotten, or made to suffer. She felt that, in her case, it was probably all three options.
Mentally she’d begun counting time to keep awareness of herself. Ten minutes of counting passed before she felt her body tugged and then lifted fireman-style over someone’s shoulder. They thought her nothing more than dead weight.
The vomit that was still contained in the bag and hadn’t steeped out through the cloth material started to pool at the top until the weight of it caused t the ties to pull at her neck.
Gravel crunched underneath her captors' feet as they traveled a good distance. Savannah was small, but she imagined carrying the dead weight had to start taking its toll, but the man’s hold never faltered.
The pounding of boots on wood followed and then a sense of weightlessness overcame her as she was dropped to a wood floor. Savannah’s body jerked at the collision as she tried to pull her body into the fetal position.
“What do we do with her now?”
“Give her another hit. If that doesn’t kill her from an overdose, the rats will probably eat her alive by the night's end.”
“And you don’t think anyone is going to find her?” another man asked as he nudged her back. “Seems silly we have to kill her. Don’t you think we’d make more money selling her instead?”
“No, you dumb fuck. We stick to the plan. Angelo, go ahead and give the dose. Spencer, leave the note Harposia had made.”
“What kind of note is it?” he asked as she felt the ties around her wrist sever. Her arms were maneuvered to the front of her body and a piece of paper slipped between the fingers of one hand.
“I don’t know. Probably a fake suicide note. That’s what the old lady did to the last vet that got too nosy with the dogs.”
Suddenly Savannah felt the ties holding the bag around her head loosen and the material pulled free.
“Gross,” one of the men mumbled.
Savannah tried her damnedest to open her eyes and look at her captors in the flesh, but her lids felt like heavy weights. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t lift them.
With her ear pressed to the floor, she could hear the signs of rats living beneath the old floorboards.
No matter the outcome, Savannah was living through a horror film in the making.