The Fall of V (The Henchmen MC 13)

The drugged girl had chains.

Though she didn't need them.

Her mind was its own prison.

Her body was useless even if the idea of escape did surface.

"Shackle?" I repeated, jiggling my leg to make mine dance and jangle, wondering if maybe she didn't speak English.

Whether she understood the words or the movement, I didn't know, but her body shifted, her butt meeting the floor, her legs sliding out to her side, one chained to the wall just like mine.

"Did you try to run?" I asked, wondering if that was why we were chained. Had my fight - or hers - ensured our helplessness?

She gave no answer to that, just let her head fall back against the wall, as though her neck were too weak to hold it any longer.

"How long have you been here?" I tried again, unable to accept that I was in a room with two bodies, and neither of them could help me, could give me a better view of our prison, could show me where the weak spots were, so I could exploit them.

There was nothing still for another several long minutes, just the tick of my heart, the rush of my blood, the throb in my jaw and temples.

Then, "What's the date?"

Her voice sounded weak and scratchy, awkward with disuse.

I guess it should be, with no one to talk to but a drugged woman who - even if she did hear you - did not understand.

"August third," I heard myself answer. Adding silently My birthday. Though, I was somehow acutely aware that even if I survived this, if I got free, August third would never again be the anniversary of my birth; it would always be the day I was taken.

"Four months," she declared after a long moment, making my heart drop down into the acidic pits of my stomach.

Her voice hitched then, making me snap out of the selfish turn of my thoughts, ideas of what four months would feel like to me, thoughts that were an actuality for her.

Maybe it would have been better for her not to know, not to realize how long she had been suffering, how many things she had been missing in her old life, how her family had been worrying, how her friends had been missing her.

My gaze snapped to her face, finding her eyes closed tight as she took another breath, this one forced and deliberate, slow, steadying.

Her eyes opened again when the tension left her shoulders, when she seemed to get control over her emotions once more, leaving that awful blank look in her eyes again.

"Do you have a name?" I asked, rolling my eyes at myself. Of course she had a name. Everyone had a name.

"Chris," she told me, there being an inflection at the end, like a question, like she wasn't even sure anymore.

"I'm Ferryn," I told her even though she hadn't asked, somehow needing her to know. Maybe a part of me wanted her to have that, in case something happened to me, in case she got free after, she could tell someone. My life - or death - wouldn't be a mystery. My family could stop looking.

"Do you know where we are?" I asked again, now that she seemed willing to speak.

"No. I was in a trunk," she admitted.

"Me too," I agreed. "And the house was dark when I was brought in."

"The light won't help you figure it out," she assured me.

From knowledge.

Because as long as she had been here, she still had the fight left in her to look for answers, to look for outs.

"Is it just the two? The giant and the guy with a limp?"

"No."

The answer was clipped, and final, letting me know that I would not get more from her.

In fact, she turned away, and let her blank stare study the wall across from her.

I tried again a few moments later, badgering her with all the questions crowding for space in my mind, fighting for attention, for impossible answers.

Impossible because Chris wasn't here anymore.

I mean, she was, but she wasn't.

She had slipped away.

Inside her mind.

Or out of it.

I wasn't sure.

But I imagined the escape made sense. It helped the hours pass. It let her release the physical hold on the world. Maybe she was back home. Maybe she was giving her mom a hug, kissing her little sister. Maybe she was making out with a boy behind the movie theater, or dancing her heart out in ballet class.

Wherever she was, I hoped it was better than here.

With the cold, hard floors we were meant to sit and sleep on. With the moisture that seeped in through the dirt and cement, chilling us to the bone. With the small toilet in the center of the room where we were expected to go with the others able to see and hear.

Dignity.

That was something I was going to have to force myself to let go of.