The Prey

Mara leaned back against the sofa. She crossed her legs and arms in an effort at modesty, not that the others seemed to be paying her any attention. She tried to focus on the TV, wondering if anyone knew she was missing at this point, and if it would be on the news. How did these people pull off these kidnappings? How did all these young women just disappear without a ripple?

Such a tragic story, Mara, losing your parents in a car accident at sixteen, no other family to speak of…

A shiver moved along the back of Mara’s neck and spine as she recalled Hillary Wallace’s insistent probing into her background and family, or lack thereof. Clearly Hillary Wallace had carefully researched her prey—recently unemployed, no family, no significant other.

Keenly aware of the camera’s beady eye on her, Mara turned her head toward Esmé beside her and murmured softly, “How long have you been here?”

Without looking at Mara, her lips barely moving, Esmé replied, “Nine months, two weeks and three days.”

“How did they get you?”

“I worked in Wallace Hotels & Resorts corporate office in Raleigh. In the secretarial pool.” Mara leaned closer, straining to hear Esmé’s barely audible murmur. “Mr. Wallace himself picked me to travel with his team to a sister hotel chain in Spain. Or that’s what I thought was happening. Instead, they brought me here.” She paused a long time before finally continuing. “My parents were told I was killed by a hit-and-run driver in Madrid. They got a huge settlement, or so I’m told.”

A single tear rolled slowly down Esmé’s lovely cheek as the horrific import of her words jarred through Mara’s core. Esmé’s hands were clenched into fists in her lap, her shoulders tensed, a muscle jumping in her jaw. Guilt clutched Mara’s heart for bringing what had to be a nearly unbearable burden to the front of Esmé’s mind. For the first time in her life, she was grateful her parents were no longer alive.

Without thinking, she reached over and placed her hand lightly over Esmé’s and gently squeezed. Esmé didn’t move, but after several seconds her fingers slowly unfurled, some of the rigid tension in her body easing, if just a little. They sat that way for a long time, both staring at the screen, though Mara was too bone-weary, defeated and exhausted, both mentally and physically, to pay any attention.

Finally Esmé pulled away and stood. “I’m going to bed. Good night, girls,” she said in a normal tone.

“Good night, Esmé,” they all replied, some woodenly, Scarlett with a bright, false cheeriness.

Mara tried to get herself to focus on something mundane to distract herself from Esmé’s revelations. She turned to Scarlett. “What happens now? Do I have a toothbrush or something? Do we just wash up and go to our rooms?”

Scarlett jumped up from the sofa. “I’ll show you the supply closet. You’ll have a drawer assigned to you in the bathroom to keep your toiletries.”

“What about”—Mara looked at Scarlett’s dress, keenly aware of her own nudity—“something to wear? Something to sleep in?”

“To sleep in?” Scarlett looked confused. “You sleep naked, silly. Don’t worry, you’ll get clothes eventually. You’ll be fitted in something sexy when you’re presented to the guests, and of course you’ll wear whatever pleases them when you’re working. But you heard Dawn—newbies go naked. It’s for your own good, you see.” She spoke louder than necessary, her face angled toward the camera mounted on the wall. “It helps you learn humility and grace. Your goal is and should always be to please the guests, and to please all the men on the island. This is why you exist, Mara.”

Mara’s mouth had fallen open with disbelief. While she expected the jailers of this island prison to spout that kind of offensive nonsense, it freaked her out to hear this girl, this fellow captive, speaking in this way. She started to retort, but Scarlett had turned away from the camera now, and something in her face, in the nearly imperceptible shake of her head and downturn of her mouth gave Mara pause. She pressed her lips together without uttering a word and followed Scarlett from the room, wondering as she did so how she would ever be able to sleep.

Mara opened her eyes, confused and disoriented as her brain struggled to process the persistent beeping sound in her ear. She sat upright suddenly, aware it must be an alarm. Sunlight was already streaming through the skylight over her head and the sky was a pale china-blue. The small clock hung on the wall just beneath the closed-circuit camera read 6:02.

When she’d lain down the night before, her mind had teemed with the terrifying events of the day, her body aching from the multitude of tortures it had sustained in the hours since her abduction. Yet, amazingly, she had somehow eventually fallen asleep in the admittedly very comfortable bed.