Consciousness was a liar. It promised oblivion, but only delivered me back to this chair, to this body that was no longer mine but a vessel of pure agony. My skull was a cracked bell, ringing with a dull, constant throb. The world lurched on a nauseating axis, a dizzying tilt that had nothing to do with the chair and everything to do with the hollow, gnawing void in my stomach. Thirst was no longer a feeling; it was my new constitution. My tongue was swollen, a piece of stale meat stuck in a mouth that tasted of dust and blood. Every attempted swallow was a painful, grating failure.
The world outside was still dark, the deep, quiet dark just before dawn. But the dock was already stirring. The distant, mechanical beep-beep-beep of a forklift was a ghost in the fog. A lone ship's horn, low and mournful, cut through the silence. They were preparing for the day. And I was here, tied to a chair, decaying in the shadows.
The bolt on the door shrieked. My body jolted, a puppet yanked by a terrified string.
He stood there. The ski mask man. The wool of his mask was a void, absorbing the dim light. In his hand, a bottle of water looked impossibly clean, a crystal artifact from a lost world. He shook it slowly, deliberately. The sloshing sound was a symphony of torture.
A raw, animal sound rasped from my throat.
He took two slow steps forward, his boots crunching on the gritty concrete. He stopped just out of reach. "You want this?" His muffled voice was flat, devoid of anything but a cold curiosity.
I nodded, the movement sending a fresh wave of dizziness. Spots danced in my vision.
"I can't hear you." He tilted his head, the blank mask somehow conveying a smirk.
"Please," I forced out, the word tearing at my raw throat.
"Please... what?" He took half a step closer, the bottle held just inches from my face. I could see the condensation on the plastic. I could almost feel its coolness. "You have to ask properly, princess. Beg."
Humiliation was a hot flush, but it was instantly drowned in a tidal wave of primal need. Dignity was a concept for those who were not dying of thirst.
"Please," I sobbed, the sound broken and pathetic. "Please, I need water... Please... give it to me. I'm begging you."
He watched me for a long, terrifying moment, the empty eyes of the mask studying my degradation. Then, with a contemptuous flick of his wrist, he tossed the bottle. It hit the floor and rolled, coming to a stop a cruel six inches from my feet. The cap was still sealed tight.
"Okay," he said, and turned his back, leaving me staring at the unattainable water, a new, more profound level of hell opening up beneath me.
The patch of sky through the high windows lightened from black to a deep, bruised grey. Dawn. The witching hour before the storm.
My mind, untethered by hunger and despair, conjured ghosts.
Pauline. She would probably be frantically looking for me. I missed all the critical meetings for the Island Residence launch yesterday. She would have a stack of documents for my sign-off. She would call my cell. Once. Twice. A third time, her efficient composure beginning to crack. She would call the mansion. I could see Miriam's worried face, hear her saying, "She didn't come home last night." Pauline's frantic energy, with no power to do anything but wait.
My father. He wouldn't be pleased with me missing the meetings. He would know I don't miss meetings. He would ask about my whereabouts, and Diana's voice, smooth as poisoned honey, would slither into the space. "She's probably winding down somewhere. This may have been too huge a project for her. So… intense. But it's good that she knows when to wind down, to chill off a bit." A masterstroke. Not an accusation, just a sprinkle of doubt. Painting me as unstable, irresponsible, the architect of my own disappearance.
Liam. Would he even notice? Or was he wrapped in Chloe's sheets, in her arms, oblivious to the world outside their bubble? The thought was a different kind of pain, sharp and personal.
Kaelen.
The thought of him was a sudden, painful clarity in the haze. He'd warned me. Would his sharp, calculating mind sense the wrongness of this silence? Would he notice something was amiss when I missed the Island Residence meetings? Or had my rejection pushed him away for good? Or... was I just a complication he'd already written off?
A grunt from the door. The larger guard held up my phone. The screen was a frantic, blinking strobe in the dimness.
"Damn thing's been lighting up all morning," he rumbled. "You have quite a few callers don't you, pretty little thing?"
The ski mask man didn't look up. "Kill it."
No. The protest was a silent scream that shook my entire body.
I watched, helpless, as the man ripped the back off the phone. The SIM card was pinched between his thick fingers. A sharp, final SNAP. Then he hurled the device against the wall. It exploded into a constellation of glass and plastic shards, the light dying instantly.
The last thread was cut. I was officially a ghost.
The deep grey outside lightened to a flat, sickly white. Morning had broken. The final preparations for the launch were underway, and I was not there. I was a problem that had been solved. The numbness returned, colder and more final than before. There was no fight left. I let my head fall, welcoming the void.
CRUNCH.
A sound from outside. The sound of something hard and biological breaking.
My head lolled up.
A shout—cut off into a wet, gurgling gasp.
Then a heavy, sickening THUMP against the warehouse wall, so hard it rained dust from the rafters.
The ski mask man was on his feet, his phone forgotten. A knife appeared in his hand. "What was that?" he hissed, his voice tight.
His partner, the bigger guard, drew a pistol, the sound of the slide racking a deadly promise. But before he could level it, the main door—a solid sheet of steel—buckled inwards with a deafening BOOM.
An engine roared, vicious and close. Tires screeched. New voices, sharp and commanding. The wet, efficient sound of impact. A cry of pain, abruptly silenced.
They weren't just outside.
They were being hunted.
Someone was here.
And they weren't here to talk.
A primal fear, sharper than the thirst or the hunger, seized me. My rescuers? Or new captors? Diana's final, chilling words echoed: "like an accident." What if this was it? What if this violence was the "accident"?
Panic gave me a burst of strength I didn't know I still possessed, given my condition. I rocked my weight, the chair legs screeching against the concrete. I threw myself to the side, the impact jarring my already-bruised body. Again. I was a clumsy, terrified insect trying to scuttle away. I didn't know where I was going, only that I needed to get away from the door, from the violence, from whatever was coming through it. I managed to wedge myself into the corner where two rusted metal shelves met the wall, making myself as small as possible behind the chair I was still tied to. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the door to be torn from its hinges, for the final blow to fall.