Page 31 of Kiss Across the Universe
“Three,” Iron Grey said. He had a mild accent, one Kit had never heard before.
Kit punched the button for three and stepped away from the controls. The elevator rose smoothly and swiftly and dinged again for the third floor. Iron Grey stepped out and headed to the right, as the doors closed once more.
Kit leaned heavily against the wall, his heart screaming. This wasn’t at all like raiding a suspected ISIS enclave. It wasn’t even close.
Now what?
Chapter Fourteen
Alannah heard the lock onthe door clunk open and stopped tugging at the duct tape around her wrists and ankles. Not that she’d got anywhere close to loosening the stuff.
The door opened and the man stepped through and shut it swiftly. The green shopping bag he carried slapped against his leg.
What was in the bag?
Alannah’s gut sank, while her heart shifted gears and began to beat so hard it hurt. She’d never really understood fear before. She remembered times when she had been afraid, mostly when she was younger. But that was nothing to the fear that had been living in her veins for the last few hours. It was a hot, alive creature that crawled through her and made her tremble. Made her sick. If her mouth hadn’t been plastered over with duct tape, she would have moaned aloud at the putrid sensations her fear created.
The man had charged through the front door of the house yesterday afternoon. Alannah had been sleeping on the window seat and had jerked awake, disoriented and confused. “What…?” she began, staring at the tall man with long hair and a snowy white beard. She couldn’t put together a coherent explanation for why he had slammed through the door and stood in the middle of the room staring at her.
Then the man lifted his hand.
He had a gun in it. It wasn’t a gun she’d ever seen before, but she knew it was a weapon, because he was pointing it at her.
The fear had shot through her then and she began to shake.
That was when he had fired the thing he held. She heard the soft noise, which was nothing like any gunfire she’d ever heard. Something slammed into her shoulder. She stared down at the short, narrow silver rod that stuck out from her shoulder, her fear making it difficult to understand what it was.
Then blackness had swept over her.
She had woken in this hotel room, with dawn light pouring through the opaque white curtains. Her ankles and elbows had been bound by duct tape and she had been lying on her side on the bed. Her mouth was taped over, too.
The man was slapping the side of her face.
Alannah could feel panic rising to the surface. It was difficult to breathe with her mouth taped shut. It felt as though she couldn’t get enough air through her nose. She panted, which didn’t help with the panic.
The man stopped slapping her, gripped one of her arms and hauled her to her feet. She nearly fell over, until he pulled her back upright and said something in a language she didn’t know. He pulled out a switchblade and triggered it, then bent and sliced the duct tape between her ankles. It clung to the outer sides of her ankles but her feet were free.
“Do not bother trying to scream,” he told her. “There is only one other room occupied on this floor and it is at the other end of the building. No one will hear you.” He dragged her forward by his grip on her arm, toward the door that must lead into a bathroom.
He rolled the door aside and pushed her inside. He came in, too, and pointed at the toilet. “Use it,” he ordered.
Alannah stared at him blankly, then looked at the door. He wasn’t going to leave?
And how was she supposed to lower her pants? With her big toes?
“You do not get to leave my sight, not while your feet are free,” he told her. “If you cannot figure how to get your clothes off by yourself, I will have to do it for you.” He ran his gaze over her, with a speculative gleam in his eyes.
Alannah’s need to pee was stronger than her need for privacy. She could get her little fingers to touch together, although it strained her elbows to do it. She used them together to push her leggings down one side at a time. She just had to tug and pull hard. As they lowered, she caught her panties with her fingers and pulled them down at the same time.
It took three long minutes, and she ignored the man the whole time. Fuck him.
She sat and peed, sweet relief sweeping through her. Was that why they forced torture victims to pee and shit themselves? The indignity, the helplessness it would generate would kill any morale the prisoner had managed to hold onto.
It took even longer to hitch her panties and leggings back into place. Her arms were screaming by the time she was done. The man didn’t let her wash her hands. He yanked her back out into the main room, and shoved her at a barrel chair sitting by a small desk.
She fell into it. Before she could recover her balance, he grabbed her ankle and wound duct tape around both it and the chair’s front leg.
Alannah kicked at him with her other foot. He just moved out of the way and finished the first ankle. Then he reached for the other. She kicked even harder, but his reactions were blindingly fast. He snatched her ankle out of mid-air, forced it down against the other chair leg and secured it with the tape.
