Page 25 of Wicked Things
“I’m guessing you don’t know who I am?”
I had replied, bewildered by her at the time.“Unfortunately not.”
“I’m Alaska. I’m Julio’s mistress. You’ll be Zeth’s crazy interloper that showed up in the middle of the night, trying to get herself killed, I assume?”
That’s right: Alaska. It comes back to me a in a rush of adrenalin—that day by the pool at Julio’s compound, the same day I thought I was going to get to see my sister again for the first time in two years. She’d approached me back then with all the elegance and feline grace of a supermodel, initially being friendly but then turning sour and hostile. I remember all too clearly thinking she was a mysterious woman, one who couldn’t be trusted. I haven’t even thought about the woman in well over a year.
“You can come out now,” she says, as she inhales from her cigarette. “No point sitting there, cowering now, is there?”
“I’m not cowering. I’m processing,” I snap.
Alaska arches one of her perfect auburn brows, an open-mouthed smile on her face as she allows smoke to curl free from her mouth. “Oh, yeah. I’m sure this was a little unexpected. I’m sure you thought I was buried in a shallow grave in Ecuador, didn’t you?”
I shake my head, trying to wrap my mind around all of this. “I’m sorry?Ecuador?”
She scowls, ashing her cigarette with an aggressive flick of her wrist. “Never mind. Just get out of the damn van, Sloane. I don’t have all day.”
What would she do if I simply refused to get out of the van? Would she climb up in here herself and pull me out by the roots of my hair? I doubt it. She’d probably tell her men to grab my ankles and drag me out into the dirt. I want to rebel, to refuse her command, but the consequences of doing so don’t sound too dignified to me. Plus, the baby…
I scoot forward, sliding myself out of the van, getting to my feet. Alaska observes me with cold, hard eyes, taking drag after drag from her cigarette. She jerks her head toward the lit sports field behind her, turns and starts walking in that direction, her hips swaying side to side like a pendulum. Her men wait for me to follow before moving off themselves.
“I’m sure you have questions,” Alaska says. “I’m sure you want to know why I’ve had you brought here. I’m sure you’re waiting on Zeth to magically appear and save you. Rest assured, you and I are going to have plenty of time to chat. As for Zeth…” She pivots, walking backwards across the parking lot, pinning in with her strange deep, blue eyes. They’re filled with an incomprehensible malice. “Zeth is another matter entirely. I’m afraid I have some unfinished business with your beau, Doctor Romera. By the time I’m through with him, I’m not sure that you’llwanthim to come and save you anymore.” She laughs, an entertained little titter that appears to be more for her own benefit than anyone else’s. She points her cigarette at one of the men standing behind me. I try and turn, to see what the gesture means, but a sharp, stabbing pain lances my neck, and a tight pressure builds, making my head swim. A shot… They’ve given me a shot of something.
I open my mouth, trying to cry out, but my tongue is numb. My face, too. Suddenly my whole body feels as though it’s made of rubber, and I have absolutely no control over it. My knees buckle, my eyes rolling back into my head. I have no idea how hard I hit the ground. I have no idea, because I’m already unconscious.
******
“There’s tight and then there’s tight, Clay. Loosen them off a little. Her fingers have gone blue, you shit.”
“Do you think Alaska really cares if her fucking fingers fall off?”
There’s a snarl and the sound scuffling, and then the platform I’m lying on jolts as something crashes into it. I open my eyes, one at a time, left first, then right, grimacing. If my head hurt before when the van doors opened, it’s virtually splitting apart now. Alaska’s men are rough housing, pushing and shoving at each other, by the looks of things only half serious about hurting each other.
“You’re such a fucking baby,” the one on the right says—the one who must have remained in the van while the other dealt with me at St. Peters’. They look alike, both tall, with muscular frames. Dark hair and dark eyes. The guy who stayed in the car has a full beard, though, along with a narrow, silvery scar that runs down the right hand side of his face. He shoves the other man, putting up his fists. “Back off, Ben,” he says. “The last black eye I gave you has only just healed. If you want another one, though…”
So. If the clean-shaven guy is Ben, that must make him Clay. That must make him the person responsible for my hands, hoisted above my head and zip-tied too tightly, looped through what looks like a gas pipe of some sort. My hands are pulsing with pain from lack of blood flow. I wriggle my fingers, grimacing. Neither Clay nor Ben seems to have noticed I’m awake yet.
“Excuse me.”
Clay lunges for Ben, throwing a mock right hook, laughing like an idiot. Ben ducks back, slapping his strike away, feinting a hit of his own. They’re fucking children.
“Excuse me.”
Neither of them hears me. They dart and dodge, reeling out of each other’s reaches as they pretend to fight.
“HEY!” My cry gets their attention. Both of them freeze, arms outstretched, surprise etched into their faces. “Can you please loosen these ties? I’ll lose more than just my fingers if my hands are constricted like this for much longer.” Truth. A limb can only remain trapped without a supply of oxygen for so long before the cells begin to die. And the fact that my hands are tied over my head is making it even more impossible for any blood to reach them.
Ben and Clay trade looks. Unhappy, suspicious ones. “You’re hardly in a position to be making requests right now,” Ben informs me. “You’re lucky Alaska even wants you kept alive. We already told her it would be easier to start carving you up and dumping pieces of you into Puget Sound.”
I try to appear calm. Bored. “Well, for whatever reason she does want me kept alive, so you’d better loosen these ties or you’re going to have some explaining to do.” Can pinned hands and dead limbs cause death? Sure. If Pippa had spent any more time trapped in that elevator, she would have been dead without a doubt. Crush syndrome, in her case. Inmycase, it would more likely be shock and septicemia that killed me, once my hands were no longer living flesh. I It would take a hell of a lot longer than I may be implying for me to die, but these guys don’t seem all that bright. I’m counting on the fact that they won’t want to incur Alaska’s wrath.
Ben nudges Clay with the toe of his boot, snapping at him. “What did I tell you, man? Loosen them.”
Clay rolls his eyes, but he makes his way over to me where I’m sprawled out on a narrow cot, not a platform after all. He cuts through the zip ties that are binding my hands together, removing them, throwing them on the floor, then he pulls a fresh set out of his pocket, looping them around my wrists, securing me once more to the pipe overhead. The ties are still tight, but at least I can feel blood flow again.
We appear to be underground, in some sort of engineering room. A large steel vat sits at the other end of the room, plastered in warning stickers, yellow and black signs stuck all over it. A huge panel with countless switches and dials flanks one wall, and along the other a bank of what looks like an old fashioned telephone switch board stands, a rat’s nest of wires and cables snaking in and out of ports all over the place. A dull electric hum fills the air, along with the chemical tang of burning plastic.
“Where is she?” I demand.
