“Since when did you become Prez?” I can hear him moving on his way to the room.
“I didn’t but just don’t come charging in the room. Okay?”
The door opens and Prez walks in with Rosie.
Rosie runs up to Piper; “Hey, are you okay? I’m Rosie and I helped Doc with your injuries. You’ve been badly beaten.”
“I know what injuries I have. I’ve lived with them for the last six months.” Her voice is neutral, no emotion in them at all.
“You mentioned Mallory.” Prez says, getting right to the point.
"I did.”
I reach out to her and touch her arm, “You don’t need to tell us now, you need to rest.”
Her head turns to face me. “I came here for a reason and that was to speak to Blake about Mallory.” Then she turns her face up to his. “Take a seat, you are going to need it.
Prez takes a seat and Rosie sits on his lap. This is how they always sit.
“What do you know about Mallory?”
“I know she’s your sister and she loves you a lot. For some reason she thinks you can save her. I doubt it, but then I did manage to escape, so miracles can happen, right?” She is sassy, it’s sexy.
“My sister knows that I will leave no stone unturned to find her. We’ve been trying for two years and everywhere we’ve gone has been a dead end.”
“So, to tell you about Mallory, I have to tell you my story. I know you want more information on Mallory, but this is the only way to explain it to you.”
Prez nods his head and I see Rosie lean into his chest. She is grounding him because he doesn’t have a lot of patience.
“My name is Piper, and I’m in the military.” She shakes her head. “Well, I was up until six months ago. I was on leave and on my way home to my family when I was taken. I know how to fight, I know how to kill with and without a weapon, but they managed to get me by drugging me. I thought I had been stung by a bee, but it was a syringe of something that knocked me out.”
“I bet it was ketamine or something like that.” Doc looks down, I forgot he was in the room.
“I think it might have been, but they kept giving it to me for about a week, I counted the dark sky's and no light.” She looks at me. “It was the only way to know what was going on. They didn’t touch me, hurt me, rape me - nothing. Of course, I fought whenever they came into the room, but that only earned me being shackled to the wall like a dog.” She looks down at her wrists and I can see scars wrapped around both of them.
“You don’t have to continue,” I say looking at her rubbing her wrists.
“I do, I need to say this out loud.” She coughs and I hand her the drink again. She takes it herself this time, takes a few sips and then hands it back to me.
“I haven’t spoken out loud for a long time, I’ve only been able to whisper. After a week they moved me to another location. It was equally dark, dirty and had an awful smell. I was thrown into a room with several other women. There were many nationalities and some I could converse with and some I couldn’t. They told me that they had been there a long time, months and a couple had been there for years. This was their life, living in the dark, dungy basements. They told me that they were only taken out for parties.”
“Parties?” I ask, grinding my teeth, knowing what was coming next and hating that she has to say anything.
“Well, they might have been parties for the men attending, but for us women it was not fun. They raped us at those parties. Some of them together with the other men and some on their own.” She has tears running down her face. “I realized that they liked it better when I fought back so I stopped fighting - I didn’t want them to enjoy me.”
She takes a breather. Rosie stands and takes her hand; I move so she can sit in my chair. “You really don’t need to do this now. We can wait.”
Piper closes her eyes and I know that she is re-living everything in her mind. “I need to tell you so that you can find Mallory and get her out of there. Then I can start healing my soul.”
Chapter Two
Piper
PIPER
I met Mallory in one of the dingy rooms, for some reason we kept being thrown into the same room and we went to the same parties. They tried to keep everyone at different parties so that they didn’t become friends. We never showed the men our friendship and we only whispered when we knew the men weren’t nearby.”
She takes a breath. “We saved each other a few times, and we’re very close. I owe her my life.”