My head feltlike a lead weight as I lifted my gaze and found Krista staring at me with worry in her eyes. Something dripped sluggishly over my temple, threatening to fill my eye.
Squeezing my eyes closed, I blinked until the blurriness moved to the edges of my vision, and I could see a little more clearly. Krista was strapped to a chair, her wrists tied to the arms and her feet tied with ropes to the legs.
“Are you okay?” I mumbled.
“Me? You’re leaking blood from your head! I’m pretty sure that’s not good,” she hissed.
Good or not, that wasn’t what was important right now. I couldn’t see anyone around us, but that didn’t mean they were gone.
“Where are they?”
Her head turned and I followed her line of sight to the cages. Men were in there…with the women, doing unspeakable things. The fear on Krista’s face couldn’t be faked. She was worried shewas going to end up like them, and I couldn’t blame her, given the circumstances.
“I’ll get you out of here,” I swore.
“Rob…something’s wrong. They kept asking me where it was.”
“You mean besides the fact that we’re tied to chairs and there are women in cages?”
She grunted in frustration. “I’m being serious.”
I wished I could joke my way out of this one. My head was throbbing, and I didn’t have a single idea at the moment how to get us out of here.
“Where what was?” I asked, wishing my brain could keep up with what was going on.
“I don’t know. They won’t tell me!”
Her lips snapped closed as footsteps approached. I hung my head, hoping for a few seconds to gather information before the interrogation began.
I wasn’t so lucky.
The man grasped my hair and yanked my head back, sliding a knife along my throat.
How cliché.
“Your little girlfriend isn’t talking. What did you do with it?”
“Do with what?”
The knife slid away, but his rancid breath took up residence right beside my face. “You know what. Playing stupid will only get you killed.”
“I know this may be hard to believe, but we’re not playing stupid,” I said, hoping to rationalize with him. “We both arrived today, and we were just playing poker for a little bit.”
“Blackjack.”
“Whatever,” I muttered. “We don’t have anything.”
“You might not,” he hissed, “but she does. And if she doesn’t hand it over soon, there won’t be any pieces left of her for you to take home.”
Krista’s eyes filled with fear, but I shoved down all emotion and focused on his words. He wanted something. He thought she had it. But why?
“What exactly do you think she has?”
“The product!” the man shouted. “This isn’t the first time. Do you really think you’re the first John she’s brought home, thinking she could hide behind her addiction?”
That didn’t sound like Krista at all, which meant not only did they have her mixed up with someone else, but she looked a lot like this other woman.
“Look—”