Her body marched to its own rhythms. And she wasn’t about to ask Troy for feminine products. She made do with toilet paper, which was far from perfect. Thankfully it didn’t last as long as usual. A stress reaction, likely.
She was also grateful that she was on the injectable hormones for birth control. If something awful should happen, she’d be protected for another few weeks. Troy’s words were etched in her brain. The thought of him laying his hands on her was terrifying enough. She couldn’t imagine getting pregnant by these bastards. But so far, she’d been more or less ignored. Other than bringing her food and taking her to the bathroom, they just left her to her own devices.
Her dread was soon all but consumed by sheer boredom. There was nothing to do. She tried to alleviate it by developing her own little workout regime, but after a few days the basics of strengthening one’s core lost appeal.
The sickness came at her subtly, starting with stomach cramps and migrating to a headache and cold sweats. By day six, she’d spiked a fever. Why was she sick? She’d even considered reopening the wounds in case infection had set in, but they seemed to be healing. The surrounding skin was healthy and pink.
Had she come down with the flu?
While she burned with fever, she spent most of her time lying on the bed. When she pointed it out to Troy, he merely shrugged. And then he’d grinned like it was all some kind of joke.
The entire enterprise was confusing. What was the end goal? Did these sick-vampire-cultists like dressing up as large, hairy dogs? Okay. Maybe it’d been more like a wolf. Or a Sasquatch. While the bite thing was creepy as hell, they hadn’t come back for seconds. For which she was eternally grateful. But why hold three women if they weren’t going to continue with their sick games?
The possibilities terrified her.
The days marched on. Thoughts of Zach sustained her. Odd, as they’d only talked for what, twenty minutes? Hardly a relationship, yet something about the young man gave her hope. Hope that she might still have a future if she ever escaped this place.
She remembered the little details. The way his brow had arched over his green eyes when she described the icing on the cupcakes. The flash of his even, white teeth when he grinned. The broad expanse of his shoulders. And of course, his butt—she couldn’t forget that.
But it was his easy way of talking, and his honesty, that had left the strongest impressions. It pissed her off that she finally met a nice guy, only to get grabbed by a couple of psycho creeps.
She had to get the hell out of this place.
On day eight, Jessie burst from the bathroom and bolted.
She caught Troy flat footed, as she’d hoped. He was down the hall. She’d listened at the door until his footsteps paced away.
Jessie ran the other way—toward a door at the very end, past her prison.
She got four strides in before he caught her. A huge hand fisted into her scrubs at the shoulder and spun her around, and the other grabbed her by the throat. He lifted her off the ground until her face was level with his. Troy’s beady eyes gleamed gold at her. He peeled his lips back from his teeth and growled.
Terrified, Jessie scrabbled uselessly with her fingernails at the hand around her throat. He shook her until she hung limp.
“Try that again,” Troy snarled, “And I will rip off your ear.”
She believed him. She didn’t try it again. Her terror kept her quiet for a spell. But on the eleventh day, she started talking to the camera in the ceiling.
“You guys are a sick bunch of bastards.”
“Tell me what the hell you plan to do with us.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“If you let me go, I won’t let them come after you.”
“You are in over your head. We need to talk this through.”
When there was no response to reason, she began to rant.
“Only perverts lock women in rooms.”
“If you were real men, you’d bring me wine.”
“Look, if you’re trying to fatten me up to eat me, I need chocolate.”
No answer. It inspired her to true creativeness. She recited the first five chapters of her self-improvement book on appreciation, or as much of it as she remembered. When she’d gone as far with that as possible, she worked on her nursing texts:Fundamentals of Nursing;Nursing Diagnosis Handbook; andCritical Care Nursing. When her memory failed, she made things up. Eventually, she ranted about things that just weren’t true, just for entertainment’s sake.
If she kept this up, Troy could take on a new career. Although if he wished to assist with the insertion of a stent in the superior vena cavae, and prepped the region around the left big toe, he’d be in trouble.
