Among the Shrouded (26 page)

CHAPTER

37

MIA

Mia picked at her cuticle.  She had been alone in the basement for almost three hours and the walls were beginning to close in around her.  When the rest of the women were taken to the auction, she had been left behind and was relieved she wouldn’t be subjected to the torment that awaited the others.  Her initial relief soon gave way to dread when, upon further rumination, she realized there was probably something far worse planned for her in the coming days. It was a thought she could not allow herself to dwell upon.

During
her isolation, she had focused her attention on many different tasks.  For the better part of half an hour she considered different ways to escape from her cell.  This lesson in futility included using the buckle off her belt as a key in an attempt to pick the lock and ramming her body repeatedly against the door.  Neither method proved an effective means of escape although she did succeed in bruising her shoulder severely.

After
giving up on escaping, she curled up on her mattress and reflected upon the plight of the other women.  She wondered if any of them had successfully wiggled free from their restraints and hoped she had empowered them to take back some control of their situation.  She smiled to herself, thinking of the determination she had seen in their faces as they were led from the basement to the auction.  She was anxious for them to return.

When she could no longer stand to worry over the women,
she hesitantly considered her own situation, recalling all of the events that had transpired since Thomas called her with the news of the traffickers from Belinda’s.  She acknowledged she had been careless in her pursuit of the men and she cursed at herself for her lapses in judgment.   She knew her first mistake had been searching the precinct’s database from her home computer, especially given her wireless connection. She also realized she had likely been seen at Wayne Brookins’ estate and therefore, so had Thomas.  

Her
heart ached as she thought of him.  By throwing herself into the case on the morning after the stakeout, she had not allowed herself the luxury of reflecting on their night together.  However, as she considered the unfortunate circumstances into which he was placed because of her poor decisions, she finally allowed herself to think of him.

He
had been kind and tender toward her, considering her needs and addressing her desires as if they were his own.  If he had been unsure of himself or insecure in any way, it hadn’t translated into his lovemaking.  He had said all the right things, telling her she was beautiful and in his words, ‘amazing.’  With his image in her mind, exhaustion finally took over, and she drifted to sleep. 

An hour later, h
ungry, cold, and utterly alone in the warehouse basement, she woke.  The warm feelings that lulled her to sleep had abandoned her and fear and anxiety set in.  She was overcome by a sudden realization that she was only in trouble because of her inflated sense of self confidence.  She wished she had called Jack to join her on the stakeout instead of placing Thomas’ life in jeopardy unnecessarily.  She was well aware that if she had told Jack about her plan, he would have quickly talked her out of it and she would never have ended up locked in the basement.

Depression and isolation
continued to overtake her spirit and her mind began filling with terrible thoughts, each one more horrendous than the last.  As she paced the length of her cell, she was struck by a possible reason for her discovery and subsequent capture she hadn’t yet considered. 

She thought about Thomas
and whether he had a connection to the traffickers, holding her breath as she reflected upon the fact that he had been the one to alert her to the men from the bistro; men from the network of traffickers with whom he may have been working alongside from the beginning.  It seemed highly coincidental that he should alert her to their presence immediately after she told him about Zocha.  It was almost as if he wanted her to have just enough useful information to help him keep tabs on her level of involvement. 

She
wondered if it was possible that Thomas had been part of some larger scheme from the onset – a scheme that included infiltrating the police department.  She thought about the timeliness of when he began participating in the lineups and realized it coincided with the commissioner’s arrival.  She fell to her knees as she considered that perhaps he had been planted by the commissioner to keep tabs on her because she was the chief’s daughter. 

Now on the verge of tears,
she realized she may have been right to doubt Thomas and his missing aura from the beginning.  It had been against her better judgment to trust him since his aura wasn’t visible to confirm the state of his soul and now it appeared her lack of prudence had placed her life in jeopardy.  She cursed at herself for allowing him into her world. 

She
tried desperately to hold back the tears she had been carefully controlling from the moment of her abduction, but with her new suspicions, she could no longer hold them at bay.

She
sat on the ground and wept heavily into her arms.  She wept for the women who were forced into sexual slavery.  She wept for Thomas and the love she believed he had for her that she now feared may have only been part of a set up.  And at long last, she allowed herself to weep for the desperation of her own situation.

When at las
t she had cried herself out, she took a deep cleansing breath and refocused her attention on her present situation and the part of her reality she could control - helping the other women to escape. 

Minutes
later, scraping metal and the sound of footsteps on the stairs alerted her to the return of her companions.  She had already wiped her eyes on her sleeves and pushed her own worries from her thoughts as she stood to greet them.  She watched the women as they returned to their cells and looked for signs of hope on their faces.  Instead she saw only grief and despair.  When the last of the women was locked in her cell, the evening’s meager food rations were distributed and Kate received an extra portion.  Before leaving, one of the men strode confidently down the corridor and approached her cell.

“Hope you’re not getting too comfortable down here
, Officer,” he jeered, “because the boss has big plans for you tomorrow night.”

“Is that right?”
she responded boldly.

“Yeah, that’s rig
ht.  Let’s just say you ain’t gonna be here for much longer, if you know what I’m sayin’.”

Although she felt that she was standing in a pool of quicksand,
she did not give the man the satisfaction of a response or a reaction as she stood stoically before him.

“Stupid pig,”
he said, before spitting into her face.

He joined the rest of the
men at the end of the hall and climbed the stairs to return to the world of the living, leaving them alone once again.

“Well?” she asked, looking around the basement with great anticipation and hoping the women would have something positive to report.

No one spoke. 
She knew they would expect her to be upset about the man’s revelation of her impending demise, but for the moment, all she was interested in was helping the women escape.  A few of the girls were holding back tears and many hung their heads so she was unable to read the expressions on their faces.

“Was anyone able to slip free of the ropes?”
she asked.

“I think I almost had it,” Anya said
finally, “but it was too tight.  I couldn’t wiggle my thumb free.”

“What about you, Lera?”
she asked.

“No.  I coul
dn’t get out,” replied Anya.  “I tried so hard, Mia.  I must have done it wrong.”

“Kate?  Svetlana?  Anyone?”

“No, Mia.  We’re so sorry.  None of us was able to get free,” Kate said.

“Really?  No one?”

“No,” said Kate.

She
quickly shook off her disappointment.  She knew it wouldn’t help for the others to see her frustration and that a positive attitude would do wonders for their esteem.

“Do you know how long it took me to learn how to free myself at the academy?”
she asked.  “Weeks.  I’m not joking.  It took me weeks of practicing and even then it was a struggle.  So don’t feel bad.  We’ll keep trying.”

“But
we’ll never get out before tomorrow,” Lera lamented, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“No,” she said
, “I’m afraid we won’t.”

“Then
tomorrow it will happen.  They will rape us again and they will take you away.  We’ll never see you again,” Lera cried.

“I’m so sorry,”
she replied.  “I’m working on it.  I will figure something out in time, you’ll see.”

Her
empty promises were not enough to console Lera’s desperate soul and she wailed unabashedly.

“I can’t do it again!”
Lera screamed, pulling at the bars of her cell door.  “I have to get out of here!  Please, help us get out!  There has to be another way!”

She
thought for several minutes while Kate worked to soothe Lera.  Finally, she spoke candidly with the group.

“Here’s what we’
re going to do – you need to practice on your own, without having to wait for the men to bind you.  That way, with or without me, you stand a chance of being able to free yourselves when they least expect it.  If you all work together, you can overtake them.  But to practice, you’ll need something to practice with.  A rope or maybe strips of fabric.”

“We can use our clothes,” Anya said.

“We’ll freeze,” replied Kate.

“And we will raise their suspicions if they see we are tearing our own clothing,” Svetlana added.

“That’s true,” she agreed.  “What else can we use?”

“How about our mattresses?”
called a woman from the far end of the hall.  “They wouldn’t see if we used the material from underneath.”

“You’re right,” she said
.  “That’s a great idea.”

She
lifted her mattress off the floor and propped it up against her cell wall.  The aging springs were wrapped entirely in faded blue and white striped mattress ticking.  She searched the material for signs of wear.  Surprisingly, there were no holes she could use to begin ripping a strip of fabric for binding.

“I need to make a hole in the mattress.  Does anyone have anything I can use?”
she called.

“I do,”
Kate said immediately.

She
watched as Kate fished underneath her own mattress to retrieve a small velvet box.  She slid it across the hallway toward her cell.  When she opened the box she was surprised to see a set of ornamental hair pins.  She carefully removed one of the pins and began using it to tear a hole in the mattress fabric.  Once the hole was created, she easily ripped a long strip of material that she used to bind Anya’s hands behind her back.  She repeated the process several times and handed strips of fabric down the corridor to the others.  When she was finished, she returned the hair pins to Kate.

“They’re beautiful,”
she said as she slid the box across the hall, “but they are a strange thing to have brought with you.”

“They are a family heirloom,” explained Kate.  “My father gave them to me
.  For luck.”

They
exchanged a smile and Kate let out a sarcastic laugh.  “I guess they aren’t working.”

“Don’t give up on them yet,”
she replied.

Aft
er watching the women struggle for close to an hour with their makeshift restraints, she could see the majority of them were making very little progress.

“
Unfortunately, I don’t think we will be ready to overtake our captors any time soon,” she announced sadly, “so you will have to endure being delivered to the men tonight.  And by tomorrow, it sounds as if I may no longer be here to assist you.  But I want you to keep trying.  Keep practicing.  When you are all ready, you’ll know it’s time for your escape.”