The Pleasure Series: Complete Box Set (85 page)

I dressed in the clothes I'd brought with me, but as I stepped out into the cool almost-spring night, I decided against the bus. I wasn't going to run or jog, but a walk seemed like a good way to end the night. My muscles were a bit sore and a walk was a good way to cool down.

I'd gone only a block when that feeling came back. I shivered and looked around. It was dark now, the streets well-lit, but unable to completely dispel the shadows. Shadows that seemed to move even as I looked at them.

I wasn't alone on the streets. It was the start of the weekend, and the first decent night we'd had, so there were plenty of CSU students out, mostly in groups, but I spotted a few here and there walking by themselves. I was willing to bet at least a couple of them were heading for the library. I'd spent my fair share of time in the library during college. Most people assumed by looking at me, or by knowing my sexual history, that I'd spent most of my years in college partying, but that hadn't been the case.

A sound behind me made me jump and turn around, my body automatically shifting into my self-defense stance. A sheepish-looking kid was picking himself up from where he'd knocked over some garbage cans. He grinned at me and grabbed his skateboard, going a few more steps before hopping on it again.

As he skated away, I began to laugh. I shook my head and walked on. I seriously needed to relax, and I was pretty sure that meant I needed to get back to work that paid. I could still do my whole online vigilante thing, but I couldn't keep inundating myself with it. I would end up driving myself crazy, thinking I was being followed, jumping at small noises. I'd lived in fear before and I wasn't going to do it anymore.

I was almost home and thinking that maybe a hot bath and some ice cream would be the perfect way to head into the weekend. Maybe a good book. There were a couple I'd been meaning to read...

Something slapped over my face and I gasped. A sickly sweet smell filled my nostrils and I felt someone grab me around the waist. I tried to fight back, but none of my limbs would obey. And then I realized that the lights weren't going out, but rather everything else was going dark.

My final thought was...

Chapter 23

There were hands on me, touching me, hurting me. The smell of chloroform was thick and I coughed, gagged. I tried to remember what happened. I knew I'd been drugged. Mom usually used pills, either grinding them up and putting them in my food, or forcing me to swallow them. Sometimes she did it so I would relax, so I wouldn't fight. This was different though. She'd used chloroform.

In nearly thirteen years, she'd only used it twice before, and both times had been at the request of the same client. He'd wanted me completely pliant. Fake sleeping didn't do it for him. I could pretend to sleep and not react, but there were always little twitches, things that were nearly impossible to prevent. Knocked out, however, I wasn't even aware of what was happening until I started to stir.

Like now.

He was panting in my ear, spit running down my cheek.

I was on my stomach. I could feel the scratchy sheet on my face now.

Could hear him talking, babbling, about how good I felt, how precious I was...

Reality began to seep into my dreams, into my memories. Chloroform. I remembered that. The smell wasn't something a person was likely to forget. And I was tied down, but I was on my back, not my stomach. I tried focusing on the things that were different. Not that it made things less frightening because knowing I'd been kidnapped wasn't a good thing, but it did help not to have both my current situation and my memories in my head.

There weren't hands on me, no hot breath or words in my ear. I didn't know where I was or if I was alone, but at least no one was touching me. I counted that among the only positive things about this situation. I went through the others. I wasn't naked, definitely a good thing. No one had done anything other than knock me out and tie me up, and when compared to everything else I'd been through, that actually wasn't too bad. Other than a slight headache, I wasn't in any pain. The restraints around my wrists weren't chafing yet, so I either hadn't been struggling very much or I hadn't been here very long. I was leaning towards something halfway between the two.

Now that I'd assessed those things, it was time to focus on my surroundings, see if I could figure out who'd took me, where and why. The where was more important than the who or why, especially since I was pretty sure I already knew those two things. With Christophe out on bail, it was the explanation that made the most sense.

My chest began to tighten and my heart started to race. I turned my thoughts away from what was happening and focused on trying to keep my breathing slow and lower my pulse. When I was sure I wasn't going to have a panic attack, I turned my attention back to my surroundings.

The place was chilly. Not cold like I was in a basement or outside, more like what I'd felt the times I'd been in abandoned buildings. The sounds seemed to support that too. Creaking, a hint of wind even though I couldn't feel it. I could smell the damp; something musty too. I didn't know exactly where I was, but that at least gave me an idea of what to expect when I finally opened my eyes.

I didn't want to do it. The irony of the girl who couldn't trust enough to close her eyes during sex now not wanting to open them for fear of what she'd see wasn't lost on me. It was that thought that brought me back to myself, reminded me that I wasn't that scared little girl anymore. I had survived that and I would survive this too.

I opened my eyes. At first, all I saw was darkness and I blinked my eyes against it. After a few seconds, black turned to gray and I could see shapes and outlines. I looked around. I wasn't gagged, but I also wasn't stupid enough to yell. I supposed that was one good thing about having the past I did. I knew how to handle these things better than others might have. Well, once I got the initial panic out of the way.

Screaming could attract someone to come rescue me, but it also could bring the kidnapper – Christophe, my mind insisted – and it could result in violence that could've been otherwise prevented. I wasn't going to give in to whatever this guy – Christophe – wanted, but I was going to save my strength and fight when it was time. So I kept my mouth shut and tried to gather as much information as I could.

Which turned out to be not very much at all. I was on a bed, but I didn't see a bed frame. Other shapes could've been a dresser and some boxes, but I couldn't really tell more than that. Something, however, felt very familiar about the room. I looked up but couldn't make out the ceiling. There weren't any windows and I didn't seen anything that made me think windows had been boarded up. Probably a basement then. I'd spent enough time in one to know the feel.

A figure stirred in the shadows and I heard a creaking sound. Stairs, I thought. I strained to see more than a faint outline, anything that would either confirm or disprove my suspicions. The figure was tall and lean, but it didn't move with any real grace. In fact, there was a familiar slouching way he walked. Because it was a he, and a he I knew.

He reached up and pulled a cord, turning on a light with a click. The dim bulb didn't flood the room with light, but it did offer enough for me to see the jet-black hair and dark chocolate brown eyes that I'd once considered pleasantly attractive. Now, they just sent my heart racing. I'd known Christophe had been the one who'd taken me, but knowing it and seeing him again were two totally different things.

He smiled at me, a tender, soft smile that frightened me more than his anger would have. He was looking at me the same way he'd looked at me before, like I was going to be his prom date or something.

“Do you like it?” he asked, his voice quiet.

I'd been so busy staring at him that I hadn't even noticed anything else about the room.

Like the fact that it was my room. My old basement room from back when I'd lived with my mom. It wasn't the same room. I knew that. My old room was in Florida, if the house hadn't been torn down by now. And I knew I wasn't in Florida. For one thing, I hadn't been gone long enough. For another, it wasn't hot and humid, and even in March, it wouldn't be this cool in Florida.

It wasn't my room, but someone had gone to a lot of work to make it look that way. I looked back at Christophe. I couldn't believe he'd gone to all this trouble to recreate an entire room from old videos.

And then it hit me.

In Florida, there'd been a camera on a tripod against the wall directly across from the bed. We hadn't used handhelds or anything like that. Just one camera, and its position had never changed.

So how the hell did Christophe know that there'd been a bookshelf behind the camera? A bookshelf where I'd kept dried flowers like the ones that were there now.

“You've gotten old.”

Every muscle in my body froze and it even felt like my heart had stopped as a second figure stepped out of the shadows.

Once dark hair that was mostly gray now. Ice blue eyes. An average build that had softened and sagged since I'd last seen her. Her face was more wrinkled, her skin leathery. But I recognized her. I would know her anywhere.

“Mom.” My voice cracked on the word, horror trying to choke me.

“Hey, there, baby girl. It's been a long time.” She walked over to my side and looked down at me. Her eyes were as hard as I remembered.

I was struck by the strangest sense that I'd been here before. It was more than deja vu. No, this was more like an eerie sense of doubling. Like I was both a child and an adult. The mother I saw and the one I remembered. Like two pictures laying, one over the other, both transparent enough to see the one beneath.

I shook my head and the sensation disappeared. I was me again. Jenna Lang. Not
that
girl.

“Your friend here tells me you've built quite the life for yourself since I've been gone.” She fingered a lock of my hair, frowning, causing the lines between her eyes to grow thick. “Though he said you had, I believe, blue hair.” She shot an unfriendly look at Christophe.

“She did,” he insisted, his voice as grumpy as a child. “She changed it.”

“Back to your real color.” She turned back to me. “No matter how many airs you put on, baby girl, you're still nothing but a little whore, aren't you?”

My temper began to burn away my fear. “I was never a whore.” I didn't struggle against the restraints – not yet – but I wasn't going to listen to her without saying something. “I was a child.”

Her eyes narrowed. “An ungrateful little brat. I put food on the table. Clothes on your back. All I expect from you was to do what you were told.”

I laughed, a sharp bark of sound. I couldn't help it. The fact that she sincerely didn't understand how completely fucked up her statement was made it even more ludicrous. And then something that I'd never even considered before hit me and the laugh died in my throat. I looked up at her and, for the first time in my life, felt something other than hate and anger towards her. It wasn't sympathy or even pity, but an understanding that if I was right, there was a reason for her behavior. Not an excuse, but at least an explanation.

“How old were you?” I asked softly. I saw something flash across her eyes. “How old were you when you were molested for the first time?”

I'd known she'd been fourteen when she'd started working as a prostitute to pay for drugs. At least, that's how old she'd been when she'd been arrested the first time and had my half-brother. I'd never stopped to think about who she'd been before that.

“Eight,” she said. Her voice was flat. “You come by being a whore naturally.”

“That wasn't your fault,” I said, trying to get through to her. I could feel a bit of desperation trying to creep in. “You were just a kid. And with me, it was what you knew. I forgive you for it.” I wasn't sure that was entirely true, but I knew it might be the only way to get through to her. “You can still make it right. Let me go.”

This time, it was my mom who laughed. “You might've fallen for all that psychobabble bullshit, but not me. I know exactly what I'm doing.”

“Helen, come on, this is a waste of time,” Christophe spoke up.

I'd almost forgotten about him, but now he came back in focus and the full reality of my situation crashed into me. My mom hadn't done this to me alone. She'd had help.

“How did the two of you...?” I let the question trail off.

“Someone dumped quite a bit of nasty evidence about me and Christophe onto the internet.” Mom's lips twisted into a half-smile. “I had to leave the nice life I'd built behind and run or go to jail. Just as I was getting ready to go, there's a knock at my door and who should be there but Mr. Constantine, another victim of this nasty snitch.”

“I have to thank you,” Christophe said, looking from my eyes to my lips and then lower. “If you hadn't revealed all of that personal information, I never would've found Helen.”

My stomach flipped and I could feel what was left of my most recent meal churning. I had done this. I'd brought them together. It was my fault.

No. I could almost hear Lily's voice in my head. None of this was my fault. I didn't deserve this, no matter what my mother had gone through in her own childhood.

“I know what he wants.” I jerked my head towards Christophe, but kept my eyes on my mother. “But what's in it for you? You said yourself that I'd gotten old. The men you know don't want someone like me.”

“Oh, I know that. But you're going to give me a whole new market. Christophe is going to get to live out his fantasies with you, and then you're going to start paying me back for everything you did. The two of you are going to recreate those same scenes with this cute little girl I found in the supermarket yesterday.”

“Over my dead body.” I yanked at my restraints, barely feeling the bite of the cloth.

Mom looked at me for a minute and I held her gaze. I could see her trying to figure me out, wondering how much of that scared little girl was left. I was wondering the same thing when she finally spoke.

“We'll see.”