And together in the dark, they watched the rain paint the canvas of his window.
At first she tried to stifle the onset of tears, a mix of emotion instigated for very different reasons. Eventually she let them flow free, knowing he’d understand and she wouldn’t have to explain. She found comfort in their silence…and the rain.
Payton’s unconditional acceptance of her had opened a floodgate of emotion that she hadn’t allowed herself to feel in a very long time. Like an epiphany, she sensed that she hovered over a threshold between her tormented childhood and the woman she always hoped to be. If she wanted to break the negative pattern of relationships in her life, she’d have to open old wounds. So much of who she was had been defined by the violence of her past. She knew how to keep people out of her life, but could she let someone like Payton in without boundaries? Not even her friend Sam had that privilege.
Any time she’d been happy, the feeling didn’t last. It was always tainted by the enduring ache that she didn’t deserve it. Taking emotion out of the equation, she knew that if she allowed this vile cycle to continue, the bastard who had violated her childhood with his perversions would remain in control. How long would she stand for that?
Whether or not she had a man in her heart wouldn’t change things. She had to take back her life and do it for herself. Payton had only instigated the line she now wanted to draw in the sand, but he couldn’t be the reason for it.
Eventually her thoughts turned to him as she drifted off to sleep. Payton Archer and his love for rain had found a home in her heart. And strange as it felt, nothing could have been more perfect.
CHAPTER 25
A sustained thunder intensified in her mind until Nikki could no longer keep her eyes shut. She awoke with a start from a fitful sleep and knocked her head against something metal.
“Ow…shit.”
The jolt nearly stopped her heart, but even after she got oriented to where she was, the shock lingered. The helicopter must have hit rough air, buffeting the fuselage. And with that realization, despair hit her square in the face.
It was still nighttime—nothing had changed—and her nightmare persisted.
She had no idea where she was, and it had been days since her captors let her see daylight. As a consequence, she’d lost track of time. The Russian had kept them on the move, taking her and two other girls deeper into his bent rendition of hell. The fact that he chose to stay with her small group—letting the other hostages go with his men—struck her with an unrelenting fear.
He was with them because of her.
She saw his silhouette in the cockpit of the helicopter. An eerie blue haze outlined his hulking form in profile, making him appear ghostly and more like the monster she pictured when she shut her eyes. To take her mind off him, Nikki peered out a side window, a subtle move so she wouldn’t draw attention to herself. She searched for anything that might give a hint where they were. Murky black and obscure shapes drifted underneath for as far as she could see. In the glimmer of moonlight, she thought she saw choppy water below and imagined a vast ocean with no land in sight. She had serious doubts they were still in the United States, and that frightened her too.
Where the hell was he taking them? As bad as it was to be constantly on the move, she dreaded another stop even more. She had a bad feeling the next one might be her last.
Nikki’s belly growled and she felt its rumble as they hit another air pocket, a reminder she hadn’t eaten in a while. Despite her situation, she’d scarfed down food when they gave it to her, ignoring her stomach nearly retching. She had to keep up her strength. Staying strong might make the difference between living and dying. But she suspected the Russian had kept them dosed with tranquilizers. Nikki fought the drowsiness and tried to stay awake, but knew she’d never win the battle, not if she wanted to eat or drink.
Britney Webber and the other kid were slumped against her now, dead asleep. Their body heat kept the chilly night air at bay but also reminded her she wasn’t alone, an unfortunate circumstance for them all. Nikki stared down at the heart-shaped birthmark on Britney’s chin, one of the reasons she’d remembered her name. She hadn’t bothered to learn the other girl’s name and tried not to think about why that was. Normally, the close quarters would have made her self-conscious—yet here nothing was
She felt the aircraft lurch then descend, and the choppy terrain below dissolved into darkness. On the horizon, she saw faint lights, but nothing to indicate a significant town. Fear gripped her more strongly and she felt another wave of nausea.
This is it, she thought. They were going to land again.
When she turned her head, she caught a motion from the cockpit. The Russian had been staring at her in the dark, his face contorted into a sneer. The control panel cast a macabre aura that made him look more sinister, something she didn’t think possible.
“Your last stop.” He spoke loud enough for her to hear him over the rotor engine. By the way he said it, she knew he was sending her a message, one she didn’t want explained.
From below, a sudden show of floodlights signaled the helicopter where to land. Paint on the tarmac marked the spot. In the beams, she caught a glimpse of old chain-link fencing and got the impression of an array of buildings in the distance. A bigger facility, yet it looked deathly still. No other lights. No movement. No visible activity below except for the few men she saw standing near the edge of darkness. They were nothing more than faceless shapes. And the place reminded her of the old factory they had left behind in Chicago, a terrifying image she wanted to forget. A nasty deja vu gripped her.
“God help me,” she whispered, her body trembling.
Once they landed, cold night air swept into a frenzy under the rotor blade of the helicopter as the Russian’s men hauled them, handcuffed together, toward an old building. Bound like that, it was hard to walk. Blowing and steady drizzle wet Nikki’s face and clothes. With the chill, she knew she’d have a bad case of the shakes to contend with. The rain normally reminded her of home, but now it only made things more miserable and foreboding.
In the dark, and surrounded by more of the Russian’s uniformed men, she couldn’t get a good look at the grounds, but sensed that the landing site lay in the shadow of a hill, its silhouette framed by the sparing moonlight. And from the light off her captors’ flashlights, she caught glimpses of cracked asphalt and chunks of cement underfoot, with broken windows adjacent to rusting metal doors. A musty odor lingered in the air once they got inside the old cinder-block building. But the inside of the dilapidated structure wasn’t as run-down as she’d anticipated. A completely different setup, yet similar to Chicago.
The men headed down a corridor that seemed a dead end. By the looks of it, they had made a mistake, but when they didn’t appear hesitant, she kept her eyes alert to memorize the way.
Her captors stepped behind a pile of rubble, yanking her and the others with them. They squeezed by fallen cinder-block walls with old rusted rebar jutting from boulders of cement. Once they cleared the obstruction, she saw where they were heading. Farther down there was an elevator door she would have missed in the dark. And when one of the men punched the button, it lit up and the elevator came to life.
Where were they getting their power?
The elevator took them to a subterranean level designated by a series of letters and numbers, none of which made sense to her. When the elevator doors opened again, she didn’t see any other kids, as in the last place. The air chilled her skin even more, and a funny odor filled her nostrils, something she couldn’t quite identify. The interior of the facility looked more upscale and new. The change surprised her.
Where had they taken her?
She didn’t have long to ponder the question. As soon as they got off the elevator, the uniformed men circled her and the other girls. She returned their stares long enough to notice that they weren’t paying attention to her. They were waiting for the Russian to give them orders. She held her breath, steeling herself for what would come next. The Russian eyeballed her and the other two girls one by one, as if making up his mind. Finally, his eyes settled on one of them and he spoke with a nudge of his head.
“This one goes first.”
