They were being held in a normal terraced house on a seemingly normal residential street.
Maybe, he dared to let himself think; maybe escape was not such a foolish idea after all.
He blinked and struggled to hold his head up as he continued down the last few steps that led down into a tiny utility room at the back of the houses’ kitchen. More light overwhelmed him as he was led out of the box room and into the tiled dining area, where multiple panes of glass allowed sunlight to flood in and bounce off of uncomfortably clean countertops.
Instinctively, Ronnie’s heart twisted tightly within his rib cage, reminding him of the torture he had endured last time he had been inside that room. The raw scars covering what was left of his scalp tensed and stung.
Horrific images of being skinned alive flashed through his brain and made his blood run as cold as ice. The haunting trill of the girl’s scream echoed painfully through his ears as if he were reliving the moment for real.
“Afternoon.”
A voice dragged Ronnie from his unpleasant memories, causing him to pause in his spot. Swallowing back a thick lump of fear at the back of his throat, he stared bravely around the man in front of him and let his eyes fall over the eerily familiar wooden kitchen table in the centre of the room.
He recognised Steve, the sicko who had scalped him, then torn a kitchen knife through the flesh on his chest. Except, today, he was not wearing a crude butcher’s outfit, but instead a charcoal, pinstripe suit. Seated around him, also at the table, were two other men, one perhaps a little older than Ronnie and one who looked ancient with silvery tufts of hair poking out of his nostrils.
Three sets of eyes fixed on him, unmoving and intense. The gaze was so unnerving that for a moment, Ronnie was unsure who had spoken.
“Is he a foreign one?” the younger man asked Steve, wrinkling his nose in disapproval. “I want a British one.”
Steve smirked, his eyes gleaming as he looked across the room at Ronnie. “This one’s British all right. Born and bred in London.”
Of course, it wasn’t true, but Ronnie was too frightened to open his mouth. He did not like the way the other two suits at the table were staring at him with a cold, animal-like hunger glittering in their beady pupils. It made him shiver. He chanced a quick glance around the room and considered his chances of making a dash for it.
Four against one.
He didn’t like his odds.
“How much?”
Steve cleared his throat and smiled pleasantly at the older of the two men, “call it a complimentary sweetener, Mr. Walsh. As thanks for the business.”
The older man arched a bushy eyebrow, “how generous,” he said in a tone which Ronnie was certain was sarcastic.
“Do you have rooms?” the younger man said, the legs of his chair creaking against the tiles as he suddenly got up from his seat. Hands clasped behind him; he slowly began to circle and approach Ronnie.
“Sure,” replied Steve, tossing his hand carelessly and nodding towards his crony, who still hovered quietly beside Ronnie, guarding him. “Nick, please take Sir Walsh up to the loft…” he trailed off, then spoke directly to the younger suit, “take all the time you need.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
2019
The bright sky, or the slivers and patches of it that she could see through the canopy of branches above her head, were starting to bleed into a light, inky blue. Furiously, Stella blinked away hot tears that stung her eyeballs and blurred her vision; her cheeks flushed and raw from the dribbles of fluid saturating the skin.
She tugged her head downwards and forced herself to look around the darkening woodland clearing, where her naked body was hung up from a branch, wrists, and ankles tightly bound together. Around her, the teenage boys in their hooded jumpers sat around, some of them swigging from cans of cheap beer, others smoking roll-up cigarettes. Among them, there was an awful atmosphere, pregnant with sadistic anticipation as their greedy eyes leered over her exposed flesh.
Neil was saying something with a stupid smirk on his face whilst the others around him laughed overenthusiastically, marking him clearly as their ring leader. He was the one in control.
“You’re not crying, are you, babe?” Neil asked, getting up from the ground and squeezing his beer can between his meaty fist. He walked up to her, the other pairs of beady eyes following closely behind him, latching greedily onto her quivering skeleton.
Stella didn’t speak. She wanted to preserve her energy, and she knew that crying and screaming were just a waste of her resources. Earlier on, when they’d roughly stripped her, she’d bleated, begged, and shrieked with every fibre of her being, and no fucker came to save her.
Unfortunate as it was, Stella had come to the daunting realisation that she was alone out there.
However, the young woman was not without hope.
She’d sharpened her brain until her senses were like razor blades, and everything that was happening around her was fresh and clear in her mind. As every inch of her had trembled and silent tears had fallen from her eyes, she’d noticed things that were going to work to her advantage.
Just to tear her clothes away from her body, then string her up over the branch of a tree, it had taken a group of ten of these scum bags around two hours.
They were, Stella knew for sure, total fucking idiots.
And not just that- they were drinking. Making themselves dumber, sloppier, and
