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And I’m alone. Locked in. If I ran now, I wouldn’t get far. I walk barefoot on a sea of broken glass, and pain bursts into life, as terror burns wild inside me. I need to calm myself. I need to think.
I need to get rid of this fucking drink.
“You want the tour or to see the collection?” Trent suddenly laughs as he walks out of the office and into the abandoned foyer. One that has grime and dust everywhere. Along with mouse or rat droppings. And yet…
I don’t see any other evidence of rodents. And I don’t see the giant waterbugs, those scary roaches that love the city. And usually I would. Rats like to scurry across the subway tracks, and I’ve seen YouTube videos where a poor commuter had one run up her leg. So in an abandoned space like this, one that’s filthy with piles of paper lying around, it’s weird not to see more than droppings.
“Come on, Dakota. Some of the old bedframes are ghost-story worthy.”
“Seen one abandoned hotel room and you’ve seen them all.”
Trent just runs a finger along the long-forgotten reception desk that’s seventies glory. He heads for an open door behind it to the right, and there are worn, carpeted stairs leading down.
I should have grabbed the bottle and hit him with it because every nerve ending from my toes to my fingers to the back of my skull are screaming not to go down there.
I most definitely don’t want to go down there.
But I don’t have a weapon, and he’d drag me down, furious, once he caught me if I tried to run. He locked the door. I saw him. All the locks.
Trent shoots me a quick look just as I slide on a smile. “Come along. I promised to show you my collection, Dakota. And drink your drink.”
There’s definitely no way I’m drinking it. As I pass the reception desk that escaped the seventies, I toss the contents beneath it, then hurry after him.
What I really want is a weapon in this weird, abandoned place.
What I really want is not to be here.
There’s something off about it, aside from the obvious and what I already know, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
It’s screaming at me, the kind of scream that pricks your skin with a thousand tiny needles.
What am I missing?
The stairs creak as we descend, and then he unlocks a door that leads into the basement.
It’s clean—cleaner than it should be. The brick and concrete are as old as the building, but the door on the other side is new in comparison.
My step falters as I breathe in.
The air smells fresh, clean like lemon. Like this run-down place past the foyer gets loving care. No. The foyer does, too. Different care. It’s cleaned, with carefully added grime and untouched dust. The droppings are added, I’m betting to create a sense of an abandoned building.
It’s designed to turn away people who might be searching for something.
I’m in a death trap with no escape, and no one will be able to hear me scream.
Except for Trent. And whoever he invites here.
That new door looks like it’s made of steel. It looks like it’s there for a specific purpose.
“Where are we going?”
He turns and his smile grows. “You finished your drink. Excellent.”
Trent unlocks that door.
Oh, hell. It’s so thick and reinforced that no one will know or hear what happens down there once it’s shut.
I can’t move.
