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Someone had been manning that drone after all.
My gaze shifted to the balding, middle-aged man who was stationed at that laptop. Spittle flew from his mouth as he shouted at my captors, and it became apparent that he carried some kind of seniority over them. He thrust a hand in my direction several times during his rant, but it wasn’t until his eyes followed that gesture that I understood why he’d shot at his own men for beating me. Heat flared behind his crazed stare as he salivated over my filthy, battered body. His tongue slid along his slimy teeth, and I could almost see the gears in his head turning as he contemplated what to do with me.
He hadn’t given a shite about them hurting me. He’d just wanted to make sure that they delivered me to him in one piece.
With the flick of his chin toward the door behind the counter, he barked at them in Russian, and my captors nodded with something that sounded a lot like, “Yes, sir.”
Picking up my stool by the seat, they carried me past the rows of laptops and into the bowels of the fish market. There must have been a kitchen back there because the hallways were filled with the scent of fresh-cooked seafood. They were probably burning through Howth’s entire weekly catch, trying to feed everyone stationed out in the tents. Saliva pooled in my mouth, and acid gnawed at my empty stomach as I wondered if they’d feed me too. Give me water. Put any effort into keeping me alive whatsoever.
The water question was answered a moment later when they carried me into a bright white room lined with sinks the size of small bathtubs. I imagined they had once been used to clean fish or maybe store it on ice, but now, they served as toilets and sinks for the trembling, naked prisoners handcuffed to them. The stench of vomit, piss, sweat, and shite burned my eyes as I searched their faces. Four women, hiding behind what was left of their hacked-off hair, and one old man.
“Mr. McCormick?”
The white-haired fella didn’t respond—he just stared at the ground, his shriveled body curled against the wall, like a dead leaf that hadn’t yet let go of its vine—but the younger woman to my right did.
“Clo?”
A familiar pair of eyes looked up from the bruised knees they’d been hidden behind, but I barely recognized them without the brutal, bullyish smirk that usually accompanied them.
“Liv?”
Her long, expensive highlights had been chopped off in random chunks, her lip was split, her arms were bruised and burned, and I knew from the emptiness in her deep brown stare that I’d probably find a smear of blood between her legs, too, if I dared to look.
Suddenly, a hand sliced across her cheek, and the sailor with the buzz cut shouted, “Peet!”
Sitting up, Liv stared straight ahead and, like a robot, began singing something in Russian.
“Kashdie! Kashdie!” he demanded, gesturing wildly for everyone else to join in.
The naked women joined in, mumbling a song in a language they didn’t know as they watched the sailor circle the room with wide, terrified eyes. He sang at full volume, waving his arms like a possessed orchestra conductor and pausing only to kick the prisoners who had made mistakes—which was all of them—until he came to Mr. McCormick.
“Peet!” he shouted, kicking Mr. McCormick as hard as he could in the hip.
When the ol’ fella didn’t comply, he shoved something small and black against his ribs, causing his entire body to convulse violently. I watched in horror as the man who’d once told the best jokes in town, the one who’d always greeted me with a smile, and who’d once given Da a ride home from the pub when he was too smashed to drive slumped to the floor, unconscious.
“No!” I managed to shout just before pain shot through the side of my head and the ground rose up to meet me.
I landed sideways on the tiled floor, still attached to the stool, with my forearm crushed between the wooden seat and the ground. Panic gripped me, chasing away the pain and the sounds of the men’s raucous laughter, as I prayed that the bone wasn’t broken.
Grabbing my other arm, the bearded man—the one who’d just hit me—jerked me back up and righted the stool, still laughing as he brandished a knife and lunged for my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut with a whimper, but felt only a few scratches as he hacked through the wool of my jumper. In less than a minute, I was as naked as the rest of the prisoners, but unlike them, I still had my hair to hide behind. My matted, tangled, mud-caked hair.
The man with the buzz cut crouched down so that we were on eye level, but I refused to look at him. My heart thundered in my chest as he grabbed my face, jerking it from side to side as he appraised my appearance. Turning my head all the way to the right so that his comrade could look at me, too, they joked in Russian, their sexual tone punctuated by nauseating chuckles.
Buzz Cut released me and turned around, running the water in the sink behind him. With his friend preoccupied, the bearded man took his place, stepping in front of me. I held my breath as he tipped my head as far back as it could go. Then, he leaned forward and smashed his mouth against mine.
Coarse, cigarette-scented facial hair grated my skin as he probed my tightly closed lips with his tongue. When I refused to open up for him, he grabbed my face like his friend had but squeezed harder, forcing my lips to pucker just enough for his tongue to penetrate. Bile hit the back of my throat as he licked my clenched teeth, clamping his free hand around my breast in anger. My pained whimper was quickly silenced by a hand around my windpipe as an unintelligible barrage of shouts peppered my face with spit.
I couldn’t breathe, and for one brief moment, I hoped that I never would again. I hoped that he’d lose control and end me right there and then, but all too soon, Buzz Cut intervened, barking something at him that made him back away. I sucked in two lungfuls of air, but before I had a chance to exhale, I sucked in even more as a bucketful of cold water cascaded over my head. Then another. And another.
From my crouched position, all I could do was stare at the drain in the floor as the men scrubbed me with dish towels, touching me everywhere, pinching and squeezing and fondling whatever they pleased. Shutting out the feeling of their hands on my flesh, their cruel laughter in my ears, I focused only on the water pouring off of me. I watched as it changed from brown to clear. I sucked in every muddy drop that streamed past my lips, but it wasn’t enough to quench my thirst. If anything, it only made it worse.
Beyond the drain in the floor, I also noticed that the sink in front of me had an empty pair of handcuffs hanging from the drain pipe and a pile of white-blonde hair scattered underneath. A fresh wave of dread wash over me.
This had been Sophie’s sink.
And now, it was mine.
I pictured the way her body had looked, being dragged out, limbs twisted, face smashed in. I was so distracted by it that I hardly noticed that the men had finished scrubbing me—that was, until the glint of a serrated blade caught my attention.
