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ADRIANA

The car was moving too fast to survive a jump.

I watched the black road blur beneath the window and understood that with perfect clarity.

If I opened the door, I might break my neck. If I stayed inside, I would wish I had.

The two men in the front spoke as though I were already dead. They had stopped caring whether I heard them after they dragged me from my father’s body, struck me so hard my head snapped sideways and pain tore through my neck, then threw me across the back seat of their vehicle.

My wrists were bound in front of me with a plastic cable tie. It had cut through the skin, painful and blistering. Every time I twisted my wrists, the narrow strip bit deeper into my skin, coating my wrists in blood.

Despite my efforts, the binding had not loosened. I kept twisting anyway.

The man in the passenger seat turned slightly, watching me through the gap between the headrest and the window.

“Sit still.”

I lowered my hands into my lap, complacent, and he faced forward again.

My father’s blood had dried beneath my fingernails. Dark flakes clung to the creases of my knuckles where I had tried to hold his face together. There had been too much blood, pulsing between my fingers, hot and unstoppable, while his body jerked beneath my hands.

His eyes had remained open for the longest time. That was an image I couldn’t stop seeing. He had looked at me before the end came. He had known it was coming. Perhaps he had known for weeks. Perhaps that was why he had begun checking the locks twice every night. Why he had stopped answering unknown numbers, and taken the long way home, watching every car behind us.

I had thought he was just being paranoid and told him he needed sleep.

Then men had kicked in the door.

Now he would never sleep again.

A laugh came from the front seat.

“You think they’ll take her?”

The driver glanced at me in the rear-view mirror. His eyes met mine briefly, then slid away. “She’s pretty enough.”

My stomach tightened.

The passenger scratched at the stubble beneath his jaw. “She looks a bit beat up. Carlo really did a number on her.”

“Well, she bit him.”

“Carlo put his hand in her mouth. Who does that?”

They laughed again.

I pressed my knees together and stared at the door handle.

The road curved through dense woodland. Trees flashed past the window in black rows. There were no streetlights and no houses. Nothing but the car’s headlights cutting through the night and the red glow of the dashboard.

I had no idea where they were taking me. I only knew who would be waiting. The passenger had made a call an hour earlier. He had spoken in a low voice, but it wasn’t low enough for me not to hear his conversation.

They had a buyer for me. A cartel member.

Someone who was capable of settling a debt with flesh in lieu of money. My flesh.

I had heard every word.