Chapter 136: Is Elena Dead?

Amelia’s POV

The room felt like a tomb as I laid curled up on the soiled floor, my body a road map of bruises and pain. Each breath felt like a battle, and my ribs screamed with every shallow gasp, blood pooled on my tongue. They’d ignored me for hours, three or more, since Richard’s ominous promise to “treat you right.” The words reverberated in my head. My wrists rubbed raw against the ropes that bound them, and my head ached terribly from the blows I’d received. I had a plastic cup of water in front of me, but its contents were hardly touched. I had drank just enough to keep from blacking out, but it did nothing to calm the fear eating away at my soul.

There was just one thing to hang on to, to anchor to in the distance, and it was Collins. He’d come for me. He always did. His face flashed before me—those dark eyes glowing with determination, that stubborn jaw. He’d tear this place apart looking for me, I knew it. It was this thought that saved me from despair. But the longer the hours wore on, the heavier the silence grew, and a creeping doubt slipped in. What if he didn’t know where I had gone? Except what if Jenny and Richard had been too good at covering their tracks? With my heartracing, and panic closing in, I forced it to drop and whispered to myself, “He’s coming. He’s coming.”

The door groaned and I tensed when it opened, wincing at the pain. Another man threw down a full cup of water in front of my feet, the waves spilling against the concrete. “Drink,” he grunted, his head obscured by a ski mask. I glowered, my lips trembling, but I did not move. He didn’t give a damn, and he turned and slammed the door. The lock buzzed and clicked, and I was alone again, the water quenching my thirst. I coughed, the noise wet and harsh, and clamped my bound hands to my chest, willing my lungs to function. Every breath was a fight, but I would not let it go. Not for them. Not for Jenny.

From that point forward, Time felt slow, minutes pooling into hours, until the door opened once more. Two men came in. They were snapping the ropes around my ankles, jostling me to my feet. I collapsed, my body too feeble to remain on my feet, but they seized my arms and pulled me through a maze of corridors within the warehouse. The air turned colder, the smell of rust and rot being replaced by the frozen snap of night. A van was waiting outside with its engine humming. My heart sank. They were moving me again. Where? Why? The questions rolled, but my voice was caught, my throat much too ruined to scream.

As they pushed me toward the van, a form leapt out of the darkness — Elena. My breath caught, the hope flaring still despite the terror. She looked like mess, with blood and bruises on her face, and her left leg dragging, the bullet wound oozing, but her eyes sparked defiance. She’d gotten away, some way, and she was here fighting for me. “Let her go!” she shouted, leaping at the closest man. Her fists were a blur as they pounded his jaw, his chest, her training clear to see even in this abused condition she found herself in. Her attacks were fierce as well as faltering — she struck down two men before they could process what was happening.

“Elena!” I shrieked, trying to fight but my kidnappers had me in an iron grip, their fingers digging into my flesh. The other men pounced on her — there were ten of them, and that wasn’t even all. She fought like a caged wolf, and connected with a kick that snapped a man’s knee and an elbow in the throat. But they were too many. A bat swung, grazing one of her sides, and she struggled, blood peeling from her mouth. Another blow, then another, fists and boots pounding down until she went limp, sprawled unconscious along the sidewalk.

“No!” I wept, my face wet with tears. “Elena, please!” I struggled, my voice cracking, but the men bundled me into the van. Her equally drained body was seared into my brain: her blood flowing through the soil. The way I heard it, she was dead, the news crushing me. My guardian, broken to nothing because of me. The van door slammed shut and we began to drive away, the city’s lights became a blur through my tears. Clenched into myself, my bound hands in a tight grip around my knees, I cried, my sobs swallowed by the roar of the engine.

My thoughts raced, trying to figure out why this person was trying to get my attention Richard’s laugh, Jenny’s rage — but for what? To break me? To hurt Collins? The idea of him hunting for me prevented me from shattering into a million pieces. I needed to be tough, for him. When the van came to a stop, I was dragged out, the night air biting against my flesh. There was a hotel in front of me and the neon light flickered; it seemed like the kind of place where no one asked any questions. They pulled me through a side door, up a stairwell, and into a room that smelled of stale cigarettes and hopelessness.

The men abandoned me there, hands still bound, and locked the door. I collapsed to the ground, shaking all over, my brains racing for solutions. What did they want? Why a hotel? The questions gnawed, but there were no answers. An hour later, the door opened, and two women walked in — young, quiet, with blank expressions. There were bags in their hands, and without a word they untied my hands and proceeded to work. One of them swabbed at my sores with antiseptic: it stung so much I hissed; the other wiped the scrapers over my skin. I attempted to say something, to ask questions, but they paid no attention, and moved like machines.

They washed me in a tub so small the water was cold and shaming, and put on me a red gown, made of a shinny material. The dress was too bare, too posed, and now I felt  fear curling into something worse. This wasn’t random. They were training me for something, someone, and the idea made my stomach turn.  They said nothing to me and left, locking the door, and I’d sat on the bed, my hands shaking, my mind screaming that something was wrong – dreadfully wrong. What was Richard up to when he said “treat you right”? What was Jenny’s endgame? The gown, the hotel — it all felt like a set up.

I drew my knees up to my chest, the hem of the nightgown pooling around me, and tried to breathe. My ribs hurt, my face throbbed, but worse was the fear, a living thing that scratched at my insides. I thought of Elena, her body broken on the pavement, and I cried again, fresh tears running down my face. I thought about Collins, looking for me, and prayed that he would find me before there wasn’t any more time. The key clicked in the door lock, and I was hit with my own ragged breaths, the only noise marring the silence, until the sound of that click vibrated on my eardrums, jerking my head up.

My heart thudded and I stiffened when the door flew open. A figure came in, and I lost my breath as recognition slammed into me. As my eyes widened, shock and disbelief poured through me and I scrambled away, my voice an ugly, anddesperate. “You—! Why are you here?! ”