Chapter 32
The night air electrified like the edge of a sharp blade about to strike out, and spill blood around her. Makayla could feel The Killer was about to snap. But what really had her on edge was who he was and how protected he was within the Mexican government and military. She knew of him and his family from various case studies involving allegations made against his father in particular, the illegal activities range from arms deals, drug and human trafficking. Till this day no one had testified against them. It was like fate had intervened and gifted her the once chance to finally get him, and she would do anything to make that happen, even if it cost her everything. Makayla knew she had to do something extreme, but still in a haze from the adrenalin, and the powerful scent of Devil’s Breath, her mind would not clear, and her thoughts were working on pure desperation.
In the solitude of her chamber, surrounded by strange smells and moonlight, she stared down at her blue dress and bear feet when a memory hit her.
She was back at the party on the night they had been taken. All the girls, including herself and her best friend, had been escorted up to the changing rooms, past the pool where the moon shimmered off its clear blue surface. The girls were all excited as they were under the impression they’d made it into the final round of auditions for the music video they were shooting that night.
Around her, girls flung their designer dresses to the floor and were instructed to remove all jewelry and shoes, she saw the face of the man who had stopped her at the door and took her earrings. She recalled once again the back piece of the earring that she had swallowed…
Makayla’s eyes shot to the bucket in the corner of the room. A shiver of disgust ran over her at the thought of searching through her bowel movements for the device she had swallowed. A lot of mental torment, talking to herself, and pacing went on until finally she decided she had to do what she had to do. She stared the bucket down and steeled herself.
Finally, Makayla took one deep, clean breath, and through a fit of gags and teary eyes she stared down at something metallic before her. Taking the bottle of water from the shelf by her bed she rinsed her hands, then washed up in the tiny basin provided, then washed up some more. Makayla pulled a face at the acrid smell around her and gulped down the rest of the water after cleaning the tiny button of the earing she had swallowed. Wiping it with her bedsheets, she held the button under the weak moonlight and noticed it was partly open on one side.
Laying it flat on the smooth surface of the windowsill, she stood on the bed and used her fingernails to gather up the tiny wires, until finally a light came on, but then it died. She heard a noise in the distance, somewhere in the corridor and snatched up the tracker button and jumped from her bed. Pacing the room with the faulty device in hand, she hoped, once it had dried out enough, she could make it work. She waited for someone to come to the door, but no one came, and the night was eerily quiet once more.
Makayla placed the tracker back on the windowsill where heat from the glass of all day sunlight warmed the area. She stood with her head spinning, her eyes blurry; exhaustion or the poisonous powder from earlier finally taking its toll on her. She just needed a ten-minute powernap to reboot. Then she’d get to work on the tracker. She curled up on the nasty matrass and watched the moon, its shadow crawling along the wall, and her eyes fell shut.
The sound of a slamming door jerked Makayla form her sleep. Mad at herself for dozing off, she jumped from the rickety bed hoping it was just a dream. Then a scream of terror thundered down the hall. It was followed by another door slamming shut and another scream slicing through the air like the crack of a whip. Makayla could hear each door slam and the scream that followed as the girls got ripped from their rooms. The next scream was from the girl next door to her. The sound of metal on stone as a scuffle broke out, the violent shriek and slapping sounds grated into Makayla’s bones, followed by the dreadful sound of the crying girl being dragged down the hall as she pleaded for her life.
Makayla leapt forward, banging her fists against the metal door. “Take me!”
She screamed until her throat was on fire, and her jaw clamped. Above her, the light ebbed out and the moonlight eclipsed by the clouds of the looming storm, meant she was abandoned to the merciless dark. Her body quacked with each tear of helplessness, and every single pump of her heart shot adrenalin thought her body at the thought of what was possibly happening to those girls. She sank to the floor with her back against the cold metal door. A loud crack followed by a bolt of lightning tore through the sky causing her to scream. A flash of light filled the room, and the metal tracker gleamed with a spark on the windowsill. As darkness engulfed once more, she walked the room in the light blue cotton dress she’d been forced to wear, feeling each cold hard step beneath the sensitive cushions of her naked feet. She knew she was running out of time, the tenderness on her feet were signs of severe dehydration as she refused to drink their flower-laced water. Getting to the sill, she snatched it up, but it seemed dead. Try as she might, it would not work. She threw it to the floor out of anger and immediately regretted it.
As she crawled around in search of the tiny tracker button, she felt a strange stinging sensation on the skin of her knees, where she had crawled through something wet. The material of her dress grew hot as if something was almost melting the fabric. Falling back onto her bum, she sniffed at the material, she immediately knew what was causing the strange affect. Being a chemistry geek was a trait she shared with her father. Thank the heavens for the attic lab! Aaron often made fun of her because of this strange hobby. Habitually joking she was probably creating Meth in her ‘lab’. Today it would be that geeky hobby that would save them, because she knew that smell so well.
The smell of Sulfuric acid. Why had she not known it before? Smelling her hands, then the dress to make sure she wasn’t dreaming, her heartbeat started to rise with excitement. She glanced around the room, scattered moonlight glowing against the walls as clouds passed the window - her eager brain puzzled it all together. Sulfuric dioxide was used as a preservative for food back in early 1900’s. She thought about the layout of the ‘dungeons’. The stone floors… These were Cold Rooms used to preserve food, and sulfuric dioxide saturated the walls, the floors and now she understood the strange smell. When water and metals touched sulfuric dioxide, it caused a reaction that could burn through almost anything. Slowly, things were beginning to make sense; this room must have once been used as storage room for food. It explained the layout, the old stone walls and floors, it had to be. She felt a glimmer of hope at the thought that the girls were kept in cold-rooms. And this part of the house had to be at least one hundred years old.
Her mind was reeling, firing like pistons of a well-tuned motor, as she put her plan together. Her fingers pushed through the material of her dress where the chemical reaction weakened it. She teared the hem right off and used the material to cover her nose and mouth to protect herself from the poisonous gas that would escape once she put her plan into action. Makayla was all out of water, so she did what she had to. In the total darkness, only guided by a few lighting strikes, in the moments of light, found the disregarded bottle and urinated in it.
She stood by the door and scrapped at the walls with her false nails until a powder like residue fell into her palm. She used it to cover the metal hinges of the door, threw the urine over the mixture and waited. A few moments passed, thunder roiled in the background, lighting streaked the sky highlighting her own shadow on the wall before her until she could smell the chemical reaction and the gas as it came off the corroding mixture. Satisfied it had weakened the lock, she kicked and kicked then used her shoulder until the door finally moved. She took a few steps back and kicked again and the metal door creaked then fell with a bang to the floor.
The light in the hall was still on, and as she gave one glance back to the room, there lay the tracker as if waiting for her. Snatching it up, she ran down the hall, each room empty, and each step heavy with time on her heels.