Affliction Read online

  It was then I knew that there was no going back. They’d let me see this, and although I didn’t know what their faces looked like, I knew where they holed up.

  “Ricky, yo, we got a live one here.” The man holding my arm finally let go. He pushed me forward, and I stumbled again, catching myself on a table covered in large square-shaped bags wrapped in duct tape.

  I glanced up at the one named Ricky, my throat dry, tight. I expected him to have the same getup as his thugs, but he was wearing dirty jeans, an equally filthy shirt, and sporting greasy hair. He had a cigarette hanging from his too-thin lips, and he eyed me up and down. I felt naked in that moment.

  God, what have I gotten myself into?

  Chapter 5

  “You’re scaring her. Ease up,” Ricky said to the guys behind me. And although he might be trying to calm me, his too-pleasant voice and the way he smiled made my skin crawl.

  I straightened, clutching my hands to my stomach. I knew it was a defensive move, probably making me seem weaker.

  “What’s your name?”

  I had a feeling lying to this guy wouldn’t do me any good. Hell, I’d left my bag in the car, and I was sure they’d already rummaged through it, seeing my driver’s license, where I lived.

  “Sofia.” I only gave him my first name, hoping he didn’t press for anything else.

  “How did you find out about this place, about me?”

  I rubbed my hands on my jeans and glanced behind me at the three guys. When I faced Ricky again, I realized he’d moved closer. “I got your name and address from a guy I know.”

  He cocked his head. “A guy you know?”

  “Marshall,” one of the thugs said.

  “Marshall has a big mouth,” Ricky said, still eyeing me, making me feel dirty with the way he looked at me. “But that’s what you get with a junkie.”

  “I…I don’t think I should be here.” The words came from me before I could stop them. I knew better than to think they’d just let me go.

  “Calm down,” he said, coming closer. I couldn’t move, though, and even if I could, I knew there wouldn’t be anywhere for me to run to. “You clearly need something, and I’m here to help.” He held out his arms, his ego grand. “Tell me, Sofia, what do you need from me?” There he went, looking me up and down, making me want to go take a shower, wash off his presence. “Go on, tell me. You’re wasting precious time here.”

  “No, I don’t think I need anything.”

  “Fucking tell me what you need.” He slammed his fist down on the table, causing one of the duct-taped squares to roll off another. I jumped, my heart racing, the sound filling my head.

  “I came here for money.” This man was crazy. I could see it on his face, in the way his eyes shifted back and forth. He smelled like booze and cigarettes, sweat and degradation.

  He grinned, and it was an ugly sight. “Money? I can help you with that.” He gestured me closer, and although I wanted to run out of there, I wasn’t a total moron. They’d catch me, and I nearly vomited at the thought of what they would do to me.

  I took a step closer, my throat so dry, my mind rushing with what I could do to get out of here. He took me to one of the tables off to the back, where I saw piles of cash. Some were in bundles wrapped with plastic, while others were clearly in the process of being counted. He took a stack and handed it to me. I didn’t take it, my limbs feeling like lead, fear too strong in me to even move.

  “Go on, take it,” he said, his face almost jovial. I shook my head, an act I didn’t even know I was doing until it was done. His face hardened. “You’re going to come to my place of business, asking for help, and then refuse what I offer?” God, he was insane. He was probably thinking some pretty disgusting thoughts.

  “I…I couldn’t pay you back, not that much.” I stared at the stack of money. It could easily get me out of the hole I was in, but that was not something I could repay, not in this lifetime.

  He shrugged. “We can work something out.” He looked at my breasts, and the need to cover myself, despite being fully clothed, rode me hard.

  “Actually, I’ve changed my mind. Thank you for the offer, but I’ll just go.” I started to back up, but the feeling of a hard body behind me made me stop. I didn’t have to turn around to know it was one of his masked men.

  Ricky took a step forward. He was so close now that the disgusting scent of him washed over me. “No, you’ll take this, because you’re already here.” He grinned, revealing crooked, yellowing teeth. “Because if you don’t take it, Sofia,” he said, lifting his gaze to mine, “if you don’t take this money, I can’t let you go.” He tipped his head to the side. “You understand what I’m saying?”

  You’ve already seen us. You already know where we do our illegal shit. If you go, we’ll have to kill you.

  “I understand,” I said, my voice threadbare. But I straightened my shoulders, not wanting to appear weak. That would make them attack like a pack of wild hyenas.

  “Good,” Ricky said and all but shoved the money at me. “We can work out payment details later.” He eyed me again, that disgusting smile on his face. “In the meantime, don’t try and run, because Bobbie boy got all your information from your ID.”

  I turned and looked over my shoulder. One of the masked men held up my purse. Yeah, I’d assumed they’d go through my shit. “And if I can’t pay you back?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm, collected.

  Ricky’s grin faded, and he got this crazed look in his eyes—even more than what was already going on. “Everyone ends up paying one way or another. We always find a way.”

  Chapter 6

  Several days later

  I had no intentions of spending this money, not when my life was going to be the collateral if I couldn’t repay it.

  I stared at the stack, that wad of cash sitting on my shitty table like a lead weight. I could have said I didn’t want it, tried to make a run for it, but I wasn’t foolish enough to think I would have made it out of there alive.

  “You stupid girl.” I rested my head in my hands, the tears threatening to come out. My resolve and self-hatred were like living entities in me. As stupid as I was for even going there, and allowing my emotions at this horrible time to consume me, I also knew just giving back the money wasn’t enough. They’d want interest, and whatever that interest was had never been discussed.

  I grabbed the money, went over to the sink, and bent down. Behind the pipes was a loose piece of wall. After popping it off, I shoved the cash back there. I had just found the “secret” space earlier in the week, and even though I hadn’t known about it before, I cursed myself for not putting the damn coffee can there to begin with.

  Once I shoved the few decades-old cleaning supplies around to make it not look obvious I had been hiding shit under the sink, I got up and headed to work. I didn’t know how much worse this situation could get, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t get any easier.

  “Does anyone know where Marshall is, or has anyone heard from him?” Silence greeted Rita, the lead for the day. “He hasn’t been to work in three days, and I can’t get ahold of him.”

  My heart started beating faster. I hadn’t seen him since that day he gave me Ricky’s address. And although I could have said I was overreacting, something deep inside of me said I’d been the one to cause his disappearance.

  I started sweating, beads forming between my breasts, along my spine.

  “Well, if anyone speaks with him, tell him he’s out. He’s been fired. We can only handle so many no-call and no-shows.”

  My heart was thundering hard now, and as I watched Rita leave, I knew I was to blame. If anything had happened to Marshall, it was because of me. I’d opened my mouth, and now he hadn’t been to work. I had to see him, to make sure he was okay at the very least. I had to know that my foolishness and big mouth hadn’t killed him. I might not have known him very well, but he didn’t deserve to die.

  I finished out the workday, my mind jumbled, a mess,
threads of worry, confusion, and fear for my own safety weighing on me. The image of that money sitting on my table, and the implications of it all was a heavy weight, making the panic rise to a blistering level.

  I fished my car keys out of my purse, waited until I saw Rita leave to go up front, and slipped into the manager’s office. With the coffee shop still running on actual employee files instead of them being on the computer, I was able to find Marshall’s address easily enough.

  Once I was in my car and heading toward his place, I felt my heart thunder even harder. My chest ached, the reality of my life and where I was right now making me sick to my stomach. When I pulled up to Marshall’s housing unit, I held on to my steering wheel tightly. He lived in a shittier neighborhood than I did.

  The sound of sirens in the distance was barely discernible. What I did hear was men shouting, crude language being thrown around, and glass shattering.

  Before I could talk myself into just leaving, because I didn’t want to be put in an even crazier situation, the front door opened and a woman who looked worse for wear came out. She had shorts on high enough they left nothing to the imagination.

  Her legs had bruises on them, and her shirt was a piece of fabric barely covering her large breasts. Her hair was a rat’s nest atop her head, the black roots coming out an inch before her bleach-blonde hair. I could see the track marks easily enough on the insides of her elbows, but I grabbed on to my courage and reached over to roll down the window.

  “Excuse me?”

  She glanced over at me but quickly looked away and kept walking.

  “Excuse me? I’m looking for someone.”

  “If you’re smart, a pretty girl like you would get the fuck out of here.” She glanced at me once more, a black eye now visible under the washed-out streetlamp.

  I rolled up the window, making sure the doors were locked. There was one second where panic settled deep in me. My throat closed up, and my heart started to make this warlike tempo in my chest, the pain strangulating.

  I closed my eyes, gripped the steering wheel, and tried to breathe through the fear. When I opened my eyes, I was exactly where I had been five seconds ago.

  There was a flash of headlights, and I glanced in my rearview mirror, seeing a shiny dark SUV pull up behind me. That panic grew tenfold. It was probably nothing, or maybe it was something. Didn’t know, but what I did know without a doubt was that if I didn’t figure out what in the hell I was going to do, I’d be dead.

  Chapter 7

  My mind was filled with white noise, this rush of static that consumed me. I stared down at the empty coffee cup, the insulated Styrofoam fragile in my hand. Before I knew what I was doing, I had it crushed in my palm, my fingers digging into the slightly raised exterior.

  “Excuse me?”

  I lifted my head, feeling like there were waves around me, filling my ears, making noise muted, blurred. The lady in front of me had this confused look on her face, or maybe it was fear. She looked at me like I’d grown two heads.

  “Are you going to make my coffee?”

  I swallowed, my hands shaking. Why the hell was I even at work?

  “Take fifteen,” Cambria said, pushing me toward the back.

  I blinked, my vision blurry. I was crying.

  I found myself walking into the room, stopping, standing there, looking around but not taking anything in. I felt lost, so lost my mind was a jumble of images and words, sounds of what happened around me. But just as promptly I turned and left the backroom and right to a table.

  I sat in one of the empty booths, wanting to leave, to get away from all of this, from everything, but I needed the money.

  God, I could have laughed at that fact. I had a shitload of money back at my apartment, but still I was broke, wondering how I would survive.

  I scrubbed my hand over my face, over my hair, wanting to rip the strands out. At least the pain would have given me something else to focus on. The flat screen that hung in the corner showed the news. That’s all that was on, every day, all day.

  I stared at the muted screen, the news anchor saying something, but the volume was so low I couldn’t hear anything. I watched her mouth move, stared at her perfectly placed and made-up face, and wanted to scream. I was frustrated, my mind and body feeling like it was wrapped around itself, like it was this tangled mess inside of me with no hope of becoming right again.

  The screen switched to a neighborhood, one I recognized because I’d just been there the other day. I sat up straighter, staring at the shitty complex where Marshall lived. The apartment building was the focal point, and the people standing around were more interested in the fact that a camera was there than the body that was being wheeled out on a stretcher. I obviously couldn’t see who they were taking away, but I didn’t need to see to know it was Marshall.

  The image of him flashed on the screen. The news anchor was back on, the little square to the upper-right side of her showing the guy I didn’t really know, but who I felt responsible for at this moment.

  He looked lost in the picture, his eyes red-rimmed, his face ashen. His death had to be something vicious, something truly newsworthy if they were taking time to report on it. Hell, his neighborhood probably had a high violence and death rate, so whatever had happened to Marshall had to be pretty bad for them to give it the time of day.

  I’d killed him. He’d told me about Ricky, tried to help me, and because I’d opened my mouth, his death was on my hands. I found myself standing, went over to where the TV was mounted, and craned my neck back. I stared at the picture of him, everything moving in slow motion, the world around me stalling, then promptly speeding up.

  I don’t know what made me look out the window, but before I knew what I was doing, I stared out at the passing world before me. The only thing separating me from it was glass and steel. There, sitting like an idling devil, or maybe the Grim Reaper, was a black SUV. The black SUV I’d seen at Marshall’s place.

  I couldn’t see who sat in the passenger’s or driver’s seat; the windows were too tinted, too dark with violence and death. But I knew they were there for me. I knew they were there to incite fear, promise.

  I had to decide what I was going to do. Now.

  The music filled my head, the crush of bodies, the heat…all of it had this calm settling over me. Maybe I was a fool, an idiot for coming to the club, for not locking myself up, trying to hide, maybe even escaping the city. But all these people made me feel safer. These strangers made me feel like I was already hidden, a dot of color in the middle of a rainbow.

  I didn’t need to see Ricky to know he was in that dark SUV, that he was watching me, waiting for me to do something, anything that would give him an excuse to react. Or maybe he was just taunting me, torturing me with the promise of what my future really held.

  I stood in the center of the room and turned around slowly, taking in the sights and smells that surrounded me. I felt like I could hide in plain sight, like nothing could touch me. There was strength in numbers, right?

  Stupid. None of these assholes would look your way if you needed help.

  I closed my eyes and breathed in and out slowly. Sweat, stale beer, the promise of sex in the air, all of it filled my head, made me dizzy. The music was loud, the vibrations settling into my body, twisting me up, making me sway like I was in the ocean and the current was trying to take me under, to make me its bitch.

  I had no money on me, couldn’t even get a drink to numb my emotions. I could have gone to the trouble of asking some poor asshole here to buy me a drink, ply him with the false promise of sex for a bottle of beer, but even that seemed like too much work. Just being here, the crush of bodies making me move back and forth, was enough to placate me.

  It was enough to make me feel a modicum of safety.

  Up until I step out of these doors and am forced to go back to my shitty apartment.

  “Dance with me.” The voice came through like a whip to my back. I didn’t even turn around, didn’t e
ven look at whoever was offering his company. I just pushed my way through and walked toward the bar.

  There were people milling around, throwing out their drink orders. The three bartenders worked fast, concentration etched on their faces. I glanced up to where several security cameras pointed to the patrons, taking in every little move, every hand being lifted. Who was on the other end? Who watched everyone from the safety of a padded chair and an eagle eye?

  Did I even care?

  “Let me buy you a drink.”

  I glanced to my left, my head feeling like it weighed a ton as I turned it. The guy sitting next to me looked nice, with a light gray button-down shirt, his tie loosened and his hair slicked off to the side. He was clearly a businessman, maybe coming to the club to unwind after a stressful day of mergers.

  I looked down at his hand, saw the gold wedding band, and lifted my gaze back to his face. He didn’t look the least bit ashamed that he was here, trying to pick up some random girl while his wife was probably at home with his kids.

  I didn’t even bother responding. Being here wasn’t helping me, not like I’d hoped. I’d wanted to be surrounded by people, to feel like I was nothing among a sea of everything. Instead I felt suffocated, like my own thoughts, my own needs were taking me further into the recesses of a place I’d never be able to claw myself back up from.

  But going “home” wasn’t an option. I needed fresh air, needed to breathe. I needed to still be close enough to something, to someone instead of surrounded by nothing. I pushed my way past the deadbeat husband, through the heavy crush of bodies gyrating on the dance floor, and finally made it outside.

  I sucked in a deep lungful of air. A few people were smoking to the side, the stench of cigarette smoke cloying, suffocating. I moved past them, turned the corner of the building, and found myself by the side of the building. People were still close enough, and I wasn’t about to find solace and quiet in the alley. I wasn’t that stupid.