Chapter 56
-MILLIE-
I couldn’t feel my toes or my fingers. Every muscle in my body felt like it had been coated with cement, frozen. I couldn’t move a muscle. Everywhere felt heavy, even my eyelids. I’ve been awake for a while, trying to make out my surroundings. I’ve been taken, that much I could remember. Natalie and a bearded guy with a heart tattoo on his neck.
As I tried to recall more before I lost consciousness, the pounding in my head got louder. There was a beeping sound across the room and a gentle hissing. My best guess was a heart rate monitor, but it wasn’t mine. My heartbeat had been overspeeding since my consciousness returned. Then, I heard voices m uffled by the walls before everything went dark again.
The next time I woke up, there were people speaking inside the room. I stayed still, listening. Their voices were garbled, echoing like someone speaking in a canyon. It took me a moment to recognize one of the voices. Natalie. She was arguing with a guy
“This isn’t what we agreed on the agitation in her tone was thick. “If this goes sideways, I would f ucking go to jail!” She hissed “Everything I worked for will go to waste.
“Worrying will get you nowhere, sweetheart, the man replied. His voice was rough like sand, and I could imagine a smile on his face as he spoke. If I could only trust my senses. I would say he was mocking her. “I know a good way to help you relax.”
Natalie groaned, cussing. “I’m not in the mood, Aides!”
Aides chuckled. I like it better when you’re not in the mood.”
“F uck you,” Natalie huffed. The sound of boots stomping against the cemented floor resounded, followed by a metal door slamming shut,
Their footsteps echoed until it was gone. I took the silence to do a body check. First, my fingers. I turned my hand. smoothing gently on where I was lying. It was soft and silky. I was in bed. Then, my feet. I wiggled my toes. Something kept them from moving. Shoes. I recalled I was wearing shoes when they took me. Apart from that, nothing more. They must’ve drugged me.
Squeezing my eyes, I forced my eyelids to part, the bright overhead lights slightly blinding me. I counted to ten, pulling myself together. Running my tongue over my mouth was a struggle. Swallowing down was even worse. My throat was parched, drier than a desert. Whatever they’ve given me was enough to keep me immobile. Cuffs restrained my hands on the bed’s metal frame. I’m still in my clothes from my meeting with Felicity.
I followed the source of the beeping sound. Sonja lay on a hospital bed, wires leading to a heart rate monitor attached to her body. The steady beeping sound bounced on the four walls of the room. If I hadn’t memorized how she looked, it would. have been impossible to recognize her from the bruises covering her face. An oxygen hose was shoved down her mouth, and an IV was inserted on her left hand.
We were in a dungeon-like room. Bricked walls with no windows and nothing could help me tell where we were or the time. The alcohol mingled with the smell of wet boxes and newspaper And a metal door was across the bed where I was lying
down.
Looking up, there were three overhead lights, and a camera attached to the corners of the ceiling.
Someone was watching over this room. A few minutes later, Natalie strutted through the door, looking better than when she was at Felicity’s restaurant.
She still looked unhealthy, but she didn’t look like someone struggling financially. Her brown hair was tied in a high ponytail, the curls falling over her shoulder as she sashayed to where I was.
“Millie,” she smiled, gazing at me with uncertainty. Or fear, I couldn’t tell. “How are you feeling?” She stood before me, her rose perfume making my head spin.
The numbness in my body was going away slowly, but I opened my mouth to speak and then choked on air.
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09:30 Sat, Feb 10
Chapter 56
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Natalie frowned. She walked closer and reached behind the bed. It reclined until I was in a sitting position. My head spun as the bed reclined. I had to shut my eyes and calm my head from spinning round and round. Natalie filled a glass with water on the bedside table and dropped a straw on it. She offered it to me, and I sipped it slowly.
“Better?” Natalie asked, setting the glass back on the bedside table. If we were still on friendly terms, I would’ve thanked her.
“What… what’s going on, Natalie?” My expression soured. I’d rather she doesn’t show me her fake concern. As the numbness. faded, my anger returned as I recalled everything that had happened between us,
Contemplating. Natalie stared at me before she sighed and stepped away from me. Her gaze fell towards Sonja and slid back to mine.
“This isn’t part of the plan,” she murmured, as if that would enlighten me.
“Plan?” I looked at Sonja, wondering how the three of us ended up inside this room. These are the women whom I didn’t want to associate with, but our lives were intertwined already, whether I liked it or not. “Did you do that to her?”
Natalie clenched her fist, and the pulse in her throat quickened. “No.”
I already know I won’t trust anything she says, but for the lack of ability to do anything. I indulge myself in making conversation with her. “But you know who did that to her?”
When she only stared at me, I huffed and asked her. “Why am there? Am I gonna end up like Sonja?”
“Nothing will happen to you if you do as you’re told,” she said.
It took my poor brain a minute to process her words and figure out what the f uck am I supposed to do for them. “What am I supposed to do, then?”
“You will know in time,” she murmured.
I made a face, narrowing my eyes at Natalie. “Just cut through the bu lsh it, Natalie. I’m not stu pid. Why the f uck am I here?”
Her friendly facade quickly vanished, her eyes turning sharp. “No, you’re not stu pid, and that will get you killed. A word of advice: shut your mouth if you want to get out of here alive.”
I have no idea what will happen to me, but I want to understand why my friend would end up like this. Natalie had always been ambitious. She dreamed of becoming a big social media star and making it to Hollywood if the opportunit
“What happened to you, Natalie?” I asked, genuinely curious as to what led her to this situation.
There was no doubt she was working with dangerous people. She couldn’t do this without help. The question why.
Natalie nibbled her lower lip. Her gaze could melt steel. “You happened.”
My mouth hung open. “Me?”
“If you hadn’t barged into Hunter’s apartment that day, things wouldn’t have turned out this way.”
me.
Frowning, I tried my hardest to see things from her point of view. “So it was my fault I found my ex f ucking you?” I sneere
“He hated me!” she screamed, her hand trembling. My gaze dropped to the left hand. She was still wearing that st upid wedding ring. “Hunter didn’t want to be with me after you ended things with him.”
“How… How is that my
fault? That was Hunter’s choice and not mine.”
Natalie shook her head. “You know nothing. I hated being the other woman, but I had to do it. I needed Hunter, and whent he didn’t want to be with me anymore, I had to improvise.”
“What are you talking about, Natalie?” There seemed to be another story going on here. She needed Hunter? What for?
09:30 Sat, Feb 10 N.
Chapter 56
Money? Influence? And if she hated being the other woman, why did she stay with him? Why was the still wearing my f u cking ring
The color on her face drained. Like a flip of a switch, she detached herself from our conversation and shut me out. “For old Imme’s sake, if you want to live, you’d do as you are told. Millie,” she said and walked our of the room, leaving me as confused
avever
Natalie came back a while later with a silver tray. In it was a bowl of porridge. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she offered me a spoonful and sand “Fat up”
The numbness was no more, but I didn’t move a muscle. My stomach growled. I don’t know when was the last time I ate, bur I fear the food might be drugged or poisoned.
Natalie sighed, lifting the sp ook to her mouth instead, staring at me as she swallowed. “It isn’t poisoned. If we wanted you dead, we wouldn’t be giving you food.”
Hesitantly. I opened my mouth and accepted the food. My muscles were already trembling from hunger. “You know they’d be looking for me. Natalie
She rolled her eyes. “You think we don’t know that?”
“Then you know you’re not getting out of this unscathed.”
“If they find you, she met my eyes, and for the first time, I could see the hesitation and fear in them. She had doubts about their plan. I need to hold on to that and buy time, find out more.
I changed tactics and looked at Sonja. “What happened to her?”
“She should’ve been dead by now, but she’s a persistent one.”
“You you were gonna kill Sonja?” I gasped, horrified.
Natalie narrowed her eyes at me, as though I grazed her ego. “I’m no killer, Millicent. Her death was supposed to look like an accident, but she had to call 911. Stu pid b itch. Now we have to keep her alive so we can dispose of her body outside Roslin City”
I tried to push away the fear of this discovery. My lips trembled. “What about me. Natalie? Are you gonna dispose of t body too? Once you have no use for me?” I couldn’t stop the fear from choking me down.
You know what they say when you’re facing death Your life flashes in front of you. The mistakes you’d made, the unsas words to the people you love. It’s happening to me right now,
Natalie smirked and removed the distance between us. I bit down on my lower lip as she set the bowl on the bedside table
“Are you scared, Millicent?” she asked, pushing the hair out of my face, amusement danced in her eyes as she soaked up on my fear. She leaned forward and whispered in my ears. “Plans changed They’re going to kill you
I gasped, freezing when she pressed a blade against my throat. “Don’t f ucking move”
In my peripheral, I saw her lift a syringe from my neck, and she emptied its contents into my system.
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