NOVEL NEXT Chapter 5: Chapter 5
I heard sounds, but they were muffled and indistinct. My eyes slowly opened, but my surroundings were hazy. I was gaining consciousness, but my head hurt. Memories of Wu flooded back, and I wondered what had happened to him. I tried to make sense of my situation.
Cold water hit my body, and I instantly woke up. I found myself on the floor in a dark room, lit only by a dim light on the ceiling. A man and a woman were talking at one side of the room, while one of the men who took me held a bucket. I tried to process what was happening.
The man who had been talking to the woman walked over to me. "You're awake," he said. The woman followed him, studying me with her eyes. I wrapped my arms around my body, shivering in the cold room.
"Do you know where your mother is?" He asked.
I was taken aback by his question as I had not seen my birth mother in two years and I no longer lived with her. I wondered why he thought I was the best person to ask that question.
"Your men told me she owes you", I gestured to the man with the bucket, he had a snake tattoo on his arm, it was partly covered with his shirt sleeves but it was visible nonetheless. "Did she exchange me for her debt? What do you plan to do to me?" I was shivering and tried my best not to look scared but I was extremely terrified of what they had planned for me.
My parents had sold me multiple times while I was living under their care, but usually to drug addicts, bars, small restaurants, and even a brothel once in order to pay their debt. The most I ever did in those places was wash dishes, clean the place up or roll joints and sell them, or steal. I'd been around guns before, I once tried stealing from the junkie I was sold to and he shot me in the arm. I wasn't taken to the hospital, a nice lady on the streets patched me up. Whenever those people were done with me or I started proving useless and just an extra mouth to feed, they kicked me out. That was how it had always been, and like a fool, I would go back to my parent's place every single time.
"Your mother worked for me a few months ago, she was a good for nothing junkie but she did know how to have a good time." He started.
So, he was a drug dealer. And from the looks of it, a big-time drug dealer, not like the dealers my mom had associated with in the past. I swallowed saliva.
" A few weeks ago, she suddenly disappeared, taking 50 pounds of my coke with her. So do you know where your mother is, young lady?"
I hesitated, unsure of what to say. " No, I do don't", I actually had an idea where my mother might be. She had a secret hideout, a place she called her "woman cave." But I had never been allowed to know the exact location.
The one time I was taken to her secret town, I was blindfolded the entire way there and I was never allowed to leave a particular room. It was a wide room with no windows, just air vents and lots of artificial lighting.
"What do you plan to do to me?", I asked again and the man who looked like he was the boss, he kind of looked like a Jimbo with his big belly, requested that we be left alone. Snake tattoo guy and the woman quietly left the room but before the door was shut, I saw what looked like a fireplace just outside the room. The door was shut and I turned to find Jimbo walking away from me to a table in the middle of the room. The room was dark but lit enough to see and I did not like what I was seeing. They looked like torture tools used in the nineties, not only did they look extremely old, they also looked unsanitary. I was not tied up anywhere and I was not injured but I dreaded trying to run out of the room.
I did not know where I was so even if I did successfully run out of the room, I had no idea how many people were in the other room or in this house, I did not know if it was a small house or a massive mansion, I did not even know if we were still in the city or in the middle of a forest.
Jimbo turned back to me, holding a scalpel. Now what was a medical instrument doing in the hands of a drug dealer, I did not dare to stand up from my crouching position, lest he decided to stab me in the stomach. I sat up on the floor and tried to put on the bravest face I knew. Jumbo crouched down till our eyes were met at the same level.
"Where is your mother?" His voice cold and detached. My instinct told me that if I lied, I would definitely be stabbed with that scalpel. I decided that I was going to tell him whatever I knew about the hideout my mom used to go to, and everything else I knew. That was what I had decided but my dumb ass mouth ignored my brain's functioning.
"I don't know", I breathed, my voice already shivering. For someone that was scared of being stabbed, my lying ass didn't really help much. I just hoped Jimbo didn't know I was lying, alas, immediately I breathed my lie, I felt a sharp pang on pain in my palms. Jimbo had stabbed me. I cried out, jolted up and tried to run away from the room but he held me back by my ponytail and threw me against the wall, I hit the wall and fell which allowed my hand to hit the floor and pushed the scalpel deeper into my flesh. I cried loudly and held my injured hand to my chest.
"Shut up." Jimbo whispered but I didn't stop, the pain messed with my sense of reasoning. Jimbo kicked me in the stomach and I hit my back against the wall again, I coughed and gasped for air.
"Please", I said amidst tears, "Please, spare me", I coughed again.
Jimbo crouched down beside me, I saw his face, he did not have a single emotion on. I understood that he'd done this many times with the way he didn't even flinch to hit a girl.
"Where is your mother?"