Free Donna Joy Usher - Chanel 02 - Goons 'n' Roses by Donna Joy Usher Page A

second. There were thin mattresses lining the walls of the room. Some showed signs of staining from what I had to surmise were body fluids.
    The Third Man shoved me onto a mattress and ran a hand slowly up my calf. I kicked out at him, squealing in protest. He pushed me back against the dirty mattress and leaned down over me. My hands pressed uselessly into my back as his found the waist band of my pants. I shoved a knee upwards at his groin and he said something, which, I was guessing by the inflection, was a swear word.
    The Shark appeared in the doorway to my room and said something which made the man desist in his attempts to grope me. Instead, he tied a cable tie around my feet and closed the door. I wiggled up against the connecting wall to Martine’s room.
    A few moments later it went totally dark.
    I tried to remain calm. But I was having trouble breathing, with my nose partially clogged from my crying.
    And then there was the dark.
    I shut my eyes and tried to pretend the light was still on but I knew it wasn’t. And then the noises started. I shook my head and tried to ignore them. They seared through my ears and into my brain, dredging up memories I had tried to suppress…
    A shoe scraping over rock. My heart beating like the blades of a helicopter. A corpse, still warm. Panic, scrabbling and clawing inside me. I clutch my gun with dread, knowing deep inside that I’m no match. No match for him at all.
    Tears poured down my face and my body shook as I sobbed convulsively. I fought against my bindings, hysterical, terrified. My breath came in snorts as I writhed and squirmed. I threw myself on my front and tried to rise to my feet, but I ended up on my knees with my forehead pressed against the ground.
    I lay like that for a while, too exhausted to struggle any more, and I wept.
     
    ***
     
    I was still crying when the lights came back on. I blinked rapidly, trying to adjust my eyes to the light, snorting in fright as my door was flung open. Martine stood there, staring down at me.
    ‘Stupid Rusky put my cable ties on back to front.’ She strode over to me and picked at the corner of the tape on my face. ‘There’s no pretty way to do this,’ she said, ‘so I’m going to count to three. You ready?’
    I nodded my head at her, frantic to get the gag removed.
    ‘One, two…’
    I squealed as she ripped off the tape; but the air I sucked through my mouth and into my lungs more than made up for the stinging on my face.
    ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘maybe we can do that to your arm.’
    ‘Don’t even think about it.’
    She looked a little harder at my face and then said, ‘You all right?’
    I must have looked a sight.
    ‘I had a moment,’ I said, wiping my nose on the back of my arm. ‘How do you know they’re Russian?’
    ‘Martyn took Russian language classes for a few months. Honestly, that man is such a nerd.’
    ‘So could you understand what they were saying?’ I held my bound hands up towards her.
    ‘The tall one with the freaky-deaky teeth is called Boris. The one with the Shotgun is Vladimir and the other one is Dmitrij.’
    ‘What else?’
    ‘I said he was a nerd, not a genius.’ She turned away from me and pulled the front of her skirt up while she moved her hips from side-to-side. ‘Ahh, here it is.’
    She turned back to me with her pen knife in her hand.
    ‘You’re kidding?’ I said, as she bent to cut my ties.
    ‘I figured no one would frisk me that thoroughly.’
    I flexed my wrists and my ankles and then clambered to my feet. ‘You still got those other cable ties?’
    ‘Sure.’
    ‘Can I have them? I think I need to increase my arsenal.’
    I heard her laughing as she disappeared. She came back with a couple of cable ties and handed them to me.
    ‘I want to see what’s in these other rooms.’ I was hoping we would find either another exit or something we could use as a weapon.
    We moved quickly down the corridor checking the other rooms. They were all identically kitted