Luke is standing in front of me and I am on a stinky old mattress, a now piss-stained stinky old mattress in the back of a van. All I can see behind him is grass in every direction. I must be in the middle of some kind of enormous field, and the smell of cow shit is that pungent it is making my eyes water. Luke is stood in front of me and I know I am in deep shit. It registers that we have transitioned from a handsome ex-boyfriend to a drug dealer who wants his money back, and I am terrified. I have no idea what to expect but I have several scenarios playing through my head and none of them are good.
"Good morning to you, Dani, you evasive little cunt." He unties the rag from me, freeing my mouth, which feels swollen and numb. I start to scream and he stands laughing at me. "Go ahead, scream all you want, no one is going to find you here." He cuts through the tape on my legs but leaves my arms bound behind my back. "Please cut my arms loose, I think you've dislocated my shoulders."
"Ever the drama queen, Dani. Well, luckily for you," he whispers in my ear, "You're gonna be the star in your own little drama."
I start crying, huge racking sobs that leave me almost breathless. I wonder if I am about to die at the age of twenty-three at the hands of a drug dealer.
He pulls me out of the van and I stumble as my sleepy legs try to keep up with Luke’s fast pace. He yanks my arms as he half drags, half marches me toward a large rusty metal container. I scan the area quickly, looking around as much as possible, but no matter which way I look, all I can see for miles in every direction is grass and trees. I strain my ears to listen for sounds of animals, which would at least indicate that, at some point, a farmer might come this way, but I was met with a wall of silence. There was no sound of traffic either which sent my already rapid heart rate escalating even further.
“Mick, open this door while I hold her. Not that she can go very far.” He emphasizes with a smirk.
I turn towards Mick who is really Warren, or the other way around, I’m not quite sure. “You bastard. You fucking bastard, it was all a set-up!”
As Mick opens the door, a wall of stale air hits me in the face and a shaft of light penetrates the dust orbs that dance around in front of my eyes. I stand frozen as I absorb the sight before me.
A mattress and blankets lie on the floor next to a small table. There are several bottles of water in one corner and a large cooler bag, a torch, some books piled unevenly against the mattress, and a large bowl with a washcloth draped over the side. At the back of the unit which seems to be approximately ten-foot-by-eight-foot, there is a bucket, and my stomach sinks as I realize that I will have to go to the toilet in the same room I am sleeping in, and also smell the remains afterwards. I started sobbing and try to beg and talk through the garbled rant. I am desperate for a hot shower and the freedom to brush my teeth and comb my hair. The luxury of choosing what to eat for breakfast and sit watching television or tapping away on my laptop feels like a distant memory.
“Say hello to your new home for the next few days, weeks, months or years depending on how compliant your mother is,” Luke says while looking me in the eye.
“My mother?” I ask, confused.
“Yep. When she pays the money you owe me, you’ll be free to go.”
“But she’s on holiday and I have no idea when she’ll be back. She barely even replies to my text messages. Can we not do this some other way? Please, Luke.” I hate myself but I break down sobbing again and I plead like a child. I can’t believe that my life has come to this and so quickly.
“Well, that’s hard luck for you because until she does reply and pay up, this is where you’ll stay and, like I said, you can scream yourself hoarse if you like but no one is coming for you. This field is owned by a friend of mine for the very purpose of extracting information and money from people and you have no idea where you are, so even if you had a phone, which you don’t, you wouldn’t be able to send for help.”
Luke throws me down on the mattress after untying my hands and then walks over to the cool box. “There’s sandwiches, crisps and fruit in here. There’s a bucket over there for you to shit in and there’s water and books for you to read. I’ll be back tomorrow, which will give enough time for you to think overnight about the best way for you to get money. I suggest you have a plan for when I return and it had better be a fucking good one. I don’t want a thousand here and there. I want the full amount and I want it soon. Oh, and my name had better not get dragged into this or you’ll be ending up in a box permanently!”
With that, Luke turned and walked out of the container, slamming the door behind him and shutting out the little light that there had been. I curl up on the mattress and close my eyes as I shake with fear about what the next few days or weeks could hold in store for me. Tears roll out of my eyes until I have nothing left, nothing but swollen sockets, exhaustion and a brain that is firing off all over the place.
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