Fourteen
The first thing Zoe felt upon awakening was a pounding headache, followed quickly by extreme nausea. She was lying on her back and the bag was still over her head. She was sure she was going to be sick, so she rolled on her side and pulled off the hood, emptying the little in her stomach onto the floor. She noticed with disinterest, between heaves, that the floor was bare concrete, and there wasn't much light in the room. She hung there after finishing vomiting to get a feel for her surroundings. From what she could see from this vantage point, between her strands of falling hair, she was on a camp bunk, against a wall, in what appeared to be an unremarkable, two-car, suburban garage. She lifted up slowly until she was propped on her left elbow on the bunk. A huge man was seated beside the door into the house, staring at her but making no move toward her.
She wasn't feeling very threatened, given the averageness of her surroundings, so she tried sitting up, but got dizzy and rested back on her elbow again.
The double garage door was closed, and the little bit of light in the room was coming from a spotlight above and outside that door. No cars were in the garage, but there was a tool bench and some shelves filled with boxes. She did a double-take on the workbench. The tools weren't your regular car-care/household tools. There were things that looked like machetes, and knives of every length. There were tools that reminded her of the things she'd seen in museum displays of old-time barber-surgeon implements, and some torture devices she was sure she had seen when she toured the Tower of London. So much for average and non-threatening.
Suddenly a voice boomed from the other side of the door beside the man. He sat up straighter and looked off in the distance with a blank face. The door opened and a tall, slim, muscular man of about fifty looked through. The light from inside hit Zoe in the eyes, forcing her to shield them with her right hand. The man laughed, an unpleasant sound, and flipped a switch beside him. The offending light went out, but other lights still illuminated enough that she could see the man was smiling.
"Our guest is awake," he said, sounding excited, "but that smell is awful! Hasad! Clean that up!" he said, waving the man beside the door toward her puddle of vomit. The man immediately hurried forward, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket. He bent in front of her, slowing just enough to leer in her face for a split second, before scooping up the vomit and backing away.
"Come, my dear. There's no reason we should have our meeting in the garage! Come inside. Can I get you anything? A drink perhaps, or a toothbrush maybe," the slim man enthused at her, waving her toward himself.
Zoe stood cautiously as the man waited expectantly. She weighed her chances of rushing him and then heading for a door, but as she took a tentative step, realized she'd be lucky to make it into the house if she tried to move faster than a walk. She took a few steps, then hesitated, not knowing what to expect.
"Well, come on, Zoe! I'm not a patient man. I've waited a long time for this meeting," he said, "Oh, you must think I'm rude, I haven't introduced myself! You can call me Z. I only let my friends call me Z. Do your friends ever call you Z? I'm sure we'll be great friends."
She continued to walk slowly toward the doorway. He seemed to get disgusted waiting for her, and with a "Hmph," turned and headed inside ahead of her. She followed, closing the door as she entered a typical development dining/kitchen/family room. She turned the direction Z had turned, and saw him through a door that stood in the middle of the family room. The door shouldn't be there, and the room beyond it absolutely shouldn't be where it was. She glanced out the French doors off the dining area, only to see two huge men with big guns flanking the doors. Another large man stepped through that doorway that shouldn't be, into the family room, and started toward her. She took a couple of steps away from him, only to have this new guy take her arm in his massive paw and pull her through the door that shouldn't be.
This room was not typical. Z had walked to the head of a table and seated himself in a chair that looked more like a throne. He waved to the seat next to him, and Zoe's escort deposited her, none-too-gently, into it. The table was covered with more food than a regiment could eat, and there were more than a dozen men seated at the table, eating or pawing the scantily clad young women and men who wandered about the room.
Other couples, and in some case three or four people, were strewn across sofas and cushions around the perimeter of the room in various states of undress. Zoe's eyes were riveted to a group engaged in chain sex. A man stood being sucked by a woman on all fours who was being pounded from behind by another man who was likewise being had from behind.
Zoe had some limited sexual experience, and had seen some things in alleys she wished she hadn't seen, but this was by far the most blatant act she had ever seen, and involving more people than she had ever imagined. When the man receiving the blow-job finished, a new woman tucked her bum up to the face of the woman in the chain and was immediately accepted into the chain.
"Ah, you are interested in our playroom," Z said with glee. "You may join as soon as you give me what I want."
Zoe snapped her head around. "NO!" She nearly shrieked, "I mean, no, thank you. I was just...just...surprised."
"As I was saying," Z ignored Zoe's distress, "I'm so glad we are finally getting to meet. I've known about you for weeks, yet no one seemed able to find you. Stupid employees, never thought to look you up in the white pages. It's so hard to get good help. Anyway, we finally located you and that sweet neighbor of yours helped us get you away from that tiresome bodyguard. Of course, she didn't know she was helping us, but that doesn't matter," Z went on, "Now we can discuss the plans I have for you."
Zoe just stared at him.
"You don't say much, but that's all right, since I'm sure what you do say will prove very valuable to us. You see, I know you are a powerful oracle, and I plan to make you a deal you can't refuse, mostly because if you do refuse it, I have ways to make you work for me that are far less pleasant," he sneered at her, fangs glinting in the candle light.
Zoe had forgotten about praying since coming home. She prayed now for God to reveal himself, and preferably twenty or thirty of Grey's best men as well. In the meantime, she felt saying little was her safest bet, so she simply smiled demurely at Z, hoping his ADHD would send him off on some other tangent. She also tried to read him, but just as she suspected, he was too strong for her.
"There you go! Trying to read me is probably not the best use of your gift, but it is confirmation of your power. I actually felt pressure, not the tickle other supposed oracles caused when they tried to read me. You have real potential!" Z turned abruptly and said something in a tongue Zoe didn't understand to one of the men walking by. "We shall try a better test of your powers."
He picked up a goblet and drank deeply before grabbing a passing young woman and pulling her into his lap, groping her and biting her ear in a way that looked quite painful, though the glassy-eyed girl laughed and stroked his arm as if she was enjoying herself.
Z looked up and said to Zoe, "If you like one, any one, feel free. They are here for your pleasure," then he went back to groping and biting the woman in his lap. He paused when he heard a door close, and shoved her out of his lap without ceremony to jump up and stand beside Zoe. A man was being dragged across the room toward them. His head hung down, filthy hair hanging over his face. He was shackled wrist and ankle, and didn't seem to have the strength to fight the two large men half carrying him.
Z was practically hopping up and down in his excitement. Zoe cringed away from him, wondering what she would do if the man was someone she recognized. He was dropped directly in front of Z, who spun Zoe's chair around to face the prostrate man. "Lift his face," Z demanded.
Zoe held her breath as one of the guards grabbed a handful of dark hair and yanked the man's head back. She let the air escape in a small sigh as she realized she had never seen him before. Still, he caused her heart to ache in sympathy. He had cuts and bruises all over his face that had not been treated, and he looked like he had been wallowing in his own filth for several days. One cut on his cheek was black in the center and oozed puss down his neck.
"This is a traitor," Z said, "I need for you to read him, to tell me what his plans were."
Zoe didn't know what to do. She looked at the man and felt only pity for him. She let the visions come, but all she saw were more beatings, and eventually his death. What could she tell Z?
"I can only see what is likely to happen. He is here, so all I see are more beatings. I can't look into the past, nor read intentions," she said in a small, quiet voice.
