Part 7 – Falling Down
*** Warning *** Some bad things happen and some graphic violence occurs. If you do not care to read this, either stop now, or when you see violence occurring or imminent, simply skip down to the next "story break" (* * * * *). Thank you.
Gwen found a pair of white sneakers that she just loved, and she used her credit card to buy them. She was walking through the crowded mall to get to the food court, where she knew she could find the largest bathrooms and change.
She had bought some jeans and a shirt earlier, and she looked forward to changing out of the black dress and heels she had worn to Ronnie's in order to con her. It was time to put all of those things away and just be honest, she had decided. If she was going to turn her life around, she figured she might as well fix things with the people she cared about first.
As she passed the Hot Dog on a Stick, Gwen darted between two people in the fast growing line there, a group from the Sunshine House, a local group home for the mentally challenged. She hadn't gone far before a ruckus behind her made her glance back to see a man in a black leather coat shoving his way through the group. She saw right away that he was watching her more than the people he was pushing past, and she saw his look of anger when she noticed him.
Gwen's heart began to pound and she hurried her step, getting into the presumed safety of the women's bathroom without challenge. She closed the door of a large stall and quickly changed out of her party clothes. She decided to go bra less when she saw how obviously her black lace bra showed through her new shirt.
Packing her own clothes and shoes into her shopping bags, Gwen left the stall and sat on the utilitarian couch and thought through her options. There was no way to exit the bathrooms without being seen, and no way to leave the food court without passing the way she'd come. She was trapped.
* * * * *
Steve's call went directly to Gwen's voice mail and he clicked his phone shut angrily. He sat on her little brown sofa and worried about her. He tried to think of where she would have gone, but he'd only met one of her friends, Ronnie, and he knew nothing about her. He knew he didn't like her, but that didn't really count.
He'd spent nearly a half hour in Gwen's house, worried out of his mind after hearing that Gwen had been taken by Stetsenko's men. He wanted, no, he needed to find out if she was safe, or if they really did have her. It occurred to him that they might have found out about the bugs and were feeding false information, that Gwen might actually be safe, but that was a stretch since they would have had to know how important Gwen was to Steve, and he was only then coming to realize that fact for himself.
He went into her bedroom and looked around, opening her closet and seeing her clothes and her shoes. Nothing fancy, nothing expensive or even that nice, he noticed. He opened the top of her hamper and was immediately struck by her scent. Her running clothes lay in amongst her other things, and the smell strongly reminded him of her, making his heart yearn. He imagined running in Santa Monica with her, down the boardwalk. He could see, in his mind's eye, how excited she'd be to see the sand and the ocean. He smiled, picturing her reaction to the bikini (or less) clad environment, the physical perfection that would surround her, and those who only thought they were perfect. Gwen would go crazy there, he thought, feeling so inadequate, despite her beauty.
He went to her bed table and opened the drawer, smiling at the sight of her dildo and raising his eyebrows as he examined her butt plug. He smiled broadly as he looked at the nearly unused box of condoms, noting the expiration date had passed. According to Gwen, apart from a one-night stand when she'd been almost forcibly taken, she had been celibate since her breakup with her boyfriend a year before. For Steve himself, apart from the incident with Gabby, he hadn't been with anyone since the death of his wife. Closing the drawer, Steve sat down on Gwen's bed and stared at the bedspread hanging over her window.
Stetsenko was on the other side of that cloth he knew, and he felt the tension building in him, felt his anger and frustration grow. He was a highly trained and well educated man, with a strong will and the determination to reach his current level of responsibility before forty. He was a picture of dedication and self control.
Stetsenko had his woman, and Steve was going to tear his arms off.
* * * * *
Gwen put the key to the storage locker in her pocket and paced nervously inside the women's bathroom. She'd put her things in the storage cabinet meant for diaper bags and the like so she wouldn't stand out so much, as well as being less encumbered when she had to run, and Gwen assumed that she would.
Taking a deep breath, Gwen walked briskly out of the bathroom and headed back into the crowds, seeing with her peripheral vision that the man in the black coat rose to follow her. She cut through the crowd, twisting and dodging, and ran up the first escalator she encountered. Turning this way and that, Gwen made her way to one of the least exclusive department stores in the mall, the place where the lower class came to buy nice things. The place Gwen normally shopped at.
Racing past the perfume counter, Gwen raced up another escalator to the very crowded women's department, notable because it was one of the few places that the mall exited directly into a parking structure. She immediately cut over into the lingerie section and moved back, away from the exit, ending up in maternity. Using the memories of her youth, Gwen slipped between the tightly packed clothes on a circular rack, stepped up onto the support bars, and sat down on her heels.
Gwen had hidden like this when she was six, and eight, and once when she was fourteen. She felt as though she was safe in a private fortress of cotton and cotton blends, hidden from the world. Hopefully she was hidden from the man chasing her. Not knowing the time, Gwen wished she'd worn a watch, or at least had her cell phone.
* * * * *
Ronnie was pushed roughly, and she stumbled forward and lost her footing. Her hands were tied behind her, and because her balance was compromised she fell forward and landed heavily on her shoulder. Luckily she had been shoved onto a bare mattress, so she didn't break anything, but the fall still hurt, and she began to cry again.
She knew they were near the lake, and that the building they were in was primarily a warehouse, but the third floor room she was in at the moment had probably been an office once. It was a filthy little room, twelve feet by twelve feet, with one window and one door. Both the window and the glass on the door were frosted, occluded, and the only furniture on the filthy linoleum floor was the old mattress.
Ronnie's whole body hurt from her beating, and she saw livid bruises. The skirt she'd put on before they'd left was short, and she saw the scabbed cut that the monster had made on her thigh. She sobbed at the pain of the slashes on her back and her ass. They weren't bleeding anymore, so they hadn't been deep, but they were razor slashes on her body and they hurt her constantly, body and spirit.
She lay on the mattress, crying. Her hair was a disaster, and the monster's taste in traveling clothes atrocious. She wore a short black skirt and a white tank top, with her crappiest little tennis shoes. He hadn't let her wear underwear. Dirty, bruised, and cut, Ronnie doubted anyone who knew her would be able to identify her body.
She didn't know why they were holding her, but she knew it had to do with Gwen, and probably involved trapping her somehow. Ronnie liked Gwen very much, but as her body continued to hurt and the cuts on her body stung and burned, she reflected on just how much she would be willing to go through for her.
* * * * *
