"Rolling," came the reply.
The first person to speak stepped closer to her. "So you're Torah's bitch and you're carrying Torah's bastard." He turned toward the man just behind him. "Let's show him what we do with his bastard." Jessa realized the other man was holding her cell phone, apparently taking pictures or video. The first man turned and stepped closer to her, then looked back at the one with the phone. 'Getting this?"
"Good and clear," he nodded. Jessa was wondering if she could sweep the man's legs out from under him, but before she could do more than contemplate that action he delivered a hard kick to her belly and she choked on her scream, curling up to protect against other blows, sobbing.
The assailant turned back to the phone. "Your bastard will die and your bitch is now mine. Soon you'll be dead, too. But before then, I want you to think about me fucking her, every day, long after you're gone." He made a throat cutting gesture. "That's it. Leave it over there by the lantern. Grab her and let's get out of here."
Jessa was hauled to her feet by two men who had been behind her. They all but carried her to stairs and then up to the main floor of a building. She was drug outside and loaded into a gas vehicle with darkened windows, then dumped unceremoniously on the floor in the back of the vehicle. Two more men climbed into the car. She saw others headed elsewhere before the door was shut. She tried to sit up, but a foot was planted in her chest and she was shoved back down. From the floor, it was hard to see much, but what she could see indicated that they were in an abandoned city. She rolled on her side. Her belly was cramping now, on top of the constant ache from the kick.
It seemed like they drove for an hour before they finally slowed and parked underground. Jessa was drug from the car again, though this time she had slightly more luck getting her feet under her and working. Jessa noticed what appeared to be a gas-powered generator in one of the parking slots. Despite the fact that they were already underground, once they were inside the building proper, they took stairs down, even deeper into the bowels of the structure. Lights had been strung, presumably powered by the generator, and they entered a large room with computers and other equipment.
Jessa was taken to a small room off of the large one and dumped on a mattress on the floor in one corner of the room. Then she was left alone. Across the room, there was a desk with a laptop on it and several chairs. She struggled to her feet and moved to the desk. The laptop was password protected, so she didn't waste time on it, but moved to the drawers. In one, she found a small pen knife. She took it and scurried back to the mattress. Draping a blanket off the edge of the mattress, she selected the longest blade on the knife, spit on it, then honed the blade against the concrete floor, underneath the blanket.
When the man who had kicked her came into the room, she slid the knife under the mattress and donned her most fearful look, cringing back on the mattress. He looked at her appraisingly, but then sighed and did something on his computer. When he started to leave, he looked over at her with a wicked grin and said, "I'll be back in a little while, bitch."
When Jessa had gotten the cheap knife blade as sharp as she could, she hid it under the mattress again and moved to the door, peering out through the thin crack that had been left. There appeared to be a celebration going on; she could see bottles of hard alcohol. Some of the men in the outer room appeared quite drunk. There were microwave containers strewn about, presumably part of their celebration feast. One reasonably sober man was sitting at a computer, watching the monitor closely. Even as Jessa watched, he called out, "He's on line. He's getting it now." Who, she wondered. Torah?
"Where?" her kicker demanded.
"Tracking now. Damn it! He's off again."
"What! Was he on long enough to see the video?"
"Just barely. It looks like he was using a tower near Paris."
"Okay, that means he could be here by morning. Everybody sober up. We're going to have a job to do." When the kicker turned and started toward the room she was in, Jessa raced for the mattress and pretended to be asleep. She heard him enter and cross to the mattress; felt him staring down at her. Then she heard the rustle of clothing. It was all she could do to keep her breathing even. Then he was suddenly on top of her, ripping her gown down from the already torn shoulder. He reeked of booze. She put up a half-hearted fight against him. When he slammed his cock into her dry pussy, she didn't have to fake the cry of pain or her tears, both of which he seemed to inordinately enjoy. Fortunately, it seemed to excite him into coming quickly, and he mercifully rolled off her a few minutes later.
Jessa waited and waited even longer, until his breathing was deep and even. She slowly reached for and freed the pen knife from under the mattress, then even more slowly sat up and rose to her knees. She took three deep breaths, locating her target, then looked one last time at the face of the man who had brutalized her and probably ended the chance of life for her twins. Even as his eyes opened and widened at the knife held high in her hand, she plunged it down into his thigh then pulled toward her, trapping the femoral artery against the femur and slicing it clean through as she yanked the knife free.
She jumped up, ignoring the pounding in her head, gathered the man's clothes and backed away. He simply stared at her, his eyes getting wider as he bled out. He opened his mouth to try to say something, but his heart was already struggling against the diminishing blood flow. Whatever he tried to say was lost forever. Jessa donned his clothes and peeked out the door. The only one in sight was the man monitoring the computer. She examined him critically. He was smallish, but under the loose clothing, it was hard to tell how wiry he might be. So far, she wasn't impressed with any of these men who had captured her, with the possible exception of their shooting ability. She had almost broken free of the man at the van, then nearly decked him in the van. The kicker had been careless as well as drunk. None of them could hold a candle to Torah or Erich, not just in strength, but in situational awareness, manipulation, you name it. She looked again at the exit, and the man staring at his computer. There was no way he wouldn't see and raise the alarm.
She slunk out of the room and toward the man, whose back was to her. The deciding factor was that he had small feet, his running shoes might just fit her perfectly. She was barefoot, he never heard her approach. She looped her right arm about his throat, reinforced it with her left and pressed with everything she had, ignoring the throbbing in her head and the cramping ache in her belly. He responded like most people would, betraying a lack of training, as he clutched at her arm, trying to pull it away from his throat. Jessa had locked her arms, using his back as leverage. He had no hope of breaking her grip that way, and by the time he realized that, he was too weak to throw her off her feet or present any realistic threat to her eyes or other vulnerable points. She held her grip until he was down on the floor, then she stole his shoes.
She ran west. She had no idea who had the key to the car, or if she could even figure out how to drive a gas powered car, so she put her trust in her feet and wove through the long deserted streets of the city. From signs, and her smattering of German, she determined that she was in Cologne. She also knew, after two or three miles, that her head and her belly would not let her go any farther. She found a building with several stories, possibly an apartment complex, and climbed to the top floor. She knew rats couldn't climb, and she dearly hoped that any other flea-infested critters wouldn't be so inclined. It was very eerie to see half-decomposed furniture in the room she found, the natural fibers long since reduced to dust, but nylons and polyesters and who knew what else, looking like they simply needed a good cleaning. She found one of those synthetic blankets in a closet and settled on the floor to sleep.
The next morning, she was up again. The cramping was worse, and she was starting to bleed. She knew, without a doubt that she had lost one, if not both of the babies. She longed for her phone, to call Gemma, perhaps the only friend she had in this new world, but her phone had been left behind, and Gemma must be, too. It was only a slight relief that her head felt somewhat better. The challenge now was to evade the men she was sure would be searching for her. She took the pen knife and cut away all all but a short fringe of her hair. She fashioned a pack out of the blanket and searched the apartment for anything usable. A couple of blocks later, and she found herself at the shores of the Rhine, between two bridges that had been destroyed, probably by the floods.
Jessa stripped and loaded her clothes into the makeshift pack, then swam across the river on her back, holding her pack aloft. On the other side, she dressed again and tried to strategize. She needed food and water. The Rhine still stank of pollution from chemical plants and nuclear meltdowns and who knew what else. By the same token, there wouldn't be any inhabited towns so near to abandoned cities, not that she had any credit to make purchases, anyway. Her only option was to steal. That meant the frequented byways and that meant Highway A1. She pulled the backpack on and walked, too dehydrated and hungry to run.
