The Takers, стр. 36
They had been kidnapped.
One of them had been beaten.
She had heard the men who had taken her, referring to her as a ‘high grade’, with one of the boys gloating that she would be passed around more times than a bong at a Reggae party. She had cried, realising that Tyrone, the boy she’d grown fond of at school and who had garnered her attention with his ‘bad boy’ attitude, had tricked her to going to that party in Shepherd’s Bush.
She was fresh.
A virgin.
Tyrone’s boss, a terrifying man called Leon, had congratulated him on bringing her in, telling him that he could join the main crew soon as long as he went through initiation.
A chloroform laden rag was soon pressed to her face and she never got to hear what that process would be.
But now, as the outside world roared around them, the four girls sat silently in the metal room, all of them lost.
All of them helpless.
Jasmine thought about her dad, how he had tried so hard to connect with her when her mother had died. How he had been overbearing, always calling, and always checking in. It had driven her mad at the time, but now she felt a lump forming in her throat as she longed for her father’s embrace.
He would keep her safe.
He had always tried to.
She recalled heading for the door, rudely telling him that she was going to the party whether he liked it or not. She could see the hurt in his face, the futile attempts to act as both of her parents.
She sobbed.
Her tear ducts dry, she felt the salty sting of an absent tear as she pulled her knees towards her, cowering in the dark of a foreign room in an unknown place, with a lifetime of sexual abuse ahead of her.
She closed her eyes, wishing that somewhere, someone was looking for them.
Jasmine took a deep breath, fully aware that despite her private pleas of rescue, her situation was nigh on hopeless.
‘Wake up.’
The gruff voice filtered through Leon Barnett’s wooziness, and he slowly began to regain consciousness. As the light burrowed into his eyes, he squinted, his surroundings blurred like a camera out of focus. His head hurt, a throbbing pain roaring like a siren. Fragments of his memory began to whirl around his mind, the blow to his head making it harder to piece them together. Very slowly, clarity began to ease its way into his line of sight, the edges of the furniture becoming clearer.
He was in a kitchen.
It was one he had never seen before and one he ventured hadn’t been used properly for a long time. The tiles were plagued with grime, the whiteness faded and smeared with a brown sheen. The sink was a bowel of rust, somehow still attached to pipes that were on the verge of collapse.
The sharp pain in his head caused him to grit his teeth and he reached his hand to his head. Or at least tried…
Leon looked down and found his arms strapped to the metal chair, his naked body locked in place. A muscular man with a body covered in tattoos, he was used to being in full control of every situation; his very presence a cause of great fear throughout not just his estate, but most of London.
Here he was trapped, naked, and vulnerable.
Behind him he heard the sound of water being poured into a jug, accompanied by a satisfying fizzing noise. He tried desperately to turn his head, to find the source of the voice that had woken him from his fragile state and the man responsible for his abduction.
‘Do you have any idea how fucked you are?’ Leon spat, trying his hardest to lace the words with venom. ‘You got any idea what my boys are gonna do to you? To your family?’
The only response he received was silence, as he heard the man open a plastic wrapper, and then the snap of rubber gloves. Leon felt his heart begin to beat faster, a strange feeling that he never had to feel.
Fear.
Swallowing hard, he tried to counteract it.
‘This is a bad idea, bruv.’ Leon tried to sound nonchalant as he tried to rack his brain for what had happened. ‘You know who I am, right? What I can do?’
Again, nothing but more liquid being pumped into a jug, the hissing sound as the contents fizzed filled the awkward silence. A horrible smell began to filter around the room, like an unwelcome fart in an elevator.
It smelt toxic.
Leon flexed his considerable bulk, trying to free himself from his restraints. It was no good, the plastic of the cable ties pinched into his dark skin, threatening to draw blood at any moment. Gaffer tape locked his abdomen to the back of the chair and further cable ties secured him by the ankles. A towel had been generously donated to cover his modesty.
He racked his brain, the memory of one of his skanks bent over while he went to town on her filtered back when he remembered the door bursting open, causing her to scream and him to stumble naked to the floor of his flat. The young drug runner, usually situated out on the steps, got halfway through an apology before a sickening clunk rendered him unconscious. The man who held the gun stepped into the room, aiming it squarely at Leon. The naked woman begged for mercy on the bed as Leon told her to keep quiet.
The man was white, mid-thirties