Slave to the Rhythm (8 page)

My brain was skittering in a hundred different directions, making it impossible to focus on anything, to do anything. I felt dirty and violated, sickened beyond everything I’d known. The taste of vomit was still in my mouth, and I spat onto the floor repeatedly, shock, pain and spent adrenaline making my body shudder.

I closed my eyes as a wave of dizziness hit, leaning forwards, resting my good hand on my knees, trying to catch my breath.

I will live through this.

Then I stood up straight and screamed out loud: “I will live!”

“Hello? Who’s there?”

A woman’s voice made me spin around and I nearly lost my balance.

“Oh, is that you, Ash?”

Was I? I hardly knew anymore. I wasn’t the same person who’d arrived in Las Vegas. I wasn’t even the same as when I’d woken up this morning.

Trixie’s heels clicked as she strode across the concrete floor. She was wearing a bright pink pant suit.

It was so surreal that I just stood there staring like an idiot.

My body was ice cold and I was shaking, nauseous.

Her eyes drifted to the blood that masked one side of my face and my hand with the bent fingers, still cradled against my chest.

“Oh,” she breathed out. “Did Sergei do that?”

My eyes shot up to hers. “You knew?”

She nodded.

“He called me to come get you.”

Her tone became brisk and businesslike. She certainly didn’t sound shocked.

“I’m sorry this happened.”

“There was a girl,” I croaked, my throat still raw. “Oleg had her . . .”

“Take my advice,” she said sharply. “Forget everything you’ve seen and heard.”

“But . . .”

“You’re not listening to me,” she hissed. “You’ve only seen a tiny piece of what they’re capable of doing! If you want to carry on breathing, forget
everything!
”

She bent down and picked up my bags, walking away, clip-clopping across the concrete.

I didn’t follow.

I should go to the police. Christ, I had to do
some
thing.

“Listen!” she snapped, turning around and glaring at me. “Did you get a photo of it happening? Video it on your phone? No, of course you didn’t. There’s no proof! And even if someone did listen, you wouldn’t last the night.”

“He killed her! I know it! Don’t you even care?”

“I care about not being next,” she said, her voice low and furious.

“Then I’ll leave!” I shouted. “I’ll get the hell away and then tell someone. I’ll buy a ticket online and . . .”

Her voice was brittle. “They’ll be watching you—and you can’t trust the police. You’d never make it.”

She stared at me, holding my gaze until I scrubbed a hand over my face in frustration. Then she glanced down at my damaged fingers.

“I’ll take care of that for you.”

I shook my head. “There must be a way out of here!”

“Sure, honey. Feet first.” Then she gave a small smile. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and Sergei will forget about you. Especially as he’s already had you.”

“He hasn’t
had
me!” I spat out, my eyes narrowed in anger, my gut twisting.

“Oh,” she said softly.

“What? What the hell are you talking about?”

She deliberately ignored my question.

“I’m going to get out of here,” I growled.

She shrugged again, unimpressed.

“That’s what they all say.”

When she turned and walked away, I didn’t know what to do. I had nowhere else to go. This time I followed.

I tried to take in my surroundings and ignore the pain.

It was gloomy, just a few service lights that filled the space with shadows. Expensive cars were parked in numbered bays: Porsches, Ferraris, an Aston Martin and two Jaguar coupés.

I was scared, really fucking scared. I was lucky to be alive. If I kept asking about the girl, I wouldn’t live for much longer. Maybe I should do what Trixie said and forget about her if I wanted to survive. Could I do that? I wasn’t sure. The girl, if she was alive, what would happen to her? Where would they take her? I had to tell someone. But I didn’t know who I could trust.

Anger and frustration burned inside me and it wouldn’t take much for the simmering rage to explode.

And then you’ll die.
I was a fucking coward.

“Looks like you got some cool clothes,” said Trixie, peering into one of the bags.

I stared at her in disbelief as blood continued to trickle down the side of my face.

Twenty minutes ago, I thought I was going to die, now Trixie was smiling and joking in front of me. She didn’t want to see the blood or my broken fingers; she didn’t want to know that I’d witnessed an assault, possibly a murder, maybe two. I couldn’t make sense of it and I shook my head in confusion.

Nothing felt safe anymore.

She took me to the theater’s first aid station. I could hear rehearsals on the stage, feel the vibrations of the music.

It spun my mind that this existed side by side with the violence of the last few hours, operated by the same people.

Dance, performing, this was my life. But now the whole thing was tainted.

Trixie frowned, staring at my hand which had swollen to twice its normal size. The fingers that Sergei had broken were turning purple and looked like a couple of Kranjska sausages.

“We’ll get some ice for that.

Trixie led me to a stool and told me to sit while she opened a large fridge, pulling out two packs of ice.

I rested my hand between the icepacks while she washed the cut on my head.

“You’ll have a scar,” she said. “But it’s above your hairline. It should probably have stitches . . .”

Her words tailed off.

“But I’m not going to get them,” I finished for her.

“You’re learning.”

We stared at each other for several long seconds before Trixie looked away.

After some of the swelling had begun to reduce, she eased the ice packs away, and without telling me what she was going to do, grabbed my broken fingers and yanked them back into a straight line.

The pain was off the chart and black dots floated in front of my eyes. I didn’t know if I was going to puke or pass out.

In the end, I didn’t do either, swaying on the stool while Trixie expertly splinted my broken fingers, then wrapped them in a thick bandage.

I guessed it wasn’t the first time she’d had to do that.

“Leave the splints on for a week. Then you’ll need to do some exercises so they don’t get too stiff. Just like new in five, six weeks.”

I nodded, but inside the molten lava of anger was beginning to glow red. Somehow, I’d find a way to take these evil bastards down. Somehow.

“You’d better get to rehearsals.”

I didn’t move. I just sat there staring at her.

She shrugged and walked out.

I sat for a few more minutes, staring at my bandaged hand, then I walked from the wings onto the stage. Elaine opened her mouth, an angry look on her face. But then she took in the blood on my shirt and bandaged hand. I thought I saw a flicker of emotion behind her eyes, but it was gone so quickly, I couldn’t be sure.

“Be ready in ten minutes,” she said.

Two broken fingers, a bitching headache and a gash in my head that needed stitches, aching ribs from where I’d been punched, and . . . I didn’t want to think about the rest.

Elaine definitely didn’t look happy to see me. Maybe she was worried that Sergei would be around more now. My gut twisted at the thought, remembering what Trixie had said.

When the other dancers saw me, a shocked murmur rippled around the room. Elaine snapped at them, and they all went back to work, throwing me quick, questioning glances.

Yveta looked like she was going to say something but bit her lip and thought better of it. Gary’s expression tightened as he eyed the blood on my face and swollen hand, but he didn’t say anything either. It was a disease of silence. And I was just as infected as everyone else.

I woke up choking, feeling Oleg’s hands around my throat. I lashed out with my feet and someone shrieked.

“Ow! You asshole!”

Panting, my hands shaking, I turned on the small bedside light and found Gary crouched at the end of my bed holding a bloody nose.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Gary moaned, then shuffled to the bathroom, dripping blood on the cheap carpet.

I yanked back the covers and stalked after him.

“What did you do to me?”

“What did
I
do to
you?
I’m the one bleeding to death!”

Gary’s voice was muffled as held a wet washcloth to his face and a nose that was twice its normal size.

“You were screaming and yelling and wouldn’t wake up. I tried to shake you awake and you almost broke my fucking nose!”

Oh shit.

I ran my good hand through sweat-soaked hair. I must have been dreaming. I’d thought that Oleg had come back for me, had tried to kill me, just like . . .

I didn’t want to finish the thought, but the memory of the air being cut off, my throat being crushed—it was wriggling like an eel in the back of my brain.

And her eyes . . . the girl’s eyes: I couldn’t stop seeing them, begging me to help her, to save her.

“I’m sorry,” I said lamely. “It was a nightmare.”

“You’re the nightmare!”

I couldn’t blame him. It must be shitty when your roommate starts shouting, and you try to wake him up and get punched in the face.

Silently, I grabbed a towel and started scrubbing at the blood stains on the thin carpet. Gary sat on the end of his bed holding the wet washcloth to his nose.

I glanced up to catch him staring but he just shrugged.

“What can I say? You’re a crazy asshole, but you’re still hot.”

Looked like I was forgiven. I was working out that Gary’s bark was worse than his bite.

I gestured at his nose.

“Is it broken?”

“No,” he sighed. “Thank God. My plastic surgeon would throw a fit.” Then he glanced at me. “What was the nightmare about?”

“Oleg.”

Gary shuddered. “Ugh, that monster. Don’t say anymore.”

“I think he killed . . .”

“I DON’T WANT TO KNOW!” Gary hissed at me.

His words made me grimace.

“Nobody wants to know. This place is sick. The fear is like . . . it’s a cancer inside everyone. How can you stand it?”

“It’s never been this bad before,” Gary admitted flatly. “I’m scared. We all are after what happened to you today. So you know what I’m going to do? Nothing. I don’t see anything, I don’t hear anything, and I don’t say anything.”

“But . . .”

Gary dropped his voice to a whisper.

“People around here disappear. My last roommate, Erik, he was like you—thought he could change the world. One day he was just gone. Officially, he went back to his family in Poland. Unofficially, no one knows.”

He shuddered.

“The rumor is that Sergei wants to be top dog, and with Oleg helping him, it could well happen. There’s a power struggle going on. And you, my friend, have walked right into the middle of it.”

Gary dropped the washcloth onto the floor and climbed back into bed.

“This conversation is done. And if you start screaming again, I’ll toss a glass of water over you—it’s safer.”

Gary threw the duvet over his shoulders and turned on his side, huffing noisily.

I’d just been chewed out by an angry dude in
Hello Kitty
pajamas.

My brain was wired after everything that had happened, but my body was suffering.

I lay in the narrow bed and forced myself to relax. I’d wait, find out how this place worked, and then . . .

“Hey, Gary!”

“What do you want now?” came a very pissed off voice.

“Can I borrow your phone? I need to send an email.”

Gary grumbled some more, but eventually tossed me his phone.

“I’m just going to say this one more time—be careful who you involve in this. These people are dangerous.”

I sat with the cell phone in my lap, and tapped out an email to Luka, giving him the basics of what I’d seen and heard. I wasn’t expecting to hear right back, because I knew he was on tour, but within minutes, he’d replied, his message short and unambiguous:
Go to the police.

I glanced over at Gary who was snoring loudly, his swollen nose amplifying the sound.

I can’t
.

After a few more moments, the reply arrived.

I have €1,000. It’s yours brother—just say the word. I’ll buy your flight home right now.

I wanted to tell him to get me a ticket, but without ID, I had no chance. I turned off the phone and lay back.

But every time I shut my eyes, I saw the girl’s face. I wanted to claw that memory out of my brain, and after another hour of her haunting me, I was ready to tear out my own eyes. But eventually, sleep pulled me under into dreams that were dark and ugly, slicing at the surface of my mind, icy breaths chilling my skin.

My life hadn’t been all sunshine before, but I hadn’t been afraid of it. Everyone dies. Everyone. But today, I’d thought it was my turn. That was messing with my head. I barely knew who I was anymore. All I wanted was to feel something other than numbing fear.

Two months ago, my biggest worry was Jana breaking up our partnership. Now, a crazed mafia killer had his sights set on either fucking me or killing me.