Fade to Red

Time for some live action.

Roxie came to for a moment—long enough to hear the end of an advertisement and then music. The radio. Justin Bieber. She groaned. Her eyelids were too heavy to open. She wanted to lift a hand to her eyes and pry them open, but her hands weighed a thousand pounds. Her last thought before going out again was that she must be in a car and her head felt like a log.

The next time she woke up, she was able to open her eyes. It was dark, but she could see that she was in a small garage. Arms were wrapped around her ribs, and she was being dragged backwards across the concrete, away from a car. Her lungs and chest ached, feeling as if they were caving in. Fear swallowed her whole, sudden and complete.

What’s happening? Her mind screamed, but no sound came out. Where am I?

They came to a stop and Roxie heard keys jingling. And then more dragging inside the door. Once inside, she was dropped, her eyes squeezing shut as her head hit the floor. They jarred open again as she was yanked up by her hair across carpet that burned through her thin clothes. Her mind raced as she tried to wake up enough to figure out what was happening. She’d been in the hospital. She was still wearing a hospital gown. Whoever dragged her was silent. Roxie’s side slammed into the wall as they turned a corner. Clump, clump, clump, her body was dragged down a flight of stairs like a life-sized rag doll. Down the hall and into a room that was bare of furniture, they finally stopped.

Her eyes were still watering, but she narrowed them into tiny slits to make her vision clearer. The walls had pictures covering every inch of space as far as she could see. Pictures of Beckham and Leo took over a whole wall. She gasped and turned as much as she could—her hair was still tight in someone’s grip. The wall to the right had about a dozen pictures of her with large red X’s crossed over them. Another dozen were pictures that she knew had been her with Beckham, but now she was cut out of them.

She had to get out of there.

Leo. Leo. Leo.

His name ran through her mind on repeat.

She lifted her heavy arms and swung behind her, hitting a leg. That earned her a swift kick in the gut. Her stomach clenched and she began swallowing too fast. She tried to turn her head as much as she could and threw up on the floor. She heard a high yelp and her head was released, but before she could look up she was bashed with a heavy boot that wouldn’t stop.

She was too weak to crawl very far, and moving just made the blows come harder. She curled up into a ball and covered her face with her hands. The sharp tang of blood filled her nose as everything faded to red.

When she woke up, a thick cloth filled her mouth and was secured in a knot at the back of her head. Her hands were tied behind her back, and a rope around her neck held her in place. It looped onto the knobs of the bedroom door and what she assumed was either a bathroom or closet door. It was tight enough that if she stood up or leaned forward for very long, it would cut off her circulation. She didn’t want to move anyway; every inch of her felt bruised, but she shifted her head slowly back and forth to see if the ends budged at all. It only added to the chaffing on her neck. Her heart galloped through her chest and she felt her pulse nudge the rope around her wrists. She stilled and glanced down. Burned photographs were piled next to her on the floor. Some of them had portions of the picture showing through the torched marks. In a few of them, she recognized her clothes.

She told herself to stay calm, but it was too late. Fear clung to her, as much a part of her as the now drenched hospital gown she wore. She smelled like vomit, sweat, and terror.

Another pile of pictures lay next to the burned ones—everyone from the tour, even Chloe and the guards, and a few girls she didn’t recognize. She looked at the walls. The only wall that didn’t have pictures was the one to her left—a huge map covered that wall, but she wasn’t able to see the places marked by tacks. Directly across from her was one she hadn’t seen yet. From floor to ceiling, Beckham at every age looked back at her. She studied it for a long time, seeing some photographs she’d seen through the years in magazines, but a lot were snapshots … some of Beckham looking really young, and others that she knew were taken recently on the tour. And then the wall with Beckham and Leo … Leo.

God, please keep him safe.

Tears ran down her face and she struggled to swallow. Whoever had her was clearly meticulous. Not to mention, deranged. And by the looks of it, had gotten away with following Beckham for years.

Roxie heard footsteps and felt the rope around her neck shift as the door opened. She blinked, unable to believe who she was seeing.

“Coco?” she murmured.

All the images of Coco doing her hair and makeup flashed before Roxie in triple time and nowhere in the memories did she see a single hint of Coco doing anything like this—to anyone or anything. Introverted and maybe a little odd, but so … fearful.

“Clearly I’m a horrible … judge of character.” The cloth in Roxie’s mouth made her voice sound like garbled gibberish. Nothing in the sentence came through.

Coco didn’t speak, but the hatred in her eyes screamed at the highest decibel. Roxie braced herself for whatever was coming. She was surprised when Coco undid the rope from the door, never turning her back on Roxie for even a second. She went to the next door and undid that side too. It seemed as if she was trying to decide her next form of torture because once she had both ends of the rope in her hands, she just stood and focused her laser beam eyes on Roxie.

That’s what was different—Roxie realized that Coco had never made eye contact with her until now.

“Why the rope? I don’t have the strength to fight you,” Roxie tried to say, but only nonsense came out. She gave up trying to talk—she didn’t have the strength. It hurt too much and Coco couldn’t understand what she was saying anyway.

Coco still didn’t speak, but she stood for a moment longer and then jerked the rope so hard that Roxie lurched forward. She had to follow the pull or choke, a fucking marionette under this psycho’s control.

Roxie didn’t quite make it upright on both feet, crawling not possible either, with her hands tied behind her back, but one of her legs inched forward while the other tried to catch up. They reached the other door in the room, and Coco tightened her hold on the rope, gagging Roxie as she brought her up to both feet. Roxie’s eyes shut and she forced herself to wait to breathe until the rope had loosened a bit. It took every ounce of effort she had to stay standing. Her throat constantly reminded her that a tube had been lodged there, the fact that she should still be in the hospital adding to the fear already camped out in her brain. Being beaten by Coco on top of everything else made her wonder if she’d already died and this was just hell warming up.

She heard a faucet being turned on and opened her eyes in time to see water coming out of the ceiling. It looked like she was standing in a large bathroom that had also been used as a darkroom. Cold water shot straight down onto her head; her bare feet blocked the drain. Cold, yes, her hell would be cold. Her nerves flinched against the pelts of water. Coco secured the rope and picked up a pair of scissors, walking toward Roxie with them. She was a little shorter than Roxie, and Roxie blinked back water, but kept her eyes trained on Coco. If she moved an inch, the rope gripped her neck tighter.

I will find a way to make you pay, even if I’m dead. Roxie’s eyes promised.