I don’t react and try to pull away when he reaches out a hand and presses a fat finger into my temple. I suck in a breath and he smiles, digging deeper. Warm blood slides over my ear. He’s opened a cut. I guess it happened when the suited man punched me.

“That’s for puking on me,” he says.

He rubs his finger on his shirt and my first guess was right. The stain I saw was tomato sauce because blood is much darker.

I look up at my hands, tug at my arms to test the handcuffs that are linked through the headboard.

“You ain’t goin’ nowhere,” the man says, standing. He’s tall. Really tall. And the way he looks, the way his eyes travel over my chest, my belly, my legs, it scares me.

“What do you want with me?” I croak. My voice isn’t working, my throat is dry and I know I did vomit on him. I taste it.

He shrugs a shoulder, turns his attention to the TV and switches it on.

“Nothin’ much,” he mutters. “You ain’t my type.” He sits back down on the bed and is wholly engrossed in the channels he’s flipping through. A pistol is tucked into the back of his jeans. “I like tits,” he adds on, picking up his coke and slurping loudly.

I try to pull myself up to a seat, but my head throbs with the effort and when he turns and grabs hold of my ankle, I freeze.

“Where you goin’? Ain’t nowhere you need to be.”

I guess he’s not as inattentive as I assumed.

“Where am I?”

He releases my leg, returns to flipping TV channels. Settles on a black and white cartoon. I feel like I’m caught in some time warp. Like this place is stuck in the past. A glance at the window tells me it must be nighttime, or I’d see sunshine coming around the curtains, I think. I listen, but either the room is soundproof, which I doubt, or there’s absolutely no traffic outside.

“Where am I?” I ask again, a little louder this time as I manage to sit up a little, drawing my bound hands in front of me.

“Quiet.”

“Can’t follow the cartoon?” I ask.

He mutes the TV and turns to me and I realize how stupid that was.

“Want me to shut you up, pretty girl? I can do that right good and I’d like it,” he says, getting up, walking around to my side. I cringe when he grabs my ankle and tugs me so I’m lying back down.

“I told you you ain’t goin’ nowhere, didn’t I?”

I stare up at him, unable to answer.

“I asked you a question,” he says, leaning his big face close, his stale breath on me.

“Yes,” I say. “I just wanted—”