Nancy covered her mouth in an attempt to muffle her sobs. She looked around the room, taking in its minimal features. The women were shackled to opposite walls, facing one another. The cement floor had cracks running through it, the walls were wooden, and there was a single small window with bars over it near Nancy. It was just high enough to be out of reach. The wall with the window held a toilet and white pedestal sink. Both looked new, unstained, as if they had been added as an afterthought years after the place was built. Nancy’s corner below the window held stacks of thin, cheap toilet paper and rough cotton towels that would surely rub their skin raw like a cloth version of sandpaper. There was also a medium-sized cardboard box containing beef jerky, granola bars and crackers.

‘We must be in some kind of cabin,’ Casey said as she rubbed vigorously at a dark oil stain on her yellow plaid skirt.

She must have gotten the stain in the trunk of the car on the ride over, Nancy thought. Casey had coveted that skirt for months at Hot Topic before she’d saved up enough money to buy it. She’d planned on wearing it to the big rally next week to impress Luke, a guy she’d been crushing on. Casey had been trying the outfit on when the man knocked on their door. While it was such a small thing in comparison to their much bigger problem at hand, Nancy knew Casey was probably devastated at the blemish on her beloved outfit.

‘Remember the river we heard on the drive here? The last road we were on was bumpy and unpaved and we were on it for a while, so this place can’t be on a main road.’ Casey paused, straining her ears. ‘Do you hear the crickets and rustling trees outside? I think he’s driven us somewhere remote, like a forest or a farm.’

‘What does he want from us?’ Nancy asked, her voice shaking, afraid of the answer.

‘I don’t know. But we’ve seen his face, he didn’t even bother trying to conceal it when he brought us in here. It’s kind of a blur but when he heard me stirring, he came back in to check on us. I pretended to still be asleep, so he left the room after watching us for a few long minutes,’ she shivered visibly at the memory. ‘He didn’t cover up what he looked like at all. That’s not a good sign … the chances of him letting us go aren’t looking very good.’