Robin des Bois ✓

thirty-three. Alone

*WARNING: This chapter mentions sexual abuse. Read at your own risk.*

Gabe's fists clenched and unclenched. He could barely contain the urge to get up from his seat and do something, anything, but to sit here idly, while God knows what was happening to her.

He would look at the text periodically and whenever he saw that picture, he felt a barely controlled rage seize him.

He would find whoever was responsible for this, and he would kill him. There was no doubt in his mind. No uncertainty.
 
At first, when Nirvana had called him, tearful and panicked, he hadn't been too unsettled. Calmly, he'd asked her to explain the situation to him again, because she'd been nearly incoherent the first time around.

"She's gone!" Nirvana had wailed, unconsolable. "She left her purse, and her wallet and phone was in it, and I can't find her!"
 
It was only when she admitted that they'd had ecstasy that he'd felt the first pang of worry in his stomach. 

He couldn't quite believe it. Isis? Doing drugs? 

And now she was nowhere to be found, with no means of communication. He'd texted Tina and Tyler first, innocently asking them if they knew what Isis was up to, since she wasn't answering her phone. They'd both answered that they had thought she was with him. Tyler's text was calm, but Tina's was filled with question marks and excalamation points, and it was clear that she was worried.

He'd asked them to let him know if they heard from her and they'd both okay-ed, and Tina asked him to do the same. There was no sense in alarming them further, and so he didn't elaborate on the situation at hand.

He'd made his bed, and now it was time to lay in it.
 
His next step was to schedule a flight back to Boston. The private jet would be ready to take off in about three hours' time, and he had no time to waste.

Then he'd called up his cousin Alex, and asked him if he could possibly trace a text message. 

"What's with all the sleuthing?" Alex had asked. Gabe hadn't understood what he'd meant, but then Alex had explained that not too long ago, Isis had been asking him pretty much the same thing. Gabriel had felt a pang of guilt -she'd been scared, looking for answers on her own, while he'd dismissed her, busy with work and all the duties his new role had added onto his plate. If he'd just paid her more attention, if he'd handled it all himself from the start... All of this could have been avoided.

But he was all in now. She was the only thing on his mind, the only one that mattered.

He simply hoped it wasn't too late.
~~

I woke up with a start.

Everything hurt.

My head was pounding with a migraine like no other I'd ever experienced and I let out a pained groan.

The next thing I registered was my hunger. My stomach rumbled as if a storm was brewing inside it. I tried to move, but the bounds around my wrists had been tightened. My arms were painfully pinned to my back, and my legs were now bound together as well.

I felt the first inklings of pure, unadulterated terror as I realized that I was completely powerless.

What I had done had been stupid. Instead of thinking, I'd acted, and that's what had gotten me here. 

I was no longer in the white room. I was now lying on a mattress that rested directly on the floor, in another completely empty room. There was no window in this one, and the only light came from a bare bulb fixed to the ceiling.