Laila woke up with a miserable headache and a metallic taste in her mouth, slowly she opened her eyes.
God, how her head boomed, as if a thousand small hammer beat against the skull from the inside. Carefully, she tried to move.
No chance, her arms and legs would not obey her, dull she registered resistance on wrists and ankles.
Laila was sitting in a chair. Her feet were tied with thick ropes and her arms are tied behind the backrest of the chair.
She gritted her teeth and tried to feel the fetters of her right wrist with her left index finger.
She closed her eyes and touched a thin strip of plastic—cable ties.
Laila sighed and sat up slightly more carefully.
Her neck muscles burned, a throbbing pain spread in her shoulder joints.
Probably during her unconsciousness, her head had fallen forward on her chest.
She had spent some time in this position—how long was she not clear.
Apparently long enough that her neck and shoulders protested overloaded.
Gently, she lowered her head to avoid straining her muscles unnecessarily and looked closer.
Laila was fully clothed—well, that was a ray of hope on the horizon.
A false grin stole into her exhausted features. The guy who brought her into this situation was not interested in her physical assets or her as a sexual object.
Her laugh echoed hard in her ears, she flinched involuntarily and was rewarded by a sharp sting in her neck muscles.
In this situation Laila had brought not a potential rapist but Constantine Summersby.
Constantine Summersby—her mind chewed on that name, like on a tough, sinewy piece of meat.
At the thought of this man, she felt how fierce hot anger rose in her.
No, this pig was not dealing with adults, his speciality was innocent children.
The anger threatened to burn her from the inside and angrily tore her by the shackles.
Immediately Laila felt an unpleasant burning sensation on the skin, where the ropes and cable ties scorched her sore skin.
Laila took a deep breath.
Keep Calm.
In her impetuous nature, not so easy task.
'Look around you and get an idea of the situation,' Laila ordered herself.
So, tied up in a chair.
In a windowless room, at least she could not find any windows.
The chair to which she was tied was about 20 cm from a concrete wall.
Laila estimated the space at about 50 square meters.
The only source of light came from a rectangular lamp that was mounted with steel struts over a large stainless steel table and did not completely illuminate the large room.
Opposite, she could make out the outlines of a door. On the right and left of the door were base cabinets above which a worktop made of stainless steel was attached.
The room was tidied up.
The only items not housed in cabinets were in the middle of the room by the stainless steel table. Since the only existing light source burned here, she took a closer look at this area.
What the hell was Summersby doing here?
Under the table frame she could see several plastic or glass containers.
Hoses were attached to them, hooked into glossy frames not unlike those found in hospital infusion stands.
Around the stainless steel table was a kind of gutter, one end of which ended above a floor drain. Beside the table stood a 70 cm high stainless steel tub as well as a rectangular plastic table on which various instruments lay.
Laila frowned.
It seemed as if she had landed in the pathology ward of a hospital.
Only one would hardly tie her to a chair there.
It was probably the basement of Summersby's home.
Hot anger rose in her throat.
How could she have let this idiot manage to get her into this situation?
Laila had clearly underestimated him.
Summersby, with his 1.65 m, his balding head, the crafty pig's eye behind an inch-thick pair of glasses that looked like the bottom of a Coca-Cola bottle.
His eyes were watery and magnified by the glasses.
He looked like the epitome of a jammed bookkeeper.
Summersby was always wiping the sweat from his forehead with a white cloth.
He had a chubby jerk and tripped with small steps through his sick world, but this optical rebirth of a loser had at least temporarily put her out of action.
What an irony of fate, Laila was in the same situation in which her first victim had been when she had committed her first murder long ago and found her current calling.
Distraught by the presence of the demons of her past, a shaky sigh rose in her chest and erupted across her rough lips.