Mims
June 14
It was dark inside the car’s trunk. The car had been parked for a long time, more than ten minutes, and Mims still couldn’t remember the trick for opening a trunk from the inside. She kicked hard every twenty seconds or so, her feet tied together like a mermaid tail.
She was sure there was a trick.
A text message alert went off in her back pocket and then another and then nothing.
Eventually the trunk opened. She tried to kick the man who opened it, but once he threw the thick blanket over her head it was hard to know where he was. She was dragged up and out of the trunk and dropped into a tight, deep space. A lid closed. She was inside some kind of plastic box. Mims’s heart beat as fast as the fluttering pages of a flipbook. She found herself wishing for her mother, a thought so odd it snapped her out of panic. This must be someone Teddy hired; he wouldn’t kill her. He was a kind person and had a sweet tooth like a child.Â
The box dragged and then bumped. There was a ramp of some sort and then three steep steps. With each thwack one of her elbows or a vertebra was scraped raw. The bee stings on her shoulder blade and wrist were swollen so tight they felt like they would split open. Then there was stillness. She could tell the man hadn’t left wherever the box was because she could hear muffled sounds. She felt woozy, and it wasn’t until a few minutes had passed that she realized it was because the floor was rocking. She must be on a boat. Time passed, maybe two minutes or maybe fifteen, and she couldn’t focus on anything useful, just that they might be able to identify her body based on her tattoos.Â