CHAPTER 3 The Journey to Hell

Consciousness returned to Jezza like a slow-motion collision. First came the pain – a crushing headache that felt like her skull was being compressed in a vise.

Then the nausea, rolling through her stomach in waves that made her want to curl into a ball. Finally, terrifyingly, came awareness.

The surface beneath her vibrated with mechanical precision. Her wrists burned where plastic restraints cut into her skin. And the sound – a constant, droning hum that could only mean one thing.

She was on a plane.

Jezza's eyes snapped open, and panic crashed over her like a tidal wave. The cargo hold was dimly lit, filled with shadows that seemed to move and breathe. She wasn't alone. Three other figures lay nearby, all women, all bound, all wearing the same expression of dawning horror.

"Welcome back, sleeping beauty." The voice came from a woman in her thirties, Mediterranean features sharp with exhaustion and fear. "I'm Velmora. Velmora Vasquez. My father owns half the oil wells in Venezuela."

Jezza tried to speak, but her throat felt like sandpaper and Velmora seemed to understand.

"Don't try to talk yet. The drugs mess with your vocal cords. I've been awake for six hours now, so I've had time to figure some things out." Elena's voice carried the hollow efficiency of someone forcing herself to stay functional through terror.

"We're on a private jet, been in the air for about eight hours based on the fuel stops. Heading southeast, judging by the sun position when they loaded us."

"Southeast where?" The voice came from another woman, younger, with an accent that sounded British. "I'm Camille Morrison. My family... They own Morrison Shipping."

"Australia, most likely," Velmora replied grimly. "That's where most of these operations end up. Remote, easy to control borders, and plenty of wealthy clients who pay a premium for... educated merchandise."

The word 'merchandise' hit Jezza like a physical blow. Her engagement ring was gone, she realized. Her designer dress had been replaced with generic gray clothes that smelled of industrial detergent.

Everything that had marked her as Jezza Clarksville, heiress to the Phantom Tech fortune, had been stripped away.

"How?" Jezza's voice came out as a croak. "How did they get us?How am I here?"

"Different ways," said the third woman, who looked barely eighteen. "I'm Anya,from Moscow. My father is... was... in government. They took me from a nightclub. Told security I was drunk and I needed medical attention."

"Private party for me," Camille added. "My own bloody engagement party. One minute I was dancing, the next I woke up in a van."

Velmora's laugh held no humor. "Charity gala. I was giving a speech about funding women's shelters. The irony isn't lost on me."

Jezza closed her eyes, remembering fragments. The champagne that had tasted wrong. Alex's face as she collapsed. Margaret's voice, but the words were jumbled, confused.

"My stepmother," she whispered. "And my fiancé. They... they planned this."

"Family's are often the worst enemy," Velmora said softly. "My uncle set me up. Promised me a business meeting that would secure my independence from my father. Instead, he sold me to secure his own debts."

The plane began to descend, and with it, Jezza's last hopes that this was some terrible nightmare. Through a small porthole, she could see endless red earth stretching to the horizon. Australia. The other side of the world from everything she'd ever known.

"Listen to me, all of you." Velmora's voice took on urgency as the plane's engines changed pitch. "Whatever happens next, whatever they do to us, remember who you are. They're going to try to break us, to make us forget our names, our families, our worth. Don't let them."

"What if we can't stop them?" Anya's voice was barely above a whisper.

Velmora met each of their eyes in turn. "Then we survive long enough to make them pay. Every single one of them."

---

The plane touched down with a jarring impact that rattled Jezza's already aching bones. Through the porthole, she could see a small airstrip surrounded by nothing but scrubland and razor wire.

No other planes, no terminal, no signs of civilization beyond a cluster of prefabricated buildings that looked more like a military compound than an airport.

Heavy footsteps echoed through the cargo hold, followed by voices speaking in clipped, professional tones.

"Four packages for processing. Documentation says they're all medical transports, psychiatric patients being transferred to a private facility."

"Understand. We'll handle intake from here. Your payment is already cleared."

The cargo door opened, flooding the space with harsh sunlight and furnace-hot air. Three men entered, wearing the kind of generic security uniforms that could belong to any medical transport company. But their eyes held the cold efficiency of people who'd done this many times before.

"Ladies, we're going to make this simple," said the leader, a man with an Australian accent and scars that suggested a military background. "You can walk to the transport vehicle, or we can carry you. Either way, you're going. But I promise you'll prefer walking."

Velmora was the first to struggle to her feet, her movements stiff but defiant. "Where are you taking us?"

"Somewhere you can get the help you need," he replied with a smile that never reached his eyes. "All of you have been diagnosed with severe psychiatric disorders. Paranoid delusions, violent tendencies, danger to yourselves and others. Your families were very concerned."

"That's not true!" Camille struggled against her restraints. "My father would never—"

"Your father signed the commitment papers himself, love. Said you'd become increasingly unstable, talking about conspiracy theories, claiming people were trying to hurt you." The man produced a tablet, swiping through official-looking documents. "All very sad, but treatable with proper care."

Jezza stared at the screen, recognizing her own signature on forms she'd never seen. Her stepmother's signature too, authorizing her indefinite commitment to a facility called "Riverside Recovery Center."

The forgeries were perfect.

"Now then, let's get you settled in your new home."

The walk to the waiting van felt like a funeral march. Each step across the tarmac took them further from any hope of rescue, deeper into a nightmare that was becoming more real with every breath of the scorching Australian air.

The compound they approached was surrounded by three layers of fencing, each topped with razor wire.

Guard towers punctuated the perimeter at regular intervals, their spotlights dark in the daylight but promising surveillance through the night.

The buildings inside were functional concrete blocks with narrow windows that looked more like gun slits than architectural features.

"Welcome to Riverside," their escort announced as they passed through the final checkpoint. "Your home for as long as it takes to cure what ails you."

As the gates closed behind them with a finality that made Jezza's heart stop, she realized Velmora had been wrong about one thing. This wasn't about wealthy clients paying premium prices.

This was about making them disappear completely.

---

The intake process was designed to strip away more than just their clothes. Every personal item, every reminder of their former lives, was catalogued and removed.

Jezza watched helplessly as they took her mother's necklace, the one piece of jewelry she'd worn since childhood.

"Please," she begged the intake officer, a woman whose uniform identified her as Medical Staff but whose demeanor suggested military training. "It was my mother's. She's dead and that's all I have left of her."

"Your mother's dead because you killed her, 47," the woman replied without looking up from her clipboard. "According to your file, you've been having violent delusions about matricide since age sixteen. The necklace is a trigger object that reinforces your psychotic episodes."

"That's not true! My mother died in a car accident when I was eight!"

The woman finally looked up, her eyes flat and empty. "Are you contradicting your medical records, 47? Because that kind of argumentative behavior suggests your medication needs adjustment."

The numbers hit Jezza like a physical blow. She wasn't Jezza. She was 47, a number on a clipboard, a problem to be managed.

Velmora ,now designated as 23, caught Jezza's eye from across the processing room. Her expression carried a message clearer than words: Remember who you are. Don't let them take that too.

But as they were led to their cells – individual concrete boxes with a cot, a toilet, and nothing else – Jezza wondered how long anyone could hold onto their identity in a place designed to systematically destroy it.

The door slammed shut with the sound of her former life ending.

In the darkness that followed, she began to understand that dying might have been kinder than what they had planned for her instead.

---