Chapter 2 - The Plastic Trap
"Keep the change," she told the driver as they pulled up to a dimly lit motel on the outskirts of the city. The rain was still beating down relentlessly. Inside the dingy reception area, the smell of stale smoke made her nauseous, but it was far away from the polished silver and suffocating rules of her husband's world. She approached the bulletproof glass and asked for a room for the night. The clerk, a teenager with heavy eyelids, slid a keycard terminal toward her. She pulled out her gold credit card—the one tied to her husband's primary account—and swiped it. The machine beeped angrily. Declined. She frowned, pulling out a second card. Declined. A cold sweat broke out on the back of her neck. He had already frozen her accounts. It hadn't even been an hour. She dug into her purse, finding only forty dollars in cash. As she handed it over, begging for the cheapest room they had, her cell phone suddenly vibrated in her pocket. The caller ID flashed her husband's name. She rejected the call, but a second later, a text message arrived: You have exactly ten minutes to come back, or I will make sure you never see her again.
