What does "She saw her captors as they would never see themselves" mean?

The hostess at the open door showed her teeth. Vicki came out into the

world. She saw the man beside Elizabeth and slowed down. That couldn’t

be Philip. Philip couldn’t possibly look like that. Philip played in a band.

She whipped off the rhinestone ear-rings and shoved them into her pocket.

The freeway was dark. Vicki’s toes were so cold that they felt like rows

of marbles inside her shoes. The strange boy was strapped into his car seat

beside her. He mooed and murmured to himself. She stopped trying to listen

to the conversation in the front, and stared out the window. Low down on

the sky was a narrow band of apricot, all that was left of the daylight.

Dexter threw back his head and laughed at something Elizabeth said. Vicki

experienced the small prickle of power that comes to the one who rides in

the back seat. She saw her captors as they would never see themselves: two

silly heads of hair, two sets of shoulders, two unsuspecting napes. She hated

them. She closed her eyes with hatred. Dexter saw her in the mirror and

thought she had fallen asleep. Unresisted now, his tenderness for the whole

world rushed to envelop her.

Does it mean: She saw her captors in a way they would never see themselves?

Does "as" here mean: in a way