low voice. “Lance? You there?”
Silence. First the team went silent, now Lance. It was starting to become a problem. No, scratch that. It was already a huge fucking problem.
I crept near the dark side of the wall, moving quietly and quickly. I had to hope Lance had made an unfortunate wrong turn. I prayed I’d get a chance to tease him about it. Because if he’d run into someone…if I really lost him…
I rounded the corner where I’d last seen him. Empty. I was alone. I should have been alone, but I wasn’t. I felt someone watching.
“Lance,” I whispered.
The hair on the back of my neck rose. Fear. Real fear. There wasn’t time to savor it. I heard the faintest rasp of a rough indrawn breath. Not mine. Gasping, I turned to run. Something heavy slammed into me from behind. I fell, face-first, into the brick wall. My arms wrenched behind my back. I called out, but no one was there. Just my assailant, and he worked quickly and efficiently to subdue me. A prick of pain entered my neck.
A sedative, I realized as the numbness spread over me.
My assailant set me gently on the ground, guiding my fall as my legs stopped working. He turned me over so I was looking up at the orange and purple sunset. His head and shoulders were a silhouette, blocking the light. Even now, I couldn’t get a good look at him. Even now, he used the elements against me, keeping me in the dark.
CHAPTER NINE
At first I assumed it was a dream. My mind felt hazy, my body sluggish. My eyes were closed, with vague lights behind my eyelids, like a tilting, spinning ride at a carnival late at night. I felt like throwing up, and I tried to lurch up, to get out of bed. Except I wasn’t on my bed. And my arms didn’t move.
And when I opened my eyes, the world was still black.
A blindfold covered my eyes. It trapped my eyelashes back and forth as I blinked helplessly. Thick fabric stretched tight enough to block most of the light. I searched desperately for some glimmer of light peeking from below, where the cloth ran over the bridge of my nose, but the pinkish glow didn’t tell me anything. For all I knew it was the inside of my eye or some misfiring of my cornea. I couldn’t even trust my senses right now. Even my body had turned against me.
My arms were bound behind my back. The rope scratched at my skin, but didn’t chafe too badly as long as I didn’t struggle. There wasn’t much give though. I pulled carefully at my bonds, which only succeeded to make grooves in my wrist and yank my shoulder.
Captured. Fuck.
Resigned for the moment, I laid down my head. That was the most ridiculous part, the bed. The soft, sweet-smelling bed that I could lounge in for days, for weeks—forever. Sleep seemed like the best possible thing that could happen to me now. Just drift away and never wake up, drowned in a luxury too good for me.
I lay there, unable to move my hands or my legs. Unable to see. Alone with my thoughts.
God, my thoughts. The very thing I’d been running from my entire life. But I would never escape. Especially now at a standstill. Full stop.
To anyone outside, my father must have looked like a good man. He worked all day at a nearby garage as a mechanic, then came home to make dinner for his motherless little girl. He racked up those single father sympathy points. He wasn’t bad looking either, judging by the women that would sometimes come around with lasagna and pointed questions about when he’d be home. Little did they know he was out stalking his latest victim. They never suspected just how perverted and deadly his preferences ran. He would be out until late while I huddled in my princess bed.
I loved that princess bed. My dad had taken me to pick it out. In the furniture store there were rows upon rows of king-sized mattresses of varying thickness and softness and material. A hundred different options for adults to pick from, the most expensive of which cost the same as a small car.
For children, there was only
Silence. First the team went silent, now Lance. It was starting to become a problem. No, scratch that. It was already a huge fucking problem.
I crept near the dark side of the wall, moving quietly and quickly. I had to hope Lance had made an unfortunate wrong turn. I prayed I’d get a chance to tease him about it. Because if he’d run into someone…if I really lost him…
I rounded the corner where I’d last seen him. Empty. I was alone. I should have been alone, but I wasn’t. I felt someone watching.
“Lance,” I whispered.
The hair on the back of my neck rose. Fear. Real fear. There wasn’t time to savor it. I heard the faintest rasp of a rough indrawn breath. Not mine. Gasping, I turned to run. Something heavy slammed into me from behind. I fell, face-first, into the brick wall. My arms wrenched behind my back. I called out, but no one was there. Just my assailant, and he worked quickly and efficiently to subdue me. A prick of pain entered my neck.
A sedative, I realized as the numbness spread over me.
My assailant set me gently on the ground, guiding my fall as my legs stopped working. He turned me over so I was looking up at the orange and purple sunset. His head and shoulders were a silhouette, blocking the light. Even now, I couldn’t get a good look at him. Even now, he used the elements against me, keeping me in the dark.
CHAPTER NINE
At first I assumed it was a dream. My mind felt hazy, my body sluggish. My eyes were closed, with vague lights behind my eyelids, like a tilting, spinning ride at a carnival late at night. I felt like throwing up, and I tried to lurch up, to get out of bed. Except I wasn’t on my bed. And my arms didn’t move.
And when I opened my eyes, the world was still black.
A blindfold covered my eyes. It trapped my eyelashes back and forth as I blinked helplessly. Thick fabric stretched tight enough to block most of the light. I searched desperately for some glimmer of light peeking from below, where the cloth ran over the bridge of my nose, but the pinkish glow didn’t tell me anything. For all I knew it was the inside of my eye or some misfiring of my cornea. I couldn’t even trust my senses right now. Even my body had turned against me.
My arms were bound behind my back. The rope scratched at my skin, but didn’t chafe too badly as long as I didn’t struggle. There wasn’t much give though. I pulled carefully at my bonds, which only succeeded to make grooves in my wrist and yank my shoulder.
Captured. Fuck.
Resigned for the moment, I laid down my head. That was the most ridiculous part, the bed. The soft, sweet-smelling bed that I could lounge in for days, for weeks—forever. Sleep seemed like the best possible thing that could happen to me now. Just drift away and never wake up, drowned in a luxury too good for me.
I lay there, unable to move my hands or my legs. Unable to see. Alone with my thoughts.
God, my thoughts. The very thing I’d been running from my entire life. But I would never escape. Especially now at a standstill. Full stop.
To anyone outside, my father must have looked like a good man. He worked all day at a nearby garage as a mechanic, then came home to make dinner for his motherless little girl. He racked up those single father sympathy points. He wasn’t bad looking either, judging by the women that would sometimes come around with lasagna and pointed questions about when he’d be home. Little did they know he was out stalking his latest victim. They never suspected just how perverted and deadly his preferences ran. He would be out until late while I huddled in my princess bed.
I loved that princess bed. My dad had taken me to pick it out. In the furniture store there were rows upon rows of king-sized mattresses of varying thickness and softness and material. A hundred different options for adults to pick from, the most expensive of which cost the same as a small car.
For children, there was only
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