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One way in. One way out.
Like a prison cell.
How did I get here?
I try to think back, but the last thing I remember is being at Dad’s house, going to sleep with plans to return to the mountain later to go back to Weston. Ignoring Dad’s pleas to allow him to put me on a plane and fly me far away from all of this.
What the fuck happened?
The throbbing in my head continues, and I dig the heels of my palms into my temples and sit up. I gag at the sour taste in the back of my throat, and the room spins around me, making me fight back a full-on dry heave.
My stomach sloshes, the fuzziness enveloping my brain refusing to lift.
I toss back the comforter over me and slide my legs out onto the cool concrete floor. Almost immediately, the door flies open, and I turn toward the sound, trying to focus on whoever just entered.
A man dressed in jeans and a non-descript gray T-shirt with an assault-style weapon strapped across his chest enters, pointing it at me almost absently, as if one flinch of his finger won’t unload dozens of rounds straight into me. “Good. You’re awake.”
Every horrific kidnapping horror story I’ve ever read or heard about on television rushes through my head, and I take a step back, then another, until my shoulders hit the wall behind me. “Where am I?”
The corner of his mouth curls slightly in a devious way that sends a chill through my blood. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”
I’ve been chased through the wild woods by one of the deadliest men in the country, stalked by a wolf that wanted to rip my throat out, and stared down The Beast and convinced him to cave to my wishes. All these things have taught me not to trust first impressions but also that if it looks violent, it probably is.
And this man looks violent.
I don’t want to do anything to trigger him and make whatever this is worse on myself, but I also have no intention of making this easy on him, either.
“Let’s go.” He motions with the gun for me to step out into a hallway I can only see a small sliver of. “Now!”
Jerking away from the wall, I take a few cautious steps toward him, and he urges me into the long, narrow corridor that leads toward the sound of male voices.
Where the hell am I?
This can’t have anything to do with Weston.
If he wanted me back on the mountain, he would’ve come and gotten me himself. Plus, he knew I was coming back. I swore to him that I would. And I would never, I could never, look into that man’s eyes and flat-out lie.
The armed guard motions me forward, keeping me walking until we finally emerge at the bottom of a set of stairs that lead up to an open door, the voices carrying down from above.
A basement.
He nudges my back with the barrel of the gun, forcing me up, and I grasp the handle tightly. Taking each step carefully, I listen to the sounds around me, trying to find anything familiar or that might tell me where the fuck I am.
I reach the top of the stairs, which open to a wide kitchen.
Modern. Luxurious. Nothing like the space beneath us. Stainless steel appliances line the room, with sparkling granite countertops and a massive inset farm sink set under a large picture window.
It’s too dark outside to make out anything beyond it, though. And the people settled around the wooden table just in front of me don’t offer much by way of information about my location, either.
The three heavily armed men all stare at me, their seedy gazes raking over me from the top of my head all the way over my bare legs exposed in the nightgown Weston gave me and I brought to sleep in and to my bare feet.
One of them climbs from his chair and points for me to take the spot he just vacated as he walks to the fridge and reaches in. He turns back with a bottle of water, twists off the cap, and hands it to me. “Drink that. It’ll help with the brain fog.”
That they know exactly what I’m feeling right now suggests this is something they do quite often, and apparently quite well, since this routine appears rehearsed.
I tentatively take a sip of the cool liquid. “What did you give me?”
One of the men offers a half-shrug. “We injected you with a sleeping medication so it would be easier to get you here without you fighting back or getting hurt.”
