SADIE
Irun blindly through the corridor, lungs burning. My mind is struggling to process what just happened—what Landon just did to me on that table.
A sob tears from my throat as I skid around a corner, desperate to put distance between us. The sound of metal gates slamming makes me flinch. He’s changing the maze. Trapping me.
I slow, pressing my back against the wall, trying to catch my breath. My legs shake so violently that I slide down to the floor, hugging my knees to my chest.
What was I thinking coming here? I knew exactly what this was.
The truth crashes over me like a wave—I’ve been running from it for twelve years. Since Thomas Mercer pinned me under the bleachers after that football game. Since he covered my mouth and told me I wanted it. Since he broke a fundamental part within that I’ve never been able to fix.
I press my palms against my eyes, trying to block the memories. I’ve spent years in therapy, years building walls around myself, years avoiding intimacy because I couldn’t bearthe vulnerability. I thought I’d buried that trauma deep enough that it couldn’t touch me anymore.
But I’m broken and wired wrong. Because part of me—that sick, twisted part I’ve tried to deny—is why I signed those papers. Why I walked into Purgatory knowing what awaited me.
I wanted someone to take the choice away. To make my body respond against my will. To let me experience pleasure without the burden of consent.
And somehow, Landon knows what happened to me.
The realization makes me feel stripped bare, exposed in a way far worse than physical nakedness. Landon has stripped away every defense, discovered my darkest secret.
Footsteps echo in the distance. Calm. Unhurried. Hunting.
I press my hand against my mouth, stifling another sob as the footsteps grow closer. It’s him. I know it’s him.
My body betrays me with a shiver that’s not entirely fear. Heat blooms in my belly, and I hate myself for it. What’s wrong with me? He just restrained me, forced me to?—
God, I can still feel his mouth on me. The way he rendered me immobile. The way he made me come against my will.
And the worst part? Part of me liked it.
“No,” I whisper, pressing my fists against my temples. “No, no, no.”
I scramble away, needing to move, to run, to think about anything except how my hips had arched toward his mouth even as my mind screamed for him to stop.
The corridor stretches before me, a maze with no exit. My breath comes in short, panicked gasps. I’m trapped—physically in this labyrinth and mentally in my own twisted desires.
“Sadie.” His voice echoes off the walls, coming from everywhere and nowhere. “I know what you need.”
I shake my head, even though he can’t see me. Or can he? Are there cameras watching me right now? Is he tracking me, studying my reactions like I’m some lab rat?
Another corridor, another dead end. I spin around, pulse hammering in my throat.
“You can’t run from what you want,” Landon calls.
And that’s what terrifies me most—not that he’s hunting me, but that he’s right. What he did to me shouldn’t have felt good. Shouldn’t have made me burn with need even now, even as I’m running for my life.
I stumble around another corner and see a gate open at the end, desperate to find any escape route, when a solid form collides with me. The impact knocks me backward, and I nearly lose my balance.
“Shit!” I gasp.
Sorry, I—Sadie?” Mira’s voice is surprised as she recognizes me, her eyes widening as she takes in my disheveled appearance.
I feel self-conscious of how I must look—hair a mess, clothes torn, the marks on my wrists still visible.
“Mira,” I manage, relief washing over me. I remember her from the preparation room earlier tonight—the journalist with the sharp eyes. She’d been the only one who seemed as suspicious of this whole Hunt as I was, though we’d barely spoken beyond introductions. A familiar face that isn’t hunting me is exactly what I need right now.
“I thought... I wasn’t sure if anyone else was still...”
