Hot anger churns in my belly and migrates all the way to the tips of my toes. It feeds a burst of adrenaline that zings through my muscles.
I won’t allow them to use me the way they did before.
I refuse.
The fear is still there—of course it is—but it’s not as potent as it was when I was first taken. Rage has shoved it aside and made itself front and center.
A part of me wants to believe that someone will come for me. Save me. Rescue me. That same part desperately hopes it’s my guys—my scent matches. But hope is a funny thing. It can build you up piece by piece and then crumble just as quickly, turning into nothing but dust.
No one saw me get taken.
No one knows I’m here.
My heart makes a mad dash up my throat, trying desperately to escape.
No one knows I’m here.
That one sentence plays on a continuous loop in my head, reverberating like a tuning fork striking metal.
No one knows I’m here.
No one knows I’m here.
No one knows I’m here.
No one?—
We enter a large room in what appears to be a warehouse. Shafts of pale light filter through cracks in high windows, cutting through a haze of dust that hangs stagnant in the air.
The concrete floor is cracked and uneven, littered with the remnants of a busier time—splintered pallets, scraps of papers, and the brittle shells of long-dead machinery. Water drips steadily from a leaky pipe somewhere in the dark, echoing through the cavernous space. The smell is a mix of mildew, oil, and cold metal.
Most of the soldiers are here, their eyes intent on me like lions tracking a gazelle.
I force my chin high, trying to pretend I’m not being marched forward like a witch to the gallows.
Directly in front of me is a setup of computers and monitors. Two men sit in wheelie chairs, alternating their attention between the various screens.
“We’re all ready,” one of the men says, giving my captors a nod.
I’m led past them and toward the far wall, where a white sheet cascades down. A single stool rests directly in front of it. Waiting for me.
And in front ofthatis a camera.
Thenhesteps out. The man who spoke. A Noth with dark hair who immediately thickens my throat with terror.
Pedro.
Of all the Noth bastards who tortured me last time, he was the worst.
He is the boogeyman made flesh. A source of recurring nightmares. But I’d thought he was gone. Now he stands before me, no longer a figment of my imagination, but a real human being.
“We’ll let you go afterwards,” Pedro says, his lips stretching in a macabre smile that he probably thinks is comforting.
Fear prickles the back of my neck, anticipation racing along after it.
“No.” I shake my head adamantly. “I won’t do it. You’ll kill me either way.”
I glance at the first cue card and read some gibberish.
