“Dom?”My voice was raspy and crackling like static.“Dom…Do?—”
Steven’s hand slapped over my mouth.He reeked, the smell of him burning all the way to the back of my throat.
“Shut the fuck up, Marc.”
I wanted to bite him or kick.The pain that came from him yanking me around like that was too much though.It stunned me completely, and my vision narrowed as my body prepared to tap out.
I had no idea what kept me alert, not really, but I was just so scared.I was scared they’d shoot Dom or Ell, I was scared Linc was here, that they’d shoot him too.I was scared of the pain.
The pain didn’t care.I heard the underwater sound in my ears while Steven was plastering duct tape over my mouth.Faintly, I recognized how bad that was in case I really had to throw up after all.There had been a time when I’d kissed that man and meant it, and now I was thinking about how him doing this to me could make me suffocate on my own vomit.
The werewolf watched as if he saw this kind of thing every day.
Steven slapped my cheek and walked away.He said something, some stupid, meaningless comment, but I couldn’t hear it over the buzzing in my ears.
I wasn’t picking up all the sound around me either, and my vision was still graying out.I tried to move, but everything I did just made it worse.I decided to focus on breathing and keeping my stomach from revolting.
I missed it when they dragged a naked Dom in, only sort of recognized when they lifted him up, slinging his arms over their shoulders and posing for a photo.One of them pulled his head up by his hair.
Seeing that—the man holding Dom by the hair—made everything white out for a second.
I thought he was dead.I thought they were posing with him like sociopathic billionaires did with the rhinos or lions they paid to kill.He was bloody.I couldn’t even cry.Maybe I cried without knowing it.
I realized he was alive only when they pulled a dart out of his side, the kind you saw in documentaries about wildlife.They let him drop to the ground, hard, and then they rammed a syringe into his buttock while laughing.
This was a nightmare, and I couldn’t wake up.I could only watch.They carried Dom out of my line of sight too, and I couldn’t turn properly.The movement hurt too much.
They started packing up the campsite then, moving fast.Someone jolted the ATV.I whimpered.They didn’t care.I couldn’t see the wolf anymore.
I went into a middle-distance place between being alert and passed out.I’d had no idea that place existed.I was sitting down, but I didn't hurt, and I could move my arms.
I touched my belly, still flat, and wondered how it would feel to have that change.I couldn’t make it line up with reality.It was a round peg for a hole that had been square all my life.
What would I even call a baby if there was a baby?
I was jolted out of that fugue state when the ATV started moving again.Steven was driving.I wished him a heart attack or an aneurysm.The ground was uneven, and I felt every stone, every pit in the nonexistent road we were crossing as blooming pain that radiated outward from my arm to the rest of me.
It was torture.I was breathing heavily by the time we stopped at a stretch of abandoned-looking road that was paved but plastered with dead leaves and pine needles.There were several cars here as well as a truck, the large back of it scary.It was seeing that truck that made me realize I was really living a true crime story now.I had to be smart, then.I had to fight.I had to stay awake.
Steven cut me loose, and then he ripped the duct tape off.
I knew I should’ve felt that, and from the gleeful expression on his face, he thought so too.I barely felt a pinch.
Steven sneered and pulled me along.He was grabbing my good arm, but with the zip ties, I still ended up whimpering.
“For the sake of fuck, Marc, you’re such an embarrassment.”
One of them laughed, and it scared me.I looked around for who it had been; the one who’d looked at me across the river.
“Shit, man.”He came over and clapped me on my left shoulder.The pain would’ve brought me to my knees if Steven hadn’t been holding me up.“Shit.Sprained, huh?Poor little wimp this one, isn’t he?”
“You have no idea,” Steven said.
The man cackled.“Marc, huh?Hey, Marc, I’m sure they’ll be able to fix you right up back at Camelot.I’d cut off the redhead’s dick for you, but they kind of like them in one piece these days.”He scoffed.“Changing times, you know?”
Steven snorted.“Makes you wish for the good old days sometimes.”
They put me in the back of a large SUV and closed the door.At least this wasn’t the truck.Maybe I could get out.One of them was right outside the door, but at least I was alone in the car and insanely grateful for the quiet, for being able to rest my arms in my lap.It still hurt, but it was marginally better than before.
