My head is pounding. I’m sure if I could reach up and feel the back of my skull, I’d find a lump the size of a baseball.
Where is he taking me?
Who the fuck is this?
I don’t bother to ask myself what he’s gonna do to me. I’m already riding the thin edge of hysteria—I don’t want to tip over the edge with visions of what this psychopath has planned.
I have to get out of the trunk. A tumble out of a moving car is the least of my worries right now.
I squirm around, feeling for the hidden latch that’s supposed to be inside every trunk. My numb fingers can barely differentiate between the rough material of the lining and the metal lid.
I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to puke.
These impulses cycle over and over, each one harder to crush than the last.
The car slows and my heart rate spikes.
No, no, no, no, no!
I don’t want to get wherever we’re going.
I scrabble madly for the latch, still finding nothing.
The car rolls to a gentle stop.
WHERE’S THE FUCKING LATCH!
I hear the engine shutting off, and the driver’s side door creaking open.
Too late.
Footsteps circle round to the trunk—slow and widely spaced.
Fighting every impulse within me, I lay perfectly still within the trunk. I want him to think I’m still unconscious.
It takes everything I have not to flinch or struggle as he puts his arms under my body and lifts me out.
It’s only when the cold air hits my flesh that I realize I’m naked—or at least, partly naked. My tits are definitely bare.
The sense of violation is almost enough to make me crack. To say nothing of the agony of being carried in this contorted position.
He walks along at that same steady, measured pace.
I can feel his heart beating against my shoulder, like a creature inside his chest, pulsing, and swelling. I hate the intimate feel of it thudding away. I hate even more his sour breath against my bare flesh.
Don’t puke. Don’t fucking puke.
I can’t tell how long he’s been walking.
I’m praying that he’ll set me down somewhere, maybe next to a nice, convenient rock I could use to break these ties.
My plans are impossibly weak, I know that, but my befuddled brain can’t seem to think of anything better. My head feels like it’s split along the back, each of his steps sending another bolt of pain through my skull.
This can’t be happening. It’s too surreal. I can’t be one of those girls raped and murdered in the woods. Nothing exceptional has ever happened to me. The irony that this could be my one claim to fame is too much to bear.
Without warning, he dumps me on the ground.
I fall like a sack of potatoes, unable to put up my hands to protect myself, chin slamming against the dirt. The air wheezes out of my lungs and I taste blood in my mouth.
“I know you’re awake,” a male voice says.
The voice is utterly flat. The lack of emotion makes it sound almost robotic. I can’t tell how old he is, or if there’s any hint of an accent.
I can’t answer him because of the tape over my mouth. I can’t see him either—the hood is so thick that no light passes through. I know we’re outdoors from the sound of his shoes on the rough ground, and the dirt and pebbles beneath my bare skin. But I have no idea if we’re still in the city or hours from civilization.
I hear him crouch next to me, knees popping.
“Hold still,” he growls.
I feel his hand on my bare right breast and I howl against the tape, the sound smothered and trapped inside my mouth.
Red-hot pain stabs through my nipple. I’m choking and screaming, thinking he sliced it right off.
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” he says. “It’s not that bad.”
Before I can draw breath, he roughly seizes my left breast. The same pain stabs through it, and this time I understand that I’m being pierced, not severed. This motherfucker put rings through my nipples.
My tits are on fire, the cold metal fixed in place no matter how I squirm. It’s so much worse that I can’t see what he’s done—I can only imagine.
“There,” the flat voice says. “Much better.”
I tried so hard to maintain control.
It’s all splintering away.
I’m rolling and wrenching against the ties, thrashing helplessly, howling against the tape. I’m raging, screaming, though hardly any sound leaks out. The hood is wet with tears.
He’s standing there watching me, the way you’d watch a worm twitching. I can’t see, but I know it’s true.