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“I got you some punch.” He held up the cup. “Want some?”
“How did you know I was thirsty?” I gently pinched his cheek. “Yes, I’d love some.”
He blushed when I accepted the drink and then ran away. I chuckled as I straightened from my crouch. The boy acted like he was handing me a bouquet rather than a drink.
I downed the punch in a few long gulps and wiped my mouth with my sleeve. There was a slightly bitter aftertaste in the punch, but I figured someone hadn’t mixed it properly. I headed toward the tree, but as I walked, the tree began to shift and distort before my eyes. I stumbled forward and placed a hand to my head as if doing so could hold back the onslaught of dizziness.
What’s happening to me? Why am I suddenly so…sleepy…? I heard a whine, brief and distant. My pulse spiked, but not from excitement. A wave of anxiety prickled across my skin. Something was very, very wrong. I tried to walk back to the cabin, toward my mom, who would help me. I made it a few more yards, stumbling over the ground that shifted beneath my feet, but before long, I was overcome with exhaustion.
I groaned as I slowly pulled myself out of a void of unconsciousness. I opened my eyes, but my vision was still unstable. All I could make out was that I was in a dark room. I sat up, my body stiff and sore. I lifted a hand to push my hair out of my face and noticed something chafing my wrist. What…the hell? I turned my head, and my stomach dropped. My wrists and ankles were bound to the wall with thick rope. I realized with a second surge of horror that I was naked but for my bra and panties.
Oh, no! No! My vision was still blurry, but the last of my grogginess quickly disappeared. I tugged as hard as I could at my bindings, but the ropes were too secure.
“Help!” I shrieked. “Somebody help me, please!”
Silence answered me. I tried again to yank at the ropes but only succeeded in exhausting myself. I sank against the wall, tears of frustration and panic welling in my eyes. I quickly rubbed them away. I needed to be able to see where I was. Maybe I could get a handle on how to escape.
My vision had cleared enough that I could see there was a window in the left-hand wall. Light from the moon entered the room, but it illuminated only four, maybe five feet in front of me. It wasn’t enough for me to see where I was or how I was tied up. I cast desperate eyes around the room. I could dimly make out the dark shapes of a bed and a couple of nightstands through the darkness, but little else.
Movement on the armchair caused my breath to catch in my throat. One of the inky black shadows of the room was moving, gathering itself up and stepping toward me. I shrieked even before my brain processed that the person stepping into the moonlight was Troy.
He laughed at me and reached for his crotch to adjust himself. I immediately stopped screaming and pressed my back against the wall. I knew my fear turned him on, but I couldn’t stop the tears that slipped down my cheeks. Troy’s expression was full of malice, but his gaze was that of a famished man. I couldn’t tell if he was after my blood or my body. Either way, it couldn’t be good for me.
“What’s happening?” I asked, my voice the trembling squeak of a frightened mouse. “How did I get here?”
“How do you think?”
I tried to search my memory, and for a second, it was frightfully blank. But then flashes of the night’s festivities returned to me. I remembered the little boy and the drink, and…
“D-did you slip me something?”
He slammed his hand against the wall beside my head, and I flinched in spite of myself. “That’s right. I told that pup to bring you a drink. I knew you’d never drink it if I gave it to you.”
I shuddered. I could hardly wrap my mind around the sickness that allowed Troy to take advantage of my soft spot for children.
“I had my men follow you so when you passed out, they could carry you back here. To my bedroom.” As he spoke, he flicked on a light—briefly illuminating the clean white walls, gold bed sheets, two nightstands, an armchair, and the rope and pulley system that kept me bound—and then flicked it off again. “Oh, and they noticed that you kept glancing at one of the trees near the dining hall. One of them climbed up and found your bag.”
I couldn’t hold in a gasp and immediately hated myself for making another noise, for giving him the satisfaction. Troy walked toward his bed at the back of the room, and I heard him open a drawer. He walked back into the light and held up the worn bag that I’d stashed in the tree. A bit of sap had rubbed off on the strap.
“Look at this. Look at this. Aren’t you a clever one?” He opened the bag and began to toss around the map, the clothes, the rations, all the things that I would need to help me escape. “I bet you were thinking you could slip away during the challenge ceremony.” He grinned. “Lucky for me, I had already planned a few steps ahead.”
He tossed the bag to the side, kicking and stomping on my things as I looked on in horror. He giggled, watching the color drain from my face.
“Truth be told,” he went on, “I was hoping you’d wake up before the challenge ceremony so I could see the look on your face when you realized how fucked you are.”
I stared at him, my heart pounding against my rib cage.
He laughed and again shifted the bulge in his pants. “Yeah, that’s the one.”
I looked away from him, my lower lip trembling. “What are you going to do with me?” I had to know, even though I knew the answer was likely that he planned to kill or torture me.
“Oh, I’ve got something wonderful planned for the little human who could never be pack no matter how hard she tries.”
He moved across the room to where the pulley system was hooked up to the right-hand wall. As he cranked, the ropes on my limbs began to drag me against the wall and up into a standing position. I screamed and fought, but no matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t stop the ropes from pulling me flush with the wall. My limbs were spread out, leaving me exposed to him.
He licked his lips as he walked toward me. “I set up the ropes myself,” he said. “You should be grateful because it’s for your birthday.”
“What are you talking about?”
