Page 21 of Sinful Lord

The fingers digging into my thigh lift and a new hand grabs me by the jaw. When I gasp, the bag is pulled into my mouth. For a second, it feels like I’m suffocating.

“Answer,” the man across from me demands. His deep voice crawls through the darkness like broken glass. “Do you know how to dance?”

The hand around my jaw tightens. A finger slips into my mouth. Before my mind can stop it, my body reacts.

I bite down.

The man next to me howls as he jumps back.

“You fucking bitch,” he cries.

Something hard hits me in the temple. A flash of sharp pain cuts through my skull as I hit the hard van floor.

For a moment, I just lie there. But my pride won’t let me stay still. All I can think of is how my brother would react; how Roz would handle herself in a situation like this.

I come from a family of fighters. Right now, I need to be one too.

But the tears are already welling up in my eyes.

“I know how to fight,” I rasp, my voice choppy and weak.

It’s a lie, but one I wish was true; one that I’ve always wished was true.

All my life, I’ve been surrounded by powerful men who fight for what they want. They’ve always been there to protect me from the evils of this world. But now they’re not. And I can’t fight for myself.

Someone grabs a fistful of my hair and pulls me back into my seat.

“No, you don’t know how to fight,” he hisses. “You know how to kick and scream. They all know how to kick and scream… until we help them forget.”

All of a sudden, the bag is ripped from my head. It’s dark in the van, but still brighter than it was behind the hood. My eyes clench shut against the light. My temples throb.

A bloody hand reaches back around my jaw and pries my lips open.

“Sleep tight, you stupid little bitch,” a snake hisses into my ear. “Because you’re never getting out of this nightmare.”

Another hand shoves something into my mouth. My lips are clamped shut again. Then a new set of fingers pinch down on my nose, cutting off all my airways.

My eyes bulge open. I try to kick my captors away, but I only hit air. Air that I desperately want to suck into my lungs. Air that I can’t get.

A scream rips from my throat, but it gets caught in my mouth.

“Swallow.”

There are no lights on in the back of the van, but I can still recognize the outline of the man in the fedora. He sits directly across from me, unmoving, as his goons hold me down.

“Coward,” I try to mumble, but it comes out as nothing more than a high-pitched whimper.

“Swallow and I’ll let you breathe again.” A hot gust of moldy breath swirls into my ear. My vision starts to blur. Cold tears trickle down my cheek. My body doesn’t give me a choice.

I swallow. The thick pill tumbles down my throat.

“Now was that so hard?”

Without pause, I’m pulled back down onto my ass. Despite the force, I don’t feel any pain. Even the pounding against my skull has stopped. Hell, I can’t feel my head at all. It’s like it’s been detached from my body.

The darkness in the back of the van starts to sway. The voices fade away. My jaw is released, and my chin snaps down to my chest. If it weren’t for the two bodies sandwiching me into place, I’d hit the floor, and I wouldn’t even care.

I just want to lie down, close my eyes, and sleep…