Page 136 of Pink

My silly girl.

How the man could sound both affectionate but also terrifying at the same time, Gigi didn’t know. The sudden swell of panic that came on like a wave, however, didn’t give her much time to consider it when the vomit came up fast and violent.

Someone swore.

Someone that wasn’t Jensen.

“Well, Jesus,” Jensen muttered, his voice slightly farther away than it had been. The smell of her sickness was thick with her next breath, pulling another gag from her throat. “Quite enough of that, dolly. Let me put you back to sleep.”

“What—”

It was the first word Gigi had been able to form.

It was also the last one.

A prick of something sharp hit her in the side of the neck, and in the next seconds she was drifting again. Slipping away into warm darkness that felt like someone had brought a thick quilt to wrap around her entire body. She found nothingness in that blank, black place.

Except she remembered now, too. It was the needle that brought the memory on. The needle Jensen stabbed into her neck the same way he had done at the show when she had slipped behind the dressing curtain after getting her wings removed so that she could easily slip into the final outfit for the night.

He’d been waiting there like it was … planned. A security guard from the event helped him subdue her with a hand clapped over her mouth and an arm around her throat.

“You’ll just look wasted when we leave,” he had said, his laugh a taunt when he pulled the needle out. “Another wasted model fucking up her life, Gigi. They won’t even know the difference.”

She remembered everything.

She wished she didn’t.

• • •

The next time Gigi came to some sense of awareness, she knew two things for certain.

The car had stopped moving, and her blindfold had slipped down. She was also face down along the backseat in a position that had her chin propped up on the leather so that when she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was directly outside the vehicle.

Someone had left the backdoor open.

Did she consider running?

Hell.

Gigi couldn’t move to run.

She didn’t know how long she had been out for the second time but some things were different enough to say it had been a while. Long enough for someone to clean the car as it no longer smelled like her vomit. Or maybe that was just because the door was open and fresh air rushed in that she gulped down as much as she could.

If she had been cleaned, Gigi couldn’t tell.

All of that was also secondary to the sight right in front of her face. Beyond the opened door of the vehicle, she watched Jensen and another man—the same security guard from the show who had helped him take Gigi—argue until the two of them were face to face, hands waving wildly and spittle flying with every shout between them.

Their words sounded funny.

Muffled.

That couldn’t be right.

Despite the sensation of being underwater, Gigi caught a few things thrown between the men.

“I didn’t sign up for that,” the guard snapped.

Jensen barked a laugh, coming forward at the man like a bull ready to run him over. “What—you thought this was going to be a fun day trip with her?”