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The door opens. “You look like shit.”
I sit up and see a put-together Rian standing in front of me. She has on a royal blue pencil skirt with a cream shirt tucked in, the buttons done up to her throat. She looks like a villain from a science fiction movie.
“Smell like it, too,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “We did our best to clean you up after you had your little ‘accident.’”
I don’t know what she means until I look down at myself and realize I’m in different clothes. I’m no longer in my pajamas but in a cotton pair of sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt.
My bladder is empty. I peed myself.
“You force-fed me water and refused to let me use the restroom,” I say. “I’m not sure what you expected?”
She is across the room in an instant, her face less than an inch from mine. “I expected you to be better than a dog from the pound. Though, I shouldn’t be surprised. You are nothing more than abitch.”
I open my mouth to argue, but as soon as I do, Rian pulls a bottle from behind her back and shoves the top of it between my lips.
Water floods my mouth and I spurt and gag on it, wrenching my head away. Rian grabs the back of my neck, digging her nails into my skin, and yanks me forward. She tries to force my mouth over the bottle, but I keep my lips and teeth firmly closed now.
Her father appears behind her, his face red and angry, and stomps over to help.
He moves around behind me and presses his palms into either side of my face, squeezing down until it feels like my jaw will shatter.
“Open up,” he growls, squeezing even harder.
“We can’t mark her,” Rian hisses at him. “Bruises on her face won’t sell.”
Instantly, his grip lightens, and I realize I was right. They can’t touch me. Not really.
He moves around and kneels in front of me. He wriggles his finger into my mouth, and though I try to resist, he is able to wrench my mouth open and hold it there while Rian pours water down my throat.
I spit half of it back out, but the other half goes down, and within a few minutes, I start to feel drowsy again.
Then, for what feels like the millionth time since the FBI raid on our house, the blackness takes me away once more.
* * *
The next time I return to consciousness, I’m lying down. There is nothing around my hands and ankles, and for one blissful second, I think it was all a horrible nightmare.
“Grab her head.”
Rian Morrison’s voice is like a shot of adrenaline straight to my heart. My body goes rigid when I feel sweaty hands grabbing at me.
Instinctively, I kick out at the hands and begin thrashing.
Rian lets out a yelp, and I hear a deep growl behind me. Her hands clamp down hard on my calves, but I fight against them.
I still don’t have my full strength yet because the drugs haven’t totally left my system, but I can still fight.
I open my eyes and realize I’m in the back seat of an SUV. Maybe the same one they used to take me to the house. I’m not sure. But I see a different house in the distance. Or, really, a large manor. There is official signage above the door, letting me know it is a business of some kind, but I’m too keyed up to read it.
Rian tries to wrap her arms around my legs, but before she can, my bare foot connects with the underside of her jaw. I hear her teeth crack together, and she falls back into the dirt.
A deep voice I assume belongs to the driver tries to grab my arms, but I slip out of his grip and through the door where Rian was standing. I have a better chance of fighting her than a grown man.
My feet hit the dirt, and I throw myself forward into a run, but my legs are still wobbly. My knees feel like jelly, and I trip over Rian’s leg and hit the ground.
I scramble quickly, but Rian recovers just as fast and throws herself over my body, smashing my face into the dirt.
“Enough!” she yells.
