Page 2 of Cruel Master

I lay there crying and breathing heavily as fear sluices through my veins. What’s going to happen to me? Is he going to kill me? Rape me? Is he going to torture me?

I begin to shake uncontrollably when I remember all the crime documentaries I’ve seen and some of the horrible ways the people in them died.

Is this guy a serial killer? Is there any way I can reason with him when we eventually get to wherever he’s taking me? Try to humanize yourself to the predator. That’s what they always say on those shows.

I have to try to make him like me, try not to show my fear because if it’s fear he gets off on, then that’s only going to amp him up.

Or, it might just piss him off if I don’t react the way he wants me to.

More tears stream down my face at the helplessness of my situation. I don’t know what to do. It’s a gamble either way.

I close my eyes and think of Gia. I go through every good memory of my sister I have. Us playing together in the park. Her tenth birthday when I stole us both a pair of skates and snuck us into the skating rink. The day I officially adopted her.

Memories of my sister calm me as I remind myself that I have a reason to fight. I have my sister.

I begin trying to pay attention to any little details I can again. I’m not being jostled around as much anymore, so we’re on a smoother road. A highway maybe? What kind of road were we on before then?

My heart begins hammering against my ribcage when my body sways forward as the brakes engage.

We’re slowing down, coming to a stop.

Surely, we’re not on a highway then. Probably a private drive then? A paved one?

The engine dies, and then I hear the slam of the door as someone gets out of the front. It sounded like it came from the passenger side, though—not the driver’s side.

My stomach lurches. Does that mean there are two of them? One I have yet to see?

Oh god, being tortured and raped and killed by one monster is bad enough, but two?

Please don’t let me be that unlucky, I pray to any deity out there that will listen.

The door opens, and I blink against the sudden, blinding light of a cell phone’s flashlight shining right in my face.

“Alright, girl. Up we go,” a voice I recognize as the photographer’s from the mall speaks coldly.

He moves the flashlight up, and I look up at his goatee and bald head. He’s big and muscular with a plain white T-shirt and low-slung jeans. Not exactly handsome but not hideous either. I’d thought he looked artistic back at the mall. He’d looked like a legitimate photographer in my mind, but now I see him for what he is.

A criminal.

He reaches in to grab me by the arms and haul me up, but when I see his big hands looming toward me, I forget everything I’d told myself I was going to do.

I act on pure instinct instead and twist onto my back until my feet are up in the air. The weight of my spine on my hands makes my wrists ache, but I ignore it.

I lift my bound feet and kick as hard as I can straight at the man’s face.

ChapterTwo

It'slaughable how easily the man evades my kick. He captures my ankles in one hand.

I brace myself for the flare of anger that I'm expecting at my resistance, but it never comes.

Instead, I feel the man's hands gripping my calves as he pulls me toward the door of the van so he can lift me up out of it. His touch isn't as harsh as I would have expected. No, it feels strangely calm and almost clinical—almost as if I'm just a package he's intent on transporting from one place to another.

I glance up at his stoic face. He doesn't seem to be emotionally invested in this at all. Either he's a true sociopath or—a chill runs down my spine at my next thought—he's not the real monster.

He's taking me to the real monster. He's just the intermediary—like the drug mule. A new flare of panic grips me.

I already know it's useless, but I can't help myself from trying anyway. “Please let me go,” I beg him in a quiet voice.

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