Page 6 of The Contract

Bad move.

Another shadow lunges from the dark, the two of them trapping me. “Fucking bitch!”

Crack.

My head whips to the side, white-hot fire blooming across my cheek. The sharp tang of blood floods my mouth.

And then, darkness.

Heavy, stifling black fabric clings to my skin, dampening with each ragged breath, smothering me.

A sack.

They’ve put a sack over my head.

No.

No no no.

I can’t?—

I can’t be in the dark.

My brain fractures.

Panic claws up my throat like a wildcat yanked from a trap.

Get it off. Get it off.

I thrash, digging at the fabric, nails scraping over my own skin, chest heaving against the heat. My fingers fumble, shaking, desperate?—

There.

The knot.

But it’s too tight.

Too strong.

A rush of hot tears breaks free, the pin pulled from a dam I can’t hold back. The scream rips free—raw and unrecognizable—and that’s when it hits.

Another blow.

This one so much worse than the last.

Blinding.

Skull-rattling.

The world shifts and tilts, toppling until I hit the ground. Or maybe it hits me.

Hard.

So hard, it feels like I got sideswiped by a Mack truck.

Pain rips through my shoulder, coils down my spine like barbed wire.

And just like that, I go still. Leonardo DiCaprio still. Drifting in freezing water, waiting for a lifeboat that never fucking comes.

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