Page 34 of Trapped

Chapter Thirteen

Black Out

Erin

Black fear swarmed my senses, spiraling the universe into dark, uncontrollable panic.Wherever my eyes darted, the fabric of the hood greeted them, taunting me with the reality that my eyesight had been stripped away, and with every inhale, the covering seemed intent on smothering me.My hearing was also muted, making it difficult to make out anything except the huffs of the bastard hauling me over his shoulder.

Eli had carried me that way once when the snow had set in, sweeping me from my feet in a fireman’s lift that had taken my breath away.I might not have been ecstatic about the quality of that journey, but compared to the swine lugging me at that moment, it had been glorious.The current beast wasted no time grabbing a hold of me, hauling me like inconvenient luggage as he trudged on.

I sensed I was over his shoulder.With the damn hood in place, I couldn’t see him or the view, but the blood rushing to my brain assured me that my judgment was correct, as did the fact that my feet hadn’t touched the ground since we’d left the cabin.I’d been tipped forward and was dangling over someone.No doubt about it.

The drop in temperature confirmed we’d definitely left the relative sanctuary of the wooden shack, although no one had offered me the luxury of footwear or a coat.That meant that even if I could wriggle free of the monster holding me and find a way out of the hood, I’d be forced to run in only a pair of socks, increasing my chances of potentially fatal hypothermia by God only knew how much.I wouldn’t survive out there without even basic clothing.

Bastards.

My fingers balled into fists against the aggressor’s back.Still forced into cuffs, there was little my hands could do to aid my plight, but I contemplated whacking the asshole all the same, wondering how much hurt I could inflict before he lost his shit and retaliated.

Not enough.The thought was a depressing reality check.There’s nothing I can really do to him, buthecould hurt me… a lot.

The logical conclusion ricocheted, pushing me into an even deeper sense of self-pity.To think I’d bemoaned life in the cabin with my brooding Eli and its depleting food and firewood.Compared to being suspended over a stranger in the freezing cold, that existence almost looked utopian.Eli had been a brute at times, but at least he’d cared about my welfare, and when he’d taken pleasure, he’d also curated my own.I didn’t even want to think about what the oaf carrying me wanted, but the knotting tension in my tummy told me it would be nothing good.

Somehow, in a window of time that probably amounted to less than an hour, everything had altered, ensuring the fright whipping through me meant I actually missed the cabin.

I should have laughed at the preposterous idea.That lodge had become my prison, a place I’d sought to escape on more than one occasion, and yet being carried out of it, all I could sense was the taste of terror congealing at the back of my throat.Men I’d never met had swooped to take me away, and while I assumed they were also hauling Eli in the same direction, there was frustratingly little way to clarify.I couldn’t see him and hadn’t heard anything from him since they’d taken me from the cabin, but the memory of his gut-wrenching cries still lingered at the back of my mind.I doubted I’d ever be able to forget them.

Panting into the hood, I tried to think.What was going to happen to me if Eli had been taken somewhere else?But then, what would happen even if we were together?Pummeled to within an inch of his life, and likely also bound, Eli wasn’t going to be able to save me.

Whatever happened next, it would be down to me to play my own rescuer, a fact that furled the tension tightening inside of me.I wasn’t the sort of woman who swept into traumatic scenes and blazed a fire after her.I liked to keep myself to myself, Chelle’s suggestion of the hike the most audacious venture I’d undertaken for months, and look where that had left me; upturned and cuffed while being taken to some Godless place where something awful would no doubt transpire.

“Oh, God.”Frightened and frustrated tears burned in my eyes as my captor’s boots pounded on.Wherever he was taking me, it was nowhere near the cabin.

“How far to the chopper?”

As though he’d been able to read my mind, the selfish hulk hauling me sent the query to another of the jerks.My senses strained to hear a response; anything that might convey something about my fate.He’d said ‘chopper’, which meant a helicopter had been their probable route into the wilderness, but how could one land in an area so densely populated with trees?Focusing on the question, I tried not to dwell on the growing throbbing in my head or what would happen if I vomited inside the hood.

The hands of the asshole who’d thrown me over his shoulder shifted to my hips and adjusted my weight as though I was nothing but a piece of meat.

“Yeah, I know.”He laughed, one of his palms rising to pat me on the backside.I shrieked with disgust, cursing the hood over my head, and knowing it limited my ability to hear the replies of whoever he was talking to.“I couldn’t see much of her, but she might scrub up all right.”

Is he talking about me?

I tensed at the distressing thought, wishing I could shake off his unwelcome advance yet well aware of how much damage he could do if he threw me to the ground.I’d still be bound and blinded and left to face the unsavory choice of either freezing to death in the snow or being forced back into one of their arms once I was soaked and half-frozen.

What am I going to do?

I hadn’t heard the replies of any of his moron mates, but clearly, they were discussing me as if I was a prize they’d already won.As if he sought to reinforce the point, his hand brushed over my ass again, squeezing first one, and then the other orb.Paralyzed with shock, his shrill laughter swelled unease in my body as he spoke again.

“I don’t know.I’m not much of a sharer, but maybe.If you guys do something for me, then I’ll think about it.”

What?

Panic burst in my mind like a thousand fireworks, and all at once, I was moving, scissoring my legs backward and forward and slamming my cuffed hands down against his back.To hell with the potential consequences; I had to dosomethingto make the idiot see that I didn’t belong to him or to any of them.It had been one thing submitting to Eli in the privacy of the cabin, though I hadn’t even properly reconciled those encounters.It was quite another thing, though, to find myself at the behest of a group of bullies.I didn’t know who any of the men were, but whatever their intentions, I wasn’t going to make it easy for them with my tacit compliance.

“Hey!”His hand rose from my behind and smacked down over the top of my leggings.“That’s enough, bitch!”

I stilled at his warning, my emotions warring.I didn’twantto do anything he said, but he’d just given me a stark reminder of who was in control of the venture, and it wasn’t me.My heart galloped as I tried to decide how to react.

“Yeah.”He chuckled, his hand lowering to clutch at my ass once again.“She’s feisty.We’d better keep her in the cuffs.”

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