Page 24 of The Hunt
“Where… Where are you taking me?” I whispered.
“Somewhere nice and quiet,” Mark said with a smile. “Somewhere alone.”
My blood ran even colder somehow, and I shifted my gaze from Mark to the window beside me. There was no point in trying to get out of here. He had me tied up and right beside him, driving in the middle of an abandoned forest during a snowstorm.
I needed to conserve my energy to think of a plan.
Cigarette smoke mixed with cheap cologne drifted through my nose, making my stomach churn. I bit my trembling lip, so Mark wouldn’t know how scared I was. And honestly, I didn’t want to make him angry again.
Last time I did that, he hit me with his car.
“Is this your house?” I asked, as we approached a cottage.
“My parents’.”
“Your parents? Won’t they… say something when you drag me in?”
“No.”
I swallowed hard, unsure if I wanted the answer to my next question. “Why?”
“Because they’re dead.”
My heart sank, and I discreetly tried to undo the rope around my wrists. I needed to get out of here right fucking now, before he could bring me into his house. Or else… I’d never see sunlight again.
“Please, let me go,” I whispered. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“Let you go?” he chuckled, the sound sharp. “Oh, sweetheart. I’ve been waiting for too long to have you. And you? You just decided to sleep around with the first new kid you see? You know that he only thought of you as a challenge?”
“You’re lying,” I said through my teeth. “You’re fucking lying. You started that rumor.”
“I leaked it, maybe, but those are his words.”
I glared out the window through teary eyes. I was fucked.
Mark grabbed my knee and squeezed. “We’re meant to be together, Daphne.”
“We’re not,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t even know you!”
A wide grin curled onto his face. “Not yet, but you will.”
Before I could respond, Mark jumped out of the car and slammed the door behind him. I did everything that I could to try to get the ropes off my wrist in the two, maybe three seconds that it took him to walk to my side of the car.
But it was useless.
He opened my door, picked me up, and headed straight for the back door. Once he brought me into the house, he descended a set of stairs into the basement. I kicked and screamed and wiggled my body as much as I could to get out.
“Please! You don’t even know me!”
“But I do, Daphne. Apollo was right. I have been watching you. I know everything about you. I know what you like, what you don’t like, the way you read those dirty books when you think no one’s looking…”
Bile rose in my throat. “You’re sick! That isn’t love!”
Mark dropped me down onto the concrete, and I hit it with a thud, my rib cracking.
“Don’t you dare say that again,” he hissed, grabbing another rope and binding me to the wall. He pulled a knife from his jacket and held it against my throat. “If those words come out of your mouth again, I’ll make sure you can’t say them ever.”
I pressed my lips together, eyes wide.
