Chapter 2

• The blood trailed down his face, dripping from his nose as he came at me again. As he widened his stance, I knew there was no chance I’d be sweeping his legs out from under him a second time. My movement was restricted by these bagging clothes they made me wear, otherwise my roundhouse kick would knock him flying. I’d learned the hard way yesterday, the clothes constrained my movement and I couldn’t follow through. The bruises on my arms were proof of that.
• “Told you it wasn’t going to be easy.” Blondie said to him from the doorway. His face was sporting a black eye from the day before. He rattled the chain in his hand. “Just grab her and I’ll get these on her legs.”
• The other guard wiped the blood across his face and gave an abrupt nod, then stupidly started to come toward me again.
• When they’d dragged me in the day before and tossed the jumpsuit at me, I thought I’d been wrongfully busted for something. After a few moments of trying to justify their error, I’d realized this was not a jail, they were not cops, and I was in a different kind of trouble. The kind of trouble that wasn’t on any books, had no rules, and was a matter of life and death.
• People usually react three ways in situations like this. Fear, that causes them to comply. Shutting down and doing nothing. Or freaking out, I wasn’t big on screaming and crying. Fight or flight. In my case I had to do the fight the part first to get to where I could run. Fighting. That lead to a much larger problem with the size of these guys. I’d fought big men before, but these two were taking that to the extreme. I couldn’t execute a good elbow-knee combo if I couldn’t reach anything vital to hit.
• I could taste the blood in my mouth and it made me want to break his nose again. He knew it too and was shielding his face better now. If I could just get past him and drop blondie at the door, I might be able to find a way out of here.
• “There’s nowhere to go.” He growled, hunkering down further, his arms outstretched.
• It was a perfect position for me to inflict damage. I sneered at him. “What are you waiting for? Come and get me.” He charged at me, I ducked his arm and jumped up to land an elbow on his temple. He grunted and swung, catching me in the side of the face. The pain radiated up through my eye. I hated face shots, they hurt more than a blow to the kidneys.
• “What is going on?”
• The guard stumbled back and turned toward the door. Blondie was now standing erect and looking straight ahead.
• I wiped the blood off my mouth and stared at the tall woman in the doorway. She had long red hair and her aura and expression both spelled out the same thing: b.i.t.c.h.
• “You’re supposed to be transporting her over, not fighting with her.” She looked from one guard to the other. “No one is going to want a pulverized woman. It’s going to take a week for those to heal.”
• I backed up, trying to decide if I could make it through the three of them. The words were echoing through my mind. My heart started thrumming out of control. I’d been abducted by human traffickers.
• “Sorry, ma’am. We can’t get near her long enough to transport her.” Blondie said, still looking straight ahead.
• She turned and looked at the man dripping blood all over the floor. “Go get that dealt with.”
• Holding his nose, he moved by her quickly.
• Turning, she looked at the chains in the other man’s hands and then to his face. I wasn’t sure, but it looked like she smirked when she saw my handywork.
• I didn’t feel bad about his black eye. He’d walked up to me the day before and grabbed my arm. No one grabbed me. No one touched me if I didn’t want them to.
• With cold eyes, she looked at me. “Look, Autumn—”
• I scowled, she knew my name.
• “While I admire your fighting spirit, I simply can’t have you beating up the guards and giving the others any ideas.” She gave me a tight smile that looked more like she was in pain.
• I glared at her, if she was waiting for me to throw my hands up, apologize and comply, she was in for a big surprise.
• With a slow nod, she sighed and looked at the guard. “Sedate her, get those on her,” she looked back to me, “you may want a pair for her hands as well. Then transport her.” She snickered. “After the walk, she’ll be too tired to fight.” She walked away without another word.
• The guard slammed the door. I heard the lock click into place.
• Exhaling, I slumped my shoulders forward. My face was throbbing. I’d baby my injuries later. I had to come up with a plan. If they thought they were sticking some needle in me to knock me out, they were in for a world of hurt.
• The door opened.
• I spun toward it, ready.
• Blondie smirked and raised a gun and pulled the trigger, then closed the door again.
• The sting of it registered in my leg. I looked down to see a dart sticking out of it. Grabbing it, I pulled it out and tossed it across the room. My head felt weird. I blew out a breath and hopped up and down trying to shake it off. The room tilted, and I stumbled and hit the wall. Sliding down, I glared at the door.
• The door started to blur, I shook my head and it felt like I was moving in slow motion. My body was slipping sideways—I think, everything was too fuzzy to be sure. I couldn’t command my arm to stop the fall. I blinked, trying to focus, it was like someone was playing with the light switch and dimming the light in the room. I tried to fight the darkness. My last thought was that I was going to have to teach blondie a lesson.