I shifted my head slowly and took in my surroundings.
The space was small.Smaller than a room.Narrow.The walls were close enough that I could’ve touched both sides if my arms weren’t restrained.One wall bulged inward slightly, dented and scratched.The other was lined with shallow cabinets, most of them hanging open, with their contents spilled onto the floor.
Clothes.Empty bottles.Crumpled paper.A broken flashlight.
The place was trashed.Not messy.Destroyed.
Like someone had gone through it looking for something or someone and didn’t care what they broke along the way.
My stomach twisted.This wasn’t a room.This was a camper.
A pop-up camper, I realized slowly.The kind you towed behind a truck.The low ceiling.The cramped space.The thin walls that did nothing to block sound or temperature.
And then I heard voices.
Muffled, but close.
Men.
Outside.
My heart slammed so hard it made my head throb again.I went still, barely breathing, and strained to listen past the ringing in my ears.
“…bitch better wake up soon.”
A laugh followed.Low.Ugly.
“Good.Wouldn’t want to miss the look on her face.”
My skin crawled.
They weren’t whispering.
They weren’t worried about me hearing them.
That told me everything I needed to know about how safe they felt.
I shifted slightly and tested my body.My ribs ached when I breathed too deeply.My head felt like it was floating just a fraction above the rest of me, disconnected and fragile.
A concussion.
I’d had enough of them growing up around the club to recognize the signs.The fog.The nausea.The way the world felt delayed, like everything was happening half a second after it should.
I tried to remember what had happened.
The girls’ night.The stupid raccoon costume.Laughing so hard my stomach hurt when I saw Eden in her cow blow-up costume.I was trying to get my costume on to join the fun then suddenly I wasn’t when someone grabbed my arm.
Pain flashed behind my eyes, and the memory cut off there.
“Hey,” a voice called from outside, closer now.“You alive in there, sweetheart?”
I clenched my jaw.
The door to the camper banged open so hard it rattled the thin walls.Light flooded in, harsh and blinding, and I squeezed my eyes shut with a whimper I couldn’t stop.
Boots thudded against the floor.
“Look at her,” one of them said, amused.“Still breathing.”