Page 71 of Bossed By the Orc

He harrumphed, but at the same time there was a knock at the door. I stood, waving off my father before he could get up.

“Stay here,” I told him. “It’s probably Becca.”

I made my way to the door, opening it with a welcoming smile, but I froze, blinking up at the two males standing in the doorway. One was human—tall, muscular and blond—and the other was a huge cyclops with his one eye narrowed at me.

“Are you Penelope?” he asked, his voice menacing.

“What’s this about?” I asked, looking between them.

“We’re here to talk to Penelope,” the human said, a sly smile on his face as he raked me from head to toe with his gaze. “Is that you?”

Swallowing hard, I nodded, not wanting to involve my parents. It was a stupid mistake, and I knew it the minute the cyclops grabbed my arm and yanked hard, pulling me toward the paneled van backed up into the front yard.

“Stop!” I screamed, pulling on my arm—knowing that it would be bruised without having to check. “You can’t do this!”

They both chuckled, the sound dark and threatening. “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong,” the human said. “We can pretty much do whatever the hell we want.”

He opened the back of the van and the cyclops tossed me in. I fell on my side, rattling my teeth in my head, a sharp pain shooting from where I landed on my elbow. Terror raced through me. I was glad that I hadn’t let my parents answer the door, but I cursed myself for leaving my phone in the kitchen. I watched as my father ran out of the house. I shook my head at him as they slammed the doors in my face, trapping me in a claustrophobic darkness.

I scrambled toward the back doors, feeling around for a handle and yanking hard, but it was locked. I felt around me, but the only thing I found was an old tarp. It didn’t give me much hope for making it out alive. Fear clawed at my chest, making it hard to breathe.

My mind whirled with possibilities, but the only thing I could come up with was that the developers had taken me—they were the only ones that had a motive.

I felt my way to the front of the van, slamming my palm against the metal separating me from the driver. “Please! I don’t have anything. Stop this! If you let me go, I won’t call the police,” I pleaded.

A metal separator opened and the human gave me a menacing grin, his gun pointed right at me. “Sit the fuck down,” he growled. I scrambled backward and he slammed the separator closed.

Fear was a living thing inside me, but I knew it would be worse if I didn’t try to escape. I went to the back again, trying to find a way to open the door, hitting on it and screaming for help when that didn’t work.

I held back the tears, promising myself that I would cry bucket loads later, but only when I was safe in my home again. I scrabbled at the edges of the doors, shaking them, hoping to dislodge the lock somehow. There were no windows for me to try to break through and I struggled to suppress the panic rising inside me. I was knocked off my feet a few times, landing hard on my knees, with the turns of the van. Bracing myself against the door, I managed to keep from sliding into the walls.

What felt like hours later, but could have been much shorter, the van pulled to a stop. I intensified my screams after that, hoping that wherever they’d stopped there would be people around who might help me. When the door creaked open, I jumped through the space, but was pulled up short when the cyclops caught me before I could land on the ground. I was over his shoulder in a moment. I lifted my head, trying to look around as I slammed my aching fists against his back, kicking as hard as I could. The metal had been more forgiving than his flesh. My hands and feet throbbed, but I had to keep trying.

There was only one building on the property. Everything else was thick forest. I knew right away where we were. I’d heard stories of these woods—of bodies that people from the city would dump here. Now I was beginning to wonder if that was true, or if these fiends had been dumping bodies here the entire time.

“I don’t have anything you need,” I told them. “I’m not giving you a damn thing!”

“We’ll see about that,” the human scoffed. “Hey Doten, have you ever plucked the toenails off such a pretty woman?”

Terror flared through me and I stiffened in the cyclops’ arms as he chuckled—a low dark sound. I prayed that they were bluffing, but my instincts were screaming at me that they weren’t.

“No Charlie, I haven’t. Do you think they’ll be painted? A pretty red will go nicely with my collection.”

The cyclops carried me with ease toward the building and I fought hard. If I could get away, I’d still have a chance to run. If they took me into that building, I wouldn’t stand a chance. I knew Dristan would be coming for me, but I didn’t know how long it would take him to track me down—or even for him to notice I was gone. The human stepped closer, getting in my face and I reached out to grab hold of him.

I didn’t see the punch coming. But I felt it. The throbbing pain of the punch and the sudden dizziness in my skull made my eyes roll back in my head.

“Stop being a cunt and behave,” he sneered, “or I’m going to let Doten here cut you open. He just loves playing with women’s entrails.” The cyclops chuckled under me and I swallowed hard, the tightness in my chest telling me I was close to a panic attack.

I still lifted my hand, trying to reach his face, aiming for his eyes. He yanked my arms together, and I gasped in pain as he tied them together with a cable tie. The cyclops waited at the door with me as the human went back for the tarp.

A shiver ran through me, and I blinked past the dizziness, struggling to stay conscious even as I felt darkness creeping into the edges of my vision. “You’re going to regret this,” I warned, my words slurring as I shook my head hard, but it sent a shooting pain through my skull.

“I doubt that,” the human said, the tarp over his arm as he unlocked the door. “You have what we need, and you’re going to give it to us.”

When my consciousness finally faded, it was to the male whistling a happy tune.

I jerked awake when someone slid a cold finger down my cheek. I turned my face away from the feeling and a dark chuckle sounded nearby.

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