Page 194 of Hunting Pretty

They had Ava.

And this fact made me insane.

Spit flew from my lips as I leaned over him and screamed, “Where is Ava?!”

“Okay. Okay.”

I stopped kicking and Dr. Vale coughed up blood into the carpet.

“There’s a place I know,” he wheezed, “that belongs to them.”

AVA

Igroaned weakly as I rose up from the darkness as if my mind was swimming up from deep water.

What happened?

Where was I?

My thoughts were slow and fragmented as I tried to piece together what happened before I blacked out.

I tried opening my eyes, but they felt like they were glued shut, my head pounding with each strained throb of my pulse.

When I finally managed to blink, everything was blurred and dim.

I could feel something hard beneath me. An old, lumpy mattress that reeked of mold and something sour.

I tried to move, but a sharp pain shot through my shoulders.

Fuck. My hands were tied, rope digging into my wrists, holding them above my head, my arms stretched tight.

The more I moved, the deeper my wrists and shoulders burned.

I gasped, instinctively trying to ease the pressure as I moved my knees under me into a kneeling position. That helped a little.

I winced. Every breath hurt, and my muscles ached.

I forced myself to stay still, trying to think through the haze. How the hell had I ended up here?

My memory was fuzzy, everything blurring together, but slowly, the pieces of my memory tumbled into place.

I’d been getting ready to leave. Then Cormac had shown up.

I remembered the sting of a needle in my arm, and then nothing.

He’d injected me with something.

Something that made me black out.

But why? Why would Cormac do that?

There was a faint drip in the distance, water probably.

I listened, trying to pick up on anything else, but all I heard was the hollow sound of my own breathing, ragged and fast. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry as dust.

I couldn’t feel anything except the pain in my arms, the bite of the rope, the dull ache spreading through my body.

I blinked a few more times, forcing myself to focus.

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