Page 3 of Beg the Night

I shouldn’t have been afraid. Hell, I wasn’t expecting to be. I had no family left to fight for. No friends left to care about me. There wasn’t a soul left on this entire planet that knew of my existence. Still, my adrenaline spiked, causing a tingling sensation in my chest.

These were the people my family had feared all those years. These were the people we were taught to avoid.

To run from.

Now that they’d found me, I would finally discover what the dark whispers of the Ministry were truly about.It was about damn time, honestly.

For now, though, the longer I feigned sleep, the better.

The vehicle rocked as the terrain shifted. We transitioned from a smooth road to a surface so bumpy, it had to have beenthe forest ground. The vehicle was large, but based on the ragged breathing, there were at least three people surrounding me.

“We’re almost there,” a deep voice said. “Wake the girl. Director will want to see her talking.”

I kept my breath steady, not moving a muscle. But it didn’t matter. Two seconds later, someone was shaking my shoulders with big, rough hands. “Hey!” the owner of the meaty hands shouted. “Wake up, bitch. Nap’s over.”

Jig’s up.Coming face to face with my captors was inevitable, so without any more hesitation, I blinked my eyes open, adjusting to the darkness inside the vehicle. The men surrounding me wore black tactical gear. Each had more than one gun strapped to their belts, along with god knows how many other weapons.

As if they’d need any of it to deal with me. Each one of those men were double my size, and their muscles bulged beneath the tight gear.

The hand on my shoulder tightened until I suppressed a squeal. He yanked me into a sitting position, dragging me along the bench until the side of my body pressed against his.

“You cannot escape,” he said in a muffled voice beneath the bandana covering his nose and mouth. “You cannot run. You cannot fight. There is no use wasting your energy. You’ll do everything we say, and when you meet Director, you’ll keep your pretty mouth shut. Understand?”

My stomach roiled. Ew.Double ew.

When I didn’t respond, he dug his fingers into my upper arm. “Understand?”

“Perfectly.” I mustered a sassy smile, though it slipped when I remembered that I was alone in the back of a creepy-ass van with three strange men.

Apparently, I had more survival instincts than I’d realized.

I bit my cheek and kept my head lowered for the remainder of the ride. The men didn’t talk. I wasn’t surprised. According to Father, the people who worked for the Ministry had been brainwashed into zombies who would obey every command they were given. Their minds were probably too fried to string more than two words together unless they were ordered by the?—

The van jerked to a halt. “We’re here.”

More voices shouted from outside. Everyone sounded angry. Urgent. The doors at the back flung open, flooding the small, dark space with sunlight. I squinted and turned away, but my captors shoved me toward the door without even an ounce of gentleness.

Rude.

We were in the middle of the woods, though this area was nothing like the forest I’d grown up in. There were no chirping birds. There was no stream trickling in the distance. The trees did not move in the wind, and the wind did not sing through the rustling of leaves.

This place was still. Dead, almost. Everywhere I looked, there were soldiers in black tactical gear. The weapons strapped across their bodies made them look even larger. Some ran. Some barked orders. I stood frozen until I was shoved from behind.

What the hell were we doing way out here?

“Bring her this way!” someone in the distance yelled. “Director is ready for her inside.”

One of my captors led the way while the other two gripped my arms, hauling me forward. We passed piles of weapons, mounds of supplies.

I was dragged to a steel door in the ground where yet another soldier kneeled. As we approached, he pulled it open, exposing a dark staircase beneath.

My captors shoved me forward. “Go,” one ordered.

“Down there?” My heart lurched. “Underground?” Being kidnapped and thrown into a van was one thing, but walking into an underground cave that could collapse at any second?

Just shoot me.

“Now.”

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